“YOU .”
“PARDON?” DHULYN WANTS TO SHAKE HER HEAD, SHAKE AWAY THE IDEA THAT CREEPS ITS WAY INTO HER BRAIN.
“WE SEE YOU, DHULYN WOLFSHEAD. THAT IS WHY WE ARE HERE. SOMEHOW, YOU WILL HELP US FIND WHAT WE SEEK.”
I WISH WE HADA FINDER WITH US, DHULYN THINKS. I NEED GUN. “PERHAPS YOU ARE NOT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS,” DHULYN SAYS. SHE TAPS HER TEETH WITH THE TIP OF HER TONGUE. “IN OUR WORLD, THE GREEN SHADOW WAS SHATTERED OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND ITS PIECES CAUSED MUCH MISCHIEF BEFORE THE END FINALLY CAME.” SHE WAVES HER HAND AT THE ROOM AROUND THEM. “YOU ASK HOW YOU CAME TO BE BROKEN, AND YOU ARE SHOWN THISVISION. IN MY WORLD THEGREENSHADOW WAS A NOTHINGNESS, AN UNPLACE, A FORMLESS NOWHERE THAT UNMADE.” DHULYN TAKES WINTER-ASH’S LEFT HAND IN HER RIGHT AND HOLDS OUT HER LEFT FORNIGHT-SKY. THE WOMEN QUICKLY UNDERSTAND AND FORM A CIRCLE. “WHERE IS THIS DUST NOW?” DHULYN ASKS.
THE VISION BEGINS TO CHANGE, THE ROOM FADING AWAY, AS IF IN ANSWER TO HER QUESTION. SHAPES BEGIN TO FORM, BUT THEY FADE AGAIN. “WHERE IS THE DUST?” DHULYN ASKS AGAIN, AND THIS TIME THE SHADOWS AROUND THEM ALMOST CLEAR. DHULYN THINKS SHE SEES HORSES WALKING IN THE FOG, TWO WITH RIDERS. THEN THAT IMAGE FADES ALSO, THE SHADOWS DISAPPEAR, AND NOW THERE ARE TWO WOMEN BEFORE THEM, TWO WOMEN WITH WHITE SKIN, BONE-PALE HAIR, RED EYES. “SISTER,” THE ONE ON THE LEFT SAYS, THE ONE WITH THE GOLD FLECK IN HER EYE. “SISTER, WAKE UP. YOU HAVE BEEN TOO LONG IN VISION PLACE. YOU MUST RETURN .”
“NO,” CRIES WINTER-ASH. “WE ARE SO CLOSE, WE ALMOSTSAW, WE MUST NOT STOP NOW.”
“SISTER, DHULYN,” SAYS THE SECOND WHITE TWIN. “YOU MUST GO BACK NOW. THE TIME TO DESTROY THE SHADOW IS NOT YET.”
“WHAT DOES SHE MEAN,” NIGHT-SKY SAYS. “THE SHADOW WAS DEFEATED LONG AGO.”
“DHULYN KNOWS. SHE HAS THE ANSWER, BUT YOU MUST RETURN NOW.”
“NO,” WINTER-ASH IS CRYING. “WE ARE SO CLOSE, WE MAY NOT WANT TO TRY AGAIN, ONCE WE RETURN TO OUR WORLDLY SELVES. THEY ONLY DID THIS OUT OF CURIOSITY, AND NOW THEY WILL NOT CARE. WE CANNOT GO BACK NOW.” SHE CATCHES UP DHULYN’S LEFT HAND IN HER RIGHT AND GESTURES AT FEATHER-FLIGHT AND NIGHT-SKY, WHO QUICKLY JOIN HER IN CREATING THE CIRCLE.
DHULYN LOOKS TO THE WHITE TWINS, BUT THEY ARE GONE.
Sixteen
EPION PULLED AT his lower lip. The corridor outside the Tarkina’s apartments was not wide enough to allow for a ram—had in fact been designed that way—but neither was the door designed to withstand two men with battle axes for more than a short period. Only enough time as would be needed, in fact, to access the secret passage—that is, if anyone but Epion still knew about the things. He sighed and dropped his hand. He knew he should have insisted on sending in one of his own people, Julen was known to be fiercely loyal to Falcos. But preventing the guard from performing what was, after all, her actual duty in protecting the princess would have raised too many questions.
