“And the Scholar, and the Lady Mar-eMar? Were they assisted?”

“Once more, I remind you, my House, that neither I nor any of my men had orders to prevent any members of this House from proceeding about their affairs. We knew of no reason to prevent them from leaving.”

“You remind me.” Lok-iKol pursed his lips and straightening in his chair, dipped the pen into the open bottle of ink lined up perfectly with the piece of parchment waiting to be written on.

“My mother, the Fallen House, often said that as a young man there was no hunter as skilled as you. You will find my Scholar. You will find the girl, and you will find me the Mercenary woman, the Wolfshead.”

“My hunting days are past, my House. I am Walls now.”

“I know you cannot leave the House,” Lok-iKol said. “But you will direct the hunt.”

“Let me speak more plainly, my lord. No, I will not.”

Lok-iKol looked up, lifting the pen from the paper. Karlyn-Tan watched the ink gather into a large drop at the tip of the nib, grow large enough to shiver for a moment in the morning sunlight streaming through the window and fall onto the page beneath. Still he said nothing, waiting for his House to speak.

“I am your House,” Lok-iKol said finally. “And now I am your Tarkin as well. You are my Walls, and you will do as I ask.”

“I am the Walls of House Tenebro, my lord.” Karlyn-Tan nodded, looking directly at the man seated at the worktable. “I am neither yours, nor mine, but Tenebro’s. As I have said to you before, I serve only the House, with my own obligations, and my own judgment. It is my judgment that pursuing these Mercenaries will bring danger to the House. As Tenebroso, you may discharge me, but you cannot overrule my judgment.”

“Then you are discharged.” Lok-iKol looked down at the page before him, twisting his lips when he saw the stain of ink. “Be gone by sunset. Take nothing that belongs to me.”

Karlyn fought to keep his knees locked, to keep his hand from reaching for the support of the chairback next to him. It was as though he suddenly found himself on the edge of a chasm, and only firm control would keep him from plunging down. The chasm had always been there, but he had grown so used to it, he had forgotten it could harm him. As he managed to forget, most of the time, that this man was his half brother. A voice inside him, the voice of the boy who had never known any other home but this one, cried out that he should submit, that he should agree to anything, and his lips parted, but the words that came out…

“I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he said. “There’ll be no need to hunt for the Mercenaries, Lok-iKol. They will come hunting for you.”

Afterward, Karlyn was unable to recall whether he passed anyone on his way back to his rooms. He remembered thinking that he should have been surprised to find Semlin-Nor waiting for him when he got there, but he was not. She was, after all, the closest thing to a friend he had. She did not speak, but he answered the question on her face.

“I am Cast Out.”

She put out a hand for the edge of the table, lowered herself into a chair.

“Do nothing. Say nothing. You are not safe here. Go, we never spoke.” He could not endanger her. He, at least, had seen the outside world, even if not for fifteen years. She had been born in this House, and had never left it. If she were Cast Out, guilty by her association with him, it would destroy her.

Still, he could not help feeling hurt when Semlin ran from the room without further word. The touch on the hand she gave him as she pushed past was not much consolation. He sat down in the chair behind his worktable and let his face fall into his hands. He had until sunset. Until sunset to decide what, if anything, he was allowed to take with him. He had a little money of his own, saved up over the years. A ring and a dagger the Fallen House had given him. They could be considered his. Surely not even Lok-iKol would put him into the street naked, but was there anything in his rooms that was not of Tenebro colors, or which didn’t bear the Tenebro crest?

Karlyn took a deep breath and looked up. From the angle of the sunlight on the desk, he’d been sitting here the better part of an hour already. And he had not given any thought to where he would go, once he’d found clothing. Was the Blue Dove Tavern still in business, he wondered, thinking of the last place he had stayed before coming to Tenebro House, and did it still rent rooms cheaply?

Leave the House. The fiery heat of his anger had finally died away, leaving a tightness in his throat and chest. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. A sound made him get to his feet just as the door to the hallway opened. It was not, as he’d expected, Semlin-Nor, or even his assistant Jeldor-San, having just learned of her unexpected promotion, but the Lord Dal-eDal.

His hands full, Dal-eDal kicked the door shut behind him. In his right hand he carried a bulging saddle pack, and in his left, held by the scabbard, a sword. Both of these he put on the table in front of Karlyn.

“I did not knock, since I have learned that these are no longer your rooms.”

Karlyn-Tan inclined his head.

“I have further learned that you have been told to leave with nothing that the Lord Lok-iKol has given you. Therefore, I have brought you clothing and a sword.”

By the tone of his voice, and the expression on his face, Dal-eDal might have been passing Karlyn the bread at a communal table and not the tools that might save his life.

“I may need to report that they come from your hand.”

Dal-eDal shrugged. “Consider it reported. My cousin has returned to the Carnelian Dome, and I am the heir.”

Karlyn nodded his understanding, feeling a tightness in his shoulders relax. It was to find Dal-eDal that Semlin-Nor had left in such a hurry. “In that case, I accept.”

It was Dal-eDal’s turn to nod. He straightened his cuffs as if searching for something more to say.

“Did he want you to find the Tarkin?”

“You mean Tek-aKet Culebroso? The former Tarkin?”

Dal smiled. “Yes, that is what I meant.”

Karlyn took a deep breath, found further tension releasing. “No,” he said. “The Scholar, the Lady Mar-eMar, and the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead.”

Dal leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. “What is it about this woman? He tricks Mar-eMar into bringing her to Gotterang, and now, with all that must be occupying him in the less than two days he’s been on the Carnelian Throne, he finds time to leave the Dome to ask you to find her?”

“The Scholar would know.”

“And if we had the Scholar,” Dal said, “we would know.”

We? Karlyn thought. Dal presumed much on the basis of clothing and a sword. Karlyn believed he could put his hands on both the youngsters pretty easily, thanks to Jeldor-San’s fast thinking in having them followed and to his own tracking skills, but he saw no need to tell Dal-eDal as much.

The two men exchanged a long look.

“If you would,” Dal said finally, “once you know where you are, send me word.”

“Why not?”

Dal-eDal’s parting smile was more than half grimace.

“Just as soon as I figure out who you’ll tell,” Karlyn-Tan said once the door had closed again.

Parno was using the sharpening stone he’d found in the underground chamber’s weapons kit to put a better edge on one of the knives he’d been given from the Tarkin’s armory. As soon as he could get upstairs, he’d be able to recover those of his own weapons-including his best sword-that had, along with the rest of his pack, been left with their horses at Mercenary House. He scowled at the knife, moving it this way and that as the light caught the edge. Was it really only a week ago?

Parno looked over the edge of the blade to find Bet-oTeb looking at him. The Tarkin-to-be looked very solemn, her eyes huge in the chamber’s uncertain light. “My father wants you,” she said. “If you would be so good as to come with me.”