“Allied with the Jaldeans,” Alkoryn said. “That in itself makes a degree of sense.” He looked up to meet her eyes. “Is it Lok-iKol behind this persecution of the Marked?”
Dhulyn shook her head. “That is more than my Vision can tell me.”
Parno cleared his throat. “He’ll have promised them something for their support.”
RIOTS. FIRES. GUARDS IN DARK RED PULLED FROM THEIR HORSES AND KILLED.
“I said, ‘are you all right, my Brother?’ ” Alkoryn’s voice was rough and whispery. Parno’s hand on her arm. Dhulyn licked suddenly dry lips and swallowed.
“Yes, I am more tired than I had thought. Your pardon.”
“What did you See?” Parno said. Alkoryn looked from Parno’s face to Dhulyn’s.
“Carnelian Guards being pulled from their horses in the streets.”
Alkoryn shook his head, but not as though he did not believe her. “When the old Tarkin died,” he said, “and Tek-aKet his son was confirmed to follow him as Tarkin, Lok-iKol did not put his name forward in nomination, nor did he request a Ballot.”
“It would have been his mother, then, would it not?” Parno said.
“So it would, so it would,” Alkoryn nodded, rubbing the scar on his throat. “This is no time for me to be growing old.” The Pantherclaw sighed and drew himself up until he sat tall and straight in his chair.
“You may not have heard,” he said. “This morning brought news of the Fall of Tenebro House. The old woman no longer stands between Lok-iKol and the Carnelian Throne.”
“Then he’ll make his move.” Something in Parno’s voice made Dhulyn look up. The light coming through the window made his hair glow golden and warm. She saw the old woman’s false hair shine in the light of the oil lamps, and the Fallen House’s words echoed in her ears. Par-iPar has come. A true heir. She squeezed her eyes shut. I will have to speak, she thought. She charged me with the message.
Their Senior Brother was nodding gently, once again appearing to give his whole attention to the study of the map in front of him, his fingers softly stroking the parchment. Watching him, Dhulyn forced her lungs to release her breath, slowly, softly. Had everything now changed? Did she still have a Brotherhood? Or would her Mark, which set her apart from all others, set her apart from her Brothers as well? Dhulyn started to rise, froze as Alkoryn looked up.
“Three days ago you advised me to move my maps.”
“I Saw them burning.”
“They shall be moved. Beginning today. As for what you tell me now… I wonder if I could ask a boon of you, my Brother,” Alkoryn said.
Surprised, Dhulyn lowered herself back into her chair. “Ask,” she said.
“Will you come with me to the Tarkin,” was Alkoryn’s reply, “and tell him what you have told me?”
Dhulyn’s dry lips parted, but she could no more speak than she could fly. With a thump, Parno returned the cup he still held to the table. Alkoryn spoke before either of them had gathered their wits.
“Not all of what you’ve told me, clearly,” the older man said. “But the portion which concerns him.”
“Is the Brotherhood in the Tarkin’s employ, that we would run to him with this news? We are not spies-” She held up her hand, hearing her own words, and worse, the tone she’d used. “Your pardon, my Brother, this is not mine to question. If you feel the good of the Brotherhood in Imrion demands the Tarkin be told what I have learned, then tell him.”
Alkoryn’s glance had drifted back to his beloved maps. “When I accuse Lok-iKol, I accuse Tek-aKet’s own cousin, even if not a very well-loved one. I think he would be the readier to believe this tale if he heard it from your own lips, my Brother. He may have questions only you can answer.” Alkoryn looked up at Dhulyn, fixing her with his cat’s eyes. “There is too much here we do not know. Lok-iKol wants the Throne-very well, there’s nothing new in political ambition, and war is what we deal in. But with the Jaldeans in the mix… if the New Believers gain much more power…” Alkoryn tapped the tabletop with his index finger. “What they do is genocide, not war; but it will lead to war, and worse, if they have the full backing of the Carnelian Throne.”
