The River Wall (20 page)

*Keeshah, are you close by?*

*Yes.*

*Come to the north door, and wait for me to call.*

*Yes.*

Tarani had paused to allow the Sharith to consider her question, and I spoke into that pause.

“The sha’um are
in
danger, but they also
are
a danger—to us. Those of you who have been to the Valley know what I’m saying.” Heads—riding above tan Sharith uniforms—nodded agreement. “The sha’um protect their territory fiercely. They are ill now, but no less dangerous. They are afraid, and will react more quickly to anything they perceive as danger. There
will be
fighting in the Valley. But, for the most part, it will not be Sharith fighting sha’um—except in the sense that sha’um who have Riders are, themselves, Sharith.”

There was a stunned silence. Then a Rider’s voice echoed forward from somewhere near the door. “They will not do it,” the Rider said.

“Not what?” I asked. “Not take us there? Or not fight the others?” I held up my hand. “It doesn’t matter which you meant,” I said. “Because they
will
do both things.

“It is essential that you stop thinking about yourselves and your sha’um as you ‘have always been,’” I urged. “Dharak talked of change; you have felt it; it is happening. This is part of it.”

“With respect, Captain,” called the same voice, “how can
you
promise what
my sha’um
will or will not do?”

I let myself smile. “I have it,” I said, “on the best authority.”

I gestured toward the huge north doorway; unlike the northern entrance, both north doors stood open to let the air in.

*Come in, Keeshah.*

The big cat appeared in the doorway and paused to look around. I choked back a laugh. He knew exactly where I was, but he stood there anyway, his massive body silhouetted against the gray of the doorway, reflection of lamplight winking on one gleaming tusk and glinting from the heart of one gray-green eye.

*Great entrance, Keeshah
,
* I told him.
*You’re turning into quite a showman.*

*Important
,* he said gravely, almost scolding me.

I accepted the scolding meekly, and turned my attention back to the Sharith, every one of whom was watching Keeshah. “Keeshah understands. He has made the same commitment I am asking of you—to go into the Valley and, if there is no other way, to
drive
the sha’um out. He does this for our sake—so that our children may Ride. He does it, also, for the sake of the sha’um—so that sha’um children may share a bond with Riders.

“Are you listening, my friends? Keeshah
understands.
So will your sha’um understand, and accept this need, if
you
can make that commitment.”

Keeshah moved into the room and, to my surprise, Yayshah stepped in right behind him. The two sha’um stepped carefully over the men on the pallets and waited for people to move aside, so that they could crouch down on either side of the dais. Thymas stepped up on the marble slab behind Tarani and me, to give the sha’um equal places at our sides.

“Yayshah,” Tarani said, “also understands, and accepts. I will go to the Valley, as must all Riders. She commits not only her strength and will to this task, but consents to taking her cubs, as well.”

I controlled my start of surprise. Tarani and I had not discussed this, and my first instinct was to leave the cubs behind. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, however, two voices were there to protest it.

*Want to go!
* Yoshah said.

*Important!*
said Koshah, in much the same tones his father had used.

I had never fathered children, but I suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for the fathers I had known. I had few real facts about the lifecycle of the sha’um, but I was beginning to suspect that Koshah and Yoshah were about to enter the equivalent of their teenage years, even though they were only a few months old.

It was sign enough of their growing up that their verbal and mind skills had developed to the point that they could hover unnoticed at the edge of my consciousness, listen to my speech and thought, and understand content as well as emotion. There was further confirmation in the sense of resolution I got from them. More than stubbornness or eagerness for a new adventure, I felt that they did, truly, understand, and would not be denied the opportunity to make a contribution. I could tell them to stay behind, but even if Yayshah tried to give them the same orders, it would never work. They would be eyesight-distance behind us (or ahead of us) all the way to the Valley.

