Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno

by Malan, Violette

  “This isn’t as easy as it looks.” Gun’s tone was much milder than his words suggested. He seemed to be holding up well, but Mar didn’t like the grayness of his skin. He took two more steps forward and stood swaying. Recognizing the signs, Mar was at his side to hold him up out of the black ash as he bent over, retching. Nothing but a line of saliva came out of his mouth, not even bile. His stomach was as empty as it could be.

  Gun stayed bent over for several minutes, getting his breath back, and waiting for the next convulsion. Finally he straightened, but his hands went immediately out to his sides to balance himself. Mar kept her grip firmly on his waist, her lower lip between her teeth.

  “Gun,” she said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice, “what can I do?”

  He made the merest negative motion with his head and grimaced. “It doesn’t stop spinning,” he said.

  Mar licked her lips and looked around. The sun was not nearly as bright as it had been in Menoin. It seemed more southerly, softer, and at the angle she would have expected of the Hunter’s Moon.

  “A blindfold,” she said. “That’s what you need. Sit, carefully.” She helped him lower himself to the ground before she caught up the knife at her belt. Used for sharpening pens, it was more than sharp enough to cut the seam of her tunic and notch the edge of the material to tear off a wide strip. This she folded in half lengthwise and, gently pushing Gun’s hands away from his face, tied it tightly around his eyes.

  “Any better?” she asked. Give his brain less to work with—or against—and it should steady down.

  Gun rubbed at his upper lip, and Mar spit on the loose corner of her tunic, leaned forward, and wiped off his mouth. Until they could find a source to refill the water flasks from Alaria’s packs, that was the best she could offer him.

  “Better,” he said, panting.

  “Try to take deep breaths,” she said. “Deep and slow.” She smiled as he obeyed her, struggling to take in one slow shuddering breath after another. The smile faded as she straightened and looked around. Was there unburned grass over there, toward the sun? Or was she just wishing?

  “Less wobbly,” Gun said.

  Mar crouched down on her heels and put the back of her hand against Gun’s face and forehead. No fever that she could detect. “Can you stand?” she said. “I think I see the end of the burned section over to the east.”

  “You can tell which way is east?”

  Mar blinked, a spot of cold growing in her belly. “The sun’s setting,” she said. “That way’s the east, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” With uncanny accuracy he reached for her forearm and gripped it. “I can’t tell. Everything’s spinning.” Gun pressed his lips together and swallowed, once, twice, and again.

  The cold spread from Mar’s belly up her arms. He’d said the clue had disappeared. Now he could not tell east from west.

  “Your Mark?” Mar licked suddenly dry lips.

  “It’s gone.”

  Mar knew that Gun was doing his very best not to lean his whole weight on her, but the unburned section of prairie was farther away than it had appeared, and she was staggering by the time they reached it. She tried to lower him slowly to the ground, but her knees gave out in the last minute, and they both went down heavily onto the trampled grass. Joints and muscles screaming, Mar lay still, listening to Gun’s ragged breathing.

  Finally she pushed herself upright until she was resting on her knees, and she took hold of Gun’s wrist with her grimy hand. They had fallen only once, but it had been headlong, and it had coated them both with a fine layer of gritty ash. Mar checked their water flask, took a careful sip to rinse out her mouth, and then swallowed it rather than spitting it out, wrinkling her nose at the taste of ashes.

  “Here, Gun. Water.” She nudged him until he rolled over onto his back, shoved her arm under his shoulder and lifted him upright enough to give him just a little more than the scant mouthful of liquid she’d allowed herself. Like her, Gun swallowed the gritty water, and Mar relaxed. If Gun was able to remember that bit of wisdom, perhaps he was starting to feel better.

  She shifted so that Gun could lean against her, his head resting in the hollow of her shoulder. “I’m going to need some help,” she said.

  “Go. Leave me.” His voice was a thread finer than the ash.