It was a simple plan, and a good one. It was a shame, really, that it had not played out. The first steps had gone beautifully. The guards he had spoken to had been shocked, but in the face of all that had happened in the last two years, and the rumors about Falcos he’d had circulating since the old Tarkin’s death, they were ready at least to listen and to follow his orders. After all, he wasn’t asking them to do anything more than hold Falcos safe. And if he had anticipated events slightly, if he had not actually consulted the council as yet, well, no one knew it but him.
If Alaria and those blooded Scholars had only come out of the rooms, this would all be over now and the council faced with the fact of Falcos’ apparent suicide. Epion straightened up. He could only hope that when the assassin realized the rooms were still occupied he would go back to the library entrance.
With luck, this was only a small hitch in the plan. Once they were through the door Falcos could still be isolated—perhaps in his own rooms—and the assassin could pay him a visit then. Let Alaria and the Scholars think whatever they liked for the moment. Falcos’ “suicide” would answer all questions.
“My lord.” Gabe-Leggett was signaling to him. They had breached the door, finally, and the guard with the ax was reaching through, trying to get leverage on the bars to lift them away.
Epion gestured him aside and stooped to peer through the opening. The room within was empty, doors to the balcony open, curtains blowing in. Epion stifled a smile. Not even Falcos was stupid enough to try that route of escape. The tide was out, and there was nothing outside that balcony now but rocks. No, they would be hiding in one of the other rooms, that was all.
He stepped back from the opening. “Continue,” he directed. “But take care, there were weapons in the princess’ baggage, and the Tarkin may have forced her to supply them. Do your best not to hurt anyone, especially the princess and the Scholars, but do not put yourselves at risk either. I have called for the Healer, but he has not yet arrived.”
Another lie that would not matter if all else went well. A lie, moreover, that should convince them he was on the side of the Caids. Concerned for their safety, worried about the precious princess, but reluctantly doing the right thing when it came to his poor mad nephew. And if they thought he’d called for the Healer to help Falcos, well, so much the better.
It would not take much longer to open the door, Epion decided. He signaled to the Leggett brothers.
“With luck he will fight,” he told them in low tones. “Try to make it so. Engage with him yourselves.”
“Finish with him?” Jo-Leggett said in the same quiet voice. His brother, Gabe-Leggett, remained impassive, his eyes steady on Epion’s face.
“Not if you can avoid it. Knocking him senseless would be preferable at the moment.” The two men nodded.
“My lord.”
This time the door was open, and at Epion’s signal the men went through, the Leggetts in front. In a moment, Gabe-Leggett was back, his mouth set in a grim line.
“The rooms are empty, my lord.”
Epion’s hands closed into fists. He had been certain, certain that only he knew of the existence of the secret passages. His brother, the old Tarkin, had not told Falcos—he had only admitted their existence when Epion had asked about them, refusing to give any more details and demanding to know how Epion had learned of them. Epion had passed off his knowledge as a story he’d heard in childhood, but in truth he had found the map of the passages in the same old book in which he’d found the key to the Path.
Though thus far only the diagram to the passages had been of any use, and that somewhat limited. The locations of the exits and entrances had been indicated, but not always how they had been hidden, and Epion had only had time to find how the library entrance worked. With help, he would have found more, but anyone who helped him had to be fed to the man from the Path.
Still, the passages were complicated, and there was time to use what he did know. He signaled to his own men.
“Jo-Leggett, send men you can trust to the Tarkin’s rooms, the throne room, and the stables.” Those seemed the three likeliest places for Falcos to go. “Also the library and the kitchens.” The latter was so public it was probably safe, but he could take no chances. “Send half a squad at least to each place. And then come to me in the stables.” There was one more exit, the most likely one, now that he thought of it. Best the Leggett boys go themselves. “The same instructions apply, mind you,” he said. “Detain him only.”
Only long enough for me to arrange his suicide. The suicide that would be all the proof anyone would need that Epion’s accusations were true.
Jo-Leggett nodded and went.
Ice Hawk heard the horse approaching long before it came into view, just as he would have expected to. Town people, he’d heard, thought the grass plains were perfectly flat, like a wooden table he had seen once in a city shop, when his grandfather had taken him, as a small child, to visit the people of fields and cities. But all Espadryni knew the plains rippled like a cloth laid on the ground, with crests and valleys—not all deep enough to hide or camp in, but many were.
