The Sleeping God

by Violette Malan

  “One time,” he said quietly, “Dhulyn woke up crying. She’d Seen a farmer drowning a basket of kittens. Is that the kind of thing you want her to tell you?”

  Tek-aKet sat up straight, letting his hands fall to his knees. “You’re saying she can’t control it.”

  “I’m saying she can’t control it.” Parno rubbed his chin. He’d kill for the time to shave and a nice sharp razor, though he feared he’d have to wait until he left Imrion to do it. “At first, I thought it was just some kind of Outlander stubbornness. She hated the thought that I might be watching her in the morning, trying to see in her face some sign that she’d Seen something in the night. That I was waiting for her to tell me what to do next, instead of using my own brain. ‘I’m not a crutch,’ she used to say to me. But then I realized that she wasn’t trying to teach me a moral lesson, but telling me the real truth. Her Mark wasn’t something that we were going to able to use, to lean on.”

  “How does it work, then?” the Tarkina asked in her musical voice.

  Parno shrugged. “It comes when it comes, waxes and wanes like the moon. Strongest with her woman’s time, as if the blood brings it, and if she’s touching someone, she’s likely to See something pertaining to them. But not always. And sometimes she’ll get Visions in between, not so clear, but sometimes.” He looked up to find them both watching him.

  “And you have to understand, there’s never any context to them. The farmer with the kittens? She didn’t know what country he was in, or when it would happen. If we’d wanted to stop it, we wouldn’t have known where to go. She’ll help you,” he said. “We both will. But don’t count on her Mark to win for you.”

  “And since the foreign ambassadors should be met with as quickly as possible, my lord, I’ve arranged for an informal supper in the east reception room. That way you can speak to them all at once. The Berdanan ambassador is particularly insistent concerning the whereabouts of the Tarkina and her children, as they are the heirs of her sister, Queen Alliandra.” The voice of the Tarkin’s Chief Counselor, Gan-eGan, was flat and colorless. But then, Lok-iKol thought, that more or less described the voice of everyone in the Carnelian Dome.

  “It would not be more diplomatic to see him at least individually?” Lok-iKol frowned, resisting the desire to rub at his eye. He’d managed only a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, and right now he felt they hadn’t done him much good. The day had started well, the Dome and city were his, and the Assembly of Houses had met and accepted him as Tarkin-though not quite by acclamation. House Penrado had pleaded illness and absented himself, as Lok had expected, but he had not actually protested. Lok would do something about that later.

  But the day had not continued well. Lok closed his right hand into a fist. He had not expected Karlyn-Tan to defy him, and now he would have to find someone else to hunt for the Seer.

  “A meeting at this time, my lord Tarkin, is a mere formality. They acknowledge you, and you remind them that existing relations will continue. Your reassurances to the Berdanan ambassador will carry more weight when spoken in front of such witnesses. When I said ‘informal, ’ I meant in dress and preparation, not in topic of discussion.”

  “Very well.”

  As Lok spoke, a page entered the spacious room that had been Tek-aKet’s public study. Lok-iKol let out his breath with such force that Gan-eGan looked up from the mark he was making on his parchment list.

  “The Priest Beslyn-Tor is here, my lord,” the page said. Gan-eGan dropped pen and parchments, and the page courteously stooped to help him retrieve them.

  “My apologies, but I have no leisure for him today.”

  “My lord Tarkin.”

  Lok realized that Beslyn-Tor had followed on the page’s heels and was already in the room. He suppressed the irritation that immediately rose to twist his lips. Gan-eGan looked around, brows raised and head twitching as he backed away from the priest. Lok’s eye narrowed. It seemed there was something between Gan-eGan and the old priest. Something unpleasant.

  Lok smiled. He’d expected Beslyn-Tor to turn up, though not quite so quickly.

  “More wine and a glass for my friend,” Lok said to the page, ignoring the Jaldean’s shaken head and gesture of refusal. He’d never seen the man take either food or drink, and Beslyn-Tor was noticeably thinner than he had been when Lok had first met him, though he showed no other signs of ritual fasting. His color was good, his grip firm, his jade-green eyes particularly clear and his movements, as he took the chair next to the worktable without waiting to be invited, graceful.