  “We haven’t reached that point yet.” And never will, she thought. Mar scanned their surroundings, but she saw nothing but the unburned version of what she’d been looking at for what seemed like days. Knee high grass, stunted trees, and, a long way away, what looked like the horizon. “If I knew where we were, or where I could go for help, it might be a good idea for me to go on ahead without you,” she allowed. “As it is, there isn’t even a defensible place I can leave you. Not even a tree you could put your back against.” She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see her. “No. We’ll wait. See if you don’t feel better after some rest. It may be better for us to travel by night.”

  “The stars.”

  Mar smiled. “That’s right, we can get directions from them, good thinking. So just lie down for a bit, and I’ll see what I can do about setting up a camp.”

  When they had first met, Mar had spent most of a moon traveling with Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane, and she’d learned one or two things about making a camp in the middle of nowhere, with just the supplies you had to hand. In their own pouches they each had sparkers, and their writing kits—and not much else in practical terms. The quick glance that was all they’d had time for until now had already told her that Alaria’s two packs were identical. Now she had time for a more thorough check of supplies. Two water flasks, one empty, one almost so. Two rounded clay containers with closely fitted lids that, when opened, revealed themselves as paste lamps, along with two sparkers. Each pack also contained a head scarf, a set of nested copper bowls suitable for cooking, a quilted bedroll, and a folding knife. Mar examined this last with some curiosity. She’d seen them before but had never had one in her hands. They were too expensive for Scholars. She fingered the latch, slid it aside, and let the knife open. She closed it again and put it away.

  There was also, she was relieved to see, a substantial packet of travel bread, along with some twists of dried meat and fruit wrapped in oiled cloth.

  Mar repacked everything except the bedrolls. It was warm enough to do without a fire, but rest they had to have. Though quilted, the bedrolls were not very thick, and since she and Gun were not hardened Mercenary Brothers . . . Mar pulled her knife out of her belt, took a deep breath and stood up. “I’m going to cut grass for bedding,” she said.

  It took a few tries for Mar to learn the most efficient stroke to cut the tough grass with a knife, but she eventually had enough to lay out Gun’s bedroll and help him crawl into it. She decided against cutting more since one of them would have to stay awake to keep watch, and besides, her arms already felt as though they were pulling out of her shoulders, and her palms were starting to crack and bleed. And her knife, when she tested it on the ball of her thumb, was now badly in need of sharpening.

  “This is much easier in books.” Mar pushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist, eyed the water flask leaning against their packs, and turned her eyes resolutely back to the horizon.

  She blinked and looked more carefully, slowly getting to her feet. A single man on horseback. Mar looked around quickly, heart thumping, mouth drier than ever, but he appeared to be alone. Manageable then, she told herself, trying to calm down, and shifting her grip on her knife. On the other hand, this one man had been able to get this close to them without her noticing him. At this rate, there might be an enemy behind every blade of grass.

  And she should have remembered that there was a killer here, and that this man could be him. Mar took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and put herself between the horseman and Gun. Nevertheless, she found herself relaxing as the horse and its rider came close enough to see clearly.

  A thin, f
air-haired man. No armor, no helm, not even wearing gloves. Though he wore a short sword and had a crossbow hanging from his saddle, he didn’t look like a soldier but more like a man of business. Mar automatically noted that his dull red tunic was a very fine weave of wool and that his leather trousers were equally finely tanned and dyed. He had a silver ring on his left index finger and wore round gold rings in his ears. His boots, ankle high like a town man’s, were scuffed and dusty but again, were clearly of good quality.

  The man lifted his sand-colored brows. “Greetings,” he said, smiling. “I am Bekluth Allain of Norwash, trader by profession.”

  Mar felt somehow reassured by the man’s smile. This was obviously no such maniac as had been responsible for the horror of Princess Cleona’s death. Gun was sitting up now, his hair full of bits of grass and his blindfold askew. Mar, seeing the state of him though the stranger’s eyes, brushed at herself. “We’re Scholars from the Library of Valdomar,” she said, reaching down to straighten Gun’s blindfold. “I’m Mar, and this is my husband Gundaron.”

