“And knowledge of the key is not shared?” The metal pot had finally cooled enough, and Dhulyn raised it to her lips before passing it to Parno.
Sun Dog was shaking his head. “Not among Horsemen, no,” he said. “Each candidate must discover it for himself. But the old tales say that it is shared with one who might come through the Door.”
“Who might that be?”
“By ancient right and treaty, with the Tarkin of Menoin,” Ice Hawk said, and then lowered his eyes as they all turned to look at him.
So, Parno thought, the key to the labyrinth might well involve not how to pass through to this side, but how to get back.
“That is what the old tales say,” Sun Dog agreed. “But as Singer of the Wind has told you, it has been generations since such a visit has occurred.”
“And how is access to the Door arranged?” Parno asked. “Do the Tribes mix freely?”
“We have our own territories, our own areas for hunting and grazing our herds, and unless it is a year for the Great Sight—a gathering of all the Tribes—we do not mix a great deal.” He flashed Parno a grin. “But at the Great Sights, there is music and drinking, dance and horseplay. And business, as well. We set the schedule of access to the Door, the Seers unite to share their Visions, and we men trade horses, and goods and make marriages with other Tribes.”
“You trade the women then?” Dhulyn asked. Her voice was so carefully neutral that Parno knew what she was feeling only from his own knowledge of her past. Dhulyn had been a slave once—that had been where she’d got the scars on her back and the one on her lip that could turn her smile into a wolf’s snarl. Mercenaries had a living to make, but he and Dhulyn would happily kill slavers for free.
But Sun Dog was shaking his head, clearly shocked. “Mother Sun and Father Moon would curse us if we did such things, we would lose all their favor. The women are broken, but they are after all human people, not horses or cattle. It is Mother Sun herself who told us that it should be the men who changed Tribes in marriage, not the women.”
“Is there love between you, then?” Parno asked.
Ice Hawk’s lips pressed tight as he glanced quickly at each of them, and the look that fleeted over Sun Dog’s face—though gone in an instant and replaced with his usual expression of friendly interest—suggested that the man hid some dark sorrow. “We can love them,” he said, his voice grown very quiet. “They are our mothers, our daughters, our sisters.” His lips stretched back, but his expression could only by courtesy be called a smile. “Our wives and the mothers of our children.” His grin faltered. “But they, the Seers, they do not love their husbands, they cannot, nor their little ones either.” He shot them each a quick glance, and Parno thought that, somehow, the man spoke from his own experience. “It’s in this way that they’re broken, you see, as if they haven’t any hearts. As if they were born missing a hand or a foot.”
He stopped long enough that Parno thought Sun Dog had said everything he was going to say when he spoke again. “Singer of the Wind knew you were not broken in that way, Dhulyn Wolfshead. There’s love between you, is there not? He could see that. And anyone could tell that you felt something when you described that killing.” Now he did fall quiet.
“The Lionsmane and I are Partners,” Dhulyn said in her rough silk voice. “This is sometimes more than love and sometimes less. We are a sword with two edges,” she added, quoting the Common Rule.
Sun Dog nodded. As if her words had somehow confirmed something for him, he seemed to have recovered his equilibrium. “That is the very type of connection that we cannot have with the Seers, or any Marked person.” His voice was stronger now.
“Ice Hawk spoke of a Pact,” Dhulyn said.
“The women are intelligent—one can appeal to their logic, even their common sense. They will act in their own interest, if they are convinced it is in their own interest. They’ll lie with their husbands—and other men of their choosing—because it’s pleasurable for them.”
Here Ice Hawk flushed red to the roots of his hair, and Sun Dog grinned at him, then shrugged. “And they do not hesitate to tell you if you have not pleased them, since they do not care if they hurt your feelings. They join in the work and in caring for the children because if they do not they are punished.” He glanced at both of them again. “They have two chances to ignore their duties and suffer only minor penalties,” he said. “The third time they are constrained.” He indicated the hamstring behind his knee with a slashing motion of his hand.
Parno felt suddenly cold, and he looked to his Partner. Dhulyn was whiter than usual under the layer of today’s dirt. Then she nodded. “Of course, if they cannot be made to see that cooperation is in their own interest, they are a danger to the whole camp.”
Both the Horsemen regarded her with some dismay, and Parno laughed aloud, though it sounded cold to his own ears.
“Careful, my heart. It might be difficult, at that, to tell the difference between heartlessness and plain practicality.”
Dhulyn shrugged and put down the empty pot. “And their Visions?”
“It is part of the Pact, but oddly, we never need to ask them to See. They are quite content to do so.” Sun Dog tossed back the last of his tea, letting the hand that held the cup fall slack. “And so far as our shamans can tell, and our experience can show us, they speak truly. They’ve the same three chances to be caught lying before they pay the penalty.”
