PARNO LEANED FORWARD in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands lightly clasped. Demons and perverts. He looked from one white-faced page to the other, and fixed a look of confident encouragement on his face. Behind him, Dhulyn leaned against the window frame, arms folded across her chest, ankles crossed, eyes almost closed. They’d taken the youngsters straight to their own quarters where the first thing he’d done was shut the windows-though it was very unlikely that anyone could overhear them, here on the fifth floor. Their three rooms here in Zelianora Tarkina’s tower made up a small suite, with this outer, double-windowed room furnished as a sitting room with a long upholstered settee, a round table covered with a weighted cloth, thick patterned carpets on the dark oak floor, and heavy armchairs made soft with bright cushions.
Rab-iRab and Telian-Han, though they would ordinarily bear no resemblance to each other, now wore identical pale, wide-eyed looks. Parno and Dhulyn had listened to Telian’s story without commenting, yet somehow, in the repetition of it, both young pages had become aware of the gravity of their suspicions.
“Lady Mar,” Dhulyn said, her eyes still resting on the face of the young Telian-Han. “Would you be so kind as to find Zelianora Tarkina and bring her here?”
“Dhulyn,” Parno began.
“We are still, technically, in her employ.” Dhulyn turned to Mar. “Come straight back to us here, Lady, if you would be so good. I need hardly tell you, speak to no one of this, not even the Tarkina herself, until you are both safely in this room. Until we are sure, any and all of us may be in danger.”
Or may be the danger, Parno thought.
“The children?” Rab-iRab said. Parno’s jaw tightened as he exchanged a look with Dhulyn. Just when they were thinking things could not be any worse.
“They should both be asleep,” Mar said, getting to her feet. She spoke more than half to herself. “Denobea will be with them.” She looked up at Parno, glanced at Dhulyn. “They’ve seen very little of their father these last few days.”
“Perhaps you could make sure of their whereabouts somehow, my Dove, without alarming the Tarkina.”
It was a shock to see what a change two small words could bring to a young woman’s face. Suddenly there was a brightness in Mar’s eyes, and she left the room with a light step and more heart for her errand than she had when she’d entered it. Parno shook his head, smiling. Leave it to Dhulyn to know the right thing to say, and the right moment to say it. What a Schooler she would make, if they lived so long.
As the door closed behind Mar, Parno turned to the two pages, sitting close together on the settee, holding hands.
“Would you youngsters be so kind as to wait in the inner room while my Partner and I consult?” The two pages exchanged identical worried glances. “You’ll be safest there,” Parno continued, “and no one will be able to ask you any questions you’d rather not answer.”
This reassured them, and they both stood. “Come, Tel,” Rab-iRab said as they walked toward the door Dhulyn held open for them. “You look as though you could lie down.” Dhulyn gently closed the door behind them.
“What are we going to tell the Tarkina?” Parno said.
“I think we’ll rather ask her if she’s seen anything unusual, anything that has given her pause.” Dhulyn rubbed her eyes. “Are we crack-brained? Do we make too much from the maunderings of a half-crazed old man and the nerves of a young page who has seen perhaps too much in the last half moon?”
“A half-crazed old man who knew the Shadow well, and a young page who knew his Tarkin. Add to that the fact that we’ve not spent time in the Tarkin’s presence since the restoration, when he would hardly be parted from us before.” Parno shrugged. “Evidence enough at the least for us to investigate further.”
Dhulyn tapped the table lightly with the side of her right fist. “Think what we risk if we don’t learn the truth. I’d rather beg pardon if I’m wrong, and take what punishment might be awarded me, than be sorry I never tried to be sure.” Her eyebrows drew down in a frown. “Where’s Gundaron, where’s the Scholar? It’s not like Mar not to go to him first.”
“Set your mind at ease,” Parno said. “He went off this morning to the Library and hasn’t returned; likely intends to spend the night there. He’s been poring over all the old books he can find, looking for any mention of the Green-eyed Shadow.”
“Send Corin Wintermoon to fetch him,” Dhulyn said. “All things considered, whatever he’s found so far, I’d like to have him here while we discuss this.”
“And sending Corin has the added advantage that it will stop her flirting with the guards before she hurts one of them.”
Zella turned over on her couch and blinked herself awake. What was that sound? Sitting up at night with Tek had left her exhausted, and she must have dozed off without realizing it.