  Bekluth Allain frowned a little. “Valdomar? I’m not familiar with it.” He shrugged. “But then, I don’t know of every town. What ails him,” he added, indicating Gun with a long-fingered hand. “Is he blind?”

  “Dizziness,” Mar said, helping Gun to sit up. “I was trying to limit the information reaching his senses, to see if that would help.” She started to unwrap the bandage around his eyes, but Gun caught her hands in his own.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  He sounds better already, she told herself.

  “That is a very clever idea. I have powdered fens bark for tea, which could be of use,” Bekluth said. “Have you anything to trade for it?” He dismounted and began to untie the laces on his left-hand saddlebag.

  Mar hesitated, a little taken aback. The last thing she would have expected to encounter on this side of the Path of the Sun was the ohso-familiar perspective of the merchant mind. She would have to be careful. Gun needed help, but what little they had might have to last them a long time. “As I said, we’re Scholars. If you’re a trader, is there something we can read or write for you?”

  Again, that look of puzzlement crossed his face. “I’m sorry,” he smiled. “I’m not familiar with the term—at least,” he shrugged, “not as you are applying it to yourselves. You are past the age of leaving your tutors, I would have thought.”

  “He means they don’t have Scholars here,” Gun said. He had the piece of cloth off and was squinting at the light. “No Libraries.”

  “Oh,” Mar looked back to the trader. “In that case, I’m not sure what we might have that we could trade you.”

  But the man was smiling again, shaking his head as if in admiration. “You thought I wouldn’t catch that? I heard your man say ‘here.’ When were you going to tell me that you have come through the Door of the Sun?”

  “You know of it then?” Mar was eager. “Do you know of others who’ve come through? We’re looking for two Mercenary Brothers—though if you don’t have Scholars here, perhaps you don’t have the Brotherhood either.”

  “You are quite right, we do not. But I believe I know the two you are speaking of. One tall, golden man and one woman of the Espadryni people.”

  “There are Espadryni here?” Gun lifted his head and winced, bracing his hands against his forehead.

  “Here, now, help me to build a fire, and let me get you that fens bark,” Bekluth said. “I am sure that there will be something you can trade me for it, if not now, then later. Even if it is only tales of your own land and how you made your way through the Door.” He turned back with a look of concentration to his saddlebag.

  Mar turned anxiously back to Gun, lower lip between her teeth. His eyes were shut, but she could see them moving behind the lids. Did that mean—she caught at the hope before it flew away. Had his Mark returned? Even as she thought this, the corners of Gun’s mouth turned down, and he paled enough to look green.

  “There is something more than the headache, I believe.”

  Mar flinched and almost overbalanced. How had the man come so close to her?

  “He’s a Finder, and he can’t Find,” she said.

  “Marked, is he?” the man’s brow furrowed, and Mar for an instant wondered if there was something wrong, if this man might be one of those rare individuals who were afraid of the Marked. But then his face cleared, and the smile played once more around his eyes.

  “That’s beyond my meager skills,” he said, shaking his head in regret. “Bind up a cut, or a few sleeping powders for those who know how to use them. The fens bark.” He shrugged. “You need one of the Mages, at the very least.”

  “The Espadryni,” Gun said. He sounded as though he were parceling out the words between slow breaths.

  “That’s right.” The man looked from one to the other. “They are Mages on your side as well, then?”

  Mar shrugged. Something in the man’s tone told her that she should horde even this apparently useless bit of knowledge as it might turn out to be worth trading. She waited as Bekluth quickly built a fire, filled a metal pot about the size of an ale mug with water from a bag hanging on his saddle, and set it at the fire’s edge. She licked her lips and settled herself comfortably next to Gun. Dhulyn Wolfshead was the shrewdest trader—in her way—that Mar had ever met, but right now Mar would have settled for her foster mother, Guillor Weaver.

