Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno

by Malan, Violette

“For both of us. And a satchel to carry it in,” she added hastily. It was all too easy to imagine Bekluth simply dumping the food out onto the ground.

  “Done.” Bekluth held out his fist to her, and Mar hesitantly tapped it with her own. He rose easily to his feet, scooping up the folding knife and her scarf as he went. Mar eyed the scarf with a pang. Her House, Dal-eLad Tenebro, had given it to her himself. But Dal was a practical man, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t grudge that she’d traded the emblem of her House for food.

  The trader returned with a thick linen bag, complete with drawstring and shoulder strap. From his right-hand saddlebag he sorted out a cheese about the size of a large melon, wrapped in waxed cloth and smelling delicious. To this he added two small loaves of travel cake, and a dozen each of dried figs and plums. Finally he put a small waterskin into the bag and handed it to her. Mar accepted it with a nod.

  “If you follow my directions carefully, you will meet the Cold Lake People. They have many great shamans, one of which is likely to be able to help you. Begin by heading due west, toward the setting sun—”

  “East,” Mar corrected automatically.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said west,” Mar said. “You meant east. The sun sets in the east.”

  “How interesting. For that you will get another travel cake.” Bekluth rummaged in his bag. “So the sun sets in the east on the other side of the Door. Are the worlds mirrors then?” He waved his hand in the air. “No matter. This is not knowledge I can sell, since the town philosophers do not know of or believe in the Door of the Sun. It appears the directions are reversed, so listen carefully, and remember. Go west, toward the setting sun until you reach a great ravine. This should not take more than a day of walking. Follow the ravine north, that is, turn to your right. The Cold Lake People are in that direction, and you cannot fail to find them. I cannot tell you, however, exactly how many days away they will be. You should not run out of food, but I would eat sparingly in any case.

  “Thank you for your advice,” Mar said.

  “Here is more.” Bekluth frowned as though he were thinking something through. “I would not tell them immediately that you have been through the Door of the Sun. It is a holy place to them, and they may object to your use of it. But,” he held up his finger, “be sure to tell them that your friend is a Finder.” Bekluth leaned toward her to emphasize his words further. “They will need to know that to prepare the right magics for him.”

  “We will, and thank you.”

  The man gave a sharp nod, almost a bow and stood up again. “Then I will be on my way,” he said. “Good trading to you.”

  “And to you,” Mar said. Part of her wanted to ask him to stay, or to ask if they could travel with him. But he’d made it plain that he wasn’t going their way. Part of her was a little surprised by his abrupt departure.

  “Well, that was helpful.” Mar kneeled once more beside Gun and touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “Is the fens bark helping?”

  “A little, I think.” Gun cleared his throat. “What he said, about the directions being reversed, I wonder if that is what’s making me so bad?”

  “I suppose it could be.”

  “Did you think he smiled too much?” Gun accepted her offered arm and inched himself to his feet.

  “He’s a trader,” Mar said, slinging the satchel over one shoulder and preparing to take Gun’s arm with her free hand. “They all smile too much.”

  Nineteen

  PARNO SQUATTED ON his heels, watching Dhulyn pick her way through the sharpened stakes at the bottom of the orobeast trap. There was the smell of old blood, and of bodily wastes, faint now, but unmistakable.

  “What kind of animal did they say these were used for?” he asked.

  “An orobeast they said.” Dhulyn answered without looking up. “Some kind of prowling cat apparently, something fast and deadly but that didn’t cover too much ground in its leaps.”

  Parno nodded. If the beast’s paces when running were long, the odds were against this kind of trap, or any other for that matter, catching it.

  Dhulyn crouched closer to a particular set of bones, laying the tips of her fingers along what they both recognized as a human thigh bone. “In Battle,” she said.

  “Or in Death,” Parno responded.

  Placing her feet delicately, like a dancer moving unusually slowly through the measure of a dance, Dhulyn made her way over to the side of the pit and held up her left arm. Parno took hold of her wrist, made sure she had a good grip on his and, bracing himself, lifted her out in one unbroken movement.

