The River Wall (3 page)

I brought my hand close to my chest and brought thumb and index finger together in the “OK” sign from Ricardo’s world. The corner of Tarani’s mouth twitched upward, but that was all the evidence I needed to know that she had seen it.

“I knew that I had been the instrument of installing Indomel as High Lord,” Tarani said. “I knew, too, that Eddarta would suffer further at his hands. Finally, I accepted that I could be the instrument of freeing Eddarta from his oppression, that
I could act for change.
In me you see a bridge, my friends. I am bound to Lord City by blood, and to Eddarta by my love for Volitar. I came back as High Lord, Shedo,” Tarani said, looking down at the old woman again, “to speak for Eddarta’s power before the Lords, and to set the balance right again. Eddarta and Lord City are partners in the business of living; it is my purpose to speak that truth at every opportunity.”

Shedo squinted and tilted her head. “I’m too old not to be blunt,” she said. “What you’re telling us—do the Lords know it?”

Tarani laughed. “I have not stated it so clearly for them,” she admitted. “But then, they have not asked me, either.”

That brought a few laughs, and Tarani waited for the sounds to die away.

“The Lords are not fools,” Tarani said. “They have seen Eddarta’s discontent, and have felt its effect in small ways—less artful workmanship, less prompt response, subtle disrespect. They have done nothing because Lord City is as trapped by habit as Eddarta. They have accepted me because they recognize that my vision is more true for being impartial.

“Do not expect sudden or radical differences, my friends. You will not waken tomorrow to find yourselves treated like Lords. The oppression you resent arrived only gradually; it cannot be removed any less gradually, and still guarantee the survival of anyone, Lord or Eddartan. But the process has already begun, with the gradual elimination of slavery in the copper mines.” The crowd gasped.

“Details of the process will be announced formally in a few days,” Tarani continued. “The Lords are making an effort to recognize and reward your worth. I ask that you accept their effort with dignity and patience.”

Tarani sighed and pulled her shoulders straighter. Yayshah sidestepped restlessly.

It’s about over
, I thought.
*Keeshah, it’s almost time to go.*

*Good
,* Keeshah grunted, and crouched down to let me mount.
*Too many people.*

When Keeshah surged to his feet, the attention of the crowd shifted to us. Tarani followed the shift, smiled at me, and waved me forward. At my direction, Keeshah took a few steps and stopped beside Yayshah. The two sha’um dipped their heads toward one another, brushing the tips of their ears together.

Tarani lifted her hand to reclaim the attention of the people, then extended it to me. I took it, impressed as always by the strength in her long, fine-boned fingers.

“If I owe Volitar for teaching me to deplore the misuse of power,” Tarani said, “I owe this man, Rikardon, for teaching me the proper use of power.”

I kept my body from registering the shock I felt, but I could not hide it from Keeshah. His head lifted suddenly, and he shifted his weight. At the risk of falling, I kept hold of Tarani’s hand until he had moved back to his original place.

“Rikardon is the Captain of the Sharith,” Tarani was saying. “His power is not born of mindgift, or of wealth, or even of the strength of his sha’um. His power lies in the way he lives his life—in the example he sets and to which those who know him aspire. He is an honest man, and fair, and he looks beyond his own needs toward a greater good. He is a leader, and it is only his teaching that gave me the confidence to claim my birthright.”

She sees everything I’ve done to her as
helping
her?
I wondered incredulously.
I’d call that a very tolerant and forgiving attitude
. I could not look at her, because I knew my face would give away my amazement, and disrupt her farewell message to Eddarta.

“Rikardon and I are committed to a complex and arduous task which we believe contributes to the good of all Gandalara,” Tarani continued. “It was this task, unrelated to my connection to the Lords, that first brought me to Eddarta. It remains unfinished, and its incompleteness prevents me from committing myself, freely and totally, to my purpose as High Lord.

“I must leave, now, to finish this duty. I have the promise of the Lords that they will begin to implement the plans on which we have agreed. I want your promise to give them room and time, and to cooperate patiently, to let the change begin gradually, as it must. Will you give me your word, that I may leave Eddarta with a lighter heart?”

