Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno (60 page)

The old man was nodding, his eyes narrowed as he watched the Mercenary Brothers copy exactly the pattern of movements they had just seen the trader perform. “It is meditation and long concentration that enables one to see and follow the entry pattern. Some are never able. The old tales say that the true Tarkins of Menoin can be shown the pattern, but it has never happened in my lifetime.”

A sudden flash of light made Mar gasp and shield her eyes. For a moment afterward an image of a hedged maze superimposed over the plain before them, clear but translucent, like the curtains of light that were common in the night skies of the far south. Wolfshead and Lionsmane were clearly walking this maze and were about to reach a stone archway. The image did not fade so much as it winked out between one instant and the next.

One of the riders to their right cried out, pointing. The plain was empty except for the two Mercenaries. Josh-Chevrie was nowhere to be seen.

At that moment the flash of light occurred again, the maze with its stone archway reappeared, and Mar watched, holding her breath, as their friends passed through it and the image faded once more.

The old man, Singer of the Wind, turned to them. “Your friends have entered the Door of the Sun. May the Mother watch over them.”

“You young people are much mistaken.” House Listra had commandeered the largest chair in the suite and, with Alaria standing beside her, had both Falcos and Epion lined up on their feet before her like delinquent apprentices. Alaria felt calm for the first time in days until she realized it was merely because there was a woman in charge, something that felt normal to her.

“You, Epion, are particularly mistaken if you believe that the decisions you have made and the actions you have undertaken in the last few days have permanence without the agreement of the Council of Houses. The Tarkinate has been in the Akarion line for many years, but not without our support.”

“My dear aunt—” Epion began.

“I am not here as your aunt but as House Listra, chief among the Noble Houses, and let me remind you,
Nephew
, with almost as much Akarion blood in my veins as you have yourself, though mine is older.” She looked both men over, her thin and wrinkled lips twisted to one side. “Each of you has presented your tale of events, and neither of you has more than your own words to give as proof—if I do not take into account the word of paid employees or friends of the heart.” Here the old woman patted Alaria on the arm. “However, in the absence of true proof, which only the Mercenary Brothers can bring us, we must decide which of you is lying.”

Epion again opened his mouth but subsided when House Listra raised her hand.
He’s not going to learn any time soon
, Alaria thought. She could only hope Listra’s solution was a good one.

“Fortunately, neither I nor the council need to decide which one of you we believe. There is an infallible test for such things. The Path of the Sun.”

“But House Listra,” Falcos said. Trust him not to make the same mistake of undervaluing the old woman that his uncle had, Alaria thought. “We do not have the key for the Path.”

“That is what makes the test infallible.” Listra struck the floor with her cane. “I told your father, Falcos, that he should walk the Path, and he did not. At the time, the Council of Houses voted with him.” She pursed her lips. “We have seen what
that
decision has brought us. Well, the Council of Houses votes with me now.” There was clear satisfaction in the old woman’s voice.

“Will they both walk the Path?” Alaria asked.

“No, my dear. The Path tests only the Tarkin. And don’t you look so smug, Epion. If Falcos does not return and you wish to be Tarkin after him, it will then be your turn. No more half measures. We return to the old ways completely. So say all the Nobles Houses.” Listra turned and took Alaria’s wrist in her cold hand. “You, my dear, can wait for the outcome. If neither Falcos nor Epion is chosen by the gods, there are still others, not so close but still of the blood, who can be tested.”

Like me
, Alaria thought. Not so close, but still of the blood. She had said she would not marry Epion. She had sworn it, if only to herself. Would she wait for the Path of the Sun to choose someone for her? She looked at Falcos. Perhaps someone else? She took a deep breath. No. She would make the choice herself.

“I will make my own choice,” she said. “And trust in the horse gods and the Path of the Sun to prove me right. I will go with Falcos. I will walk the Path of the Sun with him. And when we return, we will give Menoin a new beginning.”

B
EKLUTH ALLAIN YANKED on the reins, but that only made the stupid animal more stubborn, not less. For the hundredth time since he’d seen the riders silhouetted on the low ridge to the north of the Sun’s Door, he thought about simply abandoning the stubborn beast. But he’d need the thing later, no matter how foolish and ill-behaved it was. Too bad it didn’t have a broken leg—
that
he could have fixed; he could do nothing about a bad attitude. He finally climbed into the saddle despite the animal’s dancing around to unbalance him. Once he was in the saddle, at least, the beast settled down and seemed likely to obey instructions.

A shimmer in the air warned him that someone else had entered the Sun’s Door behind him. Bekluth almost turned around to look before better sense prevailed, and he touched his heels to the horse’s side.

It had to be the Mercenaries, more specifically Dhulyn Wolfshead.

“I knew it,” he said aloud. “I knew it.” He’d known there was something special about her; no one could be so clear and open and not have other talents as well. What a pair they would make if he could only free her from her companion. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.

He turned left, then right, into a section of the labyrinth where the footing was pressed earth and the walls solid rock, rugged yet smooth, like cliff faces after eons of being pounded by seawater. Here he
should
keep to the long path that stretched out in front of him, but they would see him as soon as they turned into the area themselves and catch up with him.

Instead Bekluth turned down the first archway on the left and dismounted. There was a crossbow hanging from his saddle. He cocked it, placed the bolt, and waited.

And waited.

Finally even he ran out of patience and, pressing himself flat against the stone, he peered around the edge.

The pathway beyond was empty. They had obviously turned down the wrong way. His luck was with him after all. Too bad, in a way. He was sorry to have missed his chance with the Mercenary woman. Such an opportunity.

Whistling, Bekluth put away the arrows, unstrung the bow, and got back on the horse.