A spark flew up from the fire, and Parno picked up a stick to poke into the flames. He had wondered where the Red Horsemen found wood for their fires, but from the smell of this one, wood wasn’t what they used. “And the women don’t run away?” he asked.
“Where would they run? If the Tribes didn’t hide them, shelter them, they’d be put to death like all the other Marked as soon as they were identified. Seers or no. If they don’t keep the Healers, Caids know they wouldn’t keep Seers.”
Parno exchanged a look with Dhulyn. Their own experience had taught them there were those who valued Seers above all other Marked, but there was no reason to argue Sun Dog out of his ideas.
“Besides, the horses have been magicked not to carry a woman without at least three men with her.”
“So that one of them cannot trick a man into running away with her?” Parno guessed.
“Exactly.”
Dhulyn looked at him, and Parno knew what she was thinking. They knew that the Espadryni shamans could not magic the women directly, that much their experience with Avylos had taught them.
“And they could not get very far on foot,” Sun Dog was saying. “Especially if they have been constrained.”
Sun Dog fell silent, and finally he rose to his feet, wishing them a good sleep and collecting Ice Hawk with a flick of his hand. It seemed the visit was over. As Parno stood, Dhulyn turned once more to her vera tiles. There had been something in the pattern she’d made earlier that had reminded her . . . .
THREE MEN WITH HAIR THE COLOR OF OLD BLOOD SIT ON HORSEBACK LOOKING OUT OVER A SEA OF GRASS THAT STRETCHES OUT TO THE RIM OF THE WORLD. THE GRASS IS DISCOLORED IN PATCHES, AS IF A FARMER HAD SOWN DIFFERENT STRAINS OF WHEAT OR GRAIN IN THE SAME FIELD. THE MEN ARE HEAVILY ARMED; EACH CARRIES A BOW, SEVERAL SPEARS, ANDTWOSWORDS. . . .
THE HOUSE IS IN DARKNESS, AND ALL ARE ASLEEP. A THREAD OF RUBY LIGHT LEADS FROM A SECOND STORY WINDOW. A LIMBER YOUNG MAN LETS HIMSELF IN AND FOLLOWS THE LIGHT DIRECTLY TO A SPOT IN THE CARVED PANELING OF THE DINING ROOM. HE OPENS THE HIDDEN DOOR AND REMOVES AN OLD GOLD ARMBAND AND A SMALL SACKOFCOINS. . .
THE CAID MAGE AGAIN, WITH HIS CLOSE-CROPPED HAIR THE COLOR OF WHEAT STRAW, EYES THE BLUE OF OLD ICE, ONCE AGAIN READING HIS BOOK, ONCE AGAIN TRACING A LINE ON THE PAGE WITH HIS FINGER, HIS LIPS MOVING. DHULYN STEPS CLOSER TO THE TABLE, THINKING THAT THIS TIME—SINCE THERE IS NO TIME HERE AFTER ALL—SHE MIGHT SPEAK TO HIM. BUT HE DOES NOT SEE HER. STANDING, HE TAKES UP A HIGHLY POLISHED TWO-HANDED SWORD, AND HIS LILY-SHAPED SLEEVES FALL BACK FROM HIS WRISTS.
AGAIN HE TURNS TOWARD T
HE MIRROR, REFLECTING A NIGHT SKY FULL OF STARS. AGAIN HIS LIPS MOVE, ANDDHULYN KNOWS HE SPEAKS THE WORDS FROM THE BOOK. ******* HE SAYS, AND ********. AGAIN THE SWEEPING MOVE FROM THE CRANE SHORA AND THE SLASH DOWNWARD THROUGH THE MIRROR, THROUGH THE SKY, SPLITTING IT, AND THE GREEN-TINTED SHADOW COMES SPILLING INTO THE ROOM LIKE FOG THOUGH A CASEMENT . . . .
A RED-FACED BOY IS FURIOUSLY STRIKING OUT AS HIS MOTHER DRAGS HIM BY THE UPPER ARM INTO WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY THE KITCHEN OF THEIR HOME. THE MOTHER SITS ON A KITCHEN STOOL AND STRUGGLES TO DRAW THE BOY INTO HER LAP, SAYING, “LOOK AT ME, DARLING, PLEASE, JUST LOOK AT ME.” SUDDENLY THE STOOL FALLS TO PIECES, SENDING THE WOMAN HEAVILY TO THE STONE FLOOR. THE WOODEN SHUTTERS ON THE WINDOW EXPLODE INTO SAWDUST, THE DISHES AND PLATES ON THE SIDEBOARD SHATTER, AND THE MOTHER BEGINS TO VOMIT BLOOD ON THE FLOOR. . . . THE BOY STAMPS HIS FOOT, SCREAMING, “YOU COW, DON’T TOUCH ME”. . . .