“Alkoryn,” Parno leaned forward before Dhulyn could speak. “May we think about this, my Partner and I? It is an unusual request, and touches her closely. We must think of a way to tell him without revealing her Mark,” he added when the older man hesitated. Dhulyn kept her face still, her features impassive. What was Parno up to?
“Certain you may,” Alkoryn said. He glanced over at the shaft of sunlight that angled into his office from the high window. “But if we are to speak to Tek-aKet, it should be as quickly as possible. Tonight, by preference. Will you give me an answer soon enough?”
“Certain we will,” Dhulyn heard her voice come out as little better than a croak. Whatever Parno wanted to say to her, he could say quickly. There should be nothing to stop them giving Alkoryn Pantherclaw his quick answer.
“And Parno?” They turned back at the door. “There is a Healer in the caves below the House-yes, we have been hiding the Marked and smuggling them out of the city; this was the assignment I had planned for you, my Brothers. Go to him and have your arm seen to.”
In less than an hour they were back in their assigned room, Parno flexing his right arm in pleasure after his visit to the Healer. Dhulyn threw herself on the bed and wriggled around to face him.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“You were about to say ‘no,’ ” he said, “and I wanted a chance to talk you.”
“You suggest I should tell my tale to the Tarkin?” Dhulyn punched at the stuffed straw mattress to find a comfortable position on the bed. “What is Tek-aKet to me, or I to him?” She punched the mattress again, aware that her exasperation had little to do with the Tarkin.
“You told Alkoryn,” Parno pointed out reasonably, sitting down on the stool close to the bed.
Dhulyn rolled her eyes up to the heavens, though from this angle she was really rolling them at the heavy wooden bed frame. “That would be a little thing called the Common Rule, no? You remember the Common Rule, I suppose, my Brother?”
Parno stood and strode away from her to the window. He leaned his hands on the sill, looking out, before turning back to her. “Is it not also the Common Rule for us to be guided by the advice and suggestions of Senior Brothers?” Parno’s tight voice showed an increase of sarcasm and decrease of patience.
“And I am the Senior Brother in this room!” Dhulyn shot back. She sat up, thumping her booted feet to the floor and leaning forward, hands on her knees. “I repeat, what is the Tarkin to me? You call on the Common Rule, you question my obedience to it. Are you so sure it’s not your old loyalties which command here? You wanted to come to Imrion. You…” She stopped, suddenly aware that words which could not be called back were dangerously close to the tip of her tongue. But she was between the sword and the wall. If she spoke, she risked losing her Partnership; if she was silent, if she could not speak, she had already lost it. There was only one action to take.
“Are you certain you’re not willing to risk me in order to save your Tarkin?” Dhulyn stopped, suddenly breathless.
“How is he my Tarkin?” Parno stood facing her with his arms folded across his chest, the sunlight coming in the window making a golden aurora around him.
“You are more to the Tenebros than you let me suppose.” Dhulyn’s hands and feet felt cold, as if her pounding heart did not push her blood. “You’re not some third son of a minor Household. With the House Fallen, you are now the next heir. If Lok-iKol Tenebro is cousin to the Tarkin, what are you?”
He took two steps toward her, arms swinging to his side. “It’s not so simple as that. I was Cast Out!”
“You could not tell me of your nobility? I told you of my Mark, first off, before we Partnered.”
“The Mark is not something that you could leave behind-it’s not just a part of your life before. House Tenebro is. When I became a Merc
enary Brother, I left it behind me. That’s the Common Rule, too.”
Dhulyn swallowed around a tight throat. Could it really be that simple?
“You were not hiding this from me?”
“I had put it behind me. True, I did want to see Imrion again, but everything else… I was Cast Out. That life is gone.”
Not hidden from her because too important to tell, but left aside because not important enough to mention. Dhulyn dragged in a deep lungful of air.
“We are beating each other with the Common Rule,” she said. “We are Partnered. I never thought we would quarrel in this way-never thought we could.”
“Never Saw it coming?”
Dhulyn looked up, Parno’s mouth was twisted to one side in the grin that woke her heart. “Tell me now,” she said, patting the bed beside her. “I will listen.”
