The Sleeping God

by Violette Malan

  Gun pressed his lips together into a thin line and nodded. When she saw that he intended to stand, Mar helped him to his feet. He looked to Dhulyn, then to Parno, and nodded again. Parno picked up the two heaviest packs, one in each hand to balance himself, and set off. Dhulyn picked up the two remaining packs and watched as Mar and Gun followed her Partner.

  They were a little more than halfway across when the boy spoke.

  “I thought the Carnelian Dome was impregnable from this side,” he said, in a voice that was a tight parody of nonchalance.

  “Oh, you can’t get in this way.” Parno answered as if he hadn’t heard the tightness.

  “But you can get out,” Dhulyn said.

  Parno led them only a few spans farther, until the section of wall that led off from their tower met the ruined corner that was all that remained of a tower that no longer existed. There was room enough-just-for them to stand together.

  Parno began unhooking the ropes that tied them together, coiling them neatly at their feet.

  “Use these cords to tie your packs to your wrists, my Doves. Mar, check Gun’s knots. Use the ones we showed you on the trail.”

  When her own pack was ready, Dhulyn retied the rope that had attached her to Gun, making it much shorter. When Parno had done the same with the rope between him and Mar, Dhulyn leaned over the edge of the most exposed corner of wall, looked back at them and grinned. “I forgot to ask, can you swim?”

  Gun shot a quick look over the edge. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Never more so, my Scholar. The cliff’s undercut, and there are no rocks in the river, which is deep enough. I checked. We’ll go first,” she added, to Parno.

  “Got him?” Parno said, as he took Mar’s hands in his, moving her away from the edge.

  “Got him,” Dhulyn said. With her right hand, she gripped Gun’s right wrist, and was gripped by him in return. Parno caught her eye above the youngsters’ heads.

  “In Battle,” he mouthed.

  Mindful that Gun and Mar could see her face, Dhulyn merely smiled and bowed her head, touching her fingertips to her lips.

  “Let’s go.”

  As she and Gun stepped out into space and began to fall, Dhulyn wished she’d really had a chance to check that the river was deep enough. She’d worked it out in her head, but…

  The shock of the cold as they hit the water was enough to push every fear from Gun’s mind, and more than enough to make him gasp. Unfortunately, he was underwater as he did it. His pack dragged heavily at his right wrist and he had time to be thankful that it was not harnessed to his back before he began to cough. Hard fingers caught him by the front of his tunic and heaved him into the air just in time. He struggled to push himself still farther out of the water, stopping only when a bone-crushing grip on his wrists made him realize that the object he was forcing deeper under his weight was Dhulyn Wolfshead. He was lying half across her, facedown, and she had only her face out of the water. The angle she held him at was just such that he was able to cough out the water in his lungs without breathing in any more.

  The coughing seemed as though it would last forever, and by the time it had stopped and Gun was able to loosen his grip on the Wolfshead and look about him, the current of the river had taken them away from the Carnelian Dome, and downstream, toward the summer homes of the very rich.

  “I can swim,” he said.

  “Not just yet,” she said. “Let the current take us for now. Turn over on your back.”

  With the Wolfshead to brace against, turning over was easy. Gun had a difficult moment when he thought he’d begin coughing again, but it passed. The Wolfshead slipped her own arm under his and across his chest, holding him against her but with his head well above the water. He forced himself to relax, breathing steadily and slowly, as she used a lazy sidestroke to give them steerage as they floated downstream. The water still felt icily cold, and Gun knew that luck was with them. It was too early in the year for water sports, and the wrong time of day for fishing. It wasn’t long before piers and jetties were replaced by boathouses, water pavilions, and long stretches of terraced gardens leading away from the water. Gun’s teeth began to chatter and he almost didn’t feel it when Dhulyn Wolfshead nudged him on the shoulder.

  “Look up,” she said, a murmur in his ear.

  Gun tried, but could make out nothing beyond the shadowy shapes of clouds partially obscuring the darkening sky.

  “What is it,” he said, keeping his own voice low.

  “A Racha bird,” she said. “Time to swim.”

