The Gandalara Cycle I (14 page)

“I understand.” He waved a hand in the air. "You know, it's an odd feeling talking to someone you know, and yet you don't. I keep trying to call you Markasset, and reminding myself that you're someone different. It would help - may ask your name?"

In Gandaresh, I knew, men's names always ended with a consonant, women's names with a vowel sound. I adjusted my own given name and gave it to Thanasset: "Rikardon."

"Rikardon," he repeated, thinking about it. "Rikardon. A very old kind of name.
He who leads upward.
A good name. But I confess that I have never heard it before.-

I shrugged. "I told you I was not particularly distinguished."
Especially in Gandalaran history
. I thought.
I'd be very surprised if they had heard of me here.

"Mmmm." He picked up his glass and sipped. I had been waiting for his opening; now I picked up my own glass eagerly.

The glasses were small; I could barely have fitted my thumb in one. After one sip, I could see why. The stuff had a rich flavor without being sweet, and an aroma that invaded the nose like a whiff of mint - but it was not mint. And there was power there. It wouldn't take very many slugs of that stuff to put a man flat on his face.

I liked it.

I learned later that it was
barut
, made by the Fa'aldu of the desert from a secret mixture of herbs and fruits. An old family recipe, as it were, handed down through the generations. It was part of their trading stock, less plentiful but more lucrative than water. Ounce for ounce, its selling price was a hundred times more than that of water. How terribly, foolishly
human!

The drinking customs were strong in Markasset's memory. After Thanasset and I had each sipped from our glasses, he lifted his glass to me and said: "Wisdom!'

I answered him, the words coming automatically, but I meant them: "And good health!"

We tossed off the remaining liquid in the little glasses in one swallow, and Thanasset went to refill them while I enjoyed the warm tingling which flowed gently through my whole body.

"There is so much to explain," Thanasset said while he poured from the bottle on the shelf. "I'm not sure where to begin."

He didn't even have a chance.

There was a sharp series of raps at the front door. Demanding. Authoritative. I looked over at Thanasset, the question plain on my face. He sighed and scowled.

"That's Zaddorn. I'd recognize that knock of his anywhere, anytime."

Thanasset replaced the bottle on the shelf and set down the glass he had been about to fill. He went through the doorway of the room and walked over to the large double doors that were the street entrance into the house. I followed him part of the way, and as he reached the door, he turned back. I thought he meant to say something to me, but the knock sounded again. He shrugged and opened the door.

The man who came through the door was dressed unlike any Gandalaran I had yet seen. He wore a long gray cloak of what seemed to be oiled linen, and on his head was a broad- brimmed gray hat of stiffened felt. He strode through the door and with a graceful, elaborate motion swirled the cloak from his shoulders and deposited it on a hook beside the door. Then his hat carried off, and was placed on the same hook. Both were damp from the heavy mist outside, caused by the roaring falls behind the city. He had done all this silently and with an unconsciously theatrical flair, as though announcing his right to be welcome. But now he hesitated slightly, and I felt his cold, dark gaze on me - first on my face, then inspecting my waist. Then he lifted over his head the richly embroidered baldric which carried his sword.

He checked to see if I was armed!
I realized, and I felt a stirring of anger that was partly Markasset's long-held rivalry, partly my own indignation.
In my father's house - does he think I would wear a sword here?

Now I understood Thanasset's anger when I had, in ignorance, walked into his home wearing a sword.

"Good afternoon, Supervisor Thanasset," he said at last. "I must request a few minutes of your time." Again he glanced at me. "And of your son's."

"Certainly, Zaddorn. We were just having a drink. Won't you join us?" He bowed slightly and led the way back into the sunlit, high-windowed room. Zaddorn followed him and I followed Zaddorn, wishing that I had decided to wear the green-and-yellow suit I had found in the closet. For Zaddorn was wearing an embroidered gray tunic with a high collar and matching gray trousers. Somehow I knew that it was not a uniform, but merely his own conception of what the Supervisor of Peace and Security
ought
to wear. Fancy dress for daytime, perhaps, but not for a community leader who needed to he set apart from the crowd.

