The Sleeping God

by Violette Malan

  At one point she saw three people dressed in the dark green of the Marked. There were a few stony looks, but most of the passersby ignored them. With the crowds, entertainers appeared, and after so many days on horseback Mar was grateful for the rest stops, once to watch a particularly good juggler, and once a person who seemed to be swallowing swords. Mar turned for one last look as they continued on their way.

  “How does she do that?”

  “Sword’s dull,” Wolfshead said, as if that explained everything.

  “Oh, and another thing…” Lionsmane was imparting a steady commentary on manners and protocol over his shoulder as they walked. Mar swallowed, her head was starting to spin.

  “Parno, for Sun and Moon’s sake, leave the Dove alone. You told her all this on the trail, and she’s asked you all the questions she can think of. If she hasn’t memorized the eating tools by now, she’s not going to the next few spans.”

  Mar flashed the older woman a grateful smile, hoping it didn’t look as stiff as it felt. Now that she was on the point of putting Lionsmane’s instructions to use, Mar was finding it vastly less entertaining than it had seemed on the road. And perhaps less to be wished for than it had seemed in Navra.

  “Have we much farther to go?” Her feet hurt, and her legs weren’t used to walking. Part of her wanted to get there, to get it over with. Part of her hoped that this walk would never end.

  Dhulyn was enjoying herself as much as she could in a city-fine places to visit, she’d always thought, but you wouldn’t want to live in one. They crossed a broad avenue and turned uphill, entering a sizable square where three streets met, and the corner of a warehouse butted up against a half-ruined garden wall. Here, such a crowd had gathered that it almost blocked the passage through the area entirely. A man in red-and-brown robes was standing on what was left of the wall, raised above the crowd to about the height of a person sitting on a horse. Dhulyn wondered if this particular bit of wall had been chosen for just that reason. Get the people to see you as an authority, either noble or military.

  And the man was a Jaldean priest, no doubt about it, though certainly the youngest one Dhulyn had ever seen. Hair and beard close-cropped. High forehead and a spot showing where he would be bald in a few years. A much older man in robes of the same colors stood on the ground near the speaker’s feet. Dhulyn slowed to let some of the people coming the other way pass by on her left side. She’d thought she’d seen a flash of green as the older man’s head had turned away, but she couldn’t be sure unless he turned back again. The crowd closest to the priests certainly looked slack-jawed and blank-faced, but they did not display any of the destructive behavior she and Parno had seen in the mob in Navra.

  Mar’s hand tugged slightly on the front of Dhulyn’s vest as the press of people moved them farther apart, recalling Dhulyn to her charge.

  “Just keep moving,” Dhulyn told her. “Keep your hand on Parno, don’t worry about me.” She smiled when Mar took hold of Parno’s sword belt before letting go of Dhulyn’s vest. Smart girl. It was hard to navigate in this big a crowd if you didn’t know how. Easy to lose your nerve.

  “Now there’s no doubt,” the young Jaldean was saying, “that the Caids knew how to awaken the Sleeping God. And there’s no one who has seen the Dead Spots, where the land is blackened and sterile, melted and fused like glass, who doesn’t know what happens when the Sleeping God awakes.”

  Dhulyn raised her eyebrows, but kept her grimace from moving so far as her lips. She remembered, years before, walking through a market square with Dorian the Black, and stopping to listen to an old man, a Jaldean priest. All that old man had talked about was how the Sleeping God kept watch always in his dreams, ready to awaken and protect everyone from harm. She’d still been a child then-at least in some ways-with a child’s way of looking at things, and she’d wondered just how blooded bad things had to get for the blooded god to wake up and help people.

  Today’s priest seemed to have come a long way from that.

  “And we think-we hope-that knowledge has died with the Caids, but has it? I ask you, my friends, has it?” Several voices called out “no,” but the man continued as if he hadn’t been answered. “We can’t know for certain, and that’s the fact. But we can take precautions, we can take care.