  If he had to spend three hours in the river, Parno thought, the Tenebro’s summer household was the ideal place to come out. Built to provide a comfortable setting for those refreshing themselves in the water, there were numerous pavilions, each with three or four charcoal braziers to help swimmers dry themselves and their clothing quickly after a twilight swim. Parno had indeed remembered the place from his long-ago childhood visits, and it hadn’t been hard for him to find his way through the grounds. There had been only one pavilion with lights still burning, and as they’d dragged themselves, wet, cold, and exhausted, from the river’s edge, they’d found warmth, servants, food and-perhaps most important of all-their saddlebags.

  It didn’t surprise him that it was Karlyn-Tan who greeted them, directing the bustle of the servants as they stoked braziers, fetched hot water and food, and led Gun and Mar off for warm baths, hot drinks, and dry clothing. It made sense that Dal would have sent one of the few others who knew exactly what was at stake.

  With a nod of thanks Parno accepted a steaming mug from an older man with a Steward’s badge in the Tenebro colors.

  Dhulyn pulled her wet shirt over her head and handed it to a waiting page, accepting a large towel in exchange. She must have felt Parno’s eye on her, for she looked over at him, lifting one blood-red brow.

  “I saw a Racha bird,” she said.

  Karlyn nodded, caught the Steward’s attention, and waited as the man gathered up his helpers with a gesture of his hand and left the room. “I’ve much to tell you, the chief of which is that Cullen is here, with us.”

  “Why?” Parno said, just as Dhulyn said, “Where?”

  Karlyn held up his hands. “He regained his senses, and as the Racha accepted him, and his eyes were normal, we felt he must be clean. Even so, Zelianora Tarkina felt he would be safest with us. If there is any chance the Shadow is with him, we are the only people equipped to both recognize and deal with it.”

  Dhulyn looked up from toweling her hair as dry as it would get while still in braids. “There’s merit in that idea, much as I wish she hadn’t thought of it,” she said. “Now we’ll have to spend precious time watching to make sure he isn’t trying to escape.” She exchanged a look with Parno. In it was the knowledge that so long as they did not know for certain where the Green Shadow was, they would all be at risk, and they could trust no one.

  Parno set his cup down. “What else is there to tell us?”

  Karlyn had been leaning against the edge of the table near Parno, arms crossed. Now he looked down at the floor, chewing his upper lip.

  “Out with it, man,” Parno told him. “What could be worse than knowing we might have the Shadow with us?”

  “We had not time, before, to wonder how it was the Shadow returned to the Tarkin.”

  Parno stopped in the act of pulling off his own tunic. “And now?”

  Karlyn looked at Parno without raising his head. He shot a glance at Dhulyn, but his eyes did not linger. “The Mesticha Stone came.”

  Dhulyn finished pulling on the dry breeches she’d taken from her saddlebag, secured the waist, and strode toward Karlyn-Tan. The towel she’d been using was slung over her shoulders like a cloak, not out of modesty, Parno knew, but out of the habit that made her cover the marks of the whip on her back, when they might be seen by strangers.

  “The orders to bring it directly to the Tarkin upon its arrival had never been changed,” Karlyn said, looking di
rectly at Dhulyn. “And so it was brought to him.”

  “And Cullen?”

  “Saw the Tarkin in the hallway, heading for the gates, he thought, and chased him into the throne room.”

  “Or so he says,” Parno said.

  “Or so he says,” Karlyn agreed. “Either way, the Mesticha Stone was not found in the bedchamber when it was looked for afterward.”

  Dhulyn turned aside, tossed her towel across the back of a chair near the brazier, and took a vest made of dozens of strips of supple leather out of her saddlebag, shrugged it on, and began fastening it shut. “The Shadow was in the Tarkin,” she said. “It must have been ‘visiting’ him, as we suspected it might. When the Stone arrived, it seized its opportunity.”

  “It was the last piece,” Parno said. “It’s at its full strength now.”

  Dhulyn looked up from her laces. “And the Racha seems content?”

  “As far as any of us can tell,” Karlyn said. “Nor does the Cloudman object to riding bound, if we prefer it.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he?”

  “What is it you’re thinking, my heart?”

