Part 43 (1/2)

She caught the unconscious man as he pitched forward, easing him to the ground and searching through the laces on her clothing for something long enough to tie him.

”What was taking you so long?” Cullen said, stepping out of the orchard just as Disha landed on his shoulder.

”I had to be certain,” Dhulyn said. ”Look.” She turned one of Karlyn's hands palm up in the moonlight and compared it to her own. Her hand was pale and white in the moonlight, his showed a faint but unmistakable green cast.

Twenty-seven.

THE LOCKUP IN Trevel proved to be a disused horse stall in the back of the headman's house. Like every other building in the village, the walls were thick stone covered with whitewashed plaster, but the window opening had an iron grille, Parno noted, not shutters, and the door was barred from the outside.

Gundaron, bent over the trussed Karlyn-Tan, looked up and nodded. ”It's here,” he said.

Sortera leaned on her staff, shaking her head. ”Nothing wrong with him that I can sense,” she said. ”Barring that he's unconscious, see you.”

”We'll want to keep him that way,” Dhulyn said. ”Can we?”

The old woman's face creased as she smiled. ” 'Course you can, there's drugs to do it, as you well know. But we'll have to watch him carefully if we don't want to kill him.” She thought a moment, frowning heavily. ”Let me talk to the village Knife. Between us, we can work out the dosages, see you.” She tilted her head, focused her sharp eyes on Dhulyn. ”How long do you plan to keep him this way?”

Dhulyn drew her eyes away from Karlyn-Tan. ”As long as we have to.”

”We'll need to look to our supplies, then,” Sortera said. ”We can't have innocent people going without because we're using all we have on this one.”

”Then we'll have to find a more permanent solution,” Parno said. ”Wait for us in the other room, Grandmother. We'll come as soon as Gun's finished.” He turned to Dhulyn and lowered his voice still further.

”Are you certain it's trapped?”

Dhulyn shrugged. ”I couldn't think of anything else to do. From something Yaro told me, I hoped I could strike at the body fast enough to trap it in Karlyn, especially since it did not know I suspected it.”

Parno loosened the muscles in his jaw that kept getting too tight. ”I'm surprised he let you get close enough for the Hooded Snake Shora Shora.”

Dhulyn shrugged. ”Even those who have seen a woman's strength never really believe she'll use it against them them.”

Parno coughed. ”And what about you, Cullen. Why didn't you tell us?”

The Cloudman's teeth gleamed white for an instant as he smiled. He was leaning against the wall next to the door. ”What was I going to do, Lionsmane? Swear to you I wasn't possessed?”

Dhulyn and Gun both laughed.

Parno rubbed his face with his hands. It seemed his own bond with Dhulyn helped him to sense the link that they had between them. The Marked. As potent and as real as the bond of Partners.h.i.+p. It was a good thing, he told himself, he was only uneasy because he hadn't experienced it before. Before, it had only been Dhulyn and him, and he could almost forget her Mark.

Surely it was only this uneasiness, this new sensation of exclusion, that gave him the feeling things were getting out of hand?

Dhulyn had tried the tiles again after returning to their quarters in Sortera's house, and even though they'd worked, she Saw no Visions that she hadn't already Seen, although each was clear and precise in a way they had never been before.

She stopped as a door in the wall beside her opened and discharged a Cloudwoman of her own age with a large basket of eggs on her hip. The villager saluted her with a nod and a ”good morning” before setting off down the lane at a pace only a native would have found comfortable, given the steepness of the street.

Chickens in an inner courtyard, Dhulyn thought. Enough of them that the excess eggs were going to market to be sold or traded for things that didn't grow in the woman's inner courtyard. The uncomplicated pattern of village life. When had their lives, hers and Parno's, become so complicated? Since Navra. Dhulyn slowed her pace even more. And she'd had more Visions since Navra as well, now that she thought about it. The fresnoyn would account for some of those, she knew, as would the unusual stress and worry of being so near Parno's home. Even the weather might have made its contribution. Blood knew, she'd never been really comfortable in the warmer north.

More Visions; fine, she could account for those. But why clearer ones?

Dhulyn shook off her thoughts and looked around her. Trevel was like no other town or village she had lived in, tucked into its high mountain valley, its location protected by narrow pa.s.ses and thick forests impenetrable to those who didn't know the ways. Ahead of her now was the tallest structure in town, the stone tower of a Jaldean Shrine-Old Believers, of course-and beyond that, perhaps three days' ride away, the peaks of the Antedichas Mountains to the south. Nothing like what little she could remember of her own birthplace, the cold, windswept southern plains, or even any of the port towns she'd known during her Schooling with Dorian the Black.

Light voices sang out ahead of her as a small group of children ran out from a crossing lane, racing down to the small square between the Jaldeans' tower and the public fountain.

Bursting into the open s.p.a.ce, the children did a quick rhyming count to see who would be the victim-”one two, sky blue, all out but you” was what Dhulyn caught-and one small boy was blindfolded and took his place in the center of four others. As these four joined hands and began to chant, Dhulyn stopped to watch, setting her buckets down on the cobblestones.

The children repeated the chant several times, stepping first in one direction, then turning and skipping the other way, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Finally, they fell silent, stopped, and dropped hands. The blindfolded boy in the middle began immediately to grope for his friends, grabbing the smallest girl as her giggle gave her location away.

They had used almost the same words and a very similar tune as the children on the pier in Navra, Dhulyn thought; children were so much the same everywhere. So much had happened since the evening when they first met Mar and the Weaver woman in the tavern room of their Navra inn. So much- ”Oh, for blood's sake.”

A woman pa.s.sing between her and the children glanced at her with a tentative smile.

The Lens tile in the center with the other Marks placed around it. A child in the center with four others circling around. Circling. Circling. Herself asleep on the trail with Mar in her arms, Mar with her hands on Gundaron's shoulders. Herself asleep on the trail with Mar in her arms, Mar with her hands on Gundaron's shoulders.

Not the bowl. Mar. Mar. Mar herself. Mar herself.

Dhulyn whirled around, almost tripping over the buckets she didn't remember until much later, and ran back up the hill.

But the love's here, she thought. she thought. It's here. It's here.

Gun sighed. ”I'm so useless,” he said.

Mar bit back an exasperated retort. ”Come on,” she said, as kindly as she could manage given that what she really felt like was slapping him. ”We've been through this. You've done the best you could.”

”And how good was that? Dhulyn Wolfshead had to find it, and the Shadow was right under my nose the whole time.”

Well, no arguing with that, Mar thought. She was trying to come up with an argument, however, when the Wolfshead herself came running up the narrow steps- Mar thought. She was trying to come up with an argument, however, when the Wolfshead herself came running up the narrow steps-smiling.

”Gun, you were right, the books were right. I should have listened to you from the start. We're just too blooded smart for our own good.”

Gun got to his feet. ”I was right?”