Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno (38 page)

And he was usually a great deal more circumspect when he headed for his special hiding place. He never took the same route twice and even avoided using the same beasts to get there, since the Espadryni were such great trackers.

“When they know they have something to track, that is,” he said aloud. The horse he rode flicked its ears at him, but the other two were more used to his ways and just kept walking. Since he was in a hurry this time, however, Bekluth was taking the most direct route.

He laughed, and his horse shied just a little. The fact was he’d always been cautious out of habit, not because it was really necessary. The Espadryni were too used to him to suspect him of anything at all—so much so that the boy Ice Hawk hadn’t even bothered to mention having seen him near the Door of the Sun. How was
that
for luck?

“Luck favors those who favor themselves.” It was a reminder his mother had frequently given him, and one he had cause to believe. He chuckled, remembering the look on his mother’s face the last time he had seen her. How surprised she’d been, since he was supposed to be already gone with his caravan.

He reached the place where grass grew sparsely at midmorning, and as he expected, the horse had to be beaten to encourage it to continue. This spot was forbidden to the Espadryni; the land was poisoned, they believed, cursed by the gods, and they wouldn’t even graze their horses or ingleras nearby. It was true that there were strange glassy patches where nothing grew. But if you persisted, if you were lucky and followed your luck, you found that in the center of this damaged place there was an old Caid ruin, very well preserved, with a spring of water that rose up out of the ground and formed a pool before sinking away again, where good grass grew around small sections of smooth paving.

What could be handier? What could be luckier for him than a place everyone else was afraid of going? A well-hidden place where Bekluth could leave his stock and his extra horses, from which he could travel, not on foot as the Espadryni always saw him, but on horseback. And much faster than anyone knew or suspected.

The horses began to walk faster, as if they could smell the water and good grass that was close in front of them. Once they’d reached the spot where Bekluth usually left them, he unloaded as quickly as he could, hobbling the two horses he was going to leave—he thought he had time for that much caution at least—and, mounting the third horse, he headed out in the direction of the Door.

He’d almost answered with the truth when the Mercenary woman asked him about being near the Door. Even now he could feel it, as if light shone from within her. To be so open, to have nothing—
nothing
—hidden. It was amazing.

“Of course, she has no reason to hide.” Where she came from, no one was going to kill her just for being born. She was safe even here, where even the foolish Mages of the Espadryni could see that she was full of light. He leaned over the horse’s shoulders and squeezed with his knees. He wouldn’t ever have to kill her. Unlike with his own mother, there was nothing in Dhulyn Wolfshead that screamed to be let out. There probably never would be.

Still, she was bound somehow to her Partner, and
he
was a different matter. There was something in him, all right, something he was hiding. Some darkness that needed to be released. Bekluth almost sat up straight in the saddle, confusing the stupid horse, who thought he meant it to slow down. If he opened the man, let the darkness out, freed him, wouldn’t that free her as well? Wasn’t she in the same danger from the darkness that the man was?

But he’d need to find just the right time. It might be best to wait until the Mercenaries had given up and were on their way back. Then no one would be looking for him, and he could free them in safety. No one else would be looking for him.

Once he’d taken care of the boy.

The woman called Snow-Moon didn’t even look up from the pot she was stirring. “There’s some wish to speak with you. Younger ones.” She waved vaguely toward the group of women hovering behind her.

“Over here, you silly old woman.” The woman who stood up on the far side of the cook fire was tall and had Dhulyn’s gray eyes, though her nose was much longer. Standing there, her left hand propped on her hip, her lips twisted in a sideways smile, it was hard to tell there was anything wrong with her; she seemed merely annoyed. “Though there’s more than we who’d like a change from minding the children and looking out for bad weather,” she said when the old woman looked narrowly at her. She smiled at Dhulyn. “You’re the Seer then, are you? Dhulyn Wolfshead? I’m Winter-Ash.”

