The Gandalara Cycle I (46 page)

I continued the story from there, describing Thagorn and the lifestyle of the Sharith. The two boys who had served Keeshah were seated at the far end of the table. When I spoke of the ceremony that had made me Captain, I saw them straining forward to hear better.

Then I started lying.

"Tarani happened to mention to Thymas that she saw Gharlas in Chizan," I said. "When she found out we were looking for him, she offered to come with us. She has friends in Chizan who may help us trace him."

"Gharlas," Lussim said, shaking his head. "You know, of course, that our oath of neutrality forbids our helping you to find Gharlas."

I nodded. Balgokh, too, had told me this.

"The Refreshment Houses owe their existence to the Kings," Lussim went on. "But Gharlas is a fool to think he can re-unite Gandalara. The desert has claimed too much land. The cities have moved to the Wall to get enough water to survive. If he offered to share Eddarta's water, he might have a chance. But from all I know of him, he will wish to conquer, not befriend, his neighbors."

"That's my guess, too," I said. "If I'm not being rude, may I ask about the history of the Refreshment Houses? You said they were established during the Kingdom . . ."

"During the time of Harralen, the third King. Until then, merchants had carried water to posts along the caravan routes, and sold it for extortionate prices. Travelers appealed to Harralen, and he sent an unarmed envoy into the desert beyond Chizan, to the place of the Fa'aldu. It was a daring risk for the man who came to us, but his courage impressed us. We were . . . barbarians."

Lussim picked up a fragment of tile, broken away from the table-top, and rolled the angular chunk between his fingers.

"We could bring the water, even then," he said, watching the movement of his hand. "But we didn't have much else. We guarded our water ferociously, and terrorized passing caravans, stealing whatever was left unguarded, sometimes attacking them.

No wonder you hesitated to ask Thymas to your table,
I thought.
The tribute demanded by the Sharith reminds you of your own beginnings.

"The envoy - a man named Stester - brought us Harralen's proposition. If we would settle along the caravan trails, and agree to trade water for goods at a reasonable rate, he would make such trade our exclusive monopoly. We would be asked to trade only what we did not need for ourselves, and never to turn away anyone truly in need.

"It was a difficult decision," Lussim continued. "The Fa'aldu had lived in that place for many generations. But in all that time we had been desperately poor, and never at peace. We accepted the King's offer, and his Guard drove off all the opportunists along the caravan trails - except in Chizan. Chizan was a city, not a collection of vleks with waterskins. Harralen was forced to be content with requiring reasonable prices for Chizan s water, a control long since forgotten.

"Relenor was the second Refreshment House to be established," he finished, with obvious pride.

"And the oldest one? Is it Yafnaar?" I asked.

"Oh, no, there was no need for Yafnaar until later," he answered, "when the Great Pleth had become much smaller. No, the first Refreshment House was at Inid on the other side of the Korchi Mountains. Here, let me show you. . .”

He went through a door and came out again with a folded parchment. He brought a lamp close, and opened out a map.

It was about the same size as the one Thanasset had given me to help me find Thagorn. Like that one this map had a solid black line to represent the Great Wall. It trailed across one long edge of the rectangle. The relative location of Thagorn, and a fragment of the Morkadahl Mountains, told me that this map would not fit edge-to-edge with the first one, and that the Great Wall made a turn southward, past the Morkadahls.

The central feature of this map section was the Korchi mountain range. With the Great Wall "north" - that is placing the rectangle so that the side with the Great Wall shown on it was at the top - the Korchis filled most of the right-hand side of the map. They were roughly triangular, with one point meeting the Wall. There was a slim corridor shown near the bottom of the map, forming the base of the triangle. The mountains below that corridor didn't show a name; they might have been a continuation of the Korchi.

West of that corridor was Relenor. East of it was Inid. Smack in the middle of it where it widened considerably, was Chizan. In that first glance, I noticed two other features. Dyskornis was north of Inid, halfway up the eastern edge of the Korchi triangle. And north of Relenor, on the western side of the mountain range, was an area marked "Well of Darkness.”

What the . . .?