And I had to admit he cut an impressive figure. He was tall and broad-shouldered. And the belted tunic emphasized his muscular chest and arms. His voice was deep even when he spoke softly, as he had done to Thanasset. Yet I could imagine that, raised in command, it would stop a mad vlek in its tracks.

I found myself wondering what it was that Illia saw in Markasset.

Thanasset went directly to the shelf, but Zaddorn shook his head. "Ah, no. I thank you, Supervisor Thanasset, but barut is too heady for a man who needs all his wits about him. Please do not let me keep you from your pleasure. However."

Thanasset filled his glass, and brought it to me. Standing, we made the toast. "Wisdom!"

"Wisdom!"

"And good health!"

Thanasset replaced the bottle and glasses - apparently they were used only for barut, and were thus self-sterilizing - locked the cabinet, and we sat down. Zaddorn wasted no time in coming to the point.

"I came here because I heard you had returned to Raithskar, Markasset. I presume," he said, glancing at Thanasset, "that you have learned of our loss?"

Zaddorn had a thinner, flatter face than most Gandalarans, with a longer, more normal-looking (to Ricardo) nose. But his eyes were still shadowed by the brow ridge, and they were dark and piercing. I could sense the intelligence behind them - and the subtle menace of an honest cop determined to solve a crime.

Perhaps it was his manner, smooth and deadly as a sword, which irritated me. Or perhaps it was some remnant of bad feeling between Zaddorn and Markasset. But I wanted more than anything to shake him out of his self-satisfied composure.

"Chief Supervisor Ferrathyn mentioned it when I arrived," I told him. "But it wasn't news by then." Zaddorn blinked, and I waited just until he was ready to say something before I went on. "There were rumors of it all through the marketplace."

Zaddorn was cool, but I had seen the well-controlled flashes of expression on his face. Eagerness, thinking it was going to be easy, after all. Disappointment when I didn't admit anything. And finally, awareness that I had staged it that way on purpose. A glimpse of anger then, before his face closed into a granite-hard expression of mild interest. I wouldn't be able to break through again - but I was delighted to have done it once.

"They must have upset you terribly," he said, "for you to have drawn your sword in Vendor Street."

"If you know about that," I countered, "you know why I did it."

He waved a hand negligently, as if to brush aside the reason. "I heard that there was a disturbance. Something about a couple of vineh attacking their foreman."

Zaddorn and I both heard Thanasset's sharp intake of breath. But we didn't take our eyes off one another. Beneath our normal-toned conversation was a declaration of private war, a contest of wills we both knew had not begun here, nor would it end now.

"I discounted it," Zaddorn continued. "Vineh do not behave in that fashion. They are never fierce."

“They certainly gave that appearance," I said.

“Perhaps. But I think it more likely that both you and the foreman misapprehended their motives. The theft of the Ra’ira is a most serious thing, and if - as you have assured me - everyone knows about it, it has created a general tenseness in the city, ready to be set off by anything unusual. You both panicked; that's all. And you drew your sword.

"You realize," he added, "that I could arrest you right now for waving a naked blade in the streets.”

"Isn't it more important," interrupted Thanasset, "to find the Ra'ira? May I ask what progress you've made?"

Zaddorn looked at Thanasset, then back at me. We had been leaning forward in our chairs: now we both sighed and settled back - a temporary truce, a break before the next round.

"We are fairly certain that the gem has left the city. There is no trace or rumor of it in the city's rogue world. It is my personal opinion that it left the city in the caravan of Gharlas. I have sent a guard command group after them. But it will be some time before that group returns with any information."

Again his eyes met mine, and I knew that this was the real reason he was here.

"I am in hope, Markasset," he said. "That since you have ah, left your position with the caravan and returned early, you may have some useful news for us."

"I have already discussed this with the Chief Supervisor," I said, keeping my voice steady. Ferrathyn had merely been interested; this Zaddorn was out for blood. His voice slipped out of its impersonal tone into a deeper one which almost rang around the room.