  Parno looked from Dhulyn to Karlyn and back again. “He’d want to come with us, don’t you think?” He held up one finger. “We’ve got the only Seer he knows of, and,” he held up a second finger, “we’ve got a Finder.” A third finger. “We’re going to the only place we can be sure there are other Marks. What more does he want? He can let us do his work for him.”

  Dhulyn had taken breath to answer him when Karlyn spoke.

  “So we’re safe enough on the journey,” he said. “If the Shadow’s with us, it won’t do any harm until we arrive.”

  “Us?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d better come with you, don’t you think?”

  He kept his eyes down and his face animated. Now that he was whole again-he stifled the shape’s attempt to retch-he remembered more. He knew better how to hide himself. He had done it in the past. Instead of ignoring the shape’s own occupant, pushing its consciousness away once its knowledge had been shifted, he had to wear it as he wore the shape, occupy it as he occupied the shape. With care, he could bide his time. With patience he could deal with the Seer. Patience could lead him to the Lens.

  Twenty-six

  “THERE IS A SHADOW hanging over us all, a Shadow with green eyes.”

  Koba the Racha bird eyed Dhulyn from his perch near the fire as Yaro of Trevel gestured her into a seat, hooked the heavy kettle of water on the andiron, and swung it into the fireplace until it rested closer to the flames. As Dhulyn took up her tale, telling what they knew, what they thought, and what they hoped, Yaro watched the kettle, waiting for the water to come to a boil.

  When Dhulyn had been silent a moment or two, the woman who was once Yaro Hawkwing the Cloud, Mercenary Brother, tossed a handful of leaves into the now boiling water and, pulling the kettle away from the fire with a heavy cloth, set it on a small iron stand to one side of the hearth. The room began to smell of bee balm.

  “I know why you’ve come to me,” Yaro said. She stood a few moments longer, looking into the flames, before turning to face Dhulyn. When their eyes met, the older woman reached up and touched the feathers tattooed on her face. “You would ask of Cullen.”

  Yaro turned away to take two thick earthenware mugs from a small shelf to the left of the fireplace and set them down on the table between them. She picked up the cloth she’d used to shield her hand from the kettle’s handle, but, instead of turning to the fire, stood still, the cloth hanging from her hand, her eyes staring into a distance of time and space.

  “If Cullen is not in his body, then Disha would not fly.” And as if the words released her, she was able to turn to the hearth, pick up the kettle, and pour out the strong-smelling brew into the mugs on the table. When she had set the kettle down once again on the hearth, she took the stool across from Dhulyn, wrapped her hands around the mug in front of her, and studied the surface of the tea.

  “But if the Shadow is in Cullen’s body, would it not be in Disha’s as well? Could Disha not fly then?”

  Yaro opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head once more. “I do not know if I can make you see. You told me that Tek-aKet Tarkin was gone from his body until the Scholar Found him?”

  “In his own words,” Dhulyn said, remembering, “he said that at first he had been pushed out, then allowed to return, but as a passenger. Later, when I struck the Shadow, Tek-aKet was lost. As though the body lived, but he was not in it.”

  Yaro tapped the tabletop with her index finger. “Without Healer or Mender, in the moment, however short, that the Shadow pushed Cullen from his body, Disha would fall.”

  “But you-”

  “Had a two-month bond, no more, and as it was, only one of us survived. Cullen and Disha have been more than half their lives one being. If they were severed, even for an instant, even for a time so short that the mind cannot conceive of it, they would die.” Yaro placed both hands palm down on the table, one to each side of her empty mug. “It is as I say, Dhulyn Wolfshead, my Brother. If Disha still flies, Cullen is free of the Shadow.” She breathed deeply in through her nose and, blinking, raised her mug to her lips.

  Dhulyn nodded, slowly. There must be such a moment, however short, in which the Shadow did move. What Yaro said made sense-but Dhulyn was aware that it was also what she wanted to hear, and therefore suspect. It was clear that Yaro spoke what she thought to be the truth, and Dhulyn believed her. But was that enough? It seemed a small thread from which to hang the fate of the world. Dhulyn rose to her feet, touched her forehead with her fingertips.

