“It is time for the midday meal. Will you join us at the young men’s fire?” he asked. “We would hear more of the land beyond Mother Sun’s Door.”
“We would be pleased.” Dhulyn slowed and Parno followed her lead. This was a good sign and an improvement over their experience in the Long Trees camp, where the men had not wanted to share their fire with Dhulyn. The Horsemen were becoming used to them, and the demonstration yesterday seemed to have won them some friends, and Dhulyn more admirers, but as she would say herself, better cautious than cursing. When he saw that heads were turning away from his Partner, Parno took a step away and turned to look for himself. He relaxed slightly when he saw it was the approach of the Horse Shaman, Spring-Flood, that had drawn attention.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead, if you will. The Seers of the Salt Desert Tribe would have speech with you.”
“May it wait, Horse Shaman? We have asked the Mercenary Brothers to share our meal,” Scar-face said. “Or do the Seers wish to offer hospitality?”
There was something flat in the way Scar-face said those words, and some of the others turned their heads away to hide smiles, but Parno was sure the Horse Shaman was not fooled.
“After the meal will be soon enough,” he conceded, nodding to the Mercenaries before he went his way.
It was later in the afternoon that they approached the Seers’ area. The handful who were currently sharing tents with one of the men—usually those with children—were in their own quarters, but the bulk of the women stayed more or less in the portion of the camp assigned to them.
“Look,” Parno said, angling his eyes toward a woman leading a child by the hand. “If we stay, could you have a child here?” Dhulyn glanced at his face. Apparently it was one thing to know that there were sufficient Seers here among the Espadryni to allow them to bear children; it was another to see it with his own eyes. “Would it be safe?” he said. “What happens if the other women don’t take the Visions for you?”
“A good question,” Dhulyn said. She watched as the one leading the child disappeared into a tent. “I expect the life force would then be taken from the child, and I would miscarry.”
“But you would not be in any danger?”
“No more than I usually am.” They were drawing closer to the Seers’ area, and a few of the women were gathering. “They look like other women, don’t they?” Dhulyn said. “Except for their coloring, we could be in any camp of nomads.”
“I have been twice in the south, and I have spoken with other women, whole women. These may look like other women, but they are not.” Star-Wind had come up beside them. “I see you are watching the children, Dhulyn Wolfshead. Is it in your mind to join us for a time in order to bear a child? You tell us that Seers are rare on your side of the Door, and there are no Espadryni left. When you have found your killer, you are welcome to stay with us.”
Dhulyn stood very still, the blood suddenly pounding in her ears. “What if she is Marked,” she said.
“You think the child may be Marked in the way of our world, soulless and broken, and not in the way of your own world?”
“We can’t know,” Dhulyn said. “What controls the flaw? The parentage, or the place of birth?”
“Caids no,” Parno said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“The Caids? Sun burn them, Moon freeze them cold, the stupid beggars.” Parno and Dhulyn spun around to find that one of the Espadryni women had come up behind them—closer than she should have been able to come. She was substantially older than the other women they had glimpsed, her blood-red hair marbled with veins of white, but her skin was remarkably smooth and youthful, as if she rarely moved her face.
“What have you got against the Caids?” Dhulyn asked.
“It was they who made us wrong, wasn’t it? And then died and left us to our fate, curse them. Made us well enough to defeat the Green Shadow and then tossed us aside like chipped hammers. And now we are as we are, and treated as we are, and why? Through no fault of our own, but because they made us wrong. And then they die off anyway, lucky cowards that they were, leaving us to bear the consequences of their haste and carelessness.”
Her words were bitter, but her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she merely stated what all knew to be true.
“That’s enough, Snow-Moon.”
The older woman shrugged her left shoulder. “There’s wind and rain coming, young Singer, and plenty of it. But the trader comes first.” She turned to Dhulyn. “So our business will wait, whole woman, as it always must, until the outsider is gone. And we can thank the Caids for that as well.” She turned away.
