Twenty

HE GOES SWIFTLY to the corner of the Library where the books and shelves make a great wall and begins to pull at the volumes, his hands going unerringly to one special section and pulling enough books and scrolls out of the way to make a tunnel in the wall, a tunnel he can enter only on his hands and knees. He encounters no shelves as he goes, just book after book, scroll after scroll, as tightly packed as unripe seeds in a flower head that lift away and disappear as he moves them out of his way. He tunnels for what seems like days, and he begins to fear that he cannot Find his way out again, even though the books and scrolls he removes go on disappearing as he pulls them free of the wall in front of him as the tunnel he crawls through gets smaller and smaller until he is reaching almost at his arm’s length to move the final small scroll aside so that he can see the Carnelian Throne and the man sitting on it with his eye patch not quite covering the steady green luminescence of the left eye.

The wall begins snapping back into place.

Gundaron pushed away Mar’s bowl forcefully enough for the water it held to slop out onto the tabletop, and released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He’d Found what he was looking for, no doubt there. Give Parno Lionsmane a reason not to kill him. Give them all a reason to trust him, to want him. Gun could almost hear his mother’s voice “For the Caids’ sake, Gundy, make yourself useful.”

It had taken him the better part of the night to think what to do, but he hoped that this would be useful enough.

“Gun?”

More water slopped on the table as Gun jerked upright and spun around. Mar stood with her hand on the back of his chair, dark brown brows drawn down into a vee over her eyes. He blinked. How could he have forgotten she was there?

“What did you Find?”

Gun stopped short of answering her as a fair-haired Mercenary Brother he didn’t know appeared in the doorway behind her.

“The Tarkina wants you,” the Brother said. “Quickly.”

Gun tossed the water on the floor and handed the bowl to Mar, ushering her out of the room in the Brother’s wake.

They found Zelianora Tarkina placing packets of dried food into her travel bags, the nurse Denobea tying young Zak-eZak into his sling, and Bet-oTeb dressed and ready, her long dagger in its sheath at her side. The two Personal Guards the Tarkin had left behind were waiting, arms crossed, just inside the entrance to the sleeping chamber.

The Tarkina glanced up but kept packing. “The House is under attack,” she said. “We’re to follow Parno Lionsmane into the tunnels.”

“We’re not safe enough here?” Even as she asked, Mar went to her own bags and began to restow her bowl and pick up her writing tools.

Zelianora tied the last loose thong on her pack and hefted it, nodding, before answering. “If Tek and Lionsmane succeed,” she said, “we can return to the Dome.” Her hands stilled. “And if they fail, we will need to leave here in any case. I prefer to be prepared.”

Gun took his lower lip between his teeth. “Mar, can you pack for us both? I’ve got to speak to Parno Lionsmane.”

The fair-haired Mercenary Brother shook his head. “He’ll have started-”

Gun didn’t wait to hear more. He ducked under the arm of the man at the doorway and dashed off in the direction of the deeper tunnels. There were only four of these tunnels in this section of the caves, and only one that led in the direction of the Dome. Logically-

Gun ran headlong into the chest of a large, hard Mercenary. Prevented from ducking around him, Gun strained to look over the Brother’s shoulder. Was that a glimmer of light he could see?

“Lionsmane,” he called. “Listen! You need the throne room. He’s… it’s in the throne room.”

The light stopped moving.

“Let him come.”

The Mercenary holding him let go and Gun dashed down the tunnel toward the light.

Telian-Han hesitated at the door, raised his hand to knock, and lowered it again. Though many of the doors in this wing had bolts on the inside (and some even locks that would work from the outside), to Telian’s knowledge the man he still privately thought of as the Tarkin, Tek-aKet Culebro, had never used them-at least not here in the private wing of the Carnelian Dome. A well-run Household doesn’t need locks, Tek-aKet used to say. A closed door is as good as a bolt to an honorable person. Since Lok-iKol had come, however, the bolts at least were almost always used. And some said the locks, too, though Telian pushed that thought away almost as soon as he had it.

What all this meant for him was that if you knocked, the person on the inside had to stop what he was doing, and come to let you in. Or not.

Telian’s hands formed fists at his sides. There had been lots of changes since the night Lok-iKol had come, but it was the more recent ones that were especially worrying. At first, when they’d heard the noise of feet pounding and steel clashing, Tel and some of the other pages in his dormitory had wanted to rush into the passages and find out what was going on. But the Steward of Keys had sent senior pages to keep all the younger ones in their rooms and dormitories. The next morning Keys had called them all into the big kitchen where the chief cook and his assistants, the kitchen help, the household staff-cleaners for the most part-and the pages had been asked to gather. Tel had missed the Keys’ first few words-something about a transfer of power that hadn’t sounded too scary-he’d been too interested in the kitchen to pay attention. He’d been here before, but always on an errand, and the noble staff weren’t encouraged to loiter down here.

“Each will remain in his or her own post,” Keys had said, nothing in his voice showing that he’d drunk three bottles of the Tarkin’s best jeresh the night before and must have had a splitting headache because of it. “You’ll find men with Tenebro badges,” here he’d tapped his chest on the left side, “in the public rooms and at cross corridors in the Dome. Be ready to explain who you are and what your errand-and as I said,” here Keys had looked ’round at all the staff, junior and senior, “this is nothing to worry us; it’s just while they get to know us.”

One of the Tarkina’s lady pages, tall, dark-haired Rab-iRab Culebro was bold enough to interrupt and ask about her mistress, but Keys had told her to stay in the Tarkina’s suite with her fellows and await orders.

“Your families may send for some of you,” Keys had said, though everyone knew that wasn’t likely to happen, at least not until they all saw how things were going to fall. No one wanted to risk offending the new Tarkin by appearing to remove their support along with their family members. Tel, for one, had been hoping no one came for him. Minor son of a Holding, a position in the Carnelian Dome was the best thing that could have happened to him.

He’d been so excited, he saw now, looking back on a morning that was only a week ago, though it felt like a month. All he knew was he was a lot more than a week older. He hadn’t admitted to himself, possibly hadn’t realized, how much he’d been hoping that some miracle would happen, and Tek-aKet Tarkin would come back. After the last few days, a return to minding his father’s almond groves and vineyards under his older sister’s supervision didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Locked doors were not the only changes for the worse in the Dome.

He took a deep breath and knocked, waited, standing with his back straight, elbows in as he’d been taught, straining to hear any command, any footsteps nearing the door, and finally hearing only the bolts being pushed back. He took two more slow breaths before pushing the door lightly aside with his fingers and entering the room.