  “It is good to have seen you, Brother,” the older woman said.

  “You will see me again,” Dhulyn said. Yaro raised her eyes. “In Battle.”

  “Or in Death,” Yaro Hawkwing replied.

  The bird flew overhead, circling, circling, balanced on the currents of air.

  What to do, what to do? If he destroyed the Healer now, would they suspect, or would they think it merely her time?

  A Mender was coming. If he destroyed any of the Marked now, even the old woman, perhaps the Mender would not come. If he struck, he might lose the chance to destroy the Mender as well. He looked up into the sky and watched the bird float on an updraft, seeming to hang in the air that these folk thought of as nothing, not knowing the true nothing. The NOT. If he struck, they would know he was here, now, when they had almost forgotten to suspect, and they would hunt for him. But without the Lens, what could they do?

  He could wait. He had overheard the two younger ones talking in the night, when they thought all asleep. They believed they had the Lens, and this belief weakened them. They no longer searched for it, and he could destroy them before they ever realized they should continue to look. He was strong enough, now that he was whole again. He could turn all back to that moment, when he first had form. If he waited, if he managed to find the Lens before them. This time he could succeed. This time he could turn this world into the NOT.

  Or could there be another way? The bird swept down, and he pushed himself away from the edge of the wall. What if he did not destroy? What if he occupied? Was he strong enough for that? His breath came short, and he tried to steady the pounding of his heart. Was one form any worse than another? He had never looked from the eyes of a Mark-but they would never suspect. Once accomplished, it would be the safest place for him to wait.

  Oh, I knew Gotterang well. I traveled much in my younger days, as was the rule then, and had been, time out of mind, see you. Scholars traveled then, too, but the only ones who still do are you Mercenaries, and I think that tells us something, don’t you?”

  Dhulyn glanced up from the washbasin to where the Healer, Sortera, sat in the shaft of sunlight that entered through the doorway of the public washhouse in Trevel. It was the old woman’s presence here which had brought them to Trevel, and today she was taking advantage of a warm day and a good breeze to launder her winter garments
. After a few minutes of watching the Healer trying to wring out soaking cloth with her crook-fingered hands Dhulyn had asked her to sit down, and had taken over the task of the wash herself, with Mar to help her. Sortera had smiled in such a way, her teeth remarkably good in her wrinkled face, that Dhulyn was certain she’d been outfoxed. But she hid her own smile and kept her thoughts to herself.

  Not that laundry was Dhulyn’s purpose here this morning. Cullen was as clear-eyed and apparently Shadow free as he had been all the way from Gotterang, but Dhulyn felt only somewhat reassured by what Yaro had told her the night before. After talking it over with Parno, they’d decided that, as far as the Shadow was concerned, very few precautions could be called “unnecessary.” She and Mar were watching Sortera; Gundaron they’d left with Parno, going through what scrolls and books the Clouds had in their library. A young Mender boy was coming from Pompano, and until he and his Racha bird escort arrived, no Mark was being left unguarded.

  “We Marks didn’t live settled into a city in those days, see you,” Sortera continued telling them as Dhulyn scooped up another handful of the soft soap in the nearby bucket. “We were all of us on the road, taking our Mark, whatever it might be, to everyone.” She leaned forward, resting her hands, with their heavy veins, on the knob of her cane. “Back in those times, people would save only their most important things for a Mender, and they didn’t waste a Finder’s time on lost scissors or lapdogs, see you. No, it was more like: ‘where did granddad put the harvest money for safety before he fell off his horse and died?’ or ‘can you Find us the spot for our new well?’ That was our work in those times, see you. Marked of the gods, we were. When us Marked started living in cities,” she shook her head, “that was when the trouble started, as far as I’m concerned. Then we were like any tradesman, and people started treating us that way.”

  Dhulyn carefully squeezed the soapy water out of a thick inglera wool shawl and passed it to Mar for rinsing. Mar pulled the wooden sluice gate from the water channel between the double row of stone sinks and let fresh rainwater flow into her basin from the cistern on the roof. They were the only people in the washhouse this morning, and could use as much water as they liked.