“You’ll be bound-”
“I won’t really be bound, you dolt,” she said. “I’ll even be on my own horse, as if Bloodbone and I between us can’t confound Dal-eDal and his plans. If he has any. Now tell me what the real problem is.”
“Then I’ll come with you.” Parno spoke through his clenched teeth. “No disrespect intended to your horse.”
Dhulyn laid her forehead down on her crossed arms. “This has been decided. You’re to go with the Tarkin. I’m to go with Dal, and Karlyn-Tan and two others. And Cullen, don’t forget, which gives us the Racha as well. What can go wrong?”
“You’re the Seer, you tell me. Do you hear yourself? ‘What can go wrong?’ ” He threw out his hands and widened his eyes in a parody of innocence. “If I started listing things now, I’d still be talking when it was time to leave.”
Dhulyn slammed her hands down on the chairback. “That’s right,” she said. “You’d still be talking. The rest of us would be at work.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “ ‘Let’s go to Imrion,’ you said. ‘We haven’t been there in years,’ you said. ‘I miss the smell of my own hills.’ If we’d followed my advice we’d be in Voyagin even now, helping to plan the summer campaign.” She sucked in a deep breath, grimaced, and let it out as slowly as she could. “And the Green Shadow would be destroying the Marked. I’m sorry, my soul. These politicians waste my patience. Come, it’s not the first time a campaign has separated us, and it won’t be the last.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” he muttered. “I’d rather have Dal with me.”
She shook her head slowly. “And I’m supposed to be the inarticulate Outlander. Even if you did doubt my own abilities-which I know you don’t, bound and gagged I could still kill him easily-I won’t be alone. The way they feel about the Marked, do you think Cullen and the Racha bird will stand idly by if Dal-eDal threatens me?”
“They won’t be watching him carefully enough.”
“Carefully enough for what? Why should it prove so much more dangerous for Dal to be with me than with you?”
He stared at her for a long moment before speaking, his breath coming short and fierce through his nostrils. “Because Dal has no reason to want me dead. He may think he has such a reason for you.”
She looked up at him, eyes widened in surprise. “Nice to know I make enemies so easily.”
“I told you we met and spoke in the Dome. I didn’t tell you that, like the Fallen House, Dal wants Lok dead, and me to become Tenebroso. I told him I would not leave the Brotherhood. I would not leave you. What if he thinks my answer would be different if you were dead?”
“The old woman,” Dhulyn said. “The House-that-was. She thought I would make a fine consort.”
“And so you would, if we were not Partnered, and Mercenary Brothers. That life is gone.”
She nodded, rubbing the small of her back with both hands. “Parno, my soul. Would you fetch me warm blankets, please?
Parno put down the pipes on which he’d been rhythmically playing the same seven notes over and over and smiled his thanks at the young Brother standing in the doorway with a pile of heated blankets in her arms. Glancing at Dhulyn’s face, he saw she was well and truly asleep; neither the interruption in the playing nor the arrival of the blankets had disturbed her. He laid his pipes aside and rose to take the blankets from the youngster. The mountain wool had been folded twice, as he’d asked, and he laid them, warm and heavy, across Dhulyn’s lower body and legs.
Parno glanced at the open doorway, sensing the youngster still hovering, obviously torn between courtesy and curiosity.
“You’re Rehnata, aren’t you?” he asked, straightening from the bed and walking cat-footed closer so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice. “Go ahead, ask.”
The girl licked her lips, and pulled herself up straighter.
“Two things, Parno.”
Parno needn’t have worried about moving closer, she’d been well-trained in the nightwatch whisper.
“First, if this were the morning of a battle, what would the Wolfshead do for her pains?”
“First,” Parno said quietly. “When there is training, pain can be ignored, as I’m sure you already know. But in order to ignore pain, there must be a distraction. When there is no fighting, distraction of a kind can be found in drugs. Your herbalist can tell you which are best. The Wolfshead does not like drugs. She says that the pain exhausts, but the drugs make you stupid. Better tired than stupid, she says.” Parno smiled. Dhulyn had never been any great fan of the stupid. “As for the day of battle, the necessity to kill others is often in itself a powerful distraction.” He turned and looked again at Dhulyn. She slept, but under the weight of blankets she still moved and shifted as if, even in her sleep, she sought relief in movement for overtaxed muscles.
“And the second?” he said, turning back to Rehnata.
“Is she,” here the girl looked away, not wanting Parno to see what was in her eyes, “is she Seeing?”
Parno frowned. This would be the first of many such questions, now that Dhulyn was no longer hiding her Mark. “I think so. She has not said it, but it seems when there is more pain, there is more Sight.”