The older woman, Snow-Moon, still looked at Winter-Ash with narrowed, calculating eyes. Would she forbid it, Parno wondered. Did the women observe a type of hierarchy among themselves? Finally Snow-Moon shrugged.

“You’ll need at least two others,” she said, as she turned and limped away.

“I have them right here, as you very well know,” Winter-Ash called after the elder. Two other young women stood up, grinning, to join her.

Parno glanced at Dhulyn and was not surprised to see her face an ivory mask. How could the trader Bekluth Allain say that there was nothing hidden about her? About either of them. He could only hope that his own face was as impassive as his Partner’s, that the emotions raised in him by the halting, dragging gait of the Seer Snow-Moon remained hidden.

“Will you do this then, whole woman? Help us?” Winter-Ash asked when the other two women reached her.

“What is this, Winter-Ash? What would you have from Dhulyn Wolfshead?” The creaking voice of Singer of the Grass-Moon forestalled whatever answer Dhulyn had been about to make.

“Seer’s business, old man. I needn’t give you any explanation, and that’s part of the Pact, so don’t glower at me.”

Singer of the Grass-Moon turned to Dhulyn. “I will advise against it, that
is
allowed under the Pact.”

Winter-Ash made a face and waved this suggestion away, tossing her long hair over her shoulders and away from her face. “The oldsters are always against us.” There was laughter in her voice and charm in her smile. “She needs help, doesn’t she, her and her man? Well, we need her help also. Haven’t we Seen her, again and again?”

“Snow-Moon does not seem to agree,” the Singer said.

Winter-Ash shrugged, and Dhulyn almost expected her to roll her eyes. “And do you all agree? Always? All you men? Go on. Mind your business and we’ll mind ours.” She turned back to Dhulyn. “Come, do you agree?”

“You have Seen me, you say?”

“Many times, have none of them told you? Come, all will be revealed.”

Dhulyn’s eyebrows twitched, but she agreed with a short bow. Parno found himself doing something he hadn’t consciously done in more than a moon, reaching out with his Pod sense. He sometimes thought he could sense
something
in other people, especially with Dhulyn, but now he felt nothing at all from the Espadryni women.

The three Seers led them through the women’s area, to a clear space on the north side of the encampment, where the grazing of the camp horses had clipped the grass short.

“This will do,” Winter-Ash said. “This is sufficient space, far enough away from prying eyes. Here we may be calm and call the Visions to us.”

“How do we do this?” Dhulyn asked. “Are we enough? In my own Visions of the lost Tribes in our land, there are many more in the circle.”

The three women exchanged glances, but Parno could not tell what they were thinking.

“Music will help,” one of the other women said. “Can your man play for us?”

“I’ll get my pipes,” Parno said.

“Just your chanter,” Dhulyn called after him. The skin crawled up Parno’s neck as he went. Even three Espadryni women could be no match for his Partner, but he found he didn’t like leaving her alone with them.

Dhulyn looked at the three women and found them all looking back with steady gazes, clear eyes, and encouraging smiles. The only hint that all was not perfectly normal, in fact, was that their smiles were a little too much alike. It was clear from the variation in eye shape, breadth of cheekbone, and form of mouth that these three were not closely related, and yet their smiles had this eerie similarity.

“You don’t seem any different to me,” Winter-Ash said. She was scrutinizing Dhulyn’s face, almost squinting. “How are you fooling them?”

Dhulyn knew immediately what was meant. “I’m not. I am as they believe me to be.”

“Well, we’ll have the secret soon enough. That’s why we’re here, after all.” This was the shorter, huskier of the two other women. Her face was open and sincere.

“There is nothing I can tell you,” Dhulyn said.

“Your man, does he rule you?” Winter-Ash asked. “Or can you come and go as you please, even without him?”

“Parno Lionsmane is my Partner,” Dhulyn answered. “As for coming and going, I am the Senior Mercenary Brother, and in things of the Brotherhood, all decisions are finally mine to make.”

