“The Mesticha Stone is an important artifact,” she said. “And it would take time to prepare a Dedication Ceremony in any case, so why not wait for it?”
“It was the way he said it,” Tel said. “It… I’d heard him, the other one, say it just about exactly the same way. The same tone in his voice, the same words. Even the part about ‘appeasing the Jaldean faction.’ Tek-aKet Tarkin never cared about appeasing Jaldeans,” the boy said, his lip curling. “And even less so now, from what we’ve been told. It was as if I was hearing Lok-iKol speaking with the Tarkin’s voice.”
Lok-iKol or something else. Mar fought to keep the sudden surge of fear from her face.
“What color are the Tarkin’s eyes,” she asked.
“Blue,” said both pages in unison.
“And are they still blue? They don’t seem green?”
The two pages looked at one another, looked back at Mar and shook their heads, confusion evident on their faces.
Mar was not reassured. “I don’t think we’ll go to the Tarkina with this,” she said finally. “Not quite yet anyway.” Gun had gone to the Library, and might not return tonight if he found something useful among the books and scrolls. That left only one person she could take this to. Mar rose to her feet and set down the book she’d been reading. “Let’s find Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
Dhulyn Wolfshead had turned the corner from the outer courtyard into the passage that led to the rooms she and Parno had been given close to the Tarkina’s suite when she heard the unmistakable footsteps of her Partner behind her.
“I thought you were there for the rest of the day, challenging all comers,” she said as he caught up with her.
His pipes bleated a mournful note as he tucked them closer under his elbow, freeing his other arm to slip around her waist as they continued down the corridor.
“Pah,” he snorted, a feigned disgust wrinkling his lips. “As if there’s any contest when the Tarkin’s own Chanter gets involved. The woman does nothing all day but play. Small wonder she can best the rest of us.”
“There, there, my soul,” Dhulyn said, grinning. “There’s plenty you can do better than she.”
“As I hope to be proving to you in a few minutes,” he said, squeezing her closer and brushing his lips against her cheek. Dhulyn hugged him closely in turn, sighing as the muscles in her neck and shoulders relaxed.
“How long do you think we’ll stay,” she asked him.
“Well, at least let’s get paid,” he said. “Or do you find you simply can’t take the luxury of fires, feather beds, and regular baths a moment longer?”
Dhulyn smiled at the undercurrent of laughter in his voice. “It isn’t that,” she said. “And you know it.”
Parno nodded without speaking, and held his tongue until they were at the door of their rooms. “We must stay and keep watch, in case there’s reason. So you told me this morning, and I agreed. But there’s something we should do,” he said, “so as to be ready when the time for leaving comes.”
“I believe we did that, too, this afternoon,” she said, trying to make him laugh, “and unless I’m mistaken, we’re about to do it again.”
“Never you fear,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ll never go short, not so long as we’re both alive, and I, at least, have breath enough for my pipes. But there is a place here where a Brother of ours fell. Let us visit it while we have the chance.”
Dhulyn pressed her lips tightly together. “You are right, my heart. Bring your pipes, and I will fetch my sword.”
Parno patted the bed with his free hand. “I didn’t mean we should go right now.”
This time Dhulyn laughed out loud. “Oh, yes, you did.”
Dhulyn set the oil lamp down and crouched to touch the dark stain on the flagstones deep beneath the oldest tower of the Carnelian Dome. To her left was the Onyx Walk, to the right the long corridor stretching down to the old summer kitchen. She frowned and straightened once more, touching a similar dark stain on the wall. Her brow cleared. “This one,” she said.
“Died on his feet,” Parno said. “Good lad,”
“So may we all,” Dhulyn said, leaning her shoulder against the wall to one side of the bloodstain. “Tell me,” she said, beginning the ritual, “how did you first know our Brother Hernyn Greystone the Shield?”
Parno made himself comfortable against the wall on the other side of the stain. “I knew him when he was only Hernyn Greystone,” Parno began. “And he was a sorry sight when I first laid eyes on him, let me tell you…”
The exchange of story and anecdote that made up the Mercenary’s Last Farewell did not take very long, even though Dhulyn and Parno tried to remember everything they had seen Hernyn say or do.
“We stand now where our Brother stood at the last,” Dhulyn said finally. “And we say farewell to Hernyn Greystone the Shield, who gave his life for ours. Farewell, Hernyn, we stood together in Battle, and we will stand together again in Death.”
“In Battle and in Death,” Parno said, lifting his pipes into position, and fitting the chanter to his lips. The melody that he played then was not traditional, but one of his own making, and Dhulyn thought that if he had played it in the guardroom, he might have beaten even the Tarkin’s piper, in spite of all her practice.
When the final notes died away, they stood a moment or two longer in respect for the music, and their fallen Brother, before Dhulyn gave the bloodstained wall a final salute, touching her fingertips to the bloodstain, and then to her own forehead. Holding hands like children, they retraced their steps to the upper floors.
They had not yet reached the first staircase when Dhulyn hesitated between one step and the next, holding Parno back with a tug on his hand. He caught her eye, and nodded; he’d heard it, too.
“That was not the last dying away of the pipes’ music,” he whispered. “There’s no echo so long as that.”
“Speak again,” Dhulyn called, her voice pitched carefully so as not to echo too much in the deserted stone passages. “Speak that we may find you. Do you need our help?”
Again there came the low moaning that had first caught at Dhulyn’s ears. There was, indeed, something of the mournful notes of the pipes in the sound.
“This way,” Parno said, as he turned to go back the way they came. They were not far on the other side of the narrower passage that led to the old kitchens when they found a series of rooms, roughly the size appropriate for storage, the bolts on the outside of the doors showing evidence of what had been stored there. The man making the sound was in the third room.
He cowered away from them, pushing himself with his feet into the corner of the cell and covering his eyes against the brightness of the lamplight. It took a few minutes, along with some gentle words, for his eyes to adjust enough to allow Dhulyn to coax his hands away from his face.
“He hasn’t been here long,” Parno said, joining her after a quick look into a pail in the far corner of the cell. “But I’d say no one’s been near him in a few days.”
Dhulyn nodded, pulling her small emergency flask of water out of her belt pouch and holding it to the man’s lips.
“Can you speak, Grandfather,” she said as gently as she could.
The prisoner worked his lips, licking at them and swallowing. “Mercenary,” was the word that finally found its way out of his mouth.
“That’s right, sir,” Parno said, squatting down next to the old man. “Can you tell us who you are?”
Suddenly the old man grabbed Dhulyn by the front of her vest, his gnarled fingers tangling in the bits of lace and ribbons. “Did you see him? Has he found you?”
“Who would that be, sir?” Parno said.
“The Sleeping God,” the old man said, subsiding once more into his corner, one hand still clutching Dhulyn’s vest.
They became aware that the torn and stained robes the old man was wearing had once been the dark brown of a Jaldean priest. Their eyes met over the prisoner’s head.