  “It’s already too dark to see details at the bottom,” she said, dusting off her hands on her leather trousers. “Even if we suppose there is something worth our while to see.”

  Parno squinted against the setting sun. “Camp here, then, and start again in the morning?”

  Dhulyn took another look around at the trampled ground before she nodded. “Eat first,” she said. “Then we’ll say a few words for Kesman Firehawk. Delvik couldn’t have managed much in the state he was in. We’ll divide the night into four watches,” she added as they walked back to where they had left the horses. “Odds for me, evens for you.”

  Parno raised his eyes to look over her shoulder. “Someone’s coming.”

  Dhulyn swung herself onto Bloodbone’s back, to have better line of sight in the direction Parno had indicated.

  “It’s the trader, Bekluth Allain,” she said, squinting against the lowering sun. “Off his normal route, I imagine.”

  It seemed that the trader recognized them almost in the same moment. His right arm swung up over his head, and the pace of the horse he was riding, and the two he led, increased until he was dismounting a few paces away.

  “I should have known you would be interested in this spot,” he said, coming forward to greet them with nods and smiles, pulling his sleeves straight as he came. “I confess I was curious myself.”

  “Would you mind moving your horses,” Dhulyn said.

  The trader glanced back over his shoulder. “My horses?”

  The corners of Dhulyn’s mouth pressed tight. “As I am making a study of the tracks, Bekluth Allain, I would be grateful if you defaced them as little as possible.” She turned away without waiting for the trader to move, already looking for the best place for them to camp. Bekluth, Parno saw, kept his focus on Dhulyn, as if to memorize her shape.

  “We wouldn’t have expected to see you again so soon,” Parno said.

  The trader breathed in and turned to Parno, though his eyes still lingered on Dhulyn’s back. “Ah, well, the Cold Lake People were not at Flat Water, where I expected them to be.” Bekluth Allain shrugged. “Perhaps they travel more slowly than usual, or the weather was against them. It rained heavily two nights ago. It’s not unusual, it sometimes happens thus. These are the risks of my kind of trading.” He glanced past them at the deep shadow that was the trap. “Since I had time, I thought I might take a turn out of my way to satisfy my curiosity, as I said. I must say, I am not displeased at the occurrence, since it allows me to meet you once again. Something tells me there is as much profit to be found in your company as there might be among the Horsemen.”

  Parno found himself grinning. Bekluth Allain’s interest in Dhulyn was not unusual—even on their own side of the Path, she was worth a second look, and a third if it came to that—and the man’s very good humor was infectious. “We were about to make camp,” Parno said, gesturing with a sweep of his hand to where Dhulyn, squatting on her heels, was brushing a smooth spot on the ground. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “No fire,” Dhulyn said, when, his horses settled in the spot she’d marked out, Bekluth Allain joined her. The trader looked up in astonishment from where he was pulling grasses and small twigs together. “The body of one of our Brothers is lying in that hole.” Dhulyn nodded in the direction of the dark pit. “And we’re not sure yet how that came to be. This place is little more than a tabl
etop from which a fire could be seen from hundreds of spans away. Our Common Rule says we should not draw too much attention to ourselves in these circumstances.”

  “Does your Common Rule say we should freeze?” Bekluth’s face was serious, but there was a perceptible shine in his eye.

  “You’re welcome to use the bottom of the pit, if you’d prefer it. No fire would show from there,” Parno pointed out.

  Bekluth swung his head from side to side, throwing up his hands as if in surrender and smiling widely enough that his teeth shone white. “What about eating? Does the Common Rule allow that?”

  “Certainly,” Parno said.

  “Just not all at once,” Dhulyn added. “You may do as you please, but only one of us can eat with you at a time, in case there is something wrong with the food.”

  The trader shook his head, lips parted. “And I used to think the rules and restrictions of the Trader’s Guild were rigid.” He stretched. “And then, which of us shall take the first watch?”