  Once more Lok-iKol suppressed a frown. “As you heard me say,” he began, “I have no great store of leisure today. If you would tell me in what way I can assist you?”

  “I have given you what you desired, yet you withhold my payment.”

  Again a darting glance from Gan-eGan, and another from the page, as he came in with a tray bearing a fresh flask of wine and a second goblet.

  Lok looked at the tray as the page set it down on the table. “Leave us,” he said.

  Unexpectedly, Gan-eGan did not protest. Hugging his parchment lists to his chest like a shield, he scuttled from the room. The page looked from the old counselor to Lok-iKol and back again, as if he might speak.

  Lok raised his remaining eyebrow.

  The page inclined his head, though his lips thinned as he turned to go. No one in Tenebro House would ever have looked at Lok like that. What has Tek-aKet been teaching his servants?

  Only when they were alone did Lok sit down in the Tarkin’s chair. “I must have time to solidify my position before I can give you what we agreed upon. A moon, perhaps two.” As the priest narrowed his eyes, Lok smiled and spread his hands. “Come,” he said. “Have we not prospered?” He leaned forward and poured himself a glass of the wine. It was a dark, full red that Lok knew from experience would taste of the oak it had been aged in. “When I am anointed, I will prepare the proclamations that shall give you what you’ve asked for.” He sipped at his cup of wine, savoring it in his mouth a moment before swallowing. And, once I’m anointed, I won’t need you. “The support and countenance of the Tarkin for yourself and your followers. Dominion over the Marked.”

  “Why do you wait? Every delay allows the Sleeping God more time to awaken.”

  Lok ground his teeth. The man’s beliefs were becoming more than a nuisance. Lok set his wineglass back on the table, fixing his guest with his eye. The Jaldean was not even looking at him. “I have declared Tek-aKet Fallen, but in the absence of a body, there are rumors,” he said, with more force than he had intended. “Rumors which force me to move much more slowly than I had originally planned.”

  Beslyn-Tor brought his gaze back from the distance and fixed it on Lok-iKol, the jade-green eyes as bright as though they’d absorbed the light of the setting sun that streamed through the windows. The new Tarkin of Imrion suddenly wished he was not sitting down. He would feel stronger on his feet. It seemed the whole room had darkened.

  “You think to put me off. I warn you, do nothing you will regret.”

  Lok brought his fingertips together and tapped his lips. “Do you threaten me? You stirred the people against the Marked; that is a great power you have. But Tek-aKet was taken by surprise, I will not be. That trick cannot be played again.”

  The Jaldean priest waved the statement away with the closest thing to a smile Lok had ever seen him make.

  “I seek to give you what you want most.”

  “And that is?”

  “You have named it. Power.”

  Lok-iKol felt the cord of his eye patch move as he drew in his brows. “I am Tarkin.”

  “Is that the extent of your ambition? What if there were more power to be had?”

  Lok sat back, gripping the chair arms with his hands. This was too much.

  “What? Will the Sleeping God bless me and hold me in his dreams? Do you think me as gullible as the rabble you rouse to frenzy? You are a useful tool, Beslyn-Tor, and I will reward you as
promised, but do not presume too much on my gratitude.”

  As a sign that the audience was over, Lok-iKol stood. Beslyn-Tor sighed and heaved himself to his feet, his age suddenly showing in the noise of his effort.

  “My lord Tarkin, “ he said, lowering himself to one knee. “Forgive an impatient man. Allow me to be the first to give you my allegiance.” He bowed his head and reached up his right hand.

  Lok-iKol hesitated, but there was no irony, no smug sarcasm, nor even any calculation on the old man’s face. He took the offered hand between his own. The priest’s skin was warm and dry, his grip firmer than Lok would have expected in so old a man. Lok licked suddenly dry lips.

  “I receive…” he began, and shook his head in irritation. For a moment he couldn’t remember the words. He blinked and focused again on Beslyn-Tor’s face, the man’s jade-green eyes. The room around them grew darker.

