Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno (24 page)

Dhulyn drew her eyebrows down in a vee. “I believe you, Grandfather. But in our land, other nomads, other Horsemen, go through periods of hostility with each other.”

Singer of the Wind shrugged, showing his understanding of such things. “We have, perhaps, better reasons to prevent us, than these others can know of. If we fight among ourselves, what would become of the Seers? We must stand united, of necessity, against those who might break our Tribes.” He held up his hand. “But let me speak of these things with the others, so that you may be reassured. Stay with the Mercenary Brothers, Sun Dog, give them any aid they require while I am occupied.” He gave Dhulyn and Parno each a sharp nod before going off, not to where the Watcher brothers were helping Gray Cloud but to the far side of the vale, where he began the easy climb out of the camp.

“Where does he go?” Dhulyn asked as she and Parno rose to their feet out of respect. “To whom will he speak?”

Sun Dog smiled at them as he dusted off his leggings. “You are news of importance, Dhulyn Wolfshead, you and your Partner. And also, you have asked him a question, so Singer of the Wind will tell all the Tribes about you, and ask about both your killer and your missing Brothers.”

“And he can do this? Speak to other Mages mind-to-mind?” Parno hoped his eager interest would be mistaken for simple curiosity. Dhulyn would know better, of course. But she would also understand and sympathize with his interest in anything that smacked of talking mind-to-mind, especially after their long months with the Crayx of the Long Ocean. But to these Horsemen, who knew nothing of their pasts, any excessive interest might appear intrusive, and anything intrusive had the potential for danger.

“He will read the clouds,” Sun Dog said. “It is a thing the best of our shamans can do.”

Parno glanced up, but the sky was remarkably clear, even with the sun beginning to lower toward the western edge of the world.

“No, no,” Sun Dog said, laughter in his voice. “He will call the clouds to him, using them to write his message in the sky. Those who can will see it and read what he has written.”

“That is great magic indeed,” Dhulyn said. “Beyond what Mages can do in our world.”

“We cannot work such magics with all things,” Sun Dog said. “The farther removed something is from its natural state, the less power we have over it.

“I know that all Mages and shamans must have a source for their power,” Dhulyn said. “Which is true even of the Marked, in their way.”

“Ah,” Sun Dog nodded. “It is the natural world itself from which we draw our power, everything beneath the Sun, Moon, and Stars. We belong to it, all of the Espadryni, and our magics are such that can affect it and are affected by it.”

They had been walking as they talked, away from the tent where the Watcher brothers tended to the injured Gray Cloud, but now footfalls sounded from that direction, making Parno turn to find Ice Hawk coming after them.

“It is done,” he said. “Gray Cloud sleeps. And my grandfather?”

“With the clouds,” Sun Dog said.

“If I may,” Dhulyn said. “As it now seems likely that we will remain here until at least tomorrow, I should attend to our horses.”

“Ice Hawk will assist you,” Sun Dog said.

“With pleasure,” the boy said. “I would enjoy a closer look at your horses.”

Dhulyn touched her fingers to her forehead and made a fist of her hand, fingers toward Parno.
In Battle
. Parno returned her salute and held up his open hand, palm toward her.
And in Death
.

As courtesy required, Dhulyn allowed Ice Hawk to lead the way to the horse line, even though she could see Bloodbone and Warhammer from where they had been sitting. Both horses were still bridled, and still wearing saddles. When she and Parno had arrived in the Espadryni camp, they had done no more than set the heavier packs on the ground, things they could afford to lose if they had to leave quickly. If, as it seemed, they were to spend the night, she could make the horses more comfortable. And besides, she thought as she slung her saddlebags over her shoulder and untied the bag that held Parno’s pipes, there were things they would prefer to have with them.

“You have been here almost a full moon, Singer of the Wind said.” Dhulyn looked over Bloodbone’s back to find Ice Hawk’s eyes fixed on her face. He immediately dropped his gaze to her hands.

“One of the things I do remember from my childhood among the Espadryni of my land is that it is discourteous to stare.”