There it was again, a low thumping, as if-Zella shot to her feet, almost falling as she tripped on the shawl Denobea must have tucked around her legs. The sound was coming from her own bedroom, where Tek was yet again lying down. Pushing open the door, she ran into the room and found her husband by the side of the bed on his hands and knees, crawling toward the door. He shrank back as she entered, blinking at her in the dim light that followed her through the doorway.
“Zella?”
“Tek, what’s happened?” She ran forward to help him to his feet. He hunched his shoulders, cowering from her and narrowing his eyes to a squint.
“Zella?” His voice stronger now, but there was a note of query in it that made her pause, her hands still outstretched, ready to raise him to his feet. Before she could help him, he clutched at her forearm with such force that her sleeve tore.
“Tek-” she gasped. “You’re hurting me.”
“Zella,” he shook her. “Where’s Dhulyn Wolfshead? Bring her, get her now.” The fierce focus died out of his face, the painful grip on her arm relaxed as he collapsed onto the floor.
Gundaron pushed his chair back from the table and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Here since daybreak, he thought, and all I have to show for it is headache and eyestrain. He’d found the first scroll he was looking for-an early history of the Marked in the last days of the Caids-but not the equally important commentary written by the Scholar Holderon. Without it, all he could do was try his best to duplicate the other man’s work. And somehow he felt he didn’t have that much time.
The Index of Materials told him this Library did indeed have a copy of Holderon’s Commentaries, but no one could find it on the shelves. Yet Gun was certain he’d seen the scroll himself.
The history covered a period about which there were more legends known than facts, the early rise of the Marked, before they had formed into Guilds, and, interesting but not so significant for his present purpose, it had a section on the Sleeping God as well. But it was Holderon’s interpretation of this piece of ancient learning-if Gun remembered what he’d read correctly-that the Mercenary Brotherhood, the Jaldean Priesthood, the Marked, and even the Scholars themselves all appeared at the same time-just after the fall of the civilization that was now called the Caids. If Holderon was right, Gun thought, if there was a connection of some kind between the disparate groups, surely that could be a starting point, a guide for them to-
The sound of footsteps made him look up, and the sight of Karlyn-Tan heading toward him brought him to his feet. He found his mouth dry and tried to swallow, brushing down his tunic with trembling hands, conscious of being once more in Scholar’s dress. Logic told him he had no reason to fear the former Steward of Walls, but he found he still wasn’t really comfortable with anyone but Mar.
“Karlyn-Tan,” he said. “I didn’t think to see you still outside Tenebro House.”
The older man smiled and shrugged one shoulder into the air as he propped his hip on the edge of the next carrel. “Nothing’s made permanent, Gundaron. The Lord Dal-eDal is giving me time to think. I’m not altogether sure that I want my old post back. I was Walls for fifteen years, never thinking to come out.”
“But now that you are out…”
Karlyn nodded. “Exactly. Now that I am out-I may be more useful outside the Walls, and, well, it’s rare a Steward has a chance to rethink such a choice, and I’m using the opportunity.”
His own heart being well awake now, the significance of certain looks and gestures suddenly dawned on Gun. “It wouldn’t be Dhulyn Wolfshead who’s making you rethink your choices?” Gun asked, made bold by Karlyn-Tan’s friendly tone.
Karlyn-Tan laughed. “It might, though perhaps not in the way you’re thinking.”
Gun sat down again. “What brings you here?”
“Dal needed a message sent, and I felt like a walk. When they told me you were in here, it seemed like a gift from the Caids. There’s a deal of scrolls and books left in your room at Tenebro House, Gundaron of Valdomar, and-what have I said?”
Gun stopped striking his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I was looking for a scroll and wondering why I couldn’t find it and all the time it’s probably sitting in my study at Tenebro.”
Karlyn-Tan looked at Gun with such sympathy that Gun lowered his eyes. “You’d rather not think about Tenebro House, wouldn’t you?” the man said. “Put it all behind you, as it were?”
It was Gun’s turn to shrug.
“Your pardon, Scholar Gundaron.” It was one of the youngster Scholars that Gun didn’t know. “There’s a Mercenary Brother at the gate. You’re to come to the Dome.”
Gun glanced at Karlyn-Tan.
