Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno (22 page)

“Thank you, Grandfather,” she said. “Do I think correctly? You have not seen here a killing such as my Partner and I have described?”

There were general head shakes—but one man frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked inward.

“Sky Tree, do you know something of this?” the Cloud shaman said.

“No! Grandfather, no! Not in that way, at least.” The man turned so white his eyebrows looked like stains on his face.

“Then tell us.”

“It was not I but Jorn-Thornis, of the Cold Lake People, who told me of it at the last Gathering of the Tribes. A hunting band reported having found the spoor of a demon.” The man swallowed. “What he told me sounded much like what we have heard today.”

“How did they know the spoor was left by demons?” Parno said.

“What else but a demon would do such a thing?”

Clearly Dhulyn was not inclined to argue. Nevertheless she spoke. “Our demon left footprints, and rode horses,” she said.

“Perhaps a man in your world and a demon in ours,” Sky Tree said.

“Certainly there has been nothing of such moment here.” Singer of the Wind glanced behind him at where Ice Hawk stood and waited until the young man shook his head before turning back into the circle of seated Horsemen. “There cannot be many such tales, or we would have heard more. Perhaps among the men of the fields and towns—and why can you not sit still, Gray Cloud?”

The old man’s words snapped out, and everyone turned to look at the man who had been fidgeting and shifting since they began talking.

“If I am not mistaken, he has dislocated his shoulder,” Dhulyn said.

“Possibly the wing bone is broken,” Parno added. “Do you have a Healer among your Tribe, or is there one nearby?”

“A Healer? What do you mean, my child? Are there Healers also in your land?”

“And Menders and Finders,” Dhulyn said.

“Whole? Safe?” This was Sun Dog.

Dhulyn looked at Parno, the question in her eyes. He nodded. “You’ve used that phrase many times,” she said. “I confess I do not know what you mean by it.”

“My child, here
all
the Marked are broken and dangerous, not like other people. They are put to death as soon as they are discovered.”

“This is why we Espadryni became nomads,” Sun Dog added. “Our women are Marked, and broken in the way of all Marked. But without them we would have no magic, the Tribes would be broken, and we would cease to be. Who then would guard Mother’s Sun’s Door?”

“In the old days, when we saw what the men of field and town would do, we withdrew, we became nomads,” Singer of the Wind said. “To keep our women, to keep the Seers safe.”

“Demons and perverts,” Parno said.

“
T
HERE, that takes care of most of it.” Gundaron looked around the rooms they’d been given near the Princess Alaria’s apartments and sighed. “How could we have accumulated so much baggage? We haven’t even been here a year.”

Mar understood Gun well enough to know that it wasn’t accumulated baggage that was bothering him. They were both Scholars, Library-trained, though technically she had still to pass her final examinations. And though she was, again, technically, part of a High Noble House in Imrion, she had been brought up as a foster child in a family of weavers, and Gun’s family had been farmers. Which was to say, neither of them found the frugal, simple life of Scholarship to be much of a challenge.

“I know we didn’t bring much with us,” she said now. “But most of that was clothing wrong for this weather.” Of course, they’d known it was hotter in Menoin than they were used to, since Imrion was farther south. They just hadn’t realized how much hotter. “Our heavier clothing doesn’t pack very small,” she pointed out. “And it’s not as though we can afford to get rid of it. When we go home, we’ll need it again.”

She refrained from pointing out how much of the “accumulation” was made up of the books they’d borrowed from local Scholars and the Tarkin’s Library. Those alone had necessitated the use of a middle-sized cart, complete with donkey, to move their things to the palace.

Mar sank down into one of the cushioned chairs with a sigh and looked around the room. Most of their gear had been shoved in loosely organized heaps in the second bedchamber, and their clothes had been thrust hastily into chests and presses in the first. The only truly neat spots in their three rooms were the two worktables in the sitting room, with their tidy rows of books and scrolls, pens, inks, and blank parchments. At least the discoveries Mar and Gundaron had made in the Caids’ ruins, painstakingly uncovered and cataloged, had already been sent here to the Tarkin’s palace for storage.

Gundaron fidgeted around his worktable, picking up and putting down the parchment on which he’d been making notes at the dig on the day they’d learned of Dhulyn Wolfshead’s and Parno Lionsmane’s arrival. They’d been following standard practice, dividing the area of the ruins into sections and squares and examining each one carefully before moving on. When he put the parchment down for the third time, Mar spoke up.

“Can’t concentrate?” She shoved a chair toward him with her foot.

He rubbed at his upper lip and sat down. “I know I should settle to some work, but there are just so many more urgent things to think about. After all, any artifacts in those ruins have been there since the days of the Caids. They can easily wait a few more days.”

“Or weeks for that matter.”