 

“Don’t stop, his scent goes this way.” Dhulyn had first let Bloodbone fall into a trot and then a walk. Clearly, she did not want to lose the only trace they had of the trader, but she likewise did not want to fall into the type of obstacle they’d encountered on their way along the Path the first time.

“Did you see that?” Parno edged up beside her. “Through that last opening, between those cedar hedges?”

“What was it?”

“It looked like the hem and trailing sleeve of a court dress.”

“What color?”

Despite their predicament—
were
Gun and Mar safe with the Espadryni?—Parno grinned. Typical of Dhulyn that she believed him utterly, even when he said something that made no sense. “Pink,” he said.

“I didn’t see her,” Dhulyn said, “but I smelled vanilla oil.” She shot him a glance, the whisper of a smile on her lips. “Not our trader’s choice of perfume, I thought.”

The path in front of them angled to the right, but as they turned the corner, they noted that tiny shift in their senses of direction that they had experienced before, this time without any of the disorientation.

“It appears that even here, practice makes perfect,” Parno said.

“Perhaps, but I don’t remember seeing this pathway before, do you?”

The ground stretching out in front of them resembled hard clay, like a road that had been pressed smooth and then baked in the sun. The walls to either side were solid rock, rugged yet smooth.

“Limestone?” Dhulyn suggested, and Parno thought she was right. Except that they were here, and not at the seaside, the rock surfaces resembled nothing more than cliff faces after untold years of being pounded by water.

#Joy# #Welcome# #Greeting# #Joy#

“Dhulyn!” Parno reined in, making Warhammer spin on his hind legs. The horse snorted his poor opinion of this kind of nonsense.

Now a pace or two ahead of him, Dhulyn stopped and looked over her shoulder, her pale face a mixture of concern and irritation. “I tell you we will lose the scent,” she said.

“The Crayx, I heard them.” Parno closed his eyes and concentrated, letting his Pod sense rise to the surface of his mind in the way he’d been taught. He shook his head. “They’re gone.”

Dhulyn licked her lips, uncertainty in her eyes, but once again she did not ask him if he was sure, once again she took him at his word. “Do you want to continuing trying?” she asked. “Or should we carry on?”

Parno hesitated for only a moment. “Carry on,” he said. “It was only a touch; there’s nothing there now.”

Dhulyn nodded and set off, though she slowed again almost immediately. They were approaching an archway in the rock on the left, and just short of it Dhulyn held her left fist up at shoulder height, extended her thumb, then her two smallest fingers, then her thumb again.

The scent was stronger through the arch. Parno hung back, edging to the left as Dhulyn was edging to the right. The trader meant either to hide or to ambush them, knowing that he had left no telltale tracks on the Path itself. But he could not be aware of the heightened senses that the Stalking Cat
Shora
gave a Schooled Mercenary Brother. When so little time had passed, Dhulyn would have been able to follow him blindfolded.

With timing perfected through the thousands of repetitions in the
Shora
, Parno and Dhulyn spurred in unison around the corner, swords and daggers out and ready.

And came to a complete stop, frozen with their weapons still in the air.

It was not the trader, Bekluth Allain, who awaited them in the new pathway but an enormous snow cat, its black and white stripes giving it a strange camouflage against the rocky walls behind it. It was clear the animal had seen them, but, as close as they were, they could not smell it, nor, from their reactions, could the horses. The cat looked at them as if bored, blinked its huge yellow eyes and leaped in one clean motion to the top of the wall. There it sat and began to wash its hindquarters.

“I believe we’ve been dismissed,” Parno said, lowering his sword.

“I believe you are right.” Dhulyn clucked her tongue, and Bloodbone once again moved forward. “Ah.” Dhulyn’s tone was full of satisfaction. “The cat did not eat our prey, his scent continues on this pathway.”

The cat they did not see again, but twice more, as they followed Bekluth Allain by his scent, they caught glimpses of other people along the pathways they did not take. Once Dhulyn saw what she thought was a man in black walking away from them, wide-brimmed hat worn on an angle, the edge of his cape held out by his sword. Once Parno saw a fair-haired person on a pale horse trot across the end of a pathway.

And once they heard something. They were in a section of the Path of a type they’d seen before: closely cropped grass underfoot and well-trimmed hedges to either side. Murmurings seemed to indicate that there were people speaking on the other side of the hedge.

“My soul, that is you?” Dhulyn used the nightwatch voice.

“Impossible.”

“Do you think I could mistake another’s voice for yours?”

Parno concentrated more carefully. His Partner was right, that was clearly
her
voice beyond the hedge, he could recognize the tone and heft of it, like music, even though he could not make out the words. If Dhulyn claimed the other voice was his, he was willing to believe her. She had dismounted, and was reaching into the hedge, beginning to part it with her hands, when he stopped her.

“Are you sure you want to try this?” he said. “It may mean we will lose the trader.”

For a moment she looked at him, her eyes sparkling with curiosity, but then she withdrew her hands. “Quickly then, before I change my mind.”

She swung back into the saddle and set off at a fast walk, but it seemed that the Path held no further surprises for them. The branch they followed crossed two others without incident, and suddenly they were through a huge squared opening and out of the Path of the Sun.

Parno saw movement out of the corner of his eye, ducked and signaled Warhammer in the way Dhulyn had made him practice over and over. As he ducked, Warhammer’s right fore hoof flashed out, catching the advancing Bekluth Allain a glancing blow that staggered him, knocking him down. In a heartbeat Parno was on the ground, lashing the trader’s ankles with a few quick turns of his reins. Warhammer, knowing perfectly well what was expected of him, backed off a pace, taking up the slack.