The older man nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
Running footsteps in the outer room warned them as the door was flung open, and Zelianora Tarkina, a white-faced Mar behind her, swept into the room. The sleeve of the Tarkina’s dress was pulled loose from the shoulder seam, and her dark hair was escaping from her court veil.
“The Tarkina was on her way here,” Mar said.
“Mar has told you, then?” Parno said, rising to his feet as Mar entered behind the older woman and shut the door. The young woman was shaking her head even as Zelianora spoke.
“Told me? Told me what? No.” She looked wildly around the room before focusing her eyes on Dhulyn. “Dhulyn Wolfshead,” Zelianora said, reaching out her hands, “Please come, Tek asks for you.”
Dhulyn stood slowly. “What are you not saying?” Four days ago this request would not have brought the Tarkina herself. Four days ago Zelianora would have sent a servant.
The Tarkina hesitated, lips parted, before turning to glance at Mar. As she turned back, she faltered, as if her knees were failing her. Parno stepped forward and took the Tarkina’s arm to steady her and led her to a chair, but let it go immediately as Zella gasped in pain. Dhulyn sprang up with a snort of disgust and pulled back the woman’s sleeve, to reveal bruises darkening on her forearm.
“Zelianora,” Dhulyn said, her voice sharp enough to shock the Tarkina to attention. “The Tarkin did this.”
“No! Yes, but hear me out.” The Tarkina waved Dhulyn away with impatient hands. “This is not important.”
“We are listening, Zelianora Tarkina,” Parno said.
“I don’t know that I can make you understand.” She raised her hands to her head as if she would cover her ears. “He is terrified. I have never seen anyone so afraid.” She looked directly at Dhulyn. “And yet…”
Dhulyn took Zelianora’s hands and led her to a seat. “And yet?”
“He is himself in a way he has not been these past few days. Since the blow to his head, he’s been like a man suffering from an illness. Now it is as though a fever has broken and-he is himself again. He is Tek. Do you understand?”
“Before this,” Dhulyn said, indicating the bruised arm. “Did he stare into your eyes? Touch you in any way that made you feel dizzy? Ill? Are there gaps in your memories?”
“No, indeed,” Zelianora said. “Nothing like that. Since his illness Tek… he has not touched me,” she said, as if realizing it for the first time. “But he’s been ill, I thought nothing of it.”
“If I might interrupt,” Parno’s voice was vibrant with urgency. “I rejoice that Zelianora Tarkina is well, but she tells us that the Tarkin is more like himself than he’s seemed in days. In the light of what we were discussing, perhaps we should go and see for ourselves.”
“Don’t let him touch you,” Parno said, as he helped Dhulyn lift her sword belts over her head.
“If you’d rather do it yourself…” Dhulyn pulled her multicolored vest back into place. She needed no help to remove harness or weapons-she could have done it by herself, in the dark, and one-handed-but Parno had needed the reassurance that helping her disarm, that touching her, would bring. And he’s not the only one.
“We’ve been through that,” he reminded her. “Do you want me to say it again?”
Dhulyn smiled, patting him on the shoulder. Once they had explained their fears to a white-faced but resolute Tarkina, Parno had made everyone see that they had to send someone in to speak to Tek-aKet. And once they’d persuaded Zelianora Tarkina that it should not be her, he’d insisted that Dhulyn was the only logical choice. “There’s no one faster,” he’d said. Out loud, too, where everyone could hear it, even if he didn’t want to repeat it now for her ears only. “If it becomes necessary to disable the Tarkin without permanent harm,” he’d said. “Dhulyn is the only one who can do it.”
Dhulyn handed Parno the long dagger from her left boot. She still had her holdouts hidden, but there were no more weapons that someone else could reach easily. They both knew that this was precaution only. So far as they knew, Tek-aKet Tarkin-if this was Tek-aKet Tarkin-had no reason to harm her. But they both knew of many people killed by those with no known reason to harm them.
Parno, her dagger still in his left hand, brushed something off her shoulder with his right. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Come out alive, and in my right mind,” she said, giving him the smile she saved only for him. The smile that had no wolf in it.
He laughed without making a sound and stepped back from her.
“In Battle,” he said, touching his fingers to his lips.
“Or in Death.”
Dhulyn slid through the barely opened door and waited, listening, while Parno pulled it shut and latched it behind her. She could see at once that things were not as Zelianora Tarkina had left them. Dhulyn had expected the room to be dark, the windows shuttered. The Tarkina had left her husband tucked up in the bed, shivering and semiconscious. This man was standing at the window, shades thrown open to the early evening.
