“Since you ask as a friend, Karlyn, we come on the Tarkin’s orders, to fetch certain needed supplies that the Scholar knows to be in his former rooms. Whose leave do we ask, if not yours?”
“As you come in the Tarkin’s name, I’d say you ask leave of no one.”
Dhulyn swung her leg over Bloodbone’s head and slid off the mare’s back, landing on her feet face-to-face with the former Steward of Walls. He made no step back, just put his hand out for the bridle. “Perhaps, then, the Scholar can find his own way to his old rooms,” she said.
“Undoubtedly he can, but Dal-eLad Tenebroso’s been told of your approach, and has asked that you speak with him when your errand is done.”
Dhulyn looked Karlyn up and down, the beginnings of her wolf’s smile on her lips. “It seems to me I’ve come into this House once before, Karlyn. I’m in no hurry to do so again.”
“Ah, but this time you may keep your weapons,” the former Walls said, his own grin wide and open. “The new Tenebroso says that all Mercenary Brothers are to be regarded as members of his House. Your Partner and yourself above all others.”
Dhulyn absently stroked Bloodbone’s neck. “Does he now? That’s kind of him.” She supposed it was, really, but somehow she couldn’t find herself grateful.
“So you may go about your business, Scholar. The Wolfshead will be in the small salon when you are ready.”
When Gundaron looked at her, Dhulyn nodded. “Go ahead, Scholar, I’ve no need to see that room again.”
Karlyn waited until Gundaron had run up the left-hand staircase before leading Dhulyn away to the right.
“You won’t be familiar with the small salon,” he said, holding open a heavy wood door with a small iron grille at eye height for her. “Dal is converting it to his study, and restoring the old Tenebroso’s sitting room to its public function.”
“I’m surprised to see you still here, if you don’t intend to become Walls again,” Dhulyn said.
He let her pass through the door, then paused a moment holding it open. Dhulyn stopped and looked back at him. He faced her, but his crystal-blue eyes were focused inward.
“It’s not my plan to stay here,” he said, finally lifting his eyes to her. “But it’s as good a place to live as any until this crisis ends, or until I know where I wish to be.”
“You are not too old to make a Mercenary Brother, if you lived through the Schooling,” she said.
His smile, for all that it creased his eyes, made him look younger. “I’ve lived through several things already.”
Gundaron’s room wasn’t exactly as he’d left it. It was clear that someone had searched it, but it had been someone who had left the room almost as neat as they’d found it. The books and scrolls had clearly been taken from the shelf and then stuffed back in place without regard for either order or bent corners; the bed had been stripped of linens, but the linens themselves had been taken away and the bed restored-almost-to its place against the wall.
He wasn’t surprised to find the same partially restored order in his clothespress, though he was surprised that his spare tunics were still there. What wasn’t there, however, was the box of drugs that should have been on the top shelf.
Gun chewed on his bottom lip. He’d taken the drugs to the workroom when he’d given them to Dhulyn Wolfshead. He’d brought them back here-hadn’t he? He touched the spot on the shelves where the pearwood box should be. Well, if he had brought it back, whoever had searched the room had taken it away again.
That did leave him one other place to look.
He was actually out the door and into the hallway before he remembered there was something else he’d come here to get.
Karlyn tapped on the right-hand leaf of a set of plain double doors and opened it without waiting. The room within was neither as crowded and carpeted as the old woman’s room, nor as cold and heavy-furnitured as Lok-iKol’s. The floors were plain golden wood, clean and polished. The furniture, while sturdy, was limited to a few chairs of a light-colored wood, backs, seats, and arms covered with tooled leather, with a few bright-patterned cushions scattered about. The walls held simple ink drawings, there were flowers in low vases, and dried fruit in shallow ceramic bowls. As they entered, the new House, Dal-eLad Tenebroso, was studying the top of a low, round table that sat between two of the leather-covered armchairs. Before he got to his feet, he shifted something on the table with his fingertips with a movement that was very familiar to Dhulyn. She waited until he raised his head and smiled before advancing into the room herself. When she got close enough, she was not surprised to see that the tabletop was covered with what looked to be a very old set of vera tiles. Most were turned facedown, as if a game were about to begin.