Parno sat down next to her, slipping his right arm around her. “I am the son of Wen-eWen Tenebro-” She shifted to look at him but he held her fast. “No, let me speak. It will be easier. My father was the military commander for House Tenebro, and the much younger half brother of the woman who is now the Fallen House.”
“Was? This was the demon haunting you? Why you wanted to return to Imrion? To see if your father still lived?”
“I got my temper from him, though mine’s Schooled now. Lately, as I near the age he was then, I wondered if he managed to stay alive and well. If I am, as you say, the heir, then I have my answer.”
“Sun and Moon shine on him. Wind blow warm.” Dhulyn touched her fingertips to her forehead.
“And you are the One-eye’s cousin?” she asked, after a moment had passed.
“And the reason that he has one eye.”
Dhulyn twisted around to better see his face. He inclined his head. “You are my very favorite Brother,” she said, smiling.
“Save your flattery. It was an accident of temper, though afterward I wished I had done it on purpose. I had seen the Harvest Moon seventeen times, and we all met at another Household for a wedding. He was rude to my sister, and when I asked him to apologize, he baited me, not realizing, perhaps, how much better a fighter I was. I lost my temper and struck him, forgetting that I came from hawking, and wore metal gloves.” Parno shrugged. “He lost his eye. He claimed that I had attacked him unprovoked. My father was left with no choice but to cast me out. If he had not done so, he would have lost everything, he and my mother, my sister. I came to the Brotherhood, to Nerysa Warhammer. And to you.”
“She meant for you to come, the Fallen House, she wanted you here.” In as few words as possible, Dhulyn told him about the old woman’s death. “The One-eye wanted me; but the old woman had her own plans all along. I was to tell you to be ready, that Lok-iKol had been cursed.”
Parno blew out a deep breath. “That is what has been bothering you? Not the fall of the Tarkin, but this? You thought I might turn back into a son of House Tenebro?” To her surprise, Parno grinned his old, loose grin and pulled her closer, resting his forehead for a moment against her hair.
“Forgive me. This is not the first time such a thought has crossed your mind since I began to speak of Imrion, and I said nothing. You came young to the Brotherhood, with nothing but pain and loss behind you, and it has been-as you have reminded me often enough-your whole world, your whole life. I came to the Brotherhood a man grown, with a world and a life behind me. So that though I am longer in the world than you, my heart, you are the Senior in Brotherhood. I know what you’ve thought. You’ve wondered if I value the Brotherhood less, because once I was of a House, because I once had family, servants, people to command, a place in an ordered life. You’ve thought, once or twice, that I would not have come to the Brotherhood had my life not undergone such a change by force.” He took hold of her shoulders, looking her in the eyes, his own clear under his golden brows. “Could I not say the same of you? Would you not even now be away in the cold south with the Red Horsemen, if they still rode? Tell me, what have you lost that I have not also lost?”
Dhulyn shut her eyes tight, only opening them again when Parno smoothed her brows with his thumbs.
“I am not a Tenebro. I am Parno Lionsmane, the Chanter. I was Schooled by Nerysa of Tourin, the Warhammer. Since we first met at the battle of Arcosa, here in Imrion as it happens, since you skewered that westerner who was trying to skewer me, I have been your Brother. And you mine.” The grip on her shoulders tightened painfully. “And you mine. You’ll have to kill me to be rid of me. And though I have no Sight,” he said, “I tell you that is not how it happens. Neither the Tenebros, nor even the Tarkin himself is the reason that I counsel you to speak.”
Her anger, and the fear that caused it, had drained away, leaving her limp, muscles trembling with fatigue. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, breathed in his scent of leather and sweat. “Why should I speak, then? If not because you love him, then why?”
“Not because of the Tarkin, but because of the Jaldeans. You’re right. The Tarkin is just one person or another, and we’re Mercenaries. And if there’s war? What’s it to do with us who sits on the Carnelian Throne, besides more work and better pay?” He kissed her knuckles and placed her hand gently on the woven bedcover. He pulled his legs up beneath him and sat cross-legged, facing her from the end of the bed.
