“You’ve seen the Sleeping God?” Dhulyn asked, just as Parno said, “Does he have green eyes?”
“I thought he was, do you see? I thought he was. I thought I was helping him. Helping him to awaken because his time had come.” The old man subsided. “I thought he was the God. At first. I thought I was touched by the God.”
“Who are you?”
“Beslyn-Tor.” He looked around, his eyes clearing. “Have I been sick? This is not my hermitage.”
“Is he here now? The Sleeping God?”
“No, no, why don’t you listen? I tried to tell everyone, but no one listened. I thought he was the God. I thought he was. I’d been collecting relics, you see. I found five, do you see, that’s one more than Arcosa Shrine and the people will come to us, to our shrine, to Monachil. He spoke, and I thought it was the God.” The old man repeated the phrase several times before putting his dirty index finger, with its cracked nail, to his lips, tapping them in the “shhh” sign, all the while his head trembling as if he had the palsy. “But no,” he said finally, the words a mere whisper. “But no.” He caught at Dhulyn again. “I welcomed him. I rejoiced!” He shook his head again, but this time like a man who just can’t believe he could have been that stupid. “But he isn’t the God. He fears the God. He fears the God, do you see?” He collapsed backward. “And then he left me.”
“Where did he go?”
“To Lok-iKol. To Lok-iKol. Like this.” And here the old man took Dhulyn’s face tenderly in his hands, and focused his eyes on hers. “Like this. That’s how it’s done.”
It took all of Dhulyn’s force of will to take the old man’s hands off her face gently, without breaking his wrists.
“That’s how he does it, is it?” she asked.
The old man nodded again. “That’s how. But he always came back. Before. He always came back. It’s hard to be alone. Hard now.” His eyes came abruptly into focus. “You be careful, young woman. He looks for a Mercenary. You be very careful.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t let him touch you, my daughter. He looks for a Mercenary. Be careful.”
The focus faded once again from his eyes and the hand that clutched at Dhulyn’s vest relaxed. She felt for and found a pulse under his jaw, but it was fitful. She glanced up at Parno, found him grim-faced.
“Can you carry him?” she said. “I don’t think he’ll last long anyway, but we can’t leave him here.”
“Take my pipes,” Parno said. “Dhulyn,” he added as she straightened to her feet and held out her hands for the instrument. “Do we understand him to mean…?”
“I think we must,” Dhulyn said, tucking the pipes under her left arm and picking up the lantern. “From what he’s said, I think it means the Tarkin.”
“Who should we tell?”
“That’s a good question.” Alkoryn was dead, she thought. And as little as she liked it, that might very well make her Senior Brother in Gotterang.
They left Beslyn-Tor to be made as comfortable as possible in the guards’ infirmary room before looking for the Tarkina. They were just entering the corridor that led to Zelianora’s room when they heard three people behind them.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead? Lionsmane?” came a tentative but familiar voice. As she turned, Dhulyn did not trouble to suppress a sigh that was so short as to be almost a snort of annoyance. Mar was part of the Tarkina’s household now; what could she possibly want from Dhulyn?
She raised her eyebrows as she turned and recognized the youngsters with Mar. One she knew as Rab-iRab, senior lady page to Zelianora Tarkina. Younger than Mar, but tall for her age, and with an air of having very recently learned how serious the world can be. The other was a page of the Tarkin’s whom Dhulyn had now seen several times without learning his name. Dhulyn felt a heavy weight settle into her stomach. What would bring pages from the Tarkin’s household looking for Mercenaries? She was very afraid that she knew.
“Wolfshead and Lionsmane,” Mar said. Dhulyn knew that look-half fear, half resolution-she’d seen it in Mar’s face in the mountains. “May we speak with you in private?”
“We’ve business of our own to attend to, Lady Mar,” Parno said. “Can this wait?”
Mar exchanged looks with the two pages. The young boy spoke up. “It’s about the Tarkin,” he said, eyes glittering.
“You’re his page, aren’t you?” Dhulyn asked him. “You know our names, what is yours?”
“I am Telian-Han, son of Debrion-Han of Culebro Holding.” The boy had to clear his throat halfway through, as his voice threatened to crack.
“You knew the usurper, Lok-iKol Tenebro? You were here?”
The boy nodded. “We both were.”
“And you have something to tell us?”
Again the nod.
Parno raised his hand to his face, placing the tips of his index and middle fingers on his lips. Dhulyn saw and silently agreed. She wasn’t the only one with a sense of disaster.
“Come with us,” she said to the youngsters.
Twenty-two
PARNO LEANED FORWARD in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands lightly clasped. Demons and perverts. He looked from one white-faced page to the other, and fixed a look of confident encouragement on his face. Behind him, Dhulyn leaned against the window frame, arms folded across her chest, ankles crossed, eyes almost closed. They’d taken the youngsters straight to their own quarters where the first thing he’d done was shut the windows-though it was very unlikely that anyone could overhear them, here on the fifth floor. Their three rooms here in Zelianora Tarkina’s tower made up a small suite, with this outer, double-windowed room furnished as a sitting room with a long upholstered settee, a round table covered with a weighted cloth, thick patterned carpets on the dark oak floor, and heavy armchairs made soft with bright cushions.
Rab-iRab and Telian-Han, though they would ordinarily bear no resemblance to each other, now wore identical pale, wide-eyed looks. Parno and Dhulyn had listened to Telian’s story without commenting, yet somehow, in the repetition of it, both young pages had become aware of the gravity of their suspicions.
“Lady Mar,” Dhulyn said, her eyes still resting on the face of the young Telian-Han. “Would you be so kind as to find Zelianora Tarkina and bring her here?”
“Dhulyn,” Parno began.
“We are still, technically, in her employ.” Dhulyn turned to Mar. “Come straight back to us here, Lady, if you would be so good. I need hardly tell you, speak to no one of this, not even the Tarkina herself, until you are both safely in this room. Until we are sure, any and all of us may be in danger.”
Or may be the danger, Parno thought.
“The children?” Rab-iRab said. Parno’s jaw tightened as he exchanged a look with Dhulyn. Just when they were thinking things could not be any worse.
“They should both be asleep,” Mar said, getting to her feet. She spoke more than half to herself. “Denobea will be with them.” She looked up at Parno, glanced at Dhulyn. “They’ve seen very little of their father these last few days.”
“Perhaps you could make sure of their whereabouts somehow, my Dove, without alarming the Tarkina.”
It was a shock to see what a change two small words could bring to a young woman’s face. Suddenly there was a brightness in Mar’s eyes, and she left the room with a light step and more heart for her errand than she had when she’d entered it. Parno shook his head, smiling. Leave it to Dhulyn to know the right thing to say, and the right moment to say it. What a Schooler she would make, if they lived so long.
As the door closed behind Mar, Parno turned to the two pages, sitting close together on the settee, holding hands.