“Do you play the tiles, Tenebroso?”
“Please, call me Dal. We are related, in an odd way, though it seems we’re not to acknowledge it. And no, I get no pleasure from gambling. I don’t even play the Solitary hands, really. It’s the patterns that interest me most. I lay the tiles out in the old patterns as a way to help me relax.”
“The old patterns?”
“The Seer’s Patterns, my nurse used to call them. It’s why I wanted to see you, as it happens.” He gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite him before resuming his own seat.
Dal laid the tips of his fingers lightly on the backs of the tiles nearest him. “My mother brought this set into our Household. I don’t know how far back it goes in her family, but it was said the set was made in the time of the Caids.”
Dhulyn shrugged, her eyes on the tiles. “It’s certainly possible. If parchments and even some paper can last so long, why not tiles? Do you know what they’re made of?”
“Some kind of bone or stone, judging by how they change temperature.” He picked up a piece and handed it to her.
Dhulyn lifted the tile to her mouth and touched it with the tip of her tongue, tested it with her teeth. “Stone, I would say. I do use the tiles for gambling, as it happens, but I doubt you’ve asked for me in order to teach you how.”
Dal laughed softly. “Quite right. Turn over the tile you’ve got in your hand.”
Suddenly-
A HEAVY WEIGHT OF TIME; GENERATIONS; HOUSES RISE AND FALL. A MOUNTAIN PUSHES UP OUT OF THE SEA. AN ISLAND. SHE TOOK A SHARP BREATH…
“Wolfshead, I said, ‘are you all right?’ ”
“Yes, thank you.” Eyebrows raised, Dhulyn turned the tile over. Rather than being marked with one of the cups, coins, swords, or spears that she was familiar with, this tile had a circle with a dot in the middle. She looked back at Dal-eLad.
He was nodding. “There are tiles in this set not seen in the sets used for gambling. That’s one of them. There are four tiles with that dot and circle. And three other sets of four.” He began turning over the tiles in front of him. “A simple straight line, running lengthwise down the center. A rectangle, just smaller than the tile itself, and a triangle, centered along the length of the tile, like a spearhead.”
Dhulyn set down the tile she held next to its brothers. “A line, a circle, a rectangle, a triangle. Four in each pattern. Sixteen extra tiles?”
Dal shook his head. “Seventeen. This one is unique.” He picked up a tile that lay to his left, and showed, if possible, more wear than the others. When he turned it over, Dhulyn could see, faint but clear, a design of three concentric circles.
“Could the other three have been lost?”
Dal shook his head. “My nurse said no, the set had always been like this.”
“But surely, if the set is so very old…” Dhulyn let her objection die away as Dal went on shaking his head.
“No other tile is missing, you can tell by the wear and the patterns that they are all original. What odds would you give me that three tiles only, and those particular three would be the only ones lost since the time of the Caids? No. This tile is unique.”
“So.” Dhulyn leaned back in her chair, tapping her lips with her linked fingers. “Seventeen extra tiles w
e don’t use in the modern sets of vera tiles. And these patterns, what are they?”
“As I said, my nurse called them the Seer’s Patterns. My sisters and I-”
Dhulyn looked up from her study of the tiles. Dal sat with his elbow on the table, chin in his hand, lips pressed tightly together. His sisters are gone, she thought, and it still hurts him.
“My sisters and I,” Dal began again, his voice lower and carefully under control, “would pretend to be Seers, telling each other’s fortunes.” He cleared his throat and began turning all the tiles faceup. “You know that some of the tiles have names, other than their places in the suits?”
“The Tarkina of Swords is called the Black Maid, the nine of cups is called Wealth, that kind of thing?”
Dal nodded. “Exactly.” He held one tile in his hand, leaving the others as they lay. “My nurse said that once upon a time all the tiles had names, and meanings as well. That you would choose the tile that stood for you, and from it your fortune could be told.”
Dhulyn leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table.
“Show me.”