  He threw back his head, lungs breathing deeply. He had touched this shape before, used its eyes, so it took only moments of weakness, seconds of disorientation before he wore it easily. Younger. Stronger. For a moment the lost eye distracted him, but a second’s concentration removed that difficulty. For another moment the original inhabitant’s shrieking drew away his attention, but that was swiftly dealt with. The same concentration allowed him to review what this one knew.

  The Seer was lost.

  For a moment the body’s heart stopped beating.

  She must be found, this Mercenary, this Wolfshead. Who could do so?

  The Scholar. He had Found once already. But the Scholar himself was missing. Karlyn-Tan Cast Out. Dal-eDal. That one always knew more than he told.

  He looked down at the old man on the floor.

  “Jelran,” he called and was pleased by how swiftly the page entered.

  “Have the junior priest who accompanied Beslyn-Tor enter. His master appears to have suffered a stroke.”

  The young page glanced at the figure on the floor and licked his lips. “Of course, my lord.”

  He watched, feeling the inside of this shape, testing the strengths, tasting the skills, as they helped the stricken man dodder out of the room.

  “Jelran? Tell Gan-eGan to cancel the ambassadors’ supper and send for my cousin Dal-eDal to come to me.”

  “At once, my lord.”

  I have got nothing to worry about, Dal-eDal told himself, nodding to the pale-faced Dome Guard as he dismounted at the Ironwood Gate. If Lok was ready to have him killed, he needn’t bring Dal to the Carnelian Dome to do it. Far more likely to suffer some “accident” at home, like so many others of the Tenebro family. No, the difference today was that the summons came not only from his House, but from his Tarkin.

  Or someone’s Tarkin, anyway.

  Dal smiled and tossed his reins to the waiting stable girl, thanked his escort and began the long walk across the fitted flagstones of the wide interior yard to the Carnelian Dome’s Steward of Keys, waiting on the steps of the grand entrance known as the Tarkin’s Door. Like the stable girl, and a couple of the Carnelian Dome Guards for that matter, the Steward’s face showed a pallor and a stiffness that spoke of underlying uncertainty. Not unlike, Dal thought, the look on the faces of the people in Tenebro House on the morning the House fell.

  “Not your first time here, at any rate, Lord Dal,” the Steward said with the ghost of his usual smile on his lips.

  Dal tilted his head with a smile of his own. He felt and recognized the need for normal conversation in these most abnormal times. “I barely remember that event,” he said. The Steward gestured, and Dal preceded the man through the gateway. “I was four when my father became head of his Household, and I came with him to give his oaths to the Tenebroso, and to the old Tarkin.”

  The Steward made a half-aborted motion with his right hand, and Dal coughed. So it was better not to mention even Tek-aKet’s father, was it?

  “I wasn’t Steward then,” the man said. “I don’t believe I remember your father.”

  “He was only in Gotterang once more. In fact, he died on his way home from that last visit to the Tenebroso. Fell from his horse.”

  “You became Household then? Or was there an older sibling?”

  “No, I was Kir for my Household, but at eight years old, my House thought it better to put a Steward in place and brought me to her in Gotterang.” No need to tell the Carnelian Dome’s Steward of Keys that such young children were used as hostages; the man well knew that for himself.

  “And, of course, you’ve been here ever since. Once in the capital, who would want to leave?”

  Dal smiled, his lips pressed tightly together. Ever since. Ever since his father, who must have guessed something about that summons from which he never returned, had kissed him good-bye whispering, “Stay alive, Son. See you survive to avenge me.”

  Still alive, Papa, he thought. Accomplishing that much at least.

  “It must have been strange for you,” the Steward said, as he opened the third set of double doors for Dal to walk through. “I remember being very homesick when I first came here as a child.” Dal stood to one side as two pages, heads down and mumbling their excuses, came stumbling through the opened door.

  “Not exactly homesick. Though there were no children my age in Tenebro House,” he said, after the young pages were out of earshot. “And I’m afraid I found my cousin Lok-iKol very… impressive.”

  The Steward of Keys, with a glance at Dal’s face, nodded his quick understanding.