“You sent for me, Lord Tarkin?”
“I sent for you.” The tone was ambiguous enough that Dhulyn could not be sure whether it was question or statement. The man turned to face her.
She took a step toward him, and then another. With the light behind him, his face was shadowed and she couldn’t be sure… She took another step. And stopped, repressing a shiver as the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. There was no doubt. The man’s eyes were green. Whatever Zelianora thought she had seen, it was gone.
“What is it, then?” she asked.
“You take a very informal tone with your Tarkin.”
“But you’re not the Tarkin, are you? Mine or anyone else’s.” she said, strolling casually closer, fingers reaching automatically to tap the place on her hip where her sword hilt should rest. Could she keep him from hearing the noises in the anteroom?
“What am I, then?”
Dhulyn frowned. She would almost swear the question was asked in earnest. “You best know that yourself.” She moved still farther into the room, beginning to circle around to the right, keeping his attention on her, and away from the door.
“Will you tell me something? I am curious.” He turned to follow her, stepping away from the window and into the room.
“You are capable of curiosity, then?”
“I am capable of worlds.”
Dhulyn wanted to snort in disbelief, but found she couldn’t. “Ask.”
“How was it known, so quickly, that Tek-aKet was not here? With the others, with Beslyn-Tor, with Lok-iKol, no one knew.”
A sensible question. How did you catch me? A very sensible question. Would the Green Shadow understand the answer?
“They had no one close enough,” she told him. “No one who knew them well enough to see a change.”
“No one who could see me?”
“No one who could see you,” she agreed. It didn’t know about Dal, then, or Gun; nor was she about to tell him. She stepped around a long padded bench, still moving toward him. They were only a few spans apart, almost close enough, and she was eyeing the precise spot on his neck where her blow should land.
“What do you want?” she asked. Keep him talking, keep his attention from what she planned.
“Nothing.”
“Your actions say otherwise. Have we no common ground? Can we not negotiate?”
The thing that possessed Tek-aKet closed its eyes. “Common ground.” Its voice, Tek’s and yet not Tek’s, trembled with some unnameable emotion. “Too much shape.” The eyes opened, bright as gemstones. “All things here have shape. Everything. Shapes. Edges. Start, stop. Here, even I have shape. Even I. Can you send me back, Seer? Can you or any of your kind do more than force me to a different shape? You ask me what I want. Give me nothing.” The right hand rose up and, fingers curled, tapped it on the chest. “Make this nothing. I want NOTHING.”
She blinked, and shifted her gaze. The far end of the bench, the end closest to the Shadow… shimmered like the air above a fire. It was not there, then it was. She blinked again and shook her head. A fog grew out of nowhere and swallowed the bench, and the Tarkina’s room, and the world, leaving a curious emptiness. A NOT.
Dhulyn stopped walking. A corridor formed around her and dissolved as she stepped forward onto a beach… the Tarkina’s bedroom again with the Green Shadow who inhabited the Tarkin looking at her… the hold of a ship… a window, a mirror-no, a window, the night sky cut and a green fog spilling down. The corridor again with the fog, a cloud like hot dust eating the air, consuming all that lay before it, making NOT.
Advancing toward her.
This was death coming. Now. Death was now. No battlefield. No sword in her hand. No hot rush of blood, heart pounding in her ears. A slow dissolve, the world like crystals of ice slowly melting and becoming not water, but nothing, nothing at all.
NOT …
Why had she never Seen this? Never this Vision?
The world changed again. Not a Sight. A memory. A dark-skinned man, his teeth white in the darkness of the hold as he smiled at her where she stood over the corpse of the careless slaver, that same slaver’s sword in her hand. “Come with me,” the smiling dark-skinned man had said, “and I’ll teach you to use that thing.” Suddenly that sword was once again in her hand, the memory sword, her first sword, that Dorian the Black had let her keep, and taught her how to use. Sharp, clear, its edges well-defined and solid. She brought the sword up in a salute, and then brought it down and up again, in the sweep she would use to clear space before her when she was being crowded. The blade passed through the stones of the corridor before the dissolve could reach her, cutting them cleanly and leaving a sharp, distinct edge. A gap like a firebreak.
