“I’m surprised to see you still here, if you don’t intend to become Walls again,” Dhulyn said.
He let her pass through the door, then paused a moment holding it open. Dhulyn stopped and looked back at him. He faced her, but his crystal-blue eyes were focused inward.
“It’s not my plan to stay here,” he said, finally lifting his eyes to her. “But it’s as good a place to live as any until this crisis ends, or until I know where I wish to be.”
“You are not too old to make a Mercenary Brother, if you lived through the Schooling,” she said.
His smile, for all that it creased his eyes, made him look younger. “I’ve lived through several things already.”
Gundaron’s room wasn’t exactly as he’d left it. It was clear that someone had searched it, but it had been someone who had left the room almost as neat as they’d found it. The books and scrolls had clearly been taken from the shelf and then stuffed back in place without regard for either order or bent corners; the bed had been stripped of linens, but the linens themselves had been taken away and the bed restored-almost-to its place against the wall.
He wasn’t surprised to find the same partially restored order in his clothespress, though he was surprised that his spare tunics were still there. What wasn’t there, however, was the box of drugs that should have been on the top shelf.
Gun chewed on his bottom lip. He’d taken the drugs to the workroom when he’d given them to Dhulyn Wolfshead. He’d brought them back here-hadn’t he? He touched the spot on the shelves where the pearwood box should be. Well, if he had brought it back, whoever had searched the room had taken it away again.
That did leave him one other place to look.
He was actually out the door and into the hallway before he remembered there was something else he’d come here to get.
Karlyn tapped on the right-hand leaf of a set of plain double doors and opened it without waiting. The room within was neither as crowded and carpeted as the old woman’s room, nor as cold and heavy-furnitured as Lok-iKol’s. The floors were plain golden wood, clean and polished. The furniture, while sturdy, was limited to a few chairs of a light-colored wood, backs, seats, and arms covered with tooled leather, with a few bright-patterned cushions scattered about. The walls held simple ink drawings, there were flowers in low vases, and dried fruit in shallow ceramic bowls. As they entered, the new House, Dal-eLad Tenebroso, was studying the top of a low, round table that sat between two of the leather-covered armchairs. Before he got to his feet, he shifted something on the table with his fingertips with a movement that was very familiar to Dhulyn. She waited until he raised his head and smiled before advancing into the room herself. When she got close enough, she was not surprised to see that the tabletop was covered with what looked to be a very old set of vera tiles. Most were turned facedown, as if a game were about to begin.
“Do you play the tiles, Tenebroso?”
“Please, call me Dal. We are related, in an odd way, though it seems we’re not to acknowledge it. And no, I get no pleasure from gambling. I don’t even play the Solitary hands, really. It’s the patterns that interest me most. I lay the tiles out in the old patterns as a way to help me relax.”
“The old patterns?”
“The Seer’s Patterns, my nurse used to call them. It’s why I wanted to see you, as it happens.” He gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite him before resuming his own seat.
Dal laid the tips of his fingers lightly on the backs of the tiles nearest him. “My mother brought this set into our Household. I don’t know how far back it goes in her family, but it was said the set was made in the time of the Caids.”
Dhulyn shrugged, her eyes on the tiles. “It’s certainly possible. If parchments and even some paper can last so long, why not tiles? Do you know what they’re made of?”
“Some kind of bone or stone, judging by how they change temperature.” He picked up a piece and handed it to her.
Dhulyn lifted the tile to her mouth and touched it with the tip of her tongue, tested it with her teeth. “Stone, I would say. I do use the tiles for gambling, as it happens, but I doubt you’ve asked for me in order to teach you how.”
Dal laughed softly. “Quite right. Turn over the tile you’ve got in your hand.”
Suddenly-
A HEAVY WEIGHT OF TIME; GENERATIONS; HOUSES RISE AND FALL. A MOUNTAIN PUSHES UP OUT OF THE SEA. AN ISLAND. SHE TOOK A SHARP BREATH…
“Wolfshead, I said, ‘are you all right?’ ”
“Yes, thank you.” Eyebrows raised, Dhulyn turned the tile over. Rather than being marked with one of the cups, coins, swords, or spears that she was familiar with, this tile had a circle with a dot in the middle. She looked back at Dal-eLad.
He was nodding. “There are tiles in this set not seen in the sets used for gambling. That’s one of them. There are four tiles with that dot and circle. And three other sets of four.” He began turning over the tiles in front of him. “A simple straight line, running lengthwise down the center. A rectangle, just smaller than the tile itself, and a triangle, centered along the length of the tile, like a spearhead.”
Dhulyn set down the tile she held next to its brothers. “A line, a circle, a rectangle, a triangle. Four in each pattern. Sixteen extra tiles?”
Dal shook his head. “Seventeen. This one is unique.” He picked up a tile that lay to his left, and showed, if possible, more wear than the others. When he turned it over, Dhulyn could see, faint but clear, a design of three concentric circles.
“Could the other three have been lost?”
Dal shook his head. “My nurse said no, the set had always been like this.”
“But surely, if the set is so very old…” Dhulyn let her objection die away as Dal went on shaking his head.
“No other tile is missing, you can tell by the wear and the patterns that they are all original. What odds would you give me that three tiles only, and those particular three would be the only ones lost since the time of the Caids? No. This tile is unique.”
“So.” Dhulyn leaned back in her chair, tapping her lips with her linked fingers. “Seventeen extra tiles we don’t use in the modern sets of vera tiles. And these patterns, what are they?”
“As I said, my nurse called them the Seer’s Patterns. My sisters and I-”
Dhulyn looked up from her study of the tiles. Dal sat with his elbow on the table, chin in his hand, lips pressed tightly together. His sisters are gone, she thought, and it still hurts him.
“My sisters and I,” Dal began again, his voice lower and carefully under control, “would pretend to be Seers, telling each other’s fortunes.” He cleared his throat and began turning all the tiles faceup. “You know that some of the tiles have names, other than their places in the suits?”
“The Tarkina of Swords is called the Black Maid, the nine of cups is called Wealth, that kind of thing?”
Dal nodded. “Exactly.” He held one tile in his hand, leaving the others as they lay. “My nurse said that once upon a time all the tiles had names, and meanings as well. That you would choose the tile that stood for you, and from it your fortune could be told.”
Dhulyn leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table.
“Show me.”
“This is my tile,” he said, showing her the Mercenary of Coins. “A young man or woman, golden-haired, brown-eyed. This tile would be placed in the center of a table such as this one. I would ask my question, and this tile,” he held up the singleton, “with its concentric circles, would be placed atop my own.” He set the unique tile on top of the Mercenary of Coins. “The circled dot above, the triangle below, the rectangle to the right, the line to the left, forming a small cross. We would toss the rest of the tiles, and, drawing one at a time, place one face up above the circled dot, one below the triangle, one to the right of the rectangle, and one to the left of the line, extending the arms of the cross.” Pretending to draw tiles from the box, Dal placed them as he indicated. “Lastly, we would choose four more, one at a time, and place them in a vertical here, to the left of the tiles we’ve already set up. This is the simplest of the Seer’s Patterns.”