In contrast to other reactions, this time the crowd was utterly silent. It was Shedo who finally spoke up.

“Tarani,” she said. “I claim kin-right to call you by name, and—” She paused and looked around. “—By virtue of the fact that no one else is talking, I claim the right to speak for Eddarta. In all our history, no High Lord has sought the approval or cooperation of anyone outside Lord City. You’ve talked with us, justified yourself, and expressed a commitment to change. You’ve asked us to join in that commitment. Now you tell us you have to fulfill some secret duty elsewhere.”

Shedo moved closer to Tarani and placed her hand on the girl’s thigh.

“You’ve chosen a duty here, too, Tarani, and you’re leaving it unfinished. You have convinced me that you were, indeed, raised by the Volitar I knew. So I will not ask you
if
you will return to Eddarta; only tell us
when
you will be back.”

With no warning, Tarani swung her right leg over Yayshah’s head and dropped down to the ground. Shedo had drawn back in alarm at the sudden movement, so that Tarani landed in the narrow space between her and the female sha’um.

Tarani gathered the old woman into her arms and held her for a long moment. “I cannot give you a day,” Tarani said, “but there is no power in Gandalara except death that can prevent my return.”

The old woman pulled away, obviously shaken and touched by Tarani’s sudden impulse. Tarani whirled toward Yayshah, who crouched just in time to accept Tarani’s weight. When Yayshah stood up, the private moment had ended, and Tarani and Shedo were once again representatives, rather than individuals.

“You have our promise, High Lord,” Shedo said solemnly. “Eddarta will be the partner, and not the opponent, of Lord City. We wish you safety, success in your duty, and swift return.”

“I hope that I shall always be worthy of your trust, my friends,” Tarani said, then smiled down at the old woman, “And of your kin-claim, Great-aunt.”

I had envisioned a quick getaway eastward along the wall, but Tarani guided Yayshah to the south, along the road that led through Lower Eddarta. I brought Keeshah up beside the female, and called the cubs to walk at either side of the two adults. The crowd parted in front of us, but closed in on our flanks as people reached out to touch the young sha’um.

I kept my attention on the cubs as we moved down the slope and through Eddarta. Now, as before, they were enjoying the attention, but I watched for signs of impatience or anger, and made sure they kept up with Yayshah and Keeshah. If they were to slow down and find themselves surrounded and separated from their parents, they might panic.
It would hardly do
, I thought,
to spoil the mood of trust with a sha’um attack.

The crowd had grown while Tarani had talked. The people at the foot of the slope could not possibly have heard Tarani’s voice. Yet when we reached them, they were shouting support for Tarani and her goals. The news had been passed downslope and into the city, for I saw different faces in the tide of people that swirled around us in the relatively cramped area of the city streets. They had the same things to say, though: hurray for Tarani, have a good trip, come back soon—and don’t forget the sha’um.

Even the cubs were getting a little tired of it all by the time we reached the southern edge of the city. The main street gave way, here, to divergent roadways that brought people and trade into the city. There was still a crowd, but Tarani had decided, apparently, that she had done enough for her public image. I called Keeshah and the cubs to a halt when Yayshah stopped, and followed Tarani’s example of swinging the rope-linked travel bags off my shoulder and across my thighs. The nearest people got the idea, and started backing away.

“We travel west,” Tarani said, and the roadway in that direction slowly cleared of people. She lifted her hand again, then lay forward on Yayshah’s back. I stretched out, too, delighting in the feel of Keeshah’s fur against my cheek, and asked the cubs to move between the adults. They had barely taken that position when Tarani looked at me and nodded slightly.

*Run, kids,*
I told the cubs.
*Keeshah, keep pace with the cubs; we have to stay together.*

All four sha’um jumped forward together, and Tarani and I left Eddarta once more.

I felt—and shared—the relief of three of the sha’um, as they left the smothering crowd for the open air of the countryside. The roadway lay beside a branch of the river, moving generally westward as it followed the gentle twisting of the riverbed. The sha’um ignored the road and set off across a grassy, open area. The majority of Eddarta’s farming was done farther north, in a fertile delta formed by several branches of the Tashal. But this area south of the most westward branch saw some cultivation, and our run carried us across scattered fields of grain and through an occasional orchard of dakathrenil.