The fog was on the other side, and, now that she was focused, now that she was armed, she could see the two spots of green that were the eyes. She smiled, lifted her left hand and made a beckoning motion.
She was back in the Tarkina’s bedroom. Back with the Green-eyed Shadow before her. But this time she knew what to do. Her breathing steadied, and she fell into the first position of the Wading Crane Shora.
Focus. Like light through a lens. Sharper. Cast out all noise, all smells. See only the strike. When you strike, with blade or with hand, with stave or with elbow, you strike through, not at. The blow does not stop at the target, but goes through. See nothing but the target. See only the strike.
SEE the Strike.
SEE the Fall.
Parno spit out the piece of nail he’d chewed off his thumb. Strain his hearing as he might, no sound came from inside the room. He’d thought he could hear some conversation at first, if he hadn’t imagined it. After all, this was the Tarkina’s bedroom, the walls and door were practically soundproof-
Was that a thump? He shook his head. He didn’t care what he’d agreed to, he was going in. He drew his sword, unlatched the door, grabbed up Dhulyn’s sword in his free hand, and kicked the door open.
Dhulyn was dragging Tek-aKet’s unconscious body toward the bed. One of the clothes presses was open and a number of silk scarves had been pulled out, their colors spilling over the thick rugs.
Parno frowned, blinking. For an instant the far end of the padded bench that stood between him and Dhulyn had looked somehow melted and blackened. Then it had appeared whole again. He stepped forward to examine it more closely and found that his initial assessment had, after all, been correct. The end of the bench was melted and fused like glass, as was a large section of carpet and floor under it.
“Since you’re here, you can help me tie him up.”
Parno looked around. “It was the Shadow?”
Dhulyn gave him a look that would turn wine into vinegar, and Parno felt his muscles unknot, felt the grin spread across his face. Only the real Dhulyn could look at him like that. He sheathed his sword, tossed hers on the undamaged end of the bench and grasped the Tarkin’s wrists.
“On the bed, I thought,” Dhulyn said. “We’ll have to keep him comfortable, and he’ll have less leverage lying down.”
“Facedown?”
“And feed him how?”
Parno shrugged again. The fact was that Dhulyn had far more experience with keeping prisoners-or being kept prisoner, than he had himself.
“What if Tek, the Tarkin I mean, comes back to his senses?”
Dhulyn pulled a final silk scarf around the unconscious man’s head and secured it as a blindfold over the eyes.
“Always supposing that’s possible, that Zelianora actually did speak to her husband, and not the Shadow.” Now it was Dhulyn’s turn to shrug. “We’ll explain to him why he’s tied up.” She walked back over to the damaged section of the floor. “Does this look at all familiar to you?”
Parno squatted beside her. “How do you mean?
“Does it not remind you, in a small way, of the Dead Lands?”
Parno pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
After checking the ties one last time-better careful than cursing, is what Dhulyn always said-they came out into the anteroom to find Gun and Karlyn-Tan waiting for them. The former Steward was wearing a politician’s face, telling nothing, but the young Scholar had his lower lip between his teeth.
“What now?” Dhulyn asked. Parno smiled. Someone was going to regret creating that edge of exasperated impatience in her voice.
“It’s Beslyn-Tor,” Gun said, shooting a glance at Karlyn and waiting for his nod to continue. “He’s left. Just got up and walked out.”
“What do you mean ‘walked out?’ ” Parno asked. When he’d seen the old Jaldean priest that morning, it was all the man could do to find a chair with his backside. “Who’d he go with?”
“No one,” Karlyn said. “It seems he simply walked away. The guard at the gate included it in his usual report at the transfer of shift, but had no orders to stop him or to report it earlier.”
“Of course he didn’t.” Parno could have kicked himself. “The man could barely walk to the door unaided. Who thought he could walk out the gate?” He turned to Dhulyn. “Was he shamming all along?”
She was shaking her head, slowly, her eyes looking at but not seeing the tables and chairs of the Tarkina’s anteroom.
“When did this happen?”
“Just before we arrived. Perhaps ten minutes ago, a little more.”
“What color were his eyes?” she asked. Parno looked to Karlyn, but the man was shaking his head. That was a detail no one would have thought to check.
The silence lifted Dhulyn’s eyes to meet Parno’s.
“We’re going to have to leave him tied up,” she said, indicating the inner room with her chin. “No matter who he is.”