“Helped by the rumors we and the Scholars are spreading, of course,” Thionan said with a grin.
“And the Marked?” Tek-aKet asked.
Thionan’s voice came low and rough. “Two days ago they started being taken to the Carnelian Dome, and not to the Jaldean Shrines. None have been seen, city or country, since.”
The silence in the room was as thick as inglera fleece.
“We will hope there are some in hiding,” Cullen of Langeron said, as his bird Disha nodded.
Thionan cleared her throat. “There’s something else, though it’s hard to know how significant it is,” she said. “I’m sorry to say, Lord Tarkin, that your counselor, Gan-eGan, was yesterday found hanged in his private chambers. Hanged by his own hand, it appears. It seems a small tragedy in the face of everything else, and in the face of what the Marked have had to endure, but we thought perhaps you would want to know.”
Dhulyn shut her eyes, seeing again the two images of the skinny, overjeweled old man, one with green eyes, the other standing behind, weeping. She blinked. Green eyes again. Like the Mage in her Visions. And the Scholar. Who was on his way even now with information. Perhaps more information than he knew.
Dhulyn glanced at Tek-aKet. He was pale again, his face fixed and resolute. But before she could ask any questions a young woman appeared in the cave’s entrance. Dhulyn recognized her as the same one, Rehnata by name, who had greeted them when they first arrived in Gotterang. Since then, the dark brown hair above her temples and ears had been removed in preparation for the tattooing of her Mercenary badge.
“They are here, my Brothers,” she said to Alkoryn, acknowledging Dhulyn as well with a bob of her head. “Shall we bring them?”
“By all means,” Alkoryn said.
“Watch your head.”
From the sound, the warning had come just a second too late for Karlyn-Tan, Gundaron thought. He himself was too short to worry about bumping his head, but being led blindfolded through passages and tunnels meant bashed elbows and stepped-on toes, no matter how careful your guides. As things were, however, Gun was grateful to have sore elbows and bruised toes to distract him from what was coming. He knew Mar and Karlyn-Tan were right-this was what he had to do. But just at the moment, he was more than half convinced he’d been persuaded against his will.
Finally the blindfolds came off. They’d had them on so long that even the soft light of the lanterns carried by their guides was enough to have all four of them blinking and squinting. Gundaron tried not to hang back as they approached the open doorway of the underground meeting room. Not that he could do much more than drag his feet a bit since there were Mercenary Brothers both in front of and behind him. From what Karlyn-Tan had said, he’d expected Dhulyn Wolfshead herself to lead them to Tek-aKet, but it had been two black-haired Mercenary Brothers with Semlorian accents. The smiles they’d given him when they’d met them at the fountain made the skin on the back of his neck crawl.
Dhulyn Wolfshead would be inside the room, he thought, watching Dal-eDal pass through the entrance. Along with the Brother he hadn’t met, her Partner Parno Lionsmane.
The first Brothers he saw as he followed Mar into the room weren’t the two he was dreading the most, however, but Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon, who went so far as to lay her hand on her sword hilt and grin at him. Gun looked away and, seeing Mar’s face, followed her line of sight to where Dhulyn Wolfshead stood to the left of Tek-aKet. Mar stepped toward the Outlander woman with her hands lifted, reaching out, but hesitated, coming to a stop as the Wolfshead gave her the half bow that was the very knife edge of courtesy among the Noble Houses. Such would be the greeting-Gun had seen it many times-between two nobles who had some long-standing grudge, but were forced to be civil in some public gathering. Dhulyn Wolfshead straightened and turned her eyes away, and Gun braced himself… but her stone-gray eyes moved over and past him as if he was not even there.
He immediately looked down, heart thumping. It seemed he had nothing to fear from Dhulyn Wolfshead. It seemed that as far as she was concerned, he didn’t exist. He found himself hugging his arms around his chest, to convince himself he was there, he was.
When he had enough control of himself to listen, he found that he had missed Dal’s first words. The Tarkin was speaking.
“To say that I am surprised to see you does not begin to describe my feelings, Dal-eDal Tenebro.” He put up his hand and Dal stilled. “You are heir to your House, and now to the Carnelian Throne, and yet you come with your oaths of loyalty to me.”
It was not a question, but Dal-eDal answered it.
“My lord-” he cleared his throat and began again. “I am not an ambitious man. I have never wanted more than my own Household. But my cousin Lok-iKol sees a mirror in every man, and his own image grinning back at him. Fate may lead even a distant cousin to become House of his family, whether he wished it or no, but the Tarkinate…” Dal shook his head.
“I was warned to be skeptical of your loyalty,” Tek-aKet said, nodding at where Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon stood leaning against a small table to Gundaron’s left. “Perhaps you do not want the Carnelian Throne, but you would have me believe that you choose this moment to act against your House?”
Dal licked his lips. “I do not believe I go against my House, my lord,” he said, in that quietly strained voice that had been all Gun had heard from him for the last day. “I believe my House has Fallen.”
At this everyone, Gun included, edged forward. Fanryn Bloodhand straightened to attention and Thionan Hawkmoon put a restraining hand on her Partner’s arm. Even the Wolfshead and the Lionsmane exchanged glances.
“Who is it, then, who sits on my throne?” Tek-aKet’s voice was hard as the rock overhead.
“I do not know,” Dal said. “Outwardly, it seems to be my cousin.” Dal glanced suddenly at Parno Lionsmane, but Gun couldn’t see that the Brother had moved in any way. “Possibly, in some way, it is. But I do not believe it. Something else occupies… something else is there.” He straightened, and Gun saw for the first time the dark smudges under the man’s eyes. “Indulge me, my lord,” Dal said. “I have waited what seems an age to tell the full story only once, and it is choking me.”
Tek-aKet glanced at the older Mercenary Brother seated next to him. When the man nodded, the Tarkin gestured at Dhulyn Wolfshead, indicating that she should take the seat next to him. That left an empty seat across the table.
“Sit, Dal-eDal Tenebro. Refresh yourself, tell your story.”
Dal nodded, waited until a cup was poured for him, but made no move to pick it up. He took the chair, though, Gun thought, feeling the ache of his own muscles.
“I have spent my whole life waiting, and watching, my lord; so long that perhaps I forgot what it was that I was waiting for.” As Dal folded his hands on the table in front of him, Gun saw them trembling. “Lok had my father killed, and I believed I was waiting for the right moment to avenge him. I wonder if I would ever have found it.” Dal drew in his brows, frowning at his hands on the table.
Mar shifted, stepping forward as if she would move closer to the table. Gun put his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her back a little, until she was standing against his chest. Her skin felt warm, even through two layers of clothing, and she relaxed under his hands, though she kept her eyes on the faces of the four seated at the table.