But he is so lonely, and all he wants is his home. I stand back, our breath rough and uneven, the sound of weeping in our ears, the taste of tears on our lips.

As if he hears my thoughts, and shares my feeling, the Green Shadow steps away.

“Home,” he says. He is trembling, and I see ourselves shining in the light that comes from his eyes. He reverses his sword and plunges it into the floor.

He falls to his knees and bows his head, covering his face with hands that shake. “Break me, Sleeping God,” he says. “Let one of us keep their home. Buy your world time. Let us start the long dance again. Until the one is Found who can send me home.”

I take the Mage’s sword in our left hand, I step toward him, close enough to strike.

“How many times have we danced these steps?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

I have seen him in this room many times. He cannot read the book, and without it, he cannot cut the mirror, he cannot open the gate. But I also cannot read the book. Even I, the Sleeping God. Healer, Finder, Mender, Seer, held and focused by the Lens. Scholar, warrior, child, maid, crone. I have to strike, to break him once more into pieces, begin the dance of the Sleeping God again. Will another like us See this room? See the Mage reading his book? See his lips forming-

I leap over the kneeling man at our feet and raise the Mage’s sword. Adelgarrembil, our lips say. Acucheeyarob. Fetentabil. Debereeyarob. Esfumarrenbil.

I bring the sword down and cut the mirror, cut the night sky, and the gateway opens. The joy of the Shadow behind us cuts through us like a knife as it blows, flies, ROARS through us and into its own place.

We teeter on the brink of the gate. There is no room behind us, there never was, and there is nothing, no safeguard, no door to shut, that prevents us, our thoughts, our selves, from being sucked through into the formless NOT. Nothing, the real nothing, awaits us, our parts unmaking into the NOT.

I drop no sword from no hand fall to no knees

Until there is only one small piece of us left.

A thin line of black traces through the blue and the green.

Parno, I think, my soul.

Suddenly I Find a sound, a chord of music, playing itself through our mind. Our feet move in the dance. We Mend the cut in the universes. We Heal the holes in our being. We turn to See, and clearly, brightly, with great focus, Dhulyn Wolfshead finds herself in her Partner’s arms.

Twenty-eight

PARNO SAT IN the chair by the edge of the bed on which Karlyn-Tan, gray-faced and drawn, lay propped up on feather pillows.

“Sortera the Healer has finished her long journey,” Parno said. “She did not wake from the trance of the god.”

“We were almost unmade,” Dhulyn added from where she leaned on the doorframe. “And she chose to use her strength to Heal us. So you must heal yourself, Karlyn, with rest and good food. We’ll wait for you to return to Gotterang with us.”

“Don’t wait,” Karlyn said. “I’m not going back to Gotterang.”

Dhulyn approached the bed, stopped with her hand on Parno’s shoulder. “Where, then?” she said.

“I’m going to Tourin,” Karlyn said. “To Nerysa Warhammer. I’d like a House that won’t cast me out.”

“You can’t do better,” Parno said.

“If you live through it,” Dhulyn added.

Two days later they were at the edge of the Vale of Trevel, on the unmarked path that led to the Gotterang Pass. Their packs were tied securely to their saddles, and their horses were restive, already looking forward to the road.

“You’re sure you won’t come with us,” Parno was saying to Mar. “Dal would be glad of you, I think. He seems to set great store by his relatives.”

“Maybe one day,” Mar said, looking over her shoulder at where Gun was looking down the trail. He must have felt her gaze; he turned and smiled at her, and her face lit up. “We’re going to Valdomar. Gun needs to write down all that’s happened, and while he does, I’d like to see if the Scholar’s life is for me.”

“The Scholar is definitely for you, I would say.” Dhulyn stroked Mar’s hair away from her face, and suddenly found her arms full, as the girl hugged her.

“There, little Dove, we’ll meet again, don’t fear it.”

Mar stepped back, blinking. “We tried again last night,” she said. “Not because we don’t believe it, but…”

“Just to be sure,” Dhulyn said, turning to check Bloodbone’s girth.

“There no sign of it.” Gun drew nearer. “Nowhere in my mind’s Library. Even the wall of books is gone.”

“Never thought I’d be happy to hear that books had disappeared.” She gave Gundaron a friendly shove and was surprised at the flush of pleasure that colored his face.

“And with Mar’s help?”

“No difference,” the girl said with a wistful look. “I don’t think I’m the Lens anymore.”

“Broken?” Parno said.

Mar shook her head. “Jerrick says not, he feels nothing broken about me. I don’t feel any different, just,” she shrugged, “lighter, maybe.”

“The Lens has dissolved, perhaps, like the godhood we were; unnecessary now.” Dhulyn swung herself into the saddle. “The gods blow fair winds on you, and warm. Farewell, my Doves.”

They had passed over the crest of the first hill, and looking back no longer showed them Gun and Mar standing side by side. Not, Parno thought, that Dhulyn had looked back.

“The God’s gone, then?” he asked her.

Dhulyn frowned, her blood-red brows drawn down in a vee over her narrowed eyes. “The Sleeping God is gone. Perhaps forever.” She looked up, her brow still clouded. “If its only purpose was to oppose the Green Shadow, then there is no further need of the Sleeping God.” She thought for a moment, until her face cleared. “We can’t know. As Mar said, Gun will write it all down, in case the God is ever needed again. Lenses will be tested for, like the other Marks-though, thank the Caids, I don’t have to create the test, for I’ve no notion what it might be.”

“But for us, it’s over?”

“I won’t forget. Shape and form has been at the root of this, and part of me will always remember what it was to be the form of the God.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Parno threw up his hands. “My Partner is a god. I’ll never hear the end of this.”

A half moon later they were in Gotterang. They found that Karlyn-Tan could have accompanied them after all, as Dorian the Black had docked his ship in Gotterang’s harbor, the better to oversee the rebuilding of Mercenary House.

“The maps are safe, thanks to your warning,” he told them, once they had been found seats in a half-restored room and been served with mugs of hot ganje. “Though we’ve told the Tarkina that they were destroyed in the fire.”

“Thus setting any fears of us to rest,” Parno said. “So we’ve only to present ourselves at the Carnelian Dome, collect our wages, with, it’s to be hoped, a nice bonus, and be on our way.”

Dorian shook his head.

“Bet-oTeb Tarkin, on the advice of her Guardian, Zelianora Tarkina, has sent you your wages here, and begs that you not present yourselves at the Dome. Though it’s been proclaimed that you found and killed the assassins of Tek-aKet Tarkin, awkward questions may yet be asked. Bet-oTeb Tarkin suggests that you may wish to find employment elsewhere until interest dies down. Zelianora Tarkina suggests her sister, the Queen of Berdana, may have work for you.”

“Essentially, take your wages and leave the country-better yet, the continent?”

“Essentially.” Dorian’s smile was very white in his dark face. “There’s a ship just now in the harbor, leaving tomorrow at dawn. The Horse’s Mane. A good omen if ever I heard one.”

As they walked down the staircase to the sound of carpenters hammering, Parno looked around.