  “We don’t know that there are snakes in the grass, but we can thump the ground with our walking sticks as we go, to be safe. We don’t know that the Cloud People are going to rob the caravan, they say they won’t…” Here the man smiled and shook his head as if he could say a thing or two about that, and smiles and winks passed through the listening crowd as if they, too, knew something about the real behavior of Cloud People. “But we can hire guards to keep ourselves safe.

  “Now, the Marked say they’re not trying to awaken the Sleeping God, that they don’t even know how. And many of you have Marked among your neighbors, kind, helpful people and they tell you they don’t know how to awaken the Sleeping God, and you think it must be true. You don’t see how they can be so dangerous and so wicked.” The Jaldean pursed his lips and nodded, as if conceding the point. “But we know,” his voice fell like a hammer, “that the Marked are the descendants of the Caids. Where else would their special talents come from, remember, talents that can’t be taught to all or any-talents that draw on the Sleeping God’s power, draining it, bringing him ever closer to wakefulness. No my friends, however kind and helpful they might be as individuals, as your neighbors, as your friends, the Marked are a danger to you, and a danger to themselves. They must stop. We must learn to do without their aid, their deceptive aid, in order to preserve the world. We must take steps to save ourselves. And to save them too! All they have to do is come to the shrine to be blessed. All they have to do is come to the shrine to be cleansed, to be purified. Let us help them to keep us all safe…”

  The Jaldean’s comfortable tone, the throaty murmurs of the crowd, died away as Parno led them slowly out of the square.

  “Sometimes,” Mar murmured to Dhulyn, “they seem to make sense.”

  “Yes,” Dhulyn’s tone was carefully neutral. “Yes, they do.” In public they were all tolerance and forgiveness, Alkoryn Pantherclaw had said, and Dhulyn saw what he meant. That’s what makes them so dangerous, she thought. Much of what was said seemed so logical, people tended not to question the rest. Dorian had always said to be careful of logic. While one was using logic on you, another was stealing your purse. Or slitting your throat. She met the eye of a man behind her, also trying to leave the square, who murmured something under his breath and shook his head, holding Dhulyn’s eye. She kept her face impassive, but did not turn away.

  The streets became wider still, and better paved, with fewer people on them and no one, now, in the dark green of the Marked. Walls of undressed stone lined with the doorways of shops and workplaces gradually turned into unbroken whitewashed stucco. At one point bells started ringing the midmorning watch.

  “Do you recognize that tune, my heart?” Dhulyn called out.

  “I’ve heard it, certainly,” Parno said. “But I don’t place it.

  Dhulyn began to sing.

  “Weeping lass, weeping lass,

  Where have you been?

  Weeping lass, weeping lass,

  Walk right in.”

  Mar joined in, her rounded notes a counterpoint to Dhulyn’s throaty purr,

  “Step to corner, step to fire…”

  Dhulyn laughed. “You haven’t sung that one before, Dove. I’d forgotten that. We used to sing a verse like that when I was a very young child, though not those words. At least, I don’t think so. Try that again, Mar, and perhaps my childhood words will come back to me.”

  Halfway through a second verse, their voices faltered as a burly man running to fat went past on a roan horse being led by a servant. He turned his head to watch them as he passed. The servant and the horse didn’t look. Dhulyn laughed and began to whistle the tune.

  When they were still a street away from Tenebro
House, Dhulyn called to Parno and drew her companions to one side.

  “Well, little Dove,” Dhulyn said, the corner of her mouth lifting. “This is your last chance. Do we go on?”

  The girl looked from one to the other. Parno raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Dhulyn hadn’t consulted him, knowing he would be with her on this. Better the girl should freely choose.

  Mar nodded absently, her eyes focused somewhere between the two Mercenaries. She parted her lips, thought better of what she was about to say, and shut her mouth again. “What about your pay?” she asked finally.

  “We’d want to be paid, rightly enough,” Dhulyn told her. “But in this case we’re not particular by whom. Plenty of work to be found in this city now that we’re here. For you and us.” Dhulyn smiled, no need for the Dove to know what Alkoryn had told them. “We could wait to be paid if you decide so. Or simply,” she said, her voice more gentle, “we can wait if you need time to be certain.”

  Mar nodded again. She looked up, meeting Dhulyn’s eyes directly. “Suppose I go to my House, I might still change my mind,” Mar said.