*Yes, you may come with us
,* I said, conscious of the irony of giving permission where denying it would be pointless.
*Now let me concentrate here, please *

“Tell your sha’um what is happening,” I urged the Riders. “Tell them what we have to do, and why. If they continue to hesitate, tell them—” I bent over slightly, and smoothed the short fur between Keeshah’s eyes and ears with my hand. “Tell them that Keeshah understands, and agrees.”

There was a moment in which voices were quiet but there was a lot of foot-shuffling, as the Riders in the group spoke mind-to-mind to their sha’um, and the people around them turned to watch the outward sign of the several, separate communions. Bodies grew still, eyes went out of focus, expressions went lax. The few seconds seemed to be an hour, and I jumped as if I had been shot when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

Thymas pushed me aside, breaking my hold on Tarani’s hand, and leaped forward.

“Ronar will come,” Thymas cried triumphantly. “Who else?”

Suddenly the Hall was filled with male voices shouting out names as each Rider confirmed the agreement of his sha’um. When the babel had died down, Thymas whirled to face me.

“All the sha’um are with us,” he said, his eyes glowing with pride. “But the illness will grow worse with time, will it not?” I nodded. “Then we must travel quickly—which means we must Ride.” He gestured to the people in the room. “Not all the Sharith may come. Will you choose?”

“I will not choose,” I said. “The choice is dictated by the situation. First, the Riders whose sha’um are in the Valley must come, for they already have a bond. It will be easier, I think, to awaken a sleeping bond than to establish a new one.”

“I would give my life to go,” said an older man, lying in the row of pallets nearest me. “But I—I am so weak.”

“And reluctant, perhaps, to ride another man’s sha’um?” I asked gently.

He started to say something, then looked away and nodded.

“I believe your weakness can be helped, and that your sha’um’s life is more important than your pride,” I said. “However many of the ill Riders are able
must
come. All others should be women.”

Again the front edge of the crowd was jostled from behind, and a boy of ten or eleven shoved his way out. Ulla and Virram, who still stood a bit forward of the mass of people, looked at him curiously.

“I am of the age to go to the Valley,” he said, “and there are others like me. Let us go.”

“No,” I said firmly, to a chorus of objections from both young voices and the older voices of Riders. “We are not going to the Valley to bring out as many
bonded
sha’um as possible,” I explained. “We will try to bring
all
of them out. Yayshah left the Valley because of
two
bonds—one to Tarani, and one to her mate. If there had been only one of those bonds, I wonder whether she would have had the courage to leave.”

Tarani spoke up.

“Keeshah and Yayshah and their cubs will be an example for the Valley sha’um, but more than one example will be needed,” she explained. “The more family units which agree, of their own will, to follow us from the Valley, the less resistance the others will have.”

“First choice of the women to go will be those who are married to the Riders whose sha’um are already there,” I said. “If our sha’um can carry more than those two groups of people, then women who are married to the unaffected Riders may come.”

A voice called out from the crowd. “My sha’um has consented to carry three; he is strong enough.”

I shook my head. “To get there, perhaps,” I said, “but not to go quickly and arrive with most of his strength. No more than two per sha’um; that will give us the best balance between speed and people.”

“And the Riders who are ill?” Thymas prompted. “You said they might be helped.”

I stepped down from the dais, waited for Tarani to join me, and walked into the midst of the pallets. “Your bonds to your sha’um are buried deeply in your minds, and in theirs. I know what you are feeling; I have been through it. My bond was brought back to the surface because I felt such fear and need and loneliness for Keeshah that he could sense it through that unfelt link.

“I had held the small hope that once you accepted that your sha’um are sick, you could break the bad part of the bond, and make yourselves well. I see that it hasn’t worked that way.

“I propose a gamble, and I won’t hide the stakes from you. If it works the way I think it will, you will reach your sha’um, free your bodies of their pain, reestablish your bond as it was before the sha’um left, and send them a warning of their danger. Their instincts will still rule, and you won’t be able merely to call them out of the Valley. But I think you
can
tell them to find some high ground, and move as little as possible before we get there. They will be stronger, then, and less ill than the rest, so that if they can be persuaded, they can help us with the others.”