  “My Partner and I will share the watches between us, Bekluth Allain,” Dhulyn said. The man’s face seemed to stiffen, and his eyes shuttered, but the impression was so fleeting, Parno couldn’t be certain he’d seen anything.

  “Nor is offense intended,” he said. “It’s merely another part of our Common Rule.”

  The moon was not going to rise high enough to give much light, but Bekluth wasn’t going to let that worry him. The sky was clear, the stars bright, and all he was missing was color—and considering that there was nothing around him but drying grass, a couple of horses, and Dhulyn Wolfshead’s patchwork vest, he wasn’t missing much. Even the Wolfshead’s hair was just dark now, not the telltale red of old blood that marked her so clearly for an Espadryni. Her skin was the soft pale of alabaster, so rich that your hand was always surprised by how cold it felt to the touch.

  Not that Dhulyn Wolfshead’s skin would feel cold. She wasn’t a pretty woman, not by any means, not with that scarred lip she had and that way of smiling that was more than half snarl. But still . . . Bekluth pursed his lips and remembered just in time not to start whistling. She was asleep, but he thought not deeply. He could see the movement under her eyelids that showed she was dreaming, a slight shiver of her skin, as if, in her dream, her muscles tensed.

  Is it true what they say? He wondered. Were all the Marked like her on the other side of the Sun’s Door? Full of light, so open and without secrets to hide? He might not have believed it if only the man had said so, but those two youngsters, so innocently telling him that the boy was a Finder. He grinned. The boy wasn’t as clear and open as Dhulyn Wolfshead, but what would it matter over there, so long as the Marked weren’t “broken,” so long as no one was hunting them down.

  A loose tendril of hair blew across her face, and Bekluth reached out, but again caution stopped his hand. If only he’d known all this before. Surely he could cross through and stay there if he rode far enough from the Door. He could live there, openly. He smiled as he stepped quietly back to where his own bedroll had been tossed aside. Think of the number of people with dark secrets he could help then.

  I wouldn’t have to hide, he thought. His heart beat faster, and he tapped his upper lip with his tongue. He could come and go as he pleased, just as he liked. Be welcomed wherever he went. Respected.

  “I would not have to hide,” he said aloud.

  “Are you talking in your sleep, Bekluth Allain?”

  Caids. He twisted his neck and jumped just a little. He didn’t have to pretend very much—he’d actually forgotten Parno Lionsmane was there. He smiled and shrugged one shoulder.

  “Can’t sleep at all,” he said. “Can you believe that for a moment I forgot I was not alone?”

  “If you’re wakeful, let’s move farther away from my Partner,” the other man said. “There’s only so much noise we can make before she’ll wake—and if we wake her before her watch for no good reason, none of us will be happy.”

  Bekluth followed the Mercenary around to the far side of the pit, where he’d arranged their saddles into a place to sit, and from where there was a clear view of the camp, the dozing horses, and the prairie around them.

  “You could see me moving from here.” Bekluth made his tone shine with admiration, even as he thanked his own good luck that he hadn’t been doing anything he needed to hide.

  “It’s a good spot to look out from,” the Mercenary agreed. “What was it you wouldn’t have to hide, Bekluth Allain?”

  “Ah, you heard me as well?” Bekluth shrugged, making sure to show just a touch of embarrassment. “It’ll seem like very small meat to someone who’s traveled the paths you have taken.” Flattery with a sprinkling of admiration was always good bait.

  “Try me,” the man said. “I haven’t always been on these particular paths.”

  And thus the trap was sprung. Really, it was almost too easy. All he ever had to do was get someone to start listening to him. There was no one he couldn’t persuade. He tucked his hands under his arms, as if against the night’s chill, and chewed for a moment on his lower lip.

  “Well,” he began, as if still hesitating, “you might be surprised to hear this, Mercenary, but I’m not such a fine trader as I make myself out to be.”

  The other man chuckled. “Come now, Bekluth. You must have fine skills indeed to trade alone among the Red Horsemen and to gain their trust in the way that you have.”