“And the things not of the Brotherhood?” asked the huskier woman.

“There are no things not of the Brotherhood.”

The three women laughed, and though their laughter was warm, and intimate, Dhulyn shivered. Wit had not been her intention; what she had said was no more or less than the Common Rule. These women thought her Seniority gave her power over Parno, while all it did was bind them closer together.

“Quiet, then, here he comes now.”

Parno trotted up on Dhulyn’s left, brandishing his chanter. “What now?”

“Do you stand there and play,” Winter-Ash said. “While we Seers clasp hands.”

Dhulyn unsheathed her sword, placed it next to Parno, and took position between Winter-Ash and the shorter woman. Their hands were as rough as her own, but the calluses were in different places.
I don’t cook
, Dhulyn thought.
I don’t weave or spin or sew
. Since the Seers were not allowed to bear weapons of any kind, not even to defend themselves, the Espadryni women were oddly limited in the tasks that traditionally left their marks on a person’s hands or body.

The three Seers began to hum a tune and shuffle their feet, and Dhulyn felt a moment of displacement, not unlike what they had felt while walking the Path, until she realized the tune they were humming was not the familiar one she associated with using her Mark, but something totally unknown to her.

Parno took up the melody quickly, but it took several repetitions for Dhulyn to take it in and begin to hum it herself. She took a step and a half to the right. Back to the left, with her right foot crossing in front of her left. Back and forth.

GUNDARON THE SCHOLAR WALKS DOWN A LONG LINE OF SHELVES, SPAN AFTER SPAN OF THEM, WOOD, FOLLOWEDBY ME TALAN DTH ENBY STONE BEFORE BECOMING WOOD AGAIN. DHULYN CAN HEAR THE HEELS OF HIS BOOTS CRACKING AGAINST THE FLOOR. GUN’S EYES FLICK BACK AND FORTH, SCANNING THE MARKS AND TITLES ON THE BOOKS AND SCROLLS THAT SURROUND HIM. THE AIR IS HEAVY WITH THE SMELL OF PARCHMENT, PAPER, AND THE PECULIAR SCENT OF OLD LEATHRBINDINGS.
GUN’S FINDING SOMETHING
, DHULYN THINKS, A SENSE OF WONDER WELLING UP INSIDE HER. THIS IS THE LIBRARYHE’S OFTEN SPOKEN OF, WHERE HE GOES FOR CLUES, WHERE HEFINDS. AS SHE WATCHES, HE STOPS ATA BLUE-GREEN VOLUME AND PULLS IT OFF THE SHELF. HE GLANCES TOWARD HER, AND AS THEIR EYES MEET, HIS WIDEN AND “DHULYN,” HE SAYS ...

SHE TURNS AWAY AND LOOKS OUT OVER THE PLAIN THAT STRETCHES OUT BEFORE THEM. IT IS CLOSE TO SUNSET, AND THE ANGLE OF THE LIGHT GIVES EVERYTHING A LONG SHADOW WITH SOFT EDGES. IT IS A TIME OF DAY FOR THE LAST STROLL OF THE EVENING. BUT NO ONE STROLLS BELOW. DHULYN KNOWS AT ONCE THAT WHAT SHE SEES WAS ONCE CULTIVATED FIELDS. CORN, SHE THINKS. BUT THE FIELDS ARE BURNED NOW, BY A FIRE THAT SPREAD FROM THE WEST, LEAVING STALKS BLACKENED AND ONLY JUST DARKER THAN THEIR OWN SHADOWS. THE FIRE MUST HAVE BEEN FOL-LOWED QUICKLY BY A FREEZE, WHICH PREVENTED THE GROWTH OF THOSE PLANTS THAT NORMALLY SPRING UP AFTER THE PASSAGE OF FLAME. NO PLOUGH HAS TOUCHED THE LAND SINCE.

“DO YOU KNOW THIS PLACE?” SHE ASKS THE WOMEN WITH HER.