The Gandalara Cycle I (76 page)

"Rikardon!" Tarani cried, and started to come after me. "Stay there!" I ordered.

We had drifted into the city itself, now, and there was a crowd of people, carrying torches, on the riverbank. I wasn't sure how they knew we were here, or what they thought of. us, but the immediate problem didn't relate to them at all. As far as I could see, we were spinning slowly, and not making much speed downstream.

All right, smart guy
, I thought to myself.
How the hell are you going to get this thing back to ground? Didn't think. about that, did you?

My hands were stiff and chafed, and I was beginning to swear at the weight of the gold around my waist - but when I thought of it, the solution occurred to me.

"Thymas!” I called. "When I move, you move along the opposite edge, to keep us balanced. Tarani, you stay put. Understand?"

They both nodded, and Thymas released each hand in turn, working out the stiffness in preparation of moving around.

I was hanging off the raft from its side, so that water was striking abreast of the reed log. I started pulling myself along the log by its lashings; Thymas crept along the far edge in the other direction. It was tricky, turning the corner, but worth it - with my body weighing down the log ends, the current channeled itself along the ridges, and the spinning motion stopped. When I had worked my way into the center of that edge, we started moving downriver with some speed.

Only now there was a new problem. I couldn't get back up on the raft. The lashings which held the logs together were too close to the end of the raft to give me any leverage, and the next set which could provide a handhold was too far away to reach. All I could do was hang on.

*Rikardon?*
The thought, struck my mind, and I realized that it had been repeated before - I had been too busy surviving to recognize it. The small mystery of how the crowd of people had spotted us in the dark was solved, too - they were following the sha'um.

*Keeshah!*
I called.
*Follow the raft down the river.*

"Tarani, untie the middle lashing of the raft. Don't cut it unless you have to."

She started working at it with one hand and got nowhere. Thymas readjusted his position, and their two hands, together, loosened one knot. It was slow going, and I was beginning to wonder if my arms would hold out - but at last they had a good length of the sturdy, woven rope free.

Thymas - who, of course, was aware of the sha'um - had already seen what I had in mind. He pulled Tarani down to his end of the raft, tipping me out of the water for a moment, then moved nearly to the middle and stood up cautiously. He tied one end of the rope to another lashing, then threw the other end toward the bank. It fell far short, and he dragged the rope back, talking to himself.

"I'll try to guide us closer to shore," I shouted at him. "Tell me when you think we're close enough for the rope to reach." I strained my aching arms and pretended I really was a rudder, holding my body rigid with the legs pulled up at an angle. I could feel the difference in the water pressure against my body.

I'll be damned! It's working!
I thought, and suddenly I had new energy.

Even that second wind was gone, by the time Thymas called to say it was time. I took a deep breath, let go with one hand, and dragged along underwater, fumbling with the fastening on my homemade belt. Finally it was free, and I spent my last bit of energy swinging the long, heavy thing up to the deck of the raft.

Thymas grabbed it, tied it to the rope, and threw it at the shore, nearly all in one motion. None too soon, either, because without that belt I made a rotten rudder. We were already moving toward the center of current again.

I craned to see the shore, and was surprised that we had left most of the city behind. The crowd of torches was still there, the huge shapes of the sha'um clearly silhouetted. There was a roar of noise from the nearly invisible people.

I had told Keeshah what we were doing, and I assumed Thymas had told Ronar. I saw the belt arc through the torchlight, and heard it slap into the ground and slither toward the river as we moved away from the bank. Keeshah went after it, pawing at it like a kitten chasing a string - and then he had it in his teeth.

He dug his claws into the muddy shore and yanked - and Thymas pitched head over heels into the water. He surfaced near the raft; I grabbed him and held him up until he was able to get a grip on the lashings.

The sha'um hauled us in leapfrog fashion, one pulling until the other had a jaw grip on the rope closer to the bank, then circling around while the other pulled.

When we scrambled to shore, we didn't take time to say hello. Thymas caught up the weighted belt, cut it free of the rope, then leaped on Ronar's back. I mounted Keeshah, and Tarani swung on behind me. The half-circle of torches opened where we aimed.