Partly t
hrough his own evolving magics, and partly through the study of wind and air that told any man, Mage or not, much about the world around him that would be handy to know, Ice Hawk also knew who it was that approached, though it was rare that Bekluth Allain had only the one horse with him.
When Bekluth the trader finally came into sight, he was on foot, leading a sand-colored mare with two white feet. The horse didn’t seem much laden with merchandise, but it was possible that Bekluth, not knowing who would be at the camp just now, had left the major part of his goods—along with his other horses—on the other side of a nearby rise. After all, not all the Espadryni were as trustworthy as the Long Trees People, nor as welcoming as Ice Hawk.
“Ah, Ice Hawk,” Bekluth said when they were close enough to speak. Why city men thought they had to repeat your name when they saw you was more than Ice Hawk yet understood. At least the trader did not wave his arms and shout while still at a distance as the young Mage had seen others do.
Though, now that he thought about it, perhaps those particular travelers had been lost.
“Still here at Mother Sun’s Door, I see,” Bekluth said. At Ice Hawk’s signal the man squatted down next to the fire spot, though the ashes were cold now, courteously retaining the lead of his horse in his hands until he was invited to do more than merely sit. He looked around him at the marks on the ground.
“I see others of your people have been here,” the older man said. “Checking on you, were they? Making sure you hadn’t gone through and not come back?”
Ice Hawk was careful to keep his smile friendly. The trader had to be a good man to travel so much alone, but he was neither Espadryni nor Mage.
“If the information will be of use to you, you might trade me something for it,” he suggested with a smile. Ice Hawk knew that information could be just as valuable a commodity as knives and other artifacts.
Bekluth laughed. “Oh, very good, very sharp! Are you sure you don’t want to come trading with me? Learn the business?”
Ice Hawk knew that the offer was meant as a compliment and refrained from showing his disgust at the idea that an Espadryni could ever become a man of field and city. Refrained with some success apparently, as the trader was still smiling at him.
“Nah, lad, I was curious only. You show me respect, however, by your willingness to trade. And it’s only right I show you the same.” Bekluth looped the leading rein around his arm to leave his hands free and began to pat his belt pouches. “Let’s see. A man can’t have too many knives. What do you think of this one?”
Ice Hawk sat up straighter. This was the first time anyone had called him a man. No one in the Tribes would call him that until he’d faced the Door of the Sun. Whether Mother Sun granted him access to the Door or not, he would leave here a man. Either a superior Mage ready to follow the path of his grandfather, Singer of the Wind, or simply a man among his people.
“It is a skinning knife,” Bekluth said, holding it out. “From Cisneros. You see how the blade is very slightly curved, and the patterning hammered into the upper edge.”
Ice Hawk nodded as if he saw Cisnerean blades every day. “For this knife I will answer your question.”
“For this knife you will answer my question and . . . five more.”
Shaking his head, Ice Hawk tried to look disinterested. “Two.”
“Three.”
“Done.”
Ice Hawk had the hilt of the knife in his hands almost before he finished speaking. Bekluth unwrapped the leading rein from his arm and tossed it to one side. Now that trading had taken place, a tacit invitation to do more than sit had been offered and accepted. Ice Hawk sheathed his new knife and set it to one side. This would be the first time he would play host in a camp, but he knew what was expected.
“Your first question concerned the presence of my people,” he said. “They came to bring me supplies, the kind I cannot hunt for myself if I am to complete my meditation.”
Bekluth nodded and tapped his lips with his index finger, as though he sorted through questions in his mind. “How long did they stay?”
“Longer than they had planned, I am sure, as two Mercenary Brothers came through the Path of the Sun.” Ice Hawk felt his face heat, remembering the touch of Dhulyn Wolfshead’s hand on his arm.
Bekluth grinned and shifted his seat until he was sitting cross-legged. “You’ve been in the sun too long, Ice Hawk. The Mercenaries came through moons ago.”
Stung, Ice Hawk was quick to defend his knowledge. “No, Bekluth Allain. These are different ones, new. One is a woman—like our women, but not like ...” Ice Hawk let his voice die away, his stomach cold, his ears buzzing.
The trader’s brows crawled high and his eyes were almost round. “What do you mean?”