The boy blushed and shifted his feet. “Your pardon, Dhulyn Wolfshead. I was looking for what my grandfather saw in you.”

Dhulyn pulled Bloodbone’s saddle off and laid it on the ground next to the packs. “And can you see it?”

Given this tacit permission to look, Ice Hawk resumed his scrutiny of her face. “I believe so. There is something in your face that is not in the faces of our Seers. There is a depth to your eyes when you look at me.” He gestured to his own face, blushed again, and dropped his hand. “This is my horse, Dusty,” he said, putting his open palm on the nose of the horse tied next in the line to Bloodbone. “Will you touch him for me?”

Puzzled but willing to play along, Dhulyn stepped around Bloodbone and laid her hand on the sand-colored horse’s shoulder. Dusty turned his head to stare at her, a black blaze above his eyes giving him a comically serious look. When she did not move, he stretched his nose out toward her, as if he would snuffle her face with his reaching lips.

“You see?” Ice Hawk said. “He is not nervous with you, shying away from your hands. It is not your own horses only, but ours as well, who trust you.”

“Why should they not? I am good with horses.” Dhulyn gave Dusty a final pat and walked back to where Warhammer was snorting at her impatiently. He was used to waiting for Bloodbone to be seen to first, but he seemed annoyed at the idea that any other horse should take his place.

“But our horses have been magicked against the Seers.” Ice Hawk followed her and, after receiving her nod, began to remove Warhammer’s bridle.

Dhulyn paused, her hands on the tie that kept giving Parno trouble. “Magicked how?”

Ice Hawk turned from her and drew a symbol in the air. Dhulyn could just persuade herself that she could see the flash of color that followed the movement of his forefinger. A smaller glow, of the same nameless color, flashed from the forehead of each of the Espadryni horses. “They will not allow a Seer to mount them or to lead them anywhere.”

There was a time Dhulyn would have said she wasn’t Seer enough to qualify, but she had a better understanding of her powers now. “You will be like your grandfather one day, then. A powerful shaman.”

Ice Hawk blushed again, reminding Dhulyn of just how young he was. “Singer of the Wind says I have great potential. My connection with the natural world is strong.”

“Your Seers are like the other Marked, I assume?” Dhulyn finally worked the knot out of the tie and pulled the lacing loose. “They renew their life force from rest and food or from dance and music?”

“Are all Marked the same in this then?”

Dhulyn smiled. Like a true Mage, Ice Hawk valued information. “And obviously they cooperate to produce children?”

This time the expected blush did not come. “I’m not sure what you mean.” He took Warhammer’s saddle from her hands and set it on the ground next to Bloodbone’s.

Dhulyn frowned. She should have realized that with so little experience of the Marked in general, the boy might know even less than she did herself. “The Sight rises out of the same life force that builds a child,” she said. “A Seer cannot bear a living child unless there are others who will take her Visions for her as the child grows within.”

“I see.” Ice Hawk grew still, his lips pursed in a silent whistle. Evidently she had given him something to think about. “Then they must cooperate, as you say. It must be part of the Pact they have with the Tribes. They bear children, as you can see, and we boys live with our mothers until we have seen our birth moons seven times, when we come to live with our fathers. The girl children stay with the Seers.”

“Singer of the Wind asked me if the women of my Tribe cared for their children,” Dhulyn said. She cleared her throat, remembering the touch of her mother’s hand on her face, the feel of her mother’s lips on her forehead. They were finished with the horses, but Ice Hawk showed no inclination to move. “He seemed to say that your Seers did not love their children.”

“They do not.” It was clear from Ice Hawk’s voice that he merely made an observation. “They cannot. It is what makes them broken. But they will care for our health. It is part of the Pact.”

“And your shamans, your Mages, they cannot cure the Seers?” Dhulyn watched Ice Hawk carefully. She did not want to think ill of these people, who might be all there was under Sun, Moon, and Stars of her own Tribe, but she wondered why they didn’t fix the women? Was having the Visions so important to them?

“It has been tried. Ever since the first, and many times since then. Many believe it will never be done, but my mother—” Ice Hawk broke off to look at Dhulyn, and he licked his lips before continuing in a rush. “I heard my mother say that one would come with knowledge of how to help them.”

