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.
“You see.” Dhulyn hopped down from Bloodbone and came to help him secure their gasping captive with a couple of spare ties. “I told you that trick with the horse was easy. You have to trust, and let Warhammer do his job.”
Parno grinned without looking up. “Clearly I needed the right motivation.”
His final knot finished, Parno glanced up and around for Warhammer, and his interest in horse tricks or even Bekluth Allain himself faded away. There were no rocky hills to be seen here, no pine trees, no Caid ruin in the near distance.
This was not Menoin.
Alaria had turned to ask Falcos a question when her ankle twisted under her and she went down. The ground here just inside the Path’s entrance was not, apparently, as smooth as it seemed. Falcos exclaimed and was on his knees beside her in an instant. The sun, bright now that they were inside the Path, glinted off the gold-chased horse-head pin on the collar of his tunic. And there was something else, also shining.
“Falcos,” she began.
“I’m right here,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No,” she said, waving her hand at him while maintaining her position. “Did you drop something? A ring or a pin from your tunic?” Using her fingers, Alaria parted the grass in front of her face with care, in case the thing she had seen moved and became lost.
“No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“There’s something here—oh!” Alaria sat up, sticking her barked knuckles into her mouth. She pushed the grass aside with her other hand. What she had mistaken for a jewel of some sort was a tiny horse head, inlaid into the stone wall just above the ground, and partially covered by the grass.
Falcos squatted beside her. He touched the emblem with the tips of his fingers. “It’s clean,” he said. “No dirt on it, no tarnishing or dulling of the surface.”
“It’s not painted, but it looks like the symbol in the secret passage,” Alaria said.
Falcos looked at her with one raised eyebrow. “Do you think we’ll find the crowns here as well? The cauldron? The throne?”
Alaria frowned. “This is a kind of secret passage, isn’t it? If we do find other symbols, how do we know which one to follow?” She reached out and touched the horse head, but she drew her hand back quickly. “It’s warm,” she said. She looked up. “Do you think this might be the key?”
Now it was Falcos’ turn to frown. “Surely it could not be that simple. There will be other symbols, you’ll see. If we get out of here, we’ll make a map.”
“When we get out,” she amended. Though she didn’t need it, she let Falcos help her to her feet and hold her while she tested her ankle. She straightened her tunic and looked farther down the branch of the path they were in. The undressed stone walls continued straight until it ended at what appeared to be another branching of the Path. What she could see of that showed her a trimmed hedge.
“I have an idea,” she said to Falcos. “I’m going to have a look around that corner, you wait here.”
“I believe I see what you are thinking,” Falcos said. He nodded slowly as he rose to his feet. “But do not, whatever you do, turn the corner. We should keep each other always in sight.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to manage this alone.”
Alaria took her time reaching the end of the stone wall, walking exactly in the middle of the path. The air was still and warm, like a summer’s day, but there were no sounds, not even the buzz of insects. It was hard to be certain without going on her hands and knees—though she was prepared to do just that if it became necessary—but she was reasonably sure there were no further marks along the straight walls between Falcos and herself. When she reached the turn, she went first to the right-hand wall, then to the left, and examined the stone close to the ground.
“There’s another one here,” she called out. “Here on the left-hand side. A wavy line.” She felt around the corner, where another symbol should be. When she felt it, she stuck her head around and squinted. “A horse head around the corner.”
“There’s a wavy line here on the left as well,” Falcos called back. He joined her. “Taking it from how we entered, we would turn left in order to leave,” he said.
Alaria sm
iled at him. He actually did understand what she’d been trying to determine.
“If the wavy line takes us home,” she said. “Where will the horse heads take us?”
He looked back in the direction they had come from. His dark brows were drawn down, and his lips pressed tight. There were marks on his wrists, Alaria saw, and around his mouth as well, showing where Epion had bound him.
“We must go forward,” Falcos said finally. His hand went to the pin on his collar. “We know that much, in any case. We are horse people. Let us trust to the horses.”
“You have no reason to kill me,” Bekluth Allain said. Dhulyn could tell that the man was still winded. There was one great bruise on his torso, but faded and already yellowing. She could find no other damage from the horse’s hoof—though experience told her there should have been some. After examining him, they had propped the trader up against the stone archway. Neither she nor Parno had said anything, but neither of them wanted to move very far away from it.
“Oh, we have reason,” Parno said. “But we’ve been charged with finding you and bringing you back to Menoin.”