GUNDARON IS KNEELING ON A PATCH OF DARK GREEN GRASS IN FRONT OF A CLIPPED WALL HEDGE. EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NOT ENOUGH DETAIL FOR DHULYN TO RECOGNIZE THE SPOT, SHE KNOWS THATGUN ISN’T IN ANY GARDEN BUT ON THE PATH OF THE SUN. “GUNDARON,” SHE SAYS, BUT HE DOESN’T LOOK UP. SHE FOLLOWS THE ANGLE OF HIS EYES AND SEES A TWISTED CORD OF LIGHT, BLACK, BLUE, AND GREEN. GUN GETS TO HIS FEET AND FOLLOWS THE LIGHT....
A FINELY DRESSED WOMAN, DARK BLONDE HAIR PILED IN ELABORATE CURLS AND TWISTS ON THE TOP OF HER HEAD, STANDS WITH HER HAND TUCKED INTO THE ELBOW OF A LARGE MAN DRESSED IN BATTLE LEATHERS, HOLDING A LONG SWORD IN HIS HAND. THERE ARE FOUR OTHER SIMILARLY DRESSED MEN BEHIND THEM IN THE SHADOWS CAST BY TWO FLICKERING LAMPS. A MAN OF ABOUT THE SAME AGE AS THE FINELY DRESSED WOMAN AND HER ESCORT, DRESSED ONLY IN HIS SHIRT AND LEGGINGS, STANDS WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED ON HIS CHEST, LIPS PRESSED TOGETHER, SHAKING HIS HEAD.
THE WOMAN LAUGHS AND POINTS TO A SPOT ON THE FLOOR. THE MEN PULL UP THE FLOORBOARDS AND HAUL OUT A WOMAN, AN OLD MAN, AND THREE CHILDREN.
DHULYN SHIVERS AS SHE WATCHES. THIS MUST BE THEPAST. . . .
THE THIN, SANDY-HAIRED MAN IS STILL WEARING THE GOLD RINGS IN HIS EARS, BUT HIS FACE IS LINED NOW, AND HIS FOREHEAD HIGHER. HE IS SITTING AT A SQUARE TABLE, ITS TOP INLAID WITH LIGHTER WOODS, READING BY THE LIGHT OF TWO LAMPS. A PLATE TO HIS LEFT CONTAINS THE REMNANTS OF A MEAL—CHICKEN OR SOME OTHER FOWL, JUDGING BY THE BONES. HE LOOKS TOWARD THE ROOM’S SINGLE WINDOW AND RISES TO PEER OUT. IT IS DARK, AND IT MUST ALSO BE CLOUDY AS DHULYN CAN SEE NOTHING OUTSIDE THE WINDOW. THE MAN TURNS TOWARD THE TABLE AGAIN AND, SMILING, SAYS, “HOW CAN I HELP?”
“I thought at first all my Visions of the Green Shadow had something to do with the killer, but since Singer of the Wind told us the Green Shadow was here also, I think it’s obvious why I have been Seeing it and the Caid Mage who called it.” Parno and Dhulyn were approaching the encampment of the Salt Desert People carefully, from upwind to ensure that the scouts—and their horses—who were undoubtedly stationed around the camp would smell their approach long before they could be seen.
“Do you think the Shadow has anything to do with the other Visions? Where the people seem to be unmaking?” For their camp the Horsemen had chosen a spot where the land rose slightly, giving them a view in all directions. There was a wide creek curling around the rise on the west side, which no doubt provided fish as well as fresh water.
Dhulyn pulled back on the reins, bringing Bloodbone to a halt. She lifted her blood-red brows, and her gaze turned inward. “I had not thought of that,” she said. “It might follow that those possessed by the Shadow would act differently in this world from the manner in which they acted in ours. But that does not explain why I should be Seeing such Visions of the past.” She turned to look at him as she urged her horse forward once again. “We haven’t met the man who is going to help us,” she said. “Perhaps he has these answers.”
By this time they were within sight of the distant tents, and three scouts were riding out to meet them.
“Greetings,” one of these called out as soon as they were close enough for voices to be heard over the hooves. “You are the Mercenaries Singer of the Wind told the clouds about?” He looked at Dhulyn with narrowed dark blue eyes, flicked his glance to Parno and back. He could have been anywhere between twenty and thirty, and his voice had the fullness of youth. A scar divided his left eyebrow, and a ghost eye had been drawn on his left cheek.
His face cleared. “It is as the old man said. When you know what to look for, it is clear. You are whole. Can you do as much for our Seers, woman of the Sun’s Door?”
“I regret that I cannot, man of the Salt Desert.”