“This is my tile,” he said, showing her the Mercenary of Coins. “A young man or woman, golden-haired, brown-eyed. This tile would be placed in the center of a table such as this one. I would ask my question, and this tile,” he held up the singleton, “with its concentric circles, would be placed atop my own.” He set the unique tile on top of the Mercenary of Coins. “The circled dot above, the triangle below, the rectangle to the right, the line to the left, forming a small cross. We would toss the rest of the tiles, and, drawing one at a time, place one face up above the circled dot, one below the triangle, one to the right of the rectangle, and one to the left of the line, extending the arms of the cross.” Pretending to draw tiles from the box, Dal placed them as he indicated. “Lastly, we would choose four more, one at a time, and place them in a vertical here, to the left of the tiles we’ve already set up. This is the simplest of the Seer’s Patterns.”
“The simplest?” Dhulyn drew down her brows in a frown, shaking her head. “And what does it tell you?”
Dal spread his hands, palms raised. “That I can’t say. No one in my family ever had the Sight, to my knowledge. But I thought that you…”
Dhulyn let her lower lip slip from between her teeth. “I’ve seen these markings before,” she said. She tapped one of the rectangle tiles with her fingernail. “Around the base of Mar’s bowl. They’re-” the blood rushed to her ears. “They’re Marks.” She looked up, smiling, but Dal was frowning his incomprehension. “Marks,” she said again. “This one’s a Seer,” she tapped the circled dot. “It looks like an eye. This one’s a Finder, Gundaron says Finding is like following a straight line.”
Now Dal was nodding. “So one of these is a Healer-”
“Probably the square.”
“And the other’s a Mender.”
“But this one,” Dhulyn tapped the unique tile with its concentric circles. “I’ve no idea what this one might be. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Because it’s a Lens,” Gun said from the doorway. Dal jumped in his seat, but Dhulyn didn’t even look around. “The missing Mark.”
“What do you mean, my Scholar?”
Gundaron held up the scroll in his hand. “It’s in the Commentaries, the part I couldn’t remember, Holderon writes about an ancient text of the Caids, one that existed in his day but doesn’t any longer, though some of the stories it was said to contain have come down to us in the forms of folk songs and plays. Anyway, in the part that I’m referring to, Holderon appears to be answering the argument of another Scholar, and it’s Holderon’s position that the other Scholar is mistaken, that the Missing Mark, the so-called Lens, doesn’t exist.”
“A fifth Mark? What was his logic?”
“That while everyone knew of the other Marks, no one had ever encountered a Lens.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a person,” Dal said. “Perhaps it was an artifact?”
An artifact, Dhulyn thought. A round artifact. One, perhaps, that had somewhere along the line been disguised as something more ordinary, and therefore not nearly as old. Something round could easily be disguised as… Dhulyn’s blood began to pound in her ears. As a bowl, for example.
Dal and Gundaron had gone on talking, and after a moment Dhulyn realized they were suggesting that she try Seeing, using the tiles.
“I’m afraid there is no fresnoyn,” Gundaron was saying. “I’ve tried Finding, but I get nothing.”
“Possibly Lok-iKol used it,” Dhulyn said, shelving her thoughts about the bowl. It would wait until they were back in the Dome. “Let me see what the tiles can do. Which shall I use?”
“I should think you’d be the Mercenary of Swords,” Dal said. “You’re not old enough to use the Tarkina’s tile.”
“I use my own tile?”
“A Sight that involved you might prove to be most useful,” Dal suggested.
Dhulyn nodded and took the tile he handed her, setting it down in the center of the table as Dal had shown her. How do I call the Sleeping God? she asked herself. As she placed the tiles she thought of as the other Marks, Dal swept the rest off the table, and shook them in their box. As they were placed, Dhulyn tried not to guide her thoughts, but to let them float freely, making whatever associations they might form by themselves. Her Visions usually came to her in her sleep; those very few she’d had in her waking state had always fallen upon her like a blow. Unlike Gundaron, she had never used her Mark deliberately, never sought after a Vision. Perhaps she would See one, though, if their methods were not too broken. And providing the Visions were not so thoroughly linked to her woman’s time that this effort was wasted. That tile was the Tarkin of Swords, clearly a man and he was holding a type of sword very much like one she owns, though she doesn’t use it much as it’s…
NOT THE SWORD OF A HORSEMAN. SHE CAN SEE NOW THAT THE MERCENARY’S CLOTHES ARE BRIGHTLY COLORED, AND FIT HIM CLOSELY EXCEPT FOR THE SLEEVES WHICH FALL FROM HIS SHOULDERS LIKE INVERTED LILIES.