“But not to kill me. You see? You haven’t been charged with killing me. There’s a reason for that.” Bekluth Allain’s voice was quiet and his demeanor calm. He was obviously not afraid, Dhulyn thought. Rather, he had the manner of someone who was just taking a few minutes to give directions to an enquirer—sure of himself and his explanations.
“Of course there’s a reason,” Parno was saying. “The Menoins want to kill you themselves. You’ve murdered their Tarkin, and now their new Tarkin’s bride.”
“The Lord Epion Akarion is not going let anyone kill me.” The trader shrugged. “For one thing, I can reveal much too much about him. So we need have no worries there.” His smile made his eyes twinkle. “Besides, did I kill those people? I say no. I say I released them.” He turned to Dhulyn. “You do understand?”
His manner was so warm that just for an instant, Dhulyn wanted to agree with him, to say that she did understand. A moment later, and she wondered where that urge had come from. “I am afraid not,” she said.
“It’s so simple. I had to find a way to protect myself. You know what the people here do to the Marked—even the Espadryni are not beyond the cruelty of maiming and crippling their Seers. It disgusted you, I could tell. Even at its best, the sequestration, the living always in hiding, constantly watched, monitored—the best any of us can hope for and only the Espadryni are willing to do it. I wouldn’t even have had that if they had known that I was a Healer.”
“They would have put you to death,” Parno said. “Isn’t that the penalty for all the Marked?”
Bekluth shut his eyes and shook his head, clearly frustrated with their inability to follow his reasoning. “The common penalty, yes. If the Mark is commonly known. Do you think there’s no black market for the Marked? My people are traders—do you think for one moment they would not have tried to turn a profit out of me? That they wouldn’t have sold me to be locked up in some High Noble House? I had to stay hidden, I had to stay secret. It was the only way I could be free.”
“Fine then, a reason to go into hiding yourself and make your living among the Espadryni, far from other people, But why did you kill, if you are a Healer? Was Epion paying you?” A Healer could use his Mark to kill, Dhulyn knew, just as a Mender could break, or a Finder could hide. Cold fingers crept up her spine. I’ve Seen the answer already.
Bekluth shut his eyes and swallowed. He’s about to lie, Dhulyn thought. She signaled Parno, caught his response. How could the man manage to be sarcastic with a hand signal?
“Some people have a darkness hidden inside them, something only I can see. Like a secret hidden from the rest of the world.” Bekluth’s glance at Parno was so swift Dhulyn almost missed it. Parno did have a secret, in a way. His Pod sense was hidden inside him, at least from those who were not Pod-sensed themselves.
“My mother showed me that,” Bekluth was saying. “She was the first—this darkness inside people, like the darkness inside her, can spread, and kill them, destroying all their light, their essence. By releasing that darkness, I free the light.”
“But in the . . . process—” Dhulyn turned her mind away from the image of that process. “Those people die.”
“Oh, no—well, but the darkness would have killed them anyway—the hidden thing, the secret, that would have killed them anyway. You see? Their light would have been wasted, eaten by the darkness. By my actions the light at least was saved, was freed.”
His tone was so reasonable, so matter-of-fact, that Dhulyn almost found herself nodding. Almost. He wasn’t just freeing the light. Not from what Dhulyn had Seen. The Healers she had known in Mortaxa had spoken of the life essence, of how and from where the power of the Marked came, and how it was limited by the strength of each individual’s life force. And of how that life force was restored with rest, food, even certain forms of exercise. It seemed that Bekluth Allain had found another way.
“So the darkness, that is the illness, the thing that might kill them,” Parno said. “That is what you see in people?”
“Of course.”
“And you let that darkness out, so it will not hurt them anymore?”
“That’s right, and then it can’t hurt anyone else either, because you see, if it’s the right kind of darkness—or the wrong kind I suppose we should say—it damages others as well.”
Bekluth looked at them both, quite pleased with his own cleverness.
“Except you don’t just let out the darkness and free the light,” she said. “You take the light for yourself.”
“Of course I do, weren’t you listening?” For the first time, a hint of impatience marred the music of his voice. “It. Would. Have. Been. Wasted.” He shrugged again, as if he would have spread his hands if they had not been bound.
“But why didn’t you just . . . use the light to burn the darkness away. You know, Heal them?”
Dhulyn stifled her own grin. Trust Parno to always put his finger on the right point.