“There’s something in what she says,” Dhulyn said. “If the Marked here were created, as our Marked were, to deal with the Green Shadow, it’s obvious that the Caids are somehow to blame.”
Parno watched the old Seer hobble away, a chill running up his spine. Sometime in her life the old woman had broken the Pact seriously enough to be punished for it. Is this what might await a daughter of theirs?
“What would you have us do, Dhulyn Wolfshead? Kill all the Seers, as the others do their Marked? Break the Tribes? Die out ourselves? Who then would guard the Path of the Sun?”
“One of the Long Trees People told us there is a belief that someone would come with a cure. Do you wait for that?”
“We have heard this as well, it is a Vision the Seers have had in every generation. Does it encourage us to keep the Seers alive?” Star-wind shrugged. “Perhaps. We cannot disprove the belief, and many are hopeful.”
Sounds coming from the southern edge of the encampment drew their attention, and several people began to move in that direction. Even some of the women, though they did not head that way, stopped what they were doing and looked up.
“And there’s the trader,” Star-Wind said. “They could have given us a bit more notice.”
So some outsiders did visit the Tribes, Parno thought. Though from what the old woman had said, it was clear they did not know about the Seers.
“I must go to the Singer with this weather news, but you may wish to speak to the trader of what he has seen,” Star-Wind said. The man’s face was a little unhappy, and Parno suspected the conversation about children had done them no good in his eyes.
“The trader seems a popular man,” Dhulyn remarked under her breath as they joined the crowd of men and young children who had dropped what they were doing and were making for the lanky fair-haired man leading the short train of burdened horses. They were small beasts, Dhulyn noted, much the same size as those ridden by the Espadryni.
“Or else it’s his goods that are popular,” Parno said. Dhulyn gave him the tiniest push with her closed right fist.
“I believe I am the cynical one,” she said. But she was not exactly smiling, Parno noted.
The trader was not as tall as the average Espadryni male—closer to Dhulyn’s height, Parno thought—but his thinness gave him the appearance of height. His hands were large, the knuckles pronounced, but not with disease. It was rather as though he was still growing, and his body hadn’t quite caught up with his hands and feet. His straw-colored hair was coarse and thick, cropped short as if for a helm, though the trader bore no arms other than the knife at his belt.
He was wearing a gold ring in each ear. Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye and she gave a small nod. Yes. This was the man of her Visions, the one who had offered his aid. Perhaps some solid luck was finally coming their way.
Dhulyn and Parno hung back, keeping to the fringes of the small crowd surrounding the trader, watching as he greeted children by name, asked after the absent, and dodged queries about ordered merchandise.
“Now, Horsemen, patience please,” he said, patting at the air with his palms held outward. “Everything in its time, and I’ve yet to pay my respects to your Shamans.” The crowd began to disperse, leaving him a wide space that would lead him to the central tents. His packhorses he left in the charge of some of the older boys—old enough to be trusted to see to his horses withou
t examining their packs too closely. Parno and Dhulyn held their ground as the trader passed close to them, and stopped.
“Mercenary Brothers?” he said, eyeing their badges. “Will there be more of you then? I must increase my stock of weapons and harness if so,” he added with a grin. Parno found himself inclined to grin back. The man’s good humor was infectious.
“You met with our Brothers, then?” Dhulyn asked.
The trader started to answer her, gave her a closer look and hesitated.
“No fear, Bekluth,” Star-Wind said, coming up to join them. “You dishonor no one by speaking to Dhulyn Wolfshead. The Espadryni do not sequester their women on the far side of Mother Sun’s Door.”
“Is that right?” It seemed for a moment the sunniness of the trader’s face was clouded over. But then Bekluth smiled again, and the moment passed. “Well, then I’m very glad to meet you. I did not meet with your Brothers, as it happened, but I have heard of them from the Cold Lake People, who met them as they emerged from the Door.”