  Bekluth shrugged again, letting his hands fall to his lap, as if he were relaxing. “Oh, I have the skills, I suppose—though you might not think so if you heard the way my uncles talked about me. Back then, before my mother was killed, I’d already gone to them with the idea of trading with the Tribes. They said they were considering it, though the plan they suggested . . . You see,” he leaned forward, drawing his brows together, “trading with the Tribes isn’t like trading with anyone else, and my uncles didn’t understand that. They didn’t see the difficulties that—well, that are so clear to you, for example.”

  The man nodded, as Bekluth had known he would. “It’s a problem that time might cure—either their impatience or yours.”

  Bekluth felt a flash of annoyance. He wasn’t the one—except that he was playing the part of a young man misunderstood by his elders, and apparently with his usual easy success. But the man was still talking.

  “But there’s more, isn’t there? Nothing you’ve told me so far is anything you would need to hide.”

  There, now he had the man hooked completely. He let his head bob up and down a few times as though he were weighing his options. “You’re right,” he said, exactly as if he’d made up his mind to confide in the man. “Impatience isn’t the only thing that time will cure.” He took in a deep breath and looked the Mercenary right in the eyes. “You know my story, what happened with my mother. A part of me is still angry, a part of me never wants to forgive them. But another part . . . another part wants to go back.” He quirked his eyebrows, displaying, now that he’d committed himself, an endearing uncertainty . . . and then let his glance fall away.

  “Why?” But there was no disbelief in the man’s voice, only a sympathetic curiosity.

  Bekluth looked sideways and managed his most sheepish look. “I’m successful here. I’ve quite a stockpile of goods and money. But I’ve nowhere to spend or show it where it matters. I was right about the trade, right about the Horsemen—you should see the sky stones I get from them, worth almost any effort—but no one knows it but me. I’ve been telling myself for years that I despise them, my uncles and aunts and all my dear cousins, who spend their days and their evenings and their nights counting profit and balancing the scales.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “But they’re the only ones who can understand and appreciate what I’ve achieved.”

  Bekluth waited, and when the other man chuckled, he joined in, just as if he were seeing the humor of his situation for the first time. He felt something like a real warmth for this man, this Mercenary, who was so ready to understand and
feel for someone else. It was easy to see why there was so strong a bond between him and Dhulyn Wolfshead.

  But though his outer self kept on chuckling, smiling, shrugging, and pouring hopes and dreams into the man’s sympathetic ear, his inner self grew colder, and more aware.

  Bonds are still bonds, he thought, as he accepted the man’s advice and his pats on the shoulder. This Parno Lionsmane had a darkness hidden within him, a secret. Bekluth could see it, if no one else could. And he was never wrong about such things. Never. Not since he had seen the darkness in his mother for what it was, something that made her beat him, punish him, and bind him. Something that needed to come out, to be exposed to the light. He’d helped her with that, as he’d helped others after her. Including the young shaman he’d first followed through the Door.

  Dhulyn Wolfshead, so clear, so open. How could she have such a strong bond with someone like Parno Lionsmane? As usual, the moment he posed the question, the answer flashed into his mind. The bond was obviously there to help the man, not the woman.

  If I free him, I would free them both. If he could open the man, the bond would be unnecessary. They would both be free. Parno Lionsmane could go his way, fulfill his own destiny as he was meant to.

  And Dhulyn Wolfshead can help me.

  Parno Lionsmane was glancing up at the sky. “That’s my watch over,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “I think I’ll be able to sleep now,” Bekluth said, following the other man back to where Dhulyn Wolfshead still lay on her back. “Thanks for letting me bend your ear,” he added.

  “Sometimes it’s easier to tell things to strangers,” the Mercenary said. “They go their way, and there’re no embarrassing questions.”

  He does understand, Bekluth thought. He wasn’t a stupid man. He was reacting in exactly the right way—if any of what Bekluth had told him had been the truth. And he wouldn’t have been easy to fool if Bekluth weren’t so very good at it.

  Maybe I don’t need to wait. Maybe I can help him right now. He deserves it. No one should have to live with that secret hidden inside him.