But Lussim was talking about the trail to Chizan, and I brought my attention back to him quickly. The Zantil Pass was a stretch about forty miles long (figured roughly from Lussim's description and the estimated passage time shown on the map). It lay fifty miles from Relenor, and about a hundred from Chizan. There was another pass between Chizan and Inid, called the Zantro, and the distances were about the same in reverse.

"You'll find that the Zantro is the easier passage," Lussim said, "because, though it is a little higher, it is more level. The Zantil has high points here and here." He pointed to the beginning and end of the pass. "There is so much loose rock and blowing dust, that even the downslope is slow travel. Climbing back up, with the air so thin, is the hardest part of the journey."

It sounds as though the Zantil and Zantro are as high as the Khumbar Pass, which twelve-year-old Markasset had to cross on his way to the Valley of the Sha'um. Thanasset hadn't told the boy what to expect, but I suppose the Pass was an endurance test. Markasset toughed it through, and he learned. When he took Keeshah back across that, he went slow and easy, walking the sha'um across the worst part.

The Zantil has to be passable for sha'um, or Zanek could never have sent the Guard across to convince everybody on the other side to join the Kingdom. But it's a long trip, and Keeshah will be carrying two of us through most of it.

"Is there game along the way?" Lussim looked blank. "Wild glith, birds, meat for the sha'um?"

"Oh! I'm afraid I don't know that, Rikardon. I've never been through there myself, and the people who have given me this information didn't have that need." He stared thoughtfully at the map. "I have never heard anything to make me think it likely, though. From all accounts, there isn't much more than barren rock, most of the way. It would please us to send some live glith with you for your sha'um, if you wish it."

"That's a generous offer, Lussim, and I thank you for it," I answered slowly, thinking it over. "But just getting across the pass will be trouble enough, without trying to lead a herd of glith, half-crazed with fear of the sha'um."

I studied the map.
The pass itself will be the hardest part. We'll walk, of course. It will take us a day and a half to cross it, maybe longer. But we ought to make it to the pass in only a day, even cutting our sp
eed in half to allow for Keeshah’s extra load. Past the high crossing, it's all downhill. If we take enough meat with us to let the cats feed well, just before we enter the pass .. .

"If I may trouble you for one fresh-killed glith," I said. "I think that will get us through. Well need supplies for ourselves, as well -”

We discussed more details, and Lussim agreed to have everything ready for dawn the next day. He walked with me into the courtyard, expressing his thanks for my company through the evening. I stood thoughtfully for a minute wondering if I'd be able to sleep outdoors. The ground would be comfortable enough, but the milling vleks were too stupid not to step on me.

Lussim cleared his his throat. "It is late, Rikardon, and you might disturb your friends by retiring now. You are welcome to sleep in one of our family guest rooms."

"That would be very kind," I accepted his tactful offer. Then, because I felt he deserved some sort of explanation, I said awkwardly: "It has been only two days since Thymas and Tarani were betrothed."

Lussim raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He conducted me to the guest room in the family quarters, wished me a pleasant sleep, then left me.

I didn't rest well. Tarani haunted my dreams. I saw her stalk out of our room, hurt and angry, as she had been that night. I watched her sleeping peacefully against Thymas's shoulder, her breath coming slowly, and her face incredibly young.

I saw Tarani dance again, only this time the hanging darkness of her illusion didn't dissipate it flowed behind her, and formed a human shape. A shadow woman danced on the heels of the real one.

I should have been pleased; I knew that no one else could see the shadow, or witness the dramatic pas de deux. But I was frightened, and all the more so because the shadow did nothing frightening. It just followed Tarani, clinging to her, and imitating her movements.

The dance reached the point at which the assassins had interrupted it in Thagorn, and I was almost relieved to see the knife descending. It seemed to explain that strange dread I had been feeling.

Just at that moment, the shadow-shape changed and solidified. It was a real person, a man. He continued to dance with Tarani; it should have been ludicrous, but it wasn't. He danced with a sinuous, sinister grace, and the same rapt expression Tarani wore, except that his eyes glittered with reflections of the trailing flame.

He had more purpose, and a higher pleasure, than the dance itself. I knew it. I was the only one who knew it. Tarani was in terrible danger.