A TALL THIN MAN WITH CLOSE-CROPPED HAIR THE COLOR OF WHEAT STRAW, EYES THE BLUE OF OLD ICE, DEEP ICE, SITS READING A BOUND BOOK LARGER THAN ANY SHE HAS EVER SEEN, TRACING A LINE ON THE PAGE WITH HIS FINGER,
HIS LIPS MOVING. STANDING, HE TAKES UP A HIGHLY POLISHED TWO-HANDED SWORD, AND HIS LONG LILY-SHAPED SLEEVES FALL BACK FROM HIS WRISTS.
HE TURNS TOWARD A CIRCULAR MIRROR, AS TALL AS HE IS HIMSELF, REFLECTING A NIGHT SKY FULL OF STARS. HIS LIPS MOVE AND DHULYN SEES THE WORDS FROM THE BOOK. ******* HE SAYS, AND **********. HE MAKES A MOVE FROM THE THIRD PASSAGE OF THE CRANE SHORA, AND SLASHES DOWNWARD THROUGH THE MIRROR, THROUGH THE SKY, SPLITTING IT, AND THE GREEN-TINTED SHADOW COMES SPILLING IN LIKE FOG THROUGH A CASEMENT…
CHILDREN TURNING A LONG ROPE; ONE RUNS IN, TIMING IT JUST RIGHT TO BE ABLE TO JUMP OVER THE ROPE AS IT SWINGS UNDER HIS FEET, OVER HIS HEAD, UNDER HIS FEET. HE SINGS A CHANT, AND ANOTHER CHILD, A CHILD WITH HIS OWN DARK COLORING, RUNS IN AND JUMPS WITH HIM. THEY BOTH SING, AND ANOTHER GIRL JOINS THEM…
MAR SITS DOWN, FROWNING, HER DELICATE BROWS DRAWN AS FAR DOWN AS THEY WILL GO, HER MOUTH TWISTED TO ONE SIDE AS IF SHE IS CONCENTRATING WITH ALL THE STRENGTH OF HER MIND. SHE WEARS A LIGHT LINEN SLEEPING SHIRT THAT HAS BEEN TORN ON THE LEFT SHOULDER AND CAREFULLY MENDED BY A HAND SKILLED WITH THE NEEDLE. SHE BREATHES HEAVILY THROUGH HER NOSE AND STANDS UP, STILL LOOKING DOWN AT WHAT NOW APPEARS TO BE THE TOP OF A TABLE. THERE IS SOMETHING ROUND AND WHITE ON THE TABLETOP, BUT IT ISN’T UNTIL MAR RESTS HER HANDS ON IT THAT DHULYN CAN SEE IT IS MAR’S BOWL. AT THIS TOUCH THE WATER IN THE BOWL SHIVERS AND MAKES THE REFLECTED IMAGE OF CANDLE FLAME DANCE. SO IT IS NIGHT. AS DHULYN HAS THIS THOUGHT, MAR LOOKS UP AND TO HER OWN RIGHT, AND DHULYN SEES THAT THE SCHOLAR GUNDARON STANDS NEXT TO HER, AND HE ALSO IS LOOKING INTO THE BOWL. AND SHAKING HIS HEAD. HIS HAND GRIPS MAR’S SHOULDER MORE TIGHTLY, AND THEY BOTH TURN TO LOOK OFF TO THEIR LEFT PAST WHERE DHULYN IS STANDING WATCHING THEM. THEY DO NOT SEE HER. WHEN DHULYN TURNS TO SEE WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING AT, SHE SEES…
A GREAT THRONE IN A ROOM VAST WITH DARKNESS. NOISE AND MOVEMENT AROUND HER, BUT MADE OF SHADOWS ONLY, NOT OF THIS TIME. THE ONE-EYED MAN SITS ON THE THRONE OF TIME-DARKENED WOOD AND DULL RED GEMS, LOOKING AT HER WITH TWO GREEN EYES. DHULYN PLUNGES HER SWORD INTO HIS HEART. THE FINE TELISCAN BLADE PASSES CLEANLY THROUGH HIS BODY AND PINS HIM TO THE THRONE AND HE CANNOT MOVE. THE BLOOD SOAKS INTO THE WOOD, AND WILL NEVER COME OUT. HIS EYES ARE GREEN. HIS EYE IS BLUE. SUDDENLY IT IS NOT LOK-IKOL SITTING ON THE CARNELIAN THRONE, BUT TEK-AKET, AND YET SHE IS STILL THERE, SWORD IN HAND. ARE HIS HANDS BOUND? THE TARKIN LOOKS AWAY OVER HER SHOULDER, HIS EYES FOCUSED FOR THE LONG DISTANCE, AND WHEN SHE TURNS TO LOOK, SHE SEES…