  “And you would have been paid, but not by me.” She grinned in response to Dhulyn’s wolf’s smile. “In the meantime, they sent for me, and I have come. There is no way for me to be more certain.”

  Mar turned her head away. If it were possible, Dhulyn would have said that the girl’s pallor had increased. She looked almost green in the morning light. Dhulyn caught Parno’s eye, but he only shrugged, and set off toward Mar’s House.

  Tenebro House was a walled enclave, high up in the streets near the Carnelian Dome, almost but not quite a part of the Tarkin’s grounds. The huge doors of the gateway, large enough to admit carriages, were heavy wood reinforced with iron bars. But there was a pass door in the right-hand leaf, with a pull chain beside it. Mar took a deep breath and pulled the chain, jumping back at the sudden loud rattle. The two Mercenaries stood, hands resting on hilts, looking over Mar’s shoulders as she waited. After a long interval, the pass door opened, revealing an unarmed man with another stone wall perhaps a half span behind him.

  Not any movement of face or body revealed Dhulyn’s alert interest. She had read that many of the older Noble Houses were doubled-gated, and the plans had shown her that Tenebro House was one, but she had never seen such a thing with her own eyes. There would be two walls, she knew, with a gate in each, offset so that forcing one gate could not force the other. Rather, attackers could be trapped between the inner and the outer wall, easy prey for anyone standing on the inner battlements.

  Dhulyn looked with even more interest at the man who stood so calmly within the pass door. This would be the Steward of Walls, a House’s equivalent of the Captain of the Guard, a responsibility so weighty that once it had been accepted, he could never leave the House’s walls again. It was part of his undertaking to inspect any who entered the House for the first time. It was he who decided whether to open the pass door or gate. And at times he staked his life on his judgment, since the inner gate was opened only when he allowed it. Intruders might kill him, but killing him would not open the inner gate.

  This Steward was a tall, lean man all arms and legs, dressed like a minor nobleman in soft woolen leggings tucked into short boots, linen shirt with wide sleeves and a blue silk tunic. A teal-and-black crest was sewn into the left shoulder of his tunic, the colors of House Tenebro. His dark hair showed some gray, and the skin had begun to turn to paper around his eyes. But those eyes were still a sharp crystal blue. He stood calm, his wide mouth faintly smiling, a man still hard. Had he been a Brother, he would have many years of good service still to give. The man took time to appraise Parno and Dhulyn, their Mercenary badges, their swords ready to draw, their proximity to their plainly dressed charge. His gaze lingered on Dhulyn. She could feel herself starting to smile. He did not seem surprised by what he saw, but then, he did not seem like a man who could be easily surprised.

  “In what way can I assist you?” he said, inclining his head to Mar.

  “I am Mar-eMar, a daughter of this House.”

  Nothing changed on the man’s face. He would have seen that her clothes, while well made, were nothing more than serviceable by the standards of a Noble House, that those clothes had seen plenty of recent service, and that she and her guards had collected a portion of dust walking in the streets. His face showed nothing of this. “You’ll forgive me, Lady,” was all he said. “I do not know you.”

  Mar drew up her shoulders. “I am the daughter of the Lady TamuTam, who was the daughter of the Lady Wat-aWat, who was the daughter of the Lord Dow-oDow. I am summoned by the Tenebroso Lady Kor-iRok, who is my House.” Mar reached into the front of her tunic and pulled out the letter that Dhulyn had seen and read in Navra. Mar held out the parchment so that the seal could be seen.

  The man had started to nod long before Mar had finished her account. “You are expected and welcome, Mar-eMar Tenebro. I am Karlyn-Tan, your Steward of Walls. Pray, enter.” He bowed his head more deeply and stepped aside to let them into the space between the doors. The pass door closed behind them, and bars were thrown before the inner gates-a good five paces to the left-opened to reveal the interior courtyard.