“Trader Bekluth Allain, of the City of Norwash.” There was a tone in Star-Wind’s voice Parno could not quite place. It was as if he were giving a warning, but at whom was it aimed? “These are Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane,” the Horseman added. “Once you have spoken with Singer of the Grass-Moon, they have questions for you.”
“I await them with pleasure, particularly if I may ask a few of my own.”
The rains began just as people were sitting down to the evening meal, but with the warning they’d received, everyone—except those assigned to watches—was already inside the inglera and horsehair tents or under other shelter. It was only a short time afterward that Bekluth Allain came to where Dhulyn and Parno had set out their evening meal of skillet bread, curds, and thin beer on the blanket they were using as a table.
“I won’t join you,” the trader said. His soft voice made the unfamiliar accent almost pleasant. “The Singer was good enough to feed me in exchange for news, and they’ve also told me something about your mission here and that you may have questions for me.” He spoke to Parno, but he was looking with frank interest at Dhulyn. “You’ll forgive me staring,” he said, when Dhulyn raised her eyebrow at him. “To see an Espadryni woman so closely—you can imagine how fascinating it is for me.”
“You do not normally meet with them?” Dhulyn said.
Bekluth Allain shrugged. “Never. At first I thought it was the custom of the Salt Desert People only, but I learned that all the Red Horsemen keep their women apart from other men.” He lowered his voice. “Do I have my suspicions as to the reasons for this?” He nodded, top lip sucked in. “I have my notions. Have I asked in so many words? No, I haven’t. And why not? Because they wouldn’t tell me, and they’d stop trading with me. Or, they might decide they needed to stop me from sharing my notions with others. If I don’t ask, things continue as they are, and to tell you the truth, I like my own company better than I like being a younger cousin in the largest trading family in Gelbrado.” He shrugged again.
“It’s true what we’ve been told? There are no Marked anywhere?” Parno asked the question he knew Dhulyn was hesitating to ask.
“So far as I know—and my family trades extensively—there are no adult Marked anywhere.” The trader let his voice return to normal volume. “But tell me of your problem; I’m sure you did not brave the Sun’s Doorway to question me about the Espadryni.”
Trying to give only the necessary details, Parno outlined what had happened in Menoin and what their mission here was in consequence. “There was torture,” he said finally, “before the death came. From the condition of the body it seems likely the torture was as important as the death, perhaps more. Nor can we be sure whether this was part of some ceremony or ritual—there are Mages also to consider, on both sides of the Path of the Sun. We followed the trail of the killer into the Path, but when we emerged on this side, the trail was gone. Have you seen or heard of anything in your travels that might help us?” But Bekluth Allain was already shaking his head.
“Have you, yourself, been near the Path of the Sun at any time in the last ten days?” Dhulyn asked.
“I have not,” he said readily. “Though I’m cursed if I can know how to prove it to you. But wait, there is often someone of the Espadryni keeping vigil or awaiting the opening of the Door—it is a ceremony common to the whole of the Tribes,” he added, “which so far as I know has never involved any ritual sacrifices. Perhaps that person can speak for me.”
“There was a young man there when we came out of the Path,” Parno said. “And it is true that he did not report seeing anyone else.”
“And yet the man that we followed must have been there,” Dhulyn said. “Unless, of course, there is more than one way out of the Path.”
Bekluth sat back, slapping his hands on his knees.
“You are very open, do you know that? Both of you.” He smiled at the look of polite interest on Dhulyn’s face. “You see? Others might take that look of polite interest for courtesy only, but I can tell—you are interested.” He put up his hands. “If only to the extent that politeness allows. But it’s unusual to meet people who are hiding nothing, not even from each other.”
“And how is it you have this talent?” This time Dhulyn smiled her wolf’s smile, her lip curing back from her teeth. Bekluth blinked, but his smile faded only a little.
“I’m a trader,” he said, tapping himself on the chest. “From a long family of traders. Generations. If I couldn’t tell what people’s hidden desires are, how could I know what to sell them?”
