Light voices sang out ahead of her as a small group of children ran out from a crossing lane, racing down to the small square between the Jaldeans’ tower and the public fountain.
Bursting into the open space, the children did a quick rhyming count to see who would be the victim-“one two, sky blue, all out but you” was what Dhulyn caught-and one small boy was blindfolded and took his place in the center of four others. As these four joined hands and began to chant, Dhulyn stopped to watch, setting her buckets down on the cobblestones.
“Sleeping lad, sleeping lad
Turning, turning, turning
One two three, come to me.”
The children repeated the chant several times, stepping first in one direction, then turning and skipping the other way, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Finally, they fell silent, stopped, and dropped hands. The blindfolded boy in the middle began immediately to grope for his friends, grabbing the smallest girl as her giggle gave her location away.
They had used almost the same words and a very similar tune as the children on the pier in Navra, Dhulyn thought; children were so much the same everywhere. So much had happened since the evening when they first met Mar and the Weaver woman in the tavern room of their Navra inn. So much-
“Oh, for blood’s sake.”
A woman passing between her and the children glanced at her with a tentative smile.
The Lens tile in the center with the other Marks placed around it. A child in the center with four others circling around. Circling. Herself asleep on the trail with Mar in her arms, Mar with her hands on Gundaron’s shoulders.
Not the bowl. Mar. Mar herself.
Dhulyn whirled around, almost tripping over the buckets she didn’t remember until much later, and ran back up the hill.
Mar and Gun sat on the stone threshold of Sortera’s house, holding hands, squeezed into the doorway, the door open behind them and a beaded curtain let down to keep flies and direct sunlight from inside the house. Not that it was really hot enough yet for either. Mar held his hand, rested her head on his shoulder. A man had passed them a few minutes earlier, giving them the courteous greeting and half bow that all Clouds seemed to give to Marks, with a special smile when he saw their joined hands. Mar knew that, appearances to the contrary, they were holding hands for comfort and companionship, not love.
But the love’s here, she thought. It’s here.
Gun sighed. “I’m so useless,” he said.
Mar bit back an exasperated retort. “Come on,” she said, as kindly as she could manage given that what she really felt like was slapping him. “We’ve been through this. You’ve done the best you could.”
“And how good was that? Dhulyn Wolfshead had to find it, and the Shadow was right under my nose the whole time.”
Well, no arguing with that, Mar thought. She was trying to come up with an argument, however, when the Wolfshead herself came running up the narrow steps-smiling.
“Gun, you were right, the books were right. I should have listened to you from the start. We’re just too blooded smart for our own good.”
Gun got to his feet. “I was right?”
The beads behind them rattled as Parno Lionsmane joined them in the doorway. Mar felt something tight in her chest loosen as Dhulyn Wolfshead gave her Partner a wide and joyous grin.
“We’re making this too hard. The fifth Mark you said, Gun, and the fifth Mark it is. The Lens isn’t a thing. It’s a Mark, like all the others. Not a thing, a person.”
Shutters popped open in the house across the stairs.
“Inside,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said, ushering everyone before her.
“But why hasn’t anyone met a Lens?” Parno Liondsmane said. “Not even Sortera, and she isn’t sure how long she’s been alive.”
“Listen!” The Wolfshead sat down on a stool. Her chest rose and fell, but she didn’t seem to be out of breath, for all the running uphill she’d just done. She reached out for Gun, and when he was near enough, she took his hands in hers. “You know how all the books and stories say that some Marks are rarer than others. Menders the most common, Seers the most rare? The Lens must be the rarest of all! There’s no general use for a Lens. It only affects another Mark. It’s a focuser, a Lens.”
Gun sat down, and seemed unaware that Parno Lionsmane got a stool under him just in time to prevent his falling to the floor. He was nodding, his eyes focused inward. “It makes sense. It’s logical.” He looked up at Dhulyn Wolfshead. “That passage in Holderon’s Commentaries makes sense if what you say is true. That’s why I couldn’t Find it, I’ve been looking for a thing. You’ve got to be right.”
Mar’s cheeks hurt, and she found she was smiling just as hard as the Mercenaries. The weight that had oppressed everyone since the discovery of Karlyn-Tan’s possession seemed to be lifting.
Then she saw that Gun wasn’t smiling, and she felt her own smile fade.
“But, Wolfshead,” Mar said, sure now that she saw the flaw in all this deduction. “We still don’t know who…”
Dhulyn Wolfshead was holding up one finger. “Oh, yes, we do.”
That was when Mar realized that the Wolfshead was pointing at her. Jerrick Mender was almost twelve years old, thin, with eyes so large and round his name would be Jerrick Owlbeak if he were a Mercenary Brother. When Parno told him that, he seemed quite pleased, and Dhulyn had laughed. Parno had always had a way with children.
“You didn’t see my parents in Gotterang? Savern and Korwina Mender?” he said in a voice too old for his child’s face. A voice that said he knew the answer, but had to ask.
“No, Jerrick, I’m afraid not.”
The boy nodded. “I promised my sisters I would ask. There was another Mercenary Brother who helped us, Hernyn Greystone. Is he with you?”
Parno exchanged a look with Dhulyn, who shrugged. There was no good news to tell this boy.
“Our Brothers are always with us,” Parno said gently, crouching down until he was on Jerrick’s level. “Hernyn Greystone the Shield is with us in Death.”
Jerrick Mender’s lower lip disappeared, and he nodded, blinking.
“Will you be able to help us, Jerrick Mender?” Dhulyn asked.
The boy squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath that shook a little on the way in. “I think so,” he said. “My Mark’s new, but my mother was training me since I was little.”
Parno patted the boy on the shoulder.
It had taken what felt like hours to convince everyone that what she’d suggested could be so, and at that, Dhulyn was sure they were willing to try only because no one could think of something else to do.
“Look,” she had finally said. “It’s Mar that I keep seeing in my Visions-has been right from the start and the same Vision over and over. When Mar is in the room, my Visions are clearer, have more detail, even when I’m using the vera tiles. And it was Mar that Gun kept Finding, not because he was tired and wanted to go to bed, but because he was looking for the Lens.”
“There is one thing,” Parno said now, making room for Jerrick at the table with the others. “Now that we know what the Lens is, what are we going to do with her?”
Dhulyn looked at Gun and nodded. “There’s one of each of us,” he said. “It’s common for Finders, Menders, and Healers to work together; and Sortera remembers working with a Seer, years ago. With her experience to guide us, we should be able to unite our Marks, and using the Lens…” He looked at Mar and seemed to gather strength from her nod. “We’re going to call the Sleeping God.”
“Oh, good,” Parno said. “I was afraid we didn’t know what we were doing.” Dhulyn rolled her eyes.