Dhulyn pressed her tongue to her upper lip, blinking. “Did she tell you anything more?”

The boy shook his head. “She would not even admit a second time to as much as I had overheard,” he said.

 

“He is looking at her like a man dying of thirst who sees a spring before him. Is he safe with her?”

Parno grinned. “As safe as he would be with his own mother.”

“I hope safer than that,” Sun Dog said. He smiled, but stiffly.

Parno studied the other man’s face, but his expression remained the same. “She will not seduce him, if that’s what worries you. He’s too young for her, for one thing, and for another she finds that kind of adoration uncomfortable.”

Nodding, Sun Dog turned away from where Dhulyn still talked with Ice Hawk. “You said the killer you seek struck three days ago, when the moon was newly full?”

“That’s right.”

“We were not here then. And we have seen no one of the fields and cities for a moon at least.”

“And why does this seem to disappoint you?”

“In part because if we had met with your killer, your task would be simple, and you would return quickly to your own place on the other side of Mother Sun’s Door. But also because, since Dhulyn Wolfshead told us what happened, I have hoped it was not someone from our world.”

Parno could understand that, he thought. That such a thing could happen at all was horrible. To believe that it was one of your own people—what would the man’s family think?

If he has family
. Parno’s blood suddenly ran cold. Your family knew you best. How likely was it the killer’s family was still alive?

“Other than what Sky Tree tells us of these demons, there are no tales of such killings as your Partner described to us,” Sun Dog was saying. “Not in any of the histories of our people, and our histories go back to the time of the Caids.” He looked sideways at Parno. “I could not say for certain about the people of the fields and towns,” he said. “But I think even we must have heard if such a thing as this had happened there.”

“If it had been discovered. Could the killer be a Marked one?” Parno asked.

Sun Dog pressed his lips together in thought. “They are tested for Marks and put to death as children. Except for the Seers.”

“How sure are you? Yours may not be the only people who are hiding Marked ones.”

Sun Dog was nodding, considering Parno’s point. “Under the Sun, Moon, and Stars everything is possible,” he conceded. “But it is unlikely. We do not live among other people. We do not hide only our Seers; we hide ourselves, the whole of our people, every Tribe and clan. If we did otherwise, our women would be exposed. How do you hide a Marked one from your neighbors and friends? Particularly when those same neighbors and friends are always looking out? How can you hide that children were born to you? Even if you move to another city or village, you must produce the proof that your child has been tested and been found whole and safe. And except for the Espadryni, who would hide a Marked one, even of their own blood, knowing what they are?”

Parno searched Sun Dog’s face but saw no awareness of irony there. At that, he supposed there might be a difference between wanting to save your children and wanting to save your whole race. Without the Seers, there would be no Espadryni.

“You say it is unlikely that other Marks are being hidden. But we in the Mercenary Brotherhood don’t deal with likelihood, we deal with possibility. We plan for what
can
happen, and worry less about how likely it is.”

Dhulyn laughed, and both men turned to watch where she still stood with Ice Hawk.

“With what I have said in mind, how safe is it for my Partner to travel among your people?”

“Safe enough now that Singer of the Wind has read the clouds to the other Tribes.”

“And if we must look beyond the lands of the Espadryni? If we must travel to the people of fields and towns?”

“Singer of the Wind has said you are honorable people, both of you. So you will not tell the world what you know of us; our secret is safe with you.”

This was not phrased as a question, but Parno nodded his agreement all the same.

“If it becomes known that our women are Marked,” Sun Dog continued, “there would be war between us and the people of the fields and towns.”

Parno raised his hand. “Say no more. We’re well used to holding our tongues. Even in our world, for example, where the Marked are respected, we don’t make a show of my Partner’s Sight.”
And if no one knows of the Espadryni women, then Dhulyn is in no danger either
, he thought. Well, not more than usual.

Dhulyn and Ice Hawk joined them, both smiling. “Can Singer of the Wind tell when he is being lied to?” she said.