“Come with me, Cousin,” he said. “I would ask something of you.”
If I didn’t know better, Dal thought as he followed Lok through the door and nodded at the redheaded page who waited there and fell into step behind them, I’d think he was drunk. There was just something a bit too careful, too focused, about the way Lok was speaking-and walking, now that Dal thought about it.
Any other time Dal would have welcomed the chance to walk through the private corridors of the Carnelian Dome, places that the public-even relations like the Tenebros-never saw. As it was, he kept his eyes on his cousin, and only took in the occasional detail, here a portrait of a heavily bewigged Tarkina, there a rug showing the bright dyes that marked it as a product of Semlor in the west.
Lok finally stopped outside a thick oak door, reinforced with embedded iron bars, whose massive frame was carved to look like snakes. Treasure room or armory, Dal thought, recognizing the motifs of the Culebro Tarkins. The page, pale, wide-eyed, and tight-lipped, once more took up his position to the right of the door, ready to wait until he was wanted.
Lok unlocked the thick door with a final twist of the key and walked straight into the room. Dal stopped dead on the threshold, until he realized that the reason his mouth felt dry was that it was hanging open. Treasure room he had thought, and treasure room it was, but thought is one thing, and sight another. A long central aisle stretched out between tiered shelving, every shelf covered with dark blue felted cloth, and every finger span of cloth covered. Plates and tableware used on state occasions filled more than half the room, personal jewelry by the basketful-including the cat’s-eye rubies the Tarkina had brought with her on her marriage-and, halfway along one side, the Tarkin’s gold crown, bracelets, ear clasps, and pectoral of woven snakes, every one with gleaming carnelian eyes.
“The lists say there is a relic of the Sleeping God here,” Lok said, so quietly that Dal almost did not hear him. “A bracelet with green stones.”
Dal took a step forward. “Did you wish me to look for it?” His voice sounded harsh in his own ears, but Lok did not seem to notice.
“No, I wish you to find me the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead.” Lok stopped, turned to the shelves on his right and picked up a pendant, a square-cut emerald set in silver wire. He frowned and set it down again.
Dal almost smiled as he watched his cousin pick up yet another piece of jewelry with a green stone and set it down again. Finally, a chance to learn why Lok found this woman so important.
“The Mercenary?” Dal said, careful to show no real interest. “What is it about this woman…?”
Lok had stopped again, this time to pick up a bracelet made of gold links set with square smooth-polished stones. From that, and from the color and thickness of the gold, it was obviously very old. These stones, too, were green, but seemed likely to be jade. As Dal watched, Lok pushed it on over his hand, barely able to move it past the root of his thumb, to where it hung closely about his wrist.
Dal cleared his throat to ask his question again, but he hesitated, as his cousin had closed his eye, tilting his head back as if he were listening to some favorite music. Glancing down, Dal saw the bracelet on Lok’s wrist move, as if it were suddenly a living thing, its colors suddenly painfully bright, and then fading, dissolving as it was absorbed into Lok’s wrist, until it seemed he had a tattoo there, where his skin had been clear and clean a moment before. Even as Dal took a breath to exclaim, the tattoo faded, and Lok’s skin was clean again. Dal looked up, but his cousin’s eye was focused on the spot on his wrist where the bracelet had been. And his shadow, cast on the wall behind him was not his own, but larger, darker, than it should have been, and somehow the wrong shape. Dal’s own shadow was beside it, pale and small and normal.
“Lok, what…?” His voice was paper thin and Dal cleared his throat. Without moving the rest of his body, Lok twisted his head to look at him and Dal saw that Lok’s right eye, clear and beautiful in the unmarred side of his face was green. Not crystal blue as it had always been, but a soft jade green. And Lok’s eye patch had shifted, perhaps because of how he’d turned his head and Dal lifted his left hand to his own face, as if to indicate to his cousin what had happened, but he froze, unable to move.
Both of Lok’s eyes were green. Both of them.
Seventeen
KARLYN-TAN HAD TO STEEL himself not to twitch away from people, not to hug the walls as he walked down the street. He recognized his feelings as the horizon sickness, though he’d never suffered from the fear of open spaces before. There was not too much space, he told himself, just more than he was used to-and too many strangers. Already this afternoon he’d had to convince two young toughs that he wasn’t someone they could prey on. Thank the Caids, Dal-eDal had given him a sword. He now walked with his hand openly resting on the sword’s hilt, as a message to any other tough boys in the area.
He kept walking, following the market crowds into the Great Square, resisting the urge to run back to his inn-run away from outside. He took a deep breath and looked around him, forcing his shoulders down. Was it his imagination, or was everyone around him walking too quickly, heads ducked, cloaks held more closely than the warm day called for? He frowned. He’d been Walls too long to remember what people on the outside were like.
Karlyn walked directly across the square, heading for the steps in the southeast corner that would lead him out into Swordsmiths Street and Mercenary House.
There were several people on the wide stone steps leading from Great Square to the street below and Karlyn’s attention kept being drawn to one of them in particular. Fair-haired, medium height, fair width of shoulders… and the right shoulder hitched up a bit, as if he was used to carrying a pack or heavy bag slung over it. Horizon sickness forgotten, Karlyn increased his pace. He knew that walk and that shoulder hitch even without the Scholar’s tunic; he’d been watching them around Tenebro House for the last two years. So Gundaron of Valdomar was still in Gotterang, and where was he heading now?
Mar sat in the window hole of the ruin just an alley length away from their hiding spot under the old floorboards of the abandoned granary. She’d been the one to go for water this morning, while Gun went to see if he could get into his Library. They weren’t going to be able to stay out on the streets very much longer, not unless they wanted to start selling things-and what did they have to sell but a few articles of clothing and the tools of their trades? If it wasn’t for having to hide from every pair of guards, and every sound of horses’ hooves, they would have been well able to make a living selling their skills, but as it was, they’d be running out of money and things to barter very quickly.
She was listening carefully for the short three-note whistle that would mean Gundaron had entered the alley. She’d answer with the agreed-upon variation, and then watch from her hiding spot as he walked to the end of their lane past the entrance to their cellar and turned the corner. She’d wait for a count of fifty and, if the lane stayed empty, she’d whistle again. Gundaron would double back and meet her as she let herself down from her window hole. This was just one of the ways they’d figured out between them-her from stories she’d picked up from Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane, Gundaron from his fund of reading-of watching if anyone was following them, or if anyone had found their hiding place. Still, Mar was getting heartily sick of spending most of her time watching her back.
When the whistle finally came, she answered it, and Gundaron glanced up to where he knew she would be. When their eyes met, a new look passed over his face, a familiar look.