  “Can you take us?” she asked Bekluth Allain. “To the Red Horsemen?”

  Bekluth had shifted the metal pot away from the fire with a small hooked rod evidently designed for the purpose. Into the cooling water he tapped a measure of powdered fens bark from a fold of paper. He looked back at her, shook his head with a smile of admiration on his lips as he handed her the pot.

  “There now, I wish I had some brandy to give you both; it seems you could use it, but I’m fresh out.” His brows furrowed, but then he smiled again. “As for acting as guide, I cannot. I’ve my trading route, you must see that. I’m answerable to my family and they to our guild if I’m late and cannot show profit to justify it.”

  Mar nodded. This argument she understood. All that time keeping accounts for the weavers in Navra had taught her a thing or two about profit and the justification for it.

  “I would give you directions,” the trader continued, “but I thought you said you had nothing to trade.” He handed her the pot of tea.

  Mar tested the water with the back of her knuckle before passing the cup along to Gun. “Perhaps I spoke hastily,” she said. She ransacked her memory for what might be in her pouch or in Gun’s. Or perhaps she could offer something that was duplicated in the packs?

  “What of these copper bowls?” she said, pulling one set out of the nearest pack and setting them on the ground between them.

  But Bekluth was already shaking his head. “Such kits are commonplace here. Have you nothing else?” he asked, and Mar almost believed that his regret was sincere. She looked to Gun. He was slowly sipping the cup of fens bark tea. Was he looking a little less green, or was she just hoping very hard? She glanced back at the trader and came to a decision.

  “I will show you what I have,” she said. “Tell me what you can give me for it.”

  A new smile, a different smile, flickered across Bekluth’s face and was gone before Mar was sure she’d seen it. She hesitated, hand halfway into her belt pouch. Bekluth’s expression had returned to its half-smile of serene interest, a look she was familiar with, having seen it often on the faces of traders everywhere. Nothing then, she’d seen nothing.

  First, she pulled from her own belt pouch a fine scarf, teal patterned with black, edged thinly with a dark red, her House colors. Next she put out one of the folding knives.

  “What is this?” Bekluth reached for the scarf, but did not pick it up until Mar nodded. “Seda?” he asked.

  “We call it silk,” Mar said. “But I’ve heard the term you’re using as well.”

  Bekluth ran it through
his fingers, closely examining it for a flaw Mar knew he would not find. He set it down and indicated the knife. “May I?”

  Mar nodded again and watched his long fingers with their large knuckles prod at the knife until she took it from him, showed him how the latch worked, and handed it back to let him try it himself.

  “This is ingenious,” the trader said, and Mar could hear the sincerity in his voice. “Anyone can use it? It is not magicked in any way?”

  “Anyone can use it,” Mar said, holding out her hand.

  Gingerly, Bekluth folded the knife shut again and returned it. He sat back on his heels and tapped his chin with his fingers. “It would fetch a good price, but it might be years before I found the person who would pay it.” He sat back, resting his long wrists on his knees, and contemplated her offerings. Finally he inhaled deeply, let it out, and nodded.

  “For the knife and the seda scarf, I will fill your water bottles, and give you directions to the camp of the nearest Espadryni, who may be able to help your friend and direct you to the others you seek.”

  Mar shook her head and began to put away her things, starting with the scarf. The directions were the most important, but if she agreed too readily . . . Her hand hovered over the knife. “For what you offer, the knife alone is already more than enough. After all, directions are things you can trade over and over, and water you will replenish at no charge from the next source you know of.” She shrugged. “It’s not as though you’re guiding us yourself.”

  Bekluth drummed his fingers on his knee before finally nodding. “Very well. What then will you take for the seda scarf?”

  “The rest of your fens bark and five day’s food.”

  “Three.”