“And if it—whatever it is—does not work the way you expect, Captain?” asked a man lying in the corner.

“Then your bodies will be free of the pain you share with the sha’um—but you will also destroy the bond altogether.”

I heard the Riders in the crowd utter a gasp of fear, almost in unison, but I ignored them. These men on the floor all around me were the key to the entire plan—unless they could persuade at least some of the sha’um
in
the Valley to come out of their own free will, I doubted that the Thagorn sha’um were powerful enough, in themselves, to force the colony of sha’um out of the Valley.

I waited. At last the man closest to my feet put out a trembling hand and touched my leg.

“I will try, Captain. What must I do?”

A chorus of voices rose then, asking the same question. I took a deep breath and hoped my relief wasn’t visible in my face.

“Tarani has told me that all her healing skills have availed nothing against your illness,” I said, “but I think they can help you now. Her gift reaches into the part of your mind you never think about using, a part that does things automatically most of the time. She lets that powerful part of your mind free to do its work more quickly, and part of its work is healing damaged areas of the body.

“She could not help you before now because there was no real damage to be healed. It’s that same part of your mind, bonded to the sick sha’um, that is
causing
the symptoms you are feeling. Now that you know the truth of what has been happening, I believe that Tarani’s healing sleep will stimulate that hidden mind to a different activity. Because you understand, and you are afraid—for yourself, and your sha’um—in the healing sleep, your healing mind will call out and shock the sha’um into a thinking bond again, and they will understand what you want them to do.

“Do
you
understand—the risks as well as the possible gains?”

Many men nodded, a few calling out affirmatives.

“Any man who does not want to do this may decline without embarrassment,” I said sincerely. “I know how strange this must seem to you, and how frightening is the idea of the totally broken bond. Anyone who wishes to leave, raise your arm and someone will help you to your home.”

Not a single arm came up from the pallets, and I felt a swelling pride in the men, in their faith in me, and—momentarily—in my own strength. I was more afraid than they were because, in spite of their willingness to believe me, they still did not understand the stakes in the same way I did. That I could recognize their ignorance, and take advantage of it, seemed to be exactly the opposite of what I had felt about Keeshah in the Chizan passage. Yet it was only time, now, that kept them ignorant. Their understanding had begun, and would grow as we proceeded with the plan. I was willing to take advantage of their obedience on those terms.

I turned to the standing crowd and said: “Please leave the Hall now, and prepare provisions for the journey. Thymas, will you, Bareff, and Shola figure out how many can go, and make a list of the women, in priority order? This may not work for all the Riders, and any who remain ill or—” I could not say it, could not propose the horror of a fully broken bond.

“When it is over,” Thymas said, with full understanding of my omission, “we will see how much room there is.” Turning suddenly formal, he offered me his hand. “Captain, thank you.”

I took it, and pressed it hard. “Thank me when its over,” I said.

The people began to file out of the half-open door, and I moved among the men, speaking to the ones I knew best, trying to be encouraging. When the Hall was nearly empty of healthy Sharith, I looked up to see a shock of white hair near the doorway. Shola and Dharak had been near the door, but not the first ones out—and so had been pressed back out of the flow of people. It was now nearly possible for them to leave.

“Shola, wait,” I said, standing up and hurrying over to them. When I got close enough to see her face, the only thing I could do was gather her into my arms and hold her. She sank against me briefly, and shook with the dry gasps that served the Gandalarans as weeping. After a moment, she let me push her away and turn her face toward the light. I tried to smile, but found that I could not. “I’m sorry this has been so hard for you, Shola,” I said.

“You are not at fault, Captain,” she replied. “It is only that this—” She gestured toward the pallets. “This has convinced me that Dharak is—will not—”

“Thymas said as much to me,” I admitted, looking over her shoulder to the man who merely stood where he had been when Shola’s hand had left his arm. “May I speak to him?”