*Wet,*
Keeshah complained, then carried us out into the night beyond Eddarta.

For more than two hours we ran through the pale moonlight. We passed through grainfields that looked like thick black carpet. We pounded through pastures, scattering grayish shapes - terrified vlek and glith.

I pressed my face into Keeshah's fur and didn't think of anything at all, for a while, except the exhilaration of riding again. There was an open, flowing contact between my mind and Keeshah's that was like a mental hug. There was little deception possible in our relationship; we each knew how glad the other was that we were together again.

Gradually my awareness expanded to include the others who were with us. Thymas and Ronar were a single, moving shadow off to my left, and Tarani was a warm pressure against my back. A hooting call from above told me that Lonna was nearby. For a breathless moment, I felt the bonds which tied me to each of them.

They were different - less intense, less intimate - than the special touching Keeshah and I could share. But I felt them.

It was an amorphous feeling, and very brief, like a glimpse into the heart of a brilliant diamond when, just for a second or two, you can
almost
perceive the structure of the faceting. You can
almost
understand - not the crisp angles and cool planes of the stone, but the
art
of the gemcutter who chose them and executed them.

It went beyond simply a sense of shared destiny - the team spirit of which I had spoken in Dyskornis.

It went beyond gratitude that each of them had saved my life.

It went beyond pride that, together, we had accomplished what we had set out to do - that we were carrying the Ra'ira back to Raithskar.

Team spirit, gratitude, pride. None of them quite identified what I felt, yet they were all part of it. I reached for the truth with all my intuition, but the moment passed too quickly.

I felt my failure to understand as a piercing, cold ache, an inconsolable sense of loss.

I sought comfort in the steady rhythm of. Keeshah's movement. After awhile, the stinging sadness eased, and I slept.

I woke when Keeshah's rhythm changed.
*What?*
I muttered sleepily to the sha'um.

*Other one stops,*
Keeshah told me.

I came fully awake in a hurry. Tarani's weight stirred slightly as I moved, and I thought:
Could she be asleep, riding second? She must be utterly exhausted. And she hasn't recently recovered from Thymas's injuries .. .

I suffered a twinge of pure panic as I opened my eyes. We seemed to be in a narrow corridor with walls so tall that I couldn't see over them from my present eye-level, which was Keeshah's shoulder height. I thought that we had gotten turned around, and were back in Eddarta.

"Thymas!" I called, sitting up. Tarani, startled into wakefulness, put her arms around my chest to steady herself

"What's wrong?" she asked. Her cheek pressed my shoulder for a moment, then lifted. "Where are we?"

I felt foolish as the disorientation faded. Sitting up had brought my line of vision above the obstructions beside us, and I could see that the "walls" of the corridor were lattice frames covered with leafy growth. We were on a farm, in a Gandalaran version of a berry patch. The frames were about ten feet long, and stood in rows about six feet apart.

Thymas's head popped up, two rows away and some thirty feet behind us. "Here," he said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I said. "I was asleep"

"You woke suddenly. When you didn't see me, you assumed that I had fallen behind,
once more
, isn't that right?"

He said it with a bristling finality that dared me to contradict him. I could see him well enough in the pale moonlight to read sullenness in the shape of his mouth, resentment in the set of his shoulders.

I tried to count to ten. I got all the way to two.

"Sure, that's right," I agreed. "You're our weak link, Thymas. You and Ronar. Of course I have to look out for you all the time." I could find no trace in myself of the gentle kinship I had sensed earlier. "I was so afraid you'd just quit on us that I gave you Serkajon's sword to bring to Eddarta. You might fail
us
, I reasoned, but you'd never shirk your fleabitten Sharith duty!"

"Rikardon!" Tarani shouted, pulling at my shoulders. "You will regret what you have said. Be silent now."

Thymas looked grim. He was walking Ronar along the row of frames, coming opposite Keeshah.