"Well, you're discussing it with
me
now. Markasset. Why should I trouble the Chief Supervisor for second-hand information when I have the original source right here? Now tell me what you know about the theft of the Ra'ira!"

"There's nothing to tell, Zaddorn." I said. "During my time with the caravan. I neither saw nor heard anything that I can remember that would make me think there was anything odd going on."

"Why did you leave the caravan?"

"Personal reasons," I answered, and I couldn't keep all the anger out of my voice. "They have nothing to do with the theft of the Ra'ira. In fact, they're no business of yours whatever!"

He sat back with a smile and I realized, too late, that he had wanted to provoke me - and he had succeeded.

"No?" he said, all smooth steel again. "Perhaps not. But one can theorize, eh? I have been informed by usually reliable sources that you owe a certain Worfit some seven hundred Zaks - a gambling debt, I believe. Is that correct?"

"I don't see how my personal finances are any of your business, either."

"You'd be surprised how little bits of unrelated information often come together at unlikely times," he said coolly. "For instance, I happen to know that you left town still owing him the money. He was quite put out to learn about it, according to my sources."

"He'll be paid," I said. He was getting at something, I could tell. And it worried me.

"Oh, I'm sure of it, since other ah, sources tell me that you returned to town with enough and more to repay him. More, I daresay, than you would have earned from Caravan Master Gharlas, even had you completed the journey with him." He stood up, walked over to the window and looked out into the garden for a few seconds. Then he came back to his chair, placed his hands on its back, and leaned across it toward me.
"Where did you get that money?"

I couldn't answer him for several reasons. First, I really didn't have the least idea where the large coins - twenty dozak pieces, had Illia called them? - had come from. Second, I
knew
that the small coins had come from the money pouch of a man who had died horribly in the desert. And last, there was only one way Zaddorn could have learned about the money at all. Dear little Illia did not confine her confidences to me alone.

I was trying to digest the shock and come up with some kind of answer when my father said calmly, "My son is carrying twelve hundred zaks in the form of five golden twenty-dozak pieces. I gave them to him the night before he left. He told me about the debt, and I gave him enough to cover it and to provide him some spending money during his journey."

"But you still have all that money," Zaddorn said, still looking at me. "And Worfit is still looking for you. Why didn't you pay him, if you had the money before you left?"

Good question. C'mon, Markasset, tell me why
, I thought, searching the elusive memory of the Gandalaran. To my surprise, he told me.

"I couldn't find him!" I answered, and I'm sure Thanasset and Zaddorn were both startled by the sound of triumph in my voice. "That kind of debt you repay in person, and . . . I almost laughed, "He had been arrested by one of your agents."

For the first time since he had arrived, Zaddorn's dignity slipped. He stood up and cleared his throat. I'm sure that, if he had been wearing the kind of necktie Ricardo was familiar with, Zaddorn would have adjusted it slightly at that moment.

"Yes," he said finally. "I had forgotten - Worfit was being questioned that night about another matter entirely.' He gave Thanasset a long, hard look. "I can see that I'll get no more information here - but there are other lines of inquiry open to me. Perhaps they will prove more fruitful."

He strode out through the doorway, and we stood up and followed him. He was putting on his baldric and sword by the time we reached the door. He swirled the cloak to his shoulders with the same grace he had used in removing it and then, hat in his hand, he turned to Thanasset.

"Thank you for your time, Supervisor Thanasset. Markasset." He opened the door, and then turned partway back. "I'm sure I'll see you both later." Then he put his hat on and was gone.

"Well, that's that," I said as Thanasset closed the door with a sigh. "There's no question that he thinks I stole the Ra'ira from you."

Thanasset shook his head. "You're only half right," he told me. "What he thinks is that you and I conspired to steal it."

"What?
Where would he get such a foolish idea?"

Thanasset smiled at me with a tenderness that touched my heart. "Thank you for your faith in me, Rikardon. But Zaddorn reads people very skillfully. He knows that I lied about giving you – Markasset - the five gold pieces."