HE TURNS AWAY FROM THE STRANGELY TIDY WORKTABLE AND TOWARD A CIRCULAR MIRROR, AS TALL AS HE IS HIMSELF. THE MIRROR DOESN’T REFLECT THE ROOM, HOWEVER, BUT SHOWS A NIGHT SKY FULL OF STARS. HIS LIPS MOVE AND SHE SEES HIM NOW FROM THAT SIDE, AS IF SHE WERE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR AND HIS LIPS FORM WHAT DHULYN KNOWS ARE THE WORDS FROM THE BOOK. ADELGARREMBIL HE SAYS, AND THEN ACUCHEEYAROB. A FOREIGN TONGUE?
“Wolfshead. Wolfshead wake up.”
Dhulyn snatched the hand from her shoulder and only just stopped from breaking the wrist when she realized the person shaking her was Mar-eMar. Dhulyn’s heart grew cold. The little Dove was out of breath and as pale as lilies. Behind her, in the doorway of Dal-eLad’s salon, was the Mercenary Brother Oswin Battlehammer.
“Dhulyn, hurry. Tek-aKet’s sitting on the Carnelian Throne and he’s-” she shot a glance over her shoulder at the Brother in the doorway. “He’s raving.”
“Where’s Parno?” Dhulyn was already into the hallway and heading to the courtyard where Bloodbone waited.
“At the doors to the throne room letting no one in, but you must…”
Mar fell behind, but Dhulyn went on running. She knew perfectly well what the girl had been about to say. “You must hurry.” Of course she must. Wait too long, and Parno would go in without her.
Twenty-five
“HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” Dhulyn stood with her right hand pressed tightly against the ornate carving of the doors to the Carnelian Throne Room, as if she could somehow reach through and sense what was happening inside.
“You think I know?” Parno growled. “I was helping the Tarkina with the Semlorian ambassador when the page, Telian-Han, came running for me. He’d gone to the Tarkin’s room with the midday meal and found the guard who’d been left there dead on the floor.”
“And the Tarkina?”
“Keeping the ambassador calm, I imagine.” Parno closed his fingers around her upper arm. “Dhulyn, my hear
t, don’t do it. It doesn’t have a head wound now. What if it-it must know you are coming? The best you’ll accomplish is to send it to another body.”
“You prefer to have the Green Shadow as Tarkin of Imrion?” She looked at him as if she didn’t even feel his grip on her arm. Her eyes were as bright as the edge of a knife.
“Besides, I promised him I would kill him. I gave my word.”
“We have only you and Gundaron. If it destroys you before you can kill Tek-aKet, we will never prevail against it.”
“I gave my word.”
“At least let me come in with you.” He knew it was no use even before she started shaking her head.
“I can kill him,” she said. “I don’t know that I could kill you if…
Parno let his hand drop to his side. He’d known what her answer would be, but he’d had to try. She was what she was. When Dhulyn took his face in her hands, he did not pull away.
“Beslyn-Tor said, ‘like this,’ did he not?” Dhulyn’s steel-gray eyes fixed on his.
Parno closed his hands around her wrists. “He did.”
“Eye-to-eye, that’s how the Shadow moves, and how, I’ll wager, he destroys.”
“And so?”
“And so? Blindfold me, you idiot.”
Eyes covered with a piece of silk torn from one of the hangings and threaded through the braids of her hair for security, Dhulyn settled her shoulders, breathing deeply, slowly. Beginning the discipline she privately thought of as Blind Parno’s Shora, from when the horizon sickness had forced her Partner to go blindfolded to cross the Blasonar Plains. She became conscious of the timing of her breathing, the movement of the air, so that each breath took the same length of time going in and going out. In. Out. As her breathing fell into a rhythm, as her body and her thoughts calmed, in the darkness of the blindfold her senses woke. She heard the air move through Parno’s lungs, and the soft susurration of his clothes as they adjusted to the movement of his chest. She felt her own skin move against her vest as she breathed, and pushed her senses outward.
The Sleeping God Page 46