“I don’t say we should fight for the Tarkin, I’m saying we should fight against the Jaldeans.” From habit, Parno lowered his voice to a murmur that went no further than the bed they sat on. “You have never made any great show of your Mark-”
“Even if I wanted to, you know I cannot-”
“Hush for once and listen to me, woman.” The bare injustice of this silenced her. She was not the talker of the two of them, and Parno knew it. “The Mark is an old problem for us, one we might easily have lived with forever. The Jaldeans have changed that. Your Mark is now an active danger, not merely a nuisance. Where will we go, my heart, if the Jaldeans come into such power, here in Imrion?”
“Imrion is not the world-”
“Imrion is the seat of the old civilization, and there are many places which still look to it for guidance. And there are Jaldean Shrines everywhere besides Imrion, in the desert, even in the Blasonar Plains. How long until this New Belief reaches there?”
“Small shrines, a monk or two…” Even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.
“They were small shrines here in Imrion, if it comes to that,” he pointed out. “Look how they have grown.”
Dhulyn frowned. Parno was right. If what she had Seen came to pass… try as they would, they could not hide her Mark forever. And she would endanger Parno as well, not just herself. Perhaps even the rest of her Brothers.
“But my counsel to you would be the same, even if you were not a Seer. This killing of the Marked is wrong of itself. What tells us the Jaldeans will stop with the Marked?”
That brought Dhulyn’s head up again.
“The New Believers gather power and importance to themselves by turning the world against useful, talented people who provide a service for a fee. Can you think of any other groups of whom these things might be said?”
Dhulyn sat up straighter, put her hand on the hard muscle on Parno’s thigh. “The Scholars,” she said. “That’s obvious. But we also. The Mercenary Brotherhood is also such a group.” She pulled her lip back from her teeth. “In the Marked, the New Believers remove a source of competition, an alternate center of power. They make the people a sword, and once the sword is sharpened, they can use it to cut anyone.”
“True words, Dhulyn, my soul.” Parno nodded.
“We’re not so few as the Marked,” Dhulyn said. “And better armed than the Scholars.” She dragged her lower lip between her teeth. “But we’re spread thin, so thin. It would take some time to kill us all…”
Parno nodded. “But kill us all is how it would end.”
“No.” Dhulyn shifted away so she could look Parno directly in the face. She tapped the air between them. “You are
right. It ends here.”
“So we will warn the Tarkin.”
“If we’re to die with swords in our hands, why delay it?” Dhulyn smiled. “You are wrong about one thing, however.”
“I am never wrong.”
“This time you are. It occurs to me, Parno, my soul, that it does matter to us which man is on the Carnelian Throne.”
“It does?”
“Yes,” Dhulyn let her lip curl back from her teeth. “It may be anyone except that one-eyed piece of snake’s dung. Anyone except Lok-iKol Tenebro.” She opened her eyes and looked at Parno’s grinning face. “I witnessed his mother’s curse, that twisted turd, I cursed him with Pasillon myself, and it’s Pasillon he shall have.”
“They have what?” The menace and anger in Lok-iKol’s voice was enough to stop in their tracks the two servants who were busy ferrying out the Fallen House’s rugs and tables, now unwanted since the new Tenebroso had taken possession of the office that the old woman had used as her sitting room for so many years.
Dal-eDal had spoken to his House in a practiced murmur that would not carry beyond the worktable at which Lok-iKol sat, but now he pointedly looked at the servants and waited until Lok-iKol had waved them out of the room before he spoke again.
“They have gone, my House,” he repeated. “Escaped.”
“Impossible. Who freed them?” His hands were fists, and the scarring stood out bone-white from the rest of his face.
Dal had never seen Lok-iKol so angry. Fear could take a man that way, but somehow Dal doubted what he saw in Lok’s face was fear.
“Your pardon, my House,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “No one needs to free Mercenaries; they free themselves. The cell was found locked, but empty.”
The Sleeping God Page 22
