Dhulyn pressed her lips tightly together. “You are right, my heart. Bring your pipes, and I will fetch my sword.”

Parno patted the bed with his free hand. “I didn’t mean we should go right now.”

This time Dhulyn laughed out loud. “Oh, yes, you did.”

Dhulyn set the oil lamp down and crouched to touch the dark stain on the flagstones deep beneath the oldest tower of the Carnelian Dome. To her left was the Onyx Walk, to the right the long corridor stretching down to the old summer kitchen. She frowned and straightened once more, touching a similar dark stain on the wall. Her brow cleared. “This one,” she said.

“Died on his feet,” Parno said. “Good lad,”

“So may we all,” Dhulyn said, leaning her shoulder against the wall to one side of the bloodstain. “Tell me,” she said, beginning the ritual, “how did you first know our Brother Hernyn Greystone the Shield?”

Parno made himself comfortable against the wall on the other side of the stain. “I knew him when he was only Hernyn Greystone,” Parno began. “And he was a sorry sight when I first laid eyes on him, let me tell you…”

The exchange of story and anecdote that made up the Mercenary’s Last Farewell did not take very long, even though Dhulyn and Parno tried to remember everything they had seen Hernyn say or do.

“We stand now where our Brother stood at the last,” Dhulyn said finally. “And we say farewell to Hernyn Greystone the Shield, who gave his life for ours. Farewell, Hernyn, we stood together in Battle, and we will stand together again in Death.”

“In Battle and in Death,” Parno said, lifting his pipes into position, and fitting the chanter to his lips. The melody that he played then was not traditional, but one of his own making, and Dhulyn thought that if he had played it in the guardroom, he might have beaten even the Tarkin’s piper, in spite of all her practice.

When the final notes died away, they stood a moment or two longer in respect for the music, and their fallen Brother, before Dhulyn gave the bloodstained wall a final salute, touching her fingertips to the bloodstain, and then to her own forehead. Holding hands like children, they retraced their steps to the upper floors.

They had not yet reached the first staircase when Dhulyn hesitated between one step and the next, holding Parno back with a tug on his hand. He caught her eye, and nodded; he’d heard it, too.

“That was not the last dying away of the pipes’ music,” he whispered. “There’s no echo so long as that.”

“Speak again,” Dhulyn called, her voice pitched carefully so as not to echo too much in the deserted stone passages. “Speak that we may find you. Do you need our help?”

Again there came the low moaning that had first caught at Dhulyn’s ears. There was, indeed, something of the mournful notes of the pipes in the sound.

“This way,” Parno said, as he turned to go back the way they came. They were not far on the other side of the narrower passage that led to the old kitchens when they found a series of rooms, roughly the size appropriate for storage, the bolts on the outside of the doors showing evidence of what had been stored there. The man making the sound was in the third room.

He cowered away from them, pushing himself with his feet into the corner of the cell and covering his eyes against the brightness of the lamplight. It took a few minutes, along with some gentle words, for his eyes to adjust enough to allow Dhulyn to coax his hands away from his face.

“He hasn’t been here long,” Parno said, joining her after a quick look into a pail in the far corner of the cell. “But I’d say no one’s been near him in a few days.”

Dhulyn nodded, pulling her small emergency flask of water out of her belt pouch and holding it to the man’s lips.

“Can you speak, Grandfather,” she said as gently as she could.

The prisoner worked his lips, licking at them and swallowing. “Mercenary,” was the word that finally found its way out of his mouth.

“That’s right, sir,” Parno said, squatting down next to the old man. “Can you tell us who you are?”

Suddenly the old man grabbed Dhulyn by the front of her vest, his gnarled fingers tangling in the bits of lace and ribbons. “Did you see him? Has he found you?”

“Who would that be, sir?” Parno said.

“The Sleeping God,” the old man said, subsiding once more into his corner, one hand still clutching Dhulyn’s vest.

They became aware that the torn and stained robes the old man was wearing had once been the dark brown of a Jaldean priest. Their eyes met over the prisoner’s head.

“You’ve seen the Sleeping God?” Dhulyn asked, just as Parno said, “Does he have green eyes?”

“I thought he was, do you see? I thought he was. I thought I was helping him. Helping him to awaken because his time had come.” The old man subsided. “I thought he was the God. At first. I thought I was touched by the God.”

“Who are you?”

“Beslyn-Tor.” He looked around, his eyes clearing. “Have I been sick? This is not my hermitage.”

“Is he here now? The Sleeping God?”

“No, no, why don’t you listen? I tried to tell everyone, but no one listened. I thought he was the God. I thought he was. I’d been collecting relics, you see. I found five, do you see, that’s one more than Arcosa Shrine and the people will come to us, to our shrine, to Monachil. He spoke, and I thought it was the God.” The old man repeated the phrase several times before putting his dirty index finger, with its cracked nail, to his lips, tapping them in the “shhh” sign, all the while his head trembling as if he had the palsy. “But no,” he said finally, the words a mere whisper. “But no.” He caught at Dhulyn again. “I welcomed him. I rejoiced!” He shook his head again, but this time like a man who just can’t believe he could have been that stupid. “But he isn’t the God. He fears the God. He fears the God, do you see?” He collapsed backward. “And then he left me.”

“Where did he go?”

“To Lok-iKol. To Lok-iKol. Like this.” And here the old man took Dhulyn’s face tenderly in his hands, and focused his eyes on hers. “Like this. That’s how it’s done.”

It took all of Dhulyn’s force of will to take the old man’s hands off her face gently, without breaking his wrists.

“That’s how he does it, is it?” she asked.

The old man nodded again. “That’s how. But he always came back. Before. He always came back. It’s hard to be alone. Hard now.” His eyes came abruptly into focus. “You be careful, young woman. He looks for a Mercenary. You be very careful.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t let him touch you, my daughter. He looks for a Mercenary. Be careful.”

The focus faded once again from his eyes and the hand that clutched at Dhulyn’s vest relaxed. She felt for and found a pulse under his jaw, but it was fitful. She glanced up at Parno, found him grim-faced.

“Can you carry him?” she said. “I don’t think he’ll last long anyway, but we can’t leave him here.”

“Take my pipes,” Parno said. “Dhulyn,” he added as she straightened to her feet and held out her hands for the instrument. “Do we understand him to mean…?”

“I think we must,” Dhulyn said, tucking the pipes under her left arm and picking up the lantern. “From what he’s said, I think it means the Tarkin.”

“Who should we tell?”

“That’s a good question.” Alkoryn was dead, she thought. And as little as she liked it, that might very well make her Senior Brother in Gotterang.

They left Beslyn-Tor to be made as comfortable as possible in the guards’ infirmary room before looking for the Tarkina. They were just entering the corridor that led to Zelianora’s room when they heard three people behind them.

“Dhulyn Wolfshead? Lionsmane?” came a tentative but familiar voice. As she turned, Dhulyn did not trouble to suppress a sigh that was so short as to be almost a snort of annoyance. Mar was part of the Tarkina’s household now; what could she possibly want from Dhulyn?