I had a choice. I could save myself from the knife, or could take the time to warn her, and let myself die. In the dream, the split second of the knife's descent slowed to give me time to think about it. I decided.

Just as the knife pierced my heart with an awful pain, I shouted: “
Tarani, look out! Gharlas is behind you!"

I jumped awake, staring wildly into the darkness. I felt an anxious, puzzled query from Keeshah, and, automatically, I sent him a reassuring response. After a moment's disorientation, I recognized where I was, and that the terror I had just experienced had come from my own subconscious. It was nearly dawn, so I got up and began to dress. I shivered, as though I could shake off the lingering strangeness with physical action.

When I met Tarani and Thymas at the gateway, I saw that the bird had caught up with us again. Lonna stood on Tarani's shoulder, watching curiously as Thymas packed away the bread, salted meat, and fresh fruit that Lussim had ordered for us. A dead glith, blood still seeping from its cut throat, lay beside the gate.

"Did Lonna bring a message from Dharak?" I asked. Tarani shook her head.

Thymas finished tying up my saddlebags, and hefted both his and mine over one shoulder. Tarani's pack, he handed to me. I took it, but gave it to Tarani.

"Keeshah has asked if you will ride second," I said. "You weigh less than I do."

She took the pack without comment, and began to fasten it on. The bird fluttered to the top of the wall and waited there:

Lussim came out to say goodbye. I was glad that he didn’t congratulate Tarani and Thymas. I had wondered - too late, of course - whether I had any right to spread the news.

I shouldered the glith, which weighed about seventy pounds, and we carried our returned weapons out beyond the walls of Relenor. The sha'um came at our call, one around each corner of the enclosure.

The few scratches Keeshah had endured during the brief fight the day before were clean and almost hidden by his fur. Ronar's wounds shone black against his gray fur. His muzzle twitched into a snarl. He dropped into a fighting crouch, and Keeshah advanced on him slowly, tail lashing and ears laid back.

*No more fighting!
* I commanded.

*Tell the other one,*
Keeshah snapped back at me. But he stopped.

'Thymas -"

"I'm trying, fleabite it!" His jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth with the effort.

Ronar began to calm down, glancing from Thymas to Keeshah. At last, he relaxed a little, and let Thymas approach. The boy smoothed the standing fur on the cat's neck. When the sha'um's ears came forward. I started to breathe again.

"Let's get going." I said,

It's going to be a long trip to Chizan

Ronar snarled at Keeshah. Thymas snarled at me and Tarani moved and spoke, when necessary, as though she were animated stone. Most of her words were for Thymas but she delivered them in the same disinterested monotone that she used the few times she addressed me. The only time I saw a flicker of life in her eyes was in the moment before she mounted Keeshah each time.

Tarani tried twice more to mount Ronar. I couldn't decide - was she showing courage, or merely dislike for her dependence on me? Thymas’s sha'um was less violent in these refusals, but he made it clear that he would not accept her. So she rode with me in second place, and didn't complain of being tired, even when she could hardly stand up at the end of a ride.

Thymas suffered more, physically, than either Tarani or me. The Zantil Pass was easier than I had expected; I decided it had to be a lot lower than the Khumbar. Tarani had made the crossing many times. But Thymas had been able to reach the Valley of the Sha'um merely by following the eastern edge of the Morkadahls northward from Thagorn; he hadn't experienced the Khumbar. Apparently, the information network developed by the Sharith had made it unnecessary for Riders to cross the Chizan Passage for many generations. Tarani must have warned Thymas, but hearing about shortness of breath, and living with it, are two very different phenomena.

Emotionally, Thymas was a wreck. He knew Tarani was riding with me purely in the interest of faster travel, but the sight of her clinging to me upset him so badly he insisted on riding ahead of us. He was probably less jealous than angry with himself and Ronar for forcing the situation.

The timing of the trip worked out fairly close to my estimate. We camped just below the pass on the first night. The sha'um grumbled and growled, next morning, as they shared the glith that Thymas and Ronar had carried up. At dawn, we started the long walk across the Zantil Pass. We had run across two caravans the day before, one going toward Chizan and the other just out of the pass, headed for Relenor. But there was no traffic in the pass itself.