“Exactly.” Gun stopped himself just in time from leaning back. Like much of the furniture in these warmer countries, the chairs were backless, little more than wide stools with arms. “Whatever’s happening to Wolfshead and Lionsmane,
that’s
happening right now.”

“And we’ve got to be ready for when they return with news of the killer,” Mar said. What would Alaria need from them, she thought.

“Or when they don’t return.” Gun swallowed, rubbing again at his upper lip with the fingers of his left hand.

Mar gritted her teeth. She’d been avoiding saying the words aloud—but just the same, she’d been thinking them, too. What would Alaria of Arderon do if the Mercenaries did not return? What would any of them do?

“We should be finding a way to help them,” she said.

“They don’t need our help.” Gun’s lips formed a shallow smile, and Mar grinned back at him. It was hard to imagine that either Lionsmane or Wolfshead would ever need anyone’s help. But still . . .

“We
have
helped them before. You know we have. Surely there must be some way to help them now.”

“If I could only Find the blooded key to the Path of the Sun. It’s
got
to exist! A map, a drawing of the labyrinth—
something
.”

Mar thought she understood the source of Gun’s frustration. For years he’d hidden the fact that he was a Finder, thinking he wouldn’t be allowed to become a Scholar if it was known he was Marked. Now his Mark was out in the open, and he’d even spent three months in a Guild House learning from other Finders, and he
still
couldn’t Find something he knew had to exist.

“It’s like a logic puzzle,” Mar said. She got up and fetched them each a plum from the bowl of fruit on the table. “The Tarkins must have had a key at one point. How else could they able to walk the Path themselves and return? Therefore, there must be a key.”

“That’s not logic,” Gun said, with just a hint of irritation in his voice. “That’s just arguing in circles.”

Mar looked away so Gun couldn’t see her grin. He was well on his way to getting over his frustration if he had the energy to quibble over her wording.

“I’ve looked for a map and Found nothing,” he said. “And before you say anything else, there are no drawings, paintings, or patterns in brick, tile, or stonework that provide a key.”

Mar sucked plum juice off her fingers. “What other things have patterns?” she asked. “Weaving? Music? Songs? Poetry?”

“Poetry.” Gun had been leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Now he straightened up so quickly that Mar was surprised his spine didn’t crackle. “I’m an idiot.”

“Only sometimes.” Mar smiled.

“I wasn’t looking for the key,” he said, looking up at her. “I mean, not
a
key in general. I was looking for a map, or a drawing. I’ve been warned about making my searches too specific. What if it isn’t a map but a description? A set of instructions? What if I was being too specific to Find?”

Mar ran into their bedroom, tossing clothing aside until she found the pack that held her scryer’s bowl.

Gun meanwhile had cleared a space on the sitting room table and fetched the pitcher of water that stood with its net cover on the sideboard.

“I don’t have a piece of clean silk to pour the water through,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter.” Gun placed the bowl near the edge of the table and poured in the water. “I’ve never thought that part of the ritual was so important.”

Without bothering to move a chair closer, Gundaron placed his fingertips along the edge of the bowl and took several deep breaths to calm himself. The light coming in the window slanted across the surface of the water, flashing little highlights as the liquid settled. A bit like letters meticulously copied onto a page of parchment or paper, as if he were hypnotizing himself by staring at the ink and page. The water—

It’s not water. It’s a bright page of paper, and suddenly he’s in a library. Not one that really exists—at least he’s never tried to Find it anywhere but here—but one he knows all the same. Here he should be able to find the text he’s looking for. He glances around, lip between his teeth, looking for the marker, the clue, that will lead him through the acres of bookshelves to the place he needs.

There’s a shaft of sunlight on the floor, though there isn’t any window to let it in.

Of course. He’s being thick again. He’s looking for the Path of the Sun, what else should show him the place but sunlight? He walks quickly now, down the main aisle, shelves and scroll holders branching out to left and right. He follows the sunbeam until, for a moment, the shelving seems to shimmer, and then Gundaron is walking between high stone walls, splotched with moss and stained with smoke, which abruptly become grass, damp with dew, and tall enough to brush against his thighs as he walks through it. The sunbeam still leads forward, however, and as Gun follows it the grass disappears once more, and, superimposed on the shelving and books of his mental library there is a wide, tree-lined avenue. The ghosts of people, dressed in every style and in many colors, walk around him, talking, though he hears nothing. The sunbeam leads him toward a broad flight of marble stairs, each step inlaid with a pattern of moons and stars in contrasting stone. And then he is in a library again, this time a small room whose windowless walls are completely covered with books. There are many colors in the spines of the books, but only one seems to have a gold spine. He pulls the book off the shelf; it has a sunburst on the cover.

Gun stepped back away from the table and blinked. Mar was smiling at him.

“I know where it is,” he said. “I know exactly where it is.”