"I've coddled this fool with my silence long enough," I said. "Now I'll say what he's wanted to hear - that he's been a stone around our necks ever since we left Thagorn. He lied to his father when he promised to obey me. His
action
s have sometimes been obedient, but his
thoughts
never have. Twice, Gharlas has used him to try to kill me. I can't help but think there was a predisposition in that direction before Gharlas took a hand.'

Thymas was facing me, now, across the top of the barrier. He was deadly calm. "You're right about that last, Rikardon. Let's get out of this field, and settle it Ill even give you back Serkajon's ever-precious sword."

"I don't want to kill you, Thymas - for. Dharak's sake. And I don't need Rika to loosen your tusks."

Keeshah and Ronar leaped away, running down the parallel rows to the end of the field. Tarani was beating on my shoulders, shouting something I refused to hear.

When we reached an open meadow, I slid off Keeshah's back, knocking away Tarani's clutching hands. Thymas landed on the ground at the same time, berries showering out from the cupped hem of his tunic.

I threw myself at him.

He ducked my swinging fist, and tripped me. I went down and rolled; his stomping foot hit the grassy stuff instead of my throat. He was on me again as I got to my feet. I let my balance shift backward, flipping him over my head as we fell. I jumped for him, landing on the ground as he rolled out from under just in time. He got to his feet and swung a kick at my ribs that connected with breath-stopping power.

I caught the leg, pulled him off balance, crawled up his body, felt the satisfaction of my fist slamming into his jaw.

Suddenly, there were three of us on the ground, wrestling. Tarani had thrust herself between us and was pushing us apart, taking some of our blows and delivering a few of her own in the process.

"Stop it!" she was yelling. "For Zanek's sake, will you two fleasons
stop it!
"

It was as though I were waking from a dream. The meadow was gray and silver in the moonlight. I could sense the vine-frames looming behind me. I could see Keeshah and Ronar, facing each other across us, their thickened tails and standing neck fur clearly revealed in silhouette against the grayish sky.

I sat on the ground, looking at Tarani, and remembered the sting of her hand across my face. Thymas, too, seemed stunned by the girl's fury.

"Fools!' she was raging. "Both of you -
fools!
Will you do to yourselves what Gharlas could not?" She stood up, making a sound of contempt. "If I thought Keeshah would carry me alone, I would take the Ra'ira and go. Indomel would be delighted, I'm sure, to find you fighting each other."

"Indomel?" Thymas echoed. "But Zefra was controlling him."

"Believing that her power was increased by the Ra'ira," I said. "That extra strength won't last long. Then they
will
send out pursuit."

"If I were in his place, I'd let us go quietly," Thymas said. "He thinks
he
has the Ra'ira - if we were caught, we could tell others."

"He is obligated to avenge the death of his father," I said. "He will make a show, at least, of pursuing us. And if he finds us, you can bet we won't have much chance to do any talking."

Thymas stared at me for so long that I wondered if his mind had slipped away. Then Tarani said: "Of course - you did not know that the man you killed was Pylomel."

"The High Lord?" Thymas said, still trying to understand. He surged to his feet, went to Tarani and touched her arms. "Your
father
, Tarani . . . I didn't know, I swear by the first King.'

The girl jerked herself away from him. "
Volitar
was my true father, she snapped. "The sha'um can outrun any pursuit Indomel may send," she said. "Shall we go on?"

"Not together, Thymas said. He pulled Rika out of his baldric, and turned to face me. The blade shone softly in moon glow.

What little refreshment I had gained from my nap on Keeshah's back had been drained away by our brief, explosive struggle. Where I wasn't actually cut or bruised, I ached with weariness. The desperate strength that had kept me going through the fight with Gharlas and the riotous trip down the Tashal was utterly used up. I knew, and the boy knew, and Tarani knew, that if Thymas wanted to kill me, he could.

He grabbed the long steel blade, and offered me the hilt of Serkajon's sword.

"I knew why you gave me this at Stomestad," he said angrily. "Am I a cub, to be tricked and teased into doing what I promised? Take it back, and free me from this 'team'. You have the Ra'ira. Our purpose is finished."