  As soon as the inner gates had closed behind them, what little street noise existed here so close to the Carnelian Dome faded completely. The courtyard was much larger than had seemed possible from the street, holding a fountain-dry at this time of year-as well as several small trees. To the left and right, doors and windows indicated quarters built into the walls for the guards and outer servants who did not live in the House. Across the yard and up three broad flagstone steps were the double doors of the House itself, elaborate carvings and metal inlays presenting the emblems of the Tenebro. No hinges were showing. That confirmed the detail shown on Alkoryn’s plans. A banner hung from a standard, indicating that the Tenebroso, the head of the House, was in residence.

  The courtyard was large enough to seem uncrowded, though there were at least twenty people passing through it as the two Brothers entered with their charge. A few of these were guards, but most were obviously servants of the House, lingering to see who was coming in, looking for excuses to pause in their work. Even the children playing with wooden balls in the far corner left off and came to see what the visitors were about. Unlike Karlyn-Tan, all of these wore a kind of livery with the house colors of teal and black showing on collars and cuffs.

  The Steward of Walls led them across the yard.

  “You may wait here if you wish,” he said, turning to address Dhulyn and Parno. “You have Brothers within these walls, and they can be summoned to attend you.”

  “We are not yet discharged,” Parno said.

  “Of course.” A slight bow. “In that case, I must ask that you leave your weapons here.” He motioned, and one of the watching guards approached. Dhulyn smiled her wolf’s smile, drew her sword, and presented it with a flourish. A broad smile passed over the Steward’s lips as he accepted her weapon with a bow. She could like this fellow, Dhulyn thought. Only a special kind of man retained his sense of humor in this position. Parno handed his sword without ceremony to the waiting guard.

  The Steward waited a moment more, but neither Mercenary moved. “I’m afraid I must ask for all of your weapons,” he said.

  Dhulyn’s own smile became more pronounced. “You could strip us naked, and still not have all of our weapons,” she said, lifting her left eyebrow.

  “Lady, I would wager that was so.” Karlyn-Tan held her gaze with his very clear blue eyes as the people in the courtyard gave up any pretense of passing through and began to gather more closely around them.

  Parno coughed. Dhulyn gave him a sidelong look, but he was only gazing at her blandly. She shrugged and nodded. They’d done this before, and they knew how to make a show of it-and that making a show of it would enhance their reputation without frightening anyone. She and Parno began to shed weapons like a wet dog sheds water. Between them they disposed of three kni
ves, one almost long enough to qualify as a short sword, four thrust daggers, and two wrist knives and five throwing stars. They paused. The crowd of House people began to whisper among themselves.

  The children crept closer still and poked at each other. Parno winked at the nearest, stroked his now well-established beard, reached into the back of his tunic, and pulled out a silvered throwing quoit. Dhulyn rolled her eyes to the heavens, as though calling on the Outlander gods of Sky and Rain to witness Parno’s foolishness. Parno shrugged and smiled sheepishly, making the children giggle. The Steward grinned and said nothing. People in the small crowd surrounding them muttered and Dhulyn heard the chink of coin. She reached over her shoulder with her left hand, pushing it down the back of her vest as if to reach a bad itch, and drew out a tiny hatchet. Parno looked thoughtful, drew four black metal tubes from the top of his boot and added them to the pile.

  The Partners looked at each other. Parno frowned. Dhulyn shrugged, unbuckled the wallet at her waist and simply added it, belt and all, to the pile. Parno nodded. They turned their attention back to the Steward of Walls, eyes wide and innocent, hands clasped behind their backs, looking almost exactly as they had looked before. There were grins and murmurs of admiration among the watching gatemen, and a small child whistled and started to clap.

  “What, no maces, pikes, or longbows?” the Steward’s voice was dry, but his eye sparkled. Someone laughed aloud.

  “Awkward to carry through the street, don’t you think?” Dhulyn said, her eyebrows innocently raised. “It would be better if these were not touched,” she added more seriously, indicating the collection of cutting edges and sharpened points piled on the ground beside them. “Some have more edges than are apparent to the untrained eye.”

  Still smiling, shaking his head, Karlyn-Tan handed Dhulyn’s sword to the young woman who had stepped forward to assist him. “I doubt you would find many willing to try,” he said. “I’ll see that they’re kept safe.” He gestured, and the young woman bowed.