“And what are our hidden desires?” Dhulyn asked.
“That’s just it.” Bekluth was triumphant. “You haven’t any.”
Fifteen
“I THINK WE WERE on shipboard with the Long Ocean Traders the last time we checked our weapons for damp.” Parno squinted along the metal shaft of a collapsible crossbow before wiping it with an oiled linen cloth and returning it to its bag. The rain had stopped before sunrise, but it had been heavy enough that, though the sun was well up—and shining brilliantly, as if the weather here matched that of Menoin—the dampness had them undoing their packs to inspect their weapons for wet spots, damp, and rust. Espadryni passed them, most politely averting their eyes from the rows of weapons neatly laid out between the two Mercenaries, but many began to pass again and again, the bolder ones slowing to stare their fill—clearly curiosity was overcoming politeness.
“Do you miss the Crayx?” Dhulyn asked. They were sitting on two thick fleeces Parno had exchanged for playing his pipes the evening before, cross-legged and facing each other, so each had a clear view of the camp over the shoulder of the other.
Parno narrowed his eyes, though he continued scanning the area over her left shoulder. “It’s not so much that I miss them for themselves, if you understand me. It’s as though there is an absence, an emptiness where none was before.” He looked at her and smiled. “Which is odd, when you think about it, since I was never aware of my Pod sense before.”
“Well, they do say that you can’t miss something unless you’ve known it,” Dhulyn pointed out. She wound her extra bowstrings around her right hand and put them back into their pouch.
“I do sometimes find myself listening for the sounds or voices of the Crayx in my mind,” Parno admitted. “But less so now.”
“I wonder if there are Crayx in the oceans here,” Dhulyn said.
“I wonder if there are oceans.” Parno refastened the tie on the crossbow kit and reached for his roll of knives. He did not open it, however, but sat silent for a few minutes. “What was making you so quiet last night while I was playing? I’ll wager it wasn’t thinking about the Crayx.” He had dropped his tone into the nightwatch voice, though none of the curious were close enough to overhear.
Dhulyn shook her head. “When we implied that we did not approve of the way the Seers are handled, Star-Wind asked us what we’d have him do, break the Tribes? Let their race die out? But isn
’t that exactly what my own people did? How else can we account for the fact that a race of Seers did not foresee the coming of the Bascani? Or did nothing to prevent the massacre? Hasn’t that been our question since we knew of Avylos the Blue Mage? Why didn’t my mother and her sister Seers stop the breaking of the Tribes?”
“They allowed it to happen, that’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But why?”
“That’s what we still don’t know.”
A shadow fell across them, and they fell silent. Parno looked up and sideways. Dhulyn untied her last pack and pulled out the silk bag that held her vera tiles. She examined the olive-wood box with care, turning it over in her hands, holding it up to the light, before opening the plain clasps and checking over the tiles themselves.
“What, no maces? No pikes?” Bekluth Allain, cloak tied as if for traveling, with what was clearly a mock frown on his face, surveyed their equipment with his fists on his hips.
“We wouldn’t mind, but the horses would object,” Parno said. “We thought it best to bring with us only these few weapons that we could carry ourselves.”
Dhulyn let their voices pass over her head as she smoothed out a place in front of her to lay down the bag her tiles were normally stored in. Absently, she began to lay out the old-fashioned Tailor’s Hand, one of the simplest patterns and one of the first games vera tile players were taught. Each player chose nine tiles to begin, and the object was to take turns pairing up matching tiles, until you had matched all the tiles in your hand. The first to do so was the winner. Dhulyn frowned at the pattern the tiles had made and scooped them up again, turning them facedown preparatory to shuffling them and laying them out once more.
“You are formidable warriors indeed if you consider the array I see here as ‘few.’ ” Bekluth sounded more serious now. “There might be much work for you here.”
“Only if there were more of us, and we take a long time to School.”
Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno Page 26