Dakathrenil trees grew wild all over Gandalara, and their nutty fruit comprised the primary diet of a great many species of small animals. In cultivation, the kinked and twisting trunks were trained so that the leaf- and fruit-bearing branches formed a spreading umbrella barely higher than a man’s head. The dakathrenil provided Gandalarans more than its fruit. As the short-lived trees died, their wood was harvested for craftsmen who had learned to laminate long, narrow slices of the twisting wood into almost any utilitarian object, and to combine smaller pieces into intricate and decorative parquetry.

The passage of four sha’um did little good to the grainfields, and the lowest branches of the dakathrenil were a definite hazard to the heads of the riders. An hour out from Eddarta, I asked Keeshah to find the road and follow it. Tarani, roused from her rapport with Yayshah, saw my intent and directed Yayshah to follow us.

Once on the packed dirt of the roadway, Tarani and I slowed the sha’um to a walk. They were “formed up” as they had been when, we left Eddarta—Yayshah and Keeshah on the outside, the cubs between them. Tarani leaned to her right a little, reaching to stroke Yoshah’s head. Instantly, Koshah was shouldering his sister aside, pushing his head under Tarani’s hand. I laughed and leaned to my left, diverting Yoshah’s anger by petting her myself.

As I watched Tarani’s hand wander through the ruff of tan fur behind the young males head, I noticed—with some alarm—how thin her hand was, the pale skin pulled so tightly across her knuckles that I seemed to see the bone in fact as well as in outline.

Suddenly, I was angry—intensely, righteously, furiously angry.

It wasn’t that Ricardo Carillo and Antonia Alderuccio had been snatched away from their own world and reborn in Gandalaran bodies. Those people had been dying in their own world, and we could only be grateful for our new lives as Rikardon and Tarani.

Nor was I angry because Tarani and I could not merely settle down and enjoy our extended lives. We had discussed this on several occasions, and I think we both felt that our commitment to removing the threat of the Ra’ira was fair, a service in trade for a priceless gift.

What bothered me now was the way we had been forced to fulfill that commitment, with the rules changing every step of the way. I thought of how much time, travel, stress, exhaustion, and pain we might have been saved, had we known at the beginning what we had only days ago learned: that the gemstone stolen from Raithskar had been a fake, an excellent glass imitation made by the same Volitar of whom Tarani had spoken with such respect. Gharlas, an ambitious and bitter relative of Pylomel, had blackmailed Volitar into making two copies of the Ra’ira. In Raithskar, Gharlas had lost one, then unwittingly had stolen it back, thinking it to be the true Ra’ira.
That
was the stone for which Tarani and I had crossed the length of Gandalara three times.

Our enemy was not Gharlas, but the man who controlled him, someone who knew and could use the true and long-hidden power of the odd blue stone.

Many Gandalarans had talents known as mindgifts, which allowed people to affect the minds of other creatures. Some could superimpose a mental image over another’s normal vision.
Maufel
, Gandalaran bird-handlers, used a technique like that to direct their message-carrying birds to the correct location. Tarani had used that skill liberally in her entertainment troupe, and had won unique recognition as an “illusionist.”

Stronger and more dangerous was the mindgift of “compulsion,” in which the gifted (or more strongly gifted) individual controlled the behavior of another person. That skill could extend to autonomous physical functions, like breathing. Compulsion could kill.

The Ra’ira acted as an amplifier to make all those gifts even more effective. It also granted a mindgift totally unknown without it—the ability for one person to actually see and control the thoughts of another person. That power had been used well by Zanek, the First King of Gandalara. It had been used in less beneficial ways by his successors, until Zanek had returned in Serkajon’s body to steal the Ra’ira from Harthim, the Last King.

The stone had been kept idle and securely guarded in Raithskar, until some enterprising Supervisor had discovered that most of the menial labor in the city could be accomplished by the apelike vineh, under the control of a Supervisor using the Ra’ira. The stone’s power had found use again, and the people of Raithskar, all unwittingly, had become dependent on that power.