He nodded, matter-of-fact. He’d clearly had no expectations, so he wasn’t disappointed. But it would have been stupid not to ask. “I am Star-Wind,” he said. “I am one of those who reads the clouds for the Salt Desert people. I may be the next Cloud Shaman, who knows? But I have hopes.” He grinned, and his blue eyes sparkled. Parno revised his estimate of the man’s age downward.
There was much about the Salt Desert camp that was familiar to anyone who had spent time on campaign. Even with the cool evening breeze blowing, Parno noted the aroma of stews slowly simmering, the sharp, not-unpleasant smell of the horse line, and the merest whiff of the latrine. He noticed Dhulyn looking around her even more carefully than she normally would, her eyes taking in not just the presence and position of weapons—short swords, spears, and bows—but even the details of the cook fires, the babies sitting on the hips of fathers or mothers, all with ghost eyes marked on their foreheads to make them easier to find. Older children, marked like Star-Wind on the left cheek, were either looking shyly out from behind a parent or stood boldly in the forefront, staring at the newcomers. Though many were barefoot, most were dressed identically to their elders in short boots, baggy trousers, and sleeveless jerkins. There did seem to be fewer females, both adults and children, and those he saw stood back, behind the men and older children, but watched intently, some with smiles, some with furrowed brows.
It was then that he noticed something—a kind of attitude he had seen without noting in the smaller Long Trees group, but that was far more obvious now. It was not until they had dismounted to lead their horses through the camp to the horse line that Parno began to understand what it was. He had been in many camps, of soldiers, of Mercenary Schools, and even of other Horse Nomads, on their own side of the Path of the Sun. And this camp was quieter than even the legendary reserve of the Outlander could account for. There seemed to be a shadow on these people—no, on their spirits, that was it. It was as if he and Dhulyn had arrived on a day of mourning. Or rather, as if these people were always in mourning. And perhaps, in a way, they were. There was about them a quality of sadness he could not remember noticing in any other group.
Perhaps this awareness is a legacy of the Crayx, he thought. Perhaps it is my Pod sense that allows me to feel this. It was possible that his recently discovered ability made him more sensitive to people, even when he couldn’t share their thoughts.
Once the horses were unsaddled and had food and water, Parno and his Partner were returned to the center of the camp where an old man, older even than Singer of the Wind, awaited them, standing straight as the spear shaft he held, in front of the large central tent. This would be, Dhulyn thought, the home of the Tribe’s two chiefs, the Cloud Shaman, and the Horse Shaman. She wondered if, in their own world, before the breaking of the Tribes, there would have been another chief, a Seer. Obviously, that could not be the case here.
“Father,” Star-Wind said. His tone was gentle, but formal, which told Dhulyn the younger man was indeed the Cloud Shaman’s apprentice, as he had implied. “Here are the guests sent to us by Singer of the Wind, the Long Trees Tribe. The Mercenary Brothers Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. Mercenaries,” Star-Wind turned to face them. “These are Singer of the Grass-Moon, Senior Cloud Shaman, and Spring-Flood, Horse Shaman to the Salt Desert People.”
The strongest and the weakest Mages, Dhulyn thought. The Cloud Shaman was shorter than the men around him, though it may have been from age. His eyes were faded to the palest of b
lues, and his hair was entirely white. The Horse Shaman was a vigorous man of middle years, well-muscled and with the greenest eyes Dhulyn had ever seen.
The old man beckoned her forward with a gnarled hand and looked Dhulyn in the eyes, considering her with his head on a slant. “From beyond the Door of the Sun?” he said. His voice had a hollow whistle to it, as if lungs or throat had been punctured.
“Yes, Grandfather,” she said. Good thing that patience was part of the Common Rule, Schooled into all Mercenaries, otherwise this constant questioning on the same topic would very soon grow annoying.
He reached out to touch her face, brushing away the few stray hairs that had escaped from her braiding and fallen over her cheek. Dhulyn held still, blinking slowly. She felt Parno’s tension to her right.
“I had thought my old friend, Singer of the Wind, must be deceived, perhaps even magicked in some way, but I see that I was mistaken. You are welcome, my child. Very welcome.” Having said this, however, the old man turned back into his tent, leaving them standing.
Spring-Flood turned away from the tent opening and held both hands high above his head in a command for attention. “Listen everyone,” he called out. Though he hadn’t raised his voice very much, many had come closer as the old man was examining Dhulyn, and everyone now gave the Horse Shaman their attention. One or two of the women, tending to their own concerns, were nudged by their neighbors until they either stood or turned to watch.
“These are the Mercenary Brothers we were told of, Parno Lionsmane and Dhulyn Wolfshead. It is as we have been told, the Wolfshead is whole and safe. She may be treated as a woman of fields and cities, though you will see she is dressed as a warrior and belongs to the same Brotherhood as our other guest, Delvik Bloodeye.”
Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno Page 19