  At first, Dal had been too shocked by grief and the change in his circumstances to remember his father’s last words to him. Afterward, he’d needed to be sure that it wasn’t just homesickness and an aversion to Lok’s company that made him want to kill his one-eyed cousin. The longer he waited, the harder it became to do anything. If he killed Lok openly, he would be killed himself. Failing in his father’s first command to him. If he killed Lok by stealth, he’d become the heir, something he’d never wanted-still didn’t want. So he’d spent years studying the situation, gathering information, in part to protect himself, in part to find a safe way of enacting his father’s vengeance. All in all, he’d been gathering information for a long time.

  When he’d realized just why Parno Lionsmane had seemed so familiar, only the iron discipline of years had stopped him from running singing through the House. He’d thought all his problems were solved. As kidnapped Mercenary Brothers they would kill Lok, and as a first cousin, Par-iPar Tenebro would set aside his Mercenary Brotherhood, become heir, and Dal could finally go home.

  But the Brothers were gone, and Lok was now Tarkin.

  “My lord.” The Steward of Keys motioned Dal to one side. Approaching them down the corridor were three individuals dressed completely in dark green, escorted by two guards in Tenebro colors and two Jaldean priests. From the corner of his eye, Dal looked at the Steward’s impassive face. For it was clear from their air of stumbling confusion that something had been done to these Marked. One of them, a short stout woman, was supporting a man almost twice her height, holding him around the waist. She merely looked red-eyed and blotchy, tears still rolling down stiff cheeks, but the man was vacant-eyed and drooling. The third, perhaps their son, was white as paper, and breathed shallowly as if in great pain.

  “I thought the Marked were being taken to the Jaldean High Shrine,” Dal murmured to the Steward of Keys.

  “Last night the new Tarkin gave orders for them to be brought here,” the Keys said. Something in the man’s voice made Dal look at him closely, but the Keys kept his eyes lowered. His lips, Dal saw, were trembling.

  Once the Marked had passed, Dal and the Steward of Keys fell silent. They continued down the hall until it widened before the delicately carved doors of the Cedar Room, the small audience chamber. Here, there were comfortable cushioned chairs set out for waiting dignitaries, grouped around small empty tables that normally carried jellied fruits, salted nuts, and carafes of wine and cider. The place, usually crowded with petitioners and the younger children
of the Noble Houses, was deserted.

  Suddenly, Dal didn’t want to go any farther.

  “If you would wait a moment,” the Keys of the Dome said. “I will see if the Tarkin is ready for you.”

  Dal sank into one of the cushioned chairs. Once again he reminded himself that Lok need not bring him to the Dome to kill him. So what did Lok want? Dal thought about the message he’d received this morning from Karlyn-Tan, that the former Steward of Walls could be found at the Blue Dove Tavern. And where, Dal wondered would Gundaron the Scholar and the Lady Mar-eMar be found? Dal did not believe for a moment that the two had anything to do with the Fall of the House, but it was evident that Lok wanted them, and that meant Dal might gain something by finding them himself.

  Lok had asked Karlyn-Tan to find the Mercenary woman, and the Steward of Walls had refused and been Cast Out. Was Dal now about to be asked? And if he refused? What would Lok do then?

  The Keys pushed both doors of the small audience room open, gone so pale that his mustache and eyebrows stood out dark against his skin. “You may go in, Lord Dal-eDal.” He gestured toward the open doors.

  Stomach twisting, wishing he had the courage to simply turn and walk away, Dal went through.

  Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t Lok in what was clearly the Tarkin’s great chair-carved out of white cedar, studded with carnelians, and just smaller than the official throne-talking to Chief Counselor Gan-eGan. Dal hovered, unwilling to approach more closely. The older man was on his knees on Lok’s right side, his hands clinging to the arm of the great chair, as a man in the sea clings to the side of a raft. Dal licked his lips and took a hesitant step forward.

  With a soft sigh the counselor stood, lifting a trembling hand to his mouth, sketched a shaky bow, and headed for the door. Dal actually had to step out of the man’s way, as Gan-eGan-usually so punctilious it was almost laughable-passed him without acknowledgment of any kind.