“But that would take my light, and wouldn’t that have been just another kind of waste?” His equilibrium had returned, and Bekluth spoke like a tutor of slow children, asking a question to which they should already know the answer. “I need that light. I can put that light to much better use than the people I took it from. I am the best Healer in two worlds, the strongest, the most powerful, there’s nothing I can’t Heal, nothing. Take me back with you by all means, but don’t waste my talents and my power.” He looked from one to the other, held out his hands. “What’s done is done, and I deeply regret letting Epion use me in that way. I’ve never been allowed to work as a Healer, surely you see that. Think of the Healing I could do, if I was only given the opportunity.”
“Heal yourself,” Parno said. Bekluth looked at him, lips parted, eyebrows beginning to pull together. “Heal yourself,” Parno repeated. “Our Healers do it all the time, here and there, as they can. Many of them live very long lives.”
“But I have no sickness,” Bekluth said. Again, his tone was one of a master speaking to a slow apprentice. “There is nothing to Heal.”
“Aren’t you broken in the same way that the women of the Espadryni are broken?”
Bekluth blinked, and shook his head. “Of course not, that’s nonsense. How do we know even what those women would be like if they were not kept sequestered and apart?” He shook his head again. “I’m nothing like them. Even the Horsemen themselves never thought so.” A fleeting gleam passed through his eyes, and a shadow of a smile across his lips. If Dhulyn had not been paying such close attention, she would have missed it.
There was some truth in what Bekluth had said, Dhulyn thought. The Seers were honest and straightforward in their dealings. Cold, unfeeling, and uncaring, but honest and straightforward. Bekluth Allain was nothing like that. He was nothing but a tissue of lies.
“Have you ever tried Healing one of them? The Seers?”
; “But not even I could Heal them all, so what would that have achieved but my own betrayal?” He shook his head and then abruptly leaned forward. “But what about the Marked in your world? The Healers there? You claim concern for the women of the Espadryni, why don’t you bring them Healers?” Bekluth’s eyes widened, and his smile deepened. “That’s it. Don’t you see? You bring Healers from your world, and all the Marked can be helped. Not just the Seers of the Espadryni, but the others, as soon as they show signs of the Mark, Healers could help them. They could all be saved.”
Parno turned to her, his eyebrows raised. Again, some of what the trader was saying seemed like the truth. Dhulyn lowered her eyes, buying herself time to think. Would it work? There were not so very many Healers, but surely, if it meant that they could save all the Marked here, stop the executions and allow the other children, the Finders and Mender and Healers, to live? Was that how she was supposed to help the Marked? That was a future she would like to See.
But she had not. Dhulyn felt herself grow still, and quiet, until the sound of her heartbeat was loud in her ears. She had never Seen that future. She had Seen only Visions
SHE SEES THAT THE BOWL THE ROUNDED, WELL-DRESSED YOUNG WOMAN TOUCHES IS CRACKED NOW, THE WOODEN LADLE SPLIT, THE CROCKS BREAKING AND LEAKING THEIR CONTENTS ONTO THEFLOOR. . . .
SHE SEES THAT THE KITTEN LEAPS AND JUMPS, THE BOY TOUCHESIT, AND THE KITTEN FALLS, PANTING, ITS EYES GROWING MILKY AND DARK. THE SMALL BOY TOUCHES IT AGAIN, AND IT LEAPS UP, BLINKING, AND THRASHING ITS LONG TAIL. HE DANGLES THE OSIER AGAIN, AND ONCE MORE THE KITTEN POUNCES, AND ONCE MORE, SMILING, THE BOY REACHES OUT TO TOUCHIT . . .
SHE SEES THAT IN THE DISTANCE THERE IS A SMALL FORTRESS, WITH A WALL MUCH TOO LARGE FOR IT . . .
SHE SEES THAT A RED-FACED BOY IS FURIOUSLY STRIKING OUT AS HIS MOTHER DRAGS HIM BY THE UPPER ARM INTO WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY THE KITCHEN OF THEIR HOME. THE WOODEN SHUTTERS ON THE WINDOW EXPLODE INTO SAWDUST, THE DISHES AND PLATES ON THE SIDEBOARD SHATTER, AND HIS MOTHER BEGINS TO VOMIT BLOOD ON THE FLOOR. THE BOY STAMPS HIS FOOT , SCREAMING, “YOU COW, DON’T TOUCH ME ” . . .
Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno Page 44