Ice Hawk scrambled to find a way out of his mistake. It was widely thought among the Long Trees People that Bekluth Allain knew the truth about the Espadryni women, but the Mages said that so long as it was never spoken of openly, Bekluth Allain could never reveal their secret. “Apparently, there were once Espadryni on the other side of Mother Sun’s Door, though their women were not sequestered as ours are. Then the Tribes were broken. This Mercenary is the last of her kind, she says.”
Now the trader swung his head from side to side “She is tricking you, Ice Hawk.”
Ice Hawk shrugged. Bekluth Allain was asking without asking, and Ice Hawk had to find a way to answer. “Me they might have tricked,” he admitted. “I was only lately a cub. But my grandfather, Singer of the Wind, was here also, and he cannot be tricked. Not in such things.”
At these words the trader fell silent. A breeze gusted, stirring the ashes in the fire spot and bringing with it a faint smell of Ice Hawk’s latrine pit.
“A great marvel,” Bekluth said, suddenly coming to life as he absorbed Ice Hawk’s words. “The last of her kind. So they went off, then, with Singer of the Wind?”
“Question three.” Ice Hawk felt the tension ease from his back and shoulders. “You need not look so cunning, Bekluth, they are warriors, and not likely to need anything from you.”
“Oh, no? And you had no need for your new knife?”
Ice Hawk grinned and shrugged. “I am young and need many things. These two, they did not look to be short of knives. I think they will want to talk to you, though, so it may be that you have information they will trade for.”
Without answering Bekluth stood and began to free his horse from its saddle, pulling loose a tie here and opening a buckle there. First he detached a pack from the back of the saddle and set it down at his place on the ground, then he lifted off the saddle itself, taking pad and all into his hands. Ice Hawk did not offer to help, not even to take the leading rein and stake it to the ground. It would have seemed as though he wished to pry into the trader’s goods.
“What could I know that people from the other side of Mother Sun’s Door would trade me for?” The horse led a short distance away to where the horse line would normally be, Bekluth sat down once more across from Ice Hawk, opened his saddle pack, and began looking through it.
“You have no more questions left,” Ice Hawk said, grinning.
“Let’s see, what might I have that would be worth such knowledge?” Bekluth raised his eyebrows and looked at Ice Hawk sideways. “Especially considering that all I have to do is wait to meet them and they will tell me themselves for free.”
Ice Hawk shrugged again, unashamed. Who doesn’t try gets nothing. Even the young cubs knew that.
“They’re looking for someone, a killer, who has passed to their side of the Door of the Sun, and killed some of their people. Not just killed, but tortured and mutilated in a way unknown to us.” Ice Hawk blinked, the image of what the woman Dhulyn Wolfshead had told them momentarily before his eyes. “We thought to help them, but they told us when the last killing had been done, and we had seen no such killer.”
“When was that?” Bekluth finally straightened from his pack with two cups and a round flask in his hands.
“At the full moon? But you were here, Ice Hawk, did they not suspect you?”
Ice Hawk blinked, but the trader was already laughing. “Ah, forgive me, a bad jest I admit, but Caids, man, you should see your face.” His own face grew suddenly serious. “Were we in any danger then, do you think? Was that not the time I met with you on my way to the Cold Lake camp? You told them this, of course.” The trader poured out two glasses of clear liquid that had a most exquisite smell.
Ice Hawk felt the heat rising to his ears. “No,” he admitted. “I forgot.” He wrinkled up his nose. Was this why the Mother Sun had not yet shown him the key to her Door? Because he was still unseasoned and forgetful? “You were here such a short time and naturally I thought them to mean some stranger to us. Still, I must tell them,” he decided. He would have to admit his error to Dhulyn Wolfshead, but then, it would give him an excuse to speak with her.
“I will tell them myself,” Bekluth said. “I travel much, and possibly I have seen something that they alone will find significant. And if, as you say, they come from beyond the Door, I admit I will be curious to meet them.” He held out one of the cups. “In the meantime, taste this orange brandy for me, and tell me whether you think your people will trade for it.”
Ice Hawk considered reminding Bekluth the Trader that strong drink was only for those who had become men and that he had not, in fact, reached that status yet. But even as he was thinking so, he was reaching out for the cup. After all, he would not be the first to enjoy some of the privileges of manhood in advance of the ceremony, nor the last.
Bekluth raised his cup, and Ice Hawk imitated him, wondering whether he was required to make the salute, and wracking his brain for one he had heard the men use.
Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno Page 29
