The Steel of Raithskar (24 page)

“I don’t know all the answers, myself,” I told them. “Thanks for your help.”

Bareff barked a short laugh. “Sure. Anytime you need more help, just kick our teeth out again.”

He slapped me on the shoulder, and he and Liden started back toward the door through which we had entered. The Lieutenant waved at me, and he and I, followed by Thymas, walked around the dais toward a door in the opposite wall.

“As you can guess, we would have recognized the Ra’ira if it had been with the caravan,” the Lieutenant told me. “No man or woman of the Sharith would keep it from its rightful place in Raithskar. That would be breaking the pledge made by the first Lieutenant to Serkajon during the time of the Last King.”

We had reached the door, and we stepped outside to find it already dark. Thymas and Dharak reached to either side of the doorway for torches, and I looked out over the valley of Thagorn.

Across the stream which divided the long valley, single-family homes had been built in clusters of six, with a community cooking area in the center of each. I had noticed that much as we had climbed to the Hall. At night each cluster cast a soft glow upward into the blackness, the inner walls of the homes reflecting and channeling the cheerful light of the cookfires.

It looked as though someone had lit giant candles and placed them with pleasing randomness on the floor and around the edge of the valley.

Through the silence surrounding the empty Hall, we could hear distant laughter, and catch strains of music from a stringed instrument. Children screeched and were hushed. Sha’um roared and were quieted. The sounds came to us clearly, if faintly, from across the stream.

It was so beautiful that I wanted to share it. I reached out for Keeshah.

*
Yes,
* came the acknowledgement instantly, eagerly. The touch of that warm and familiar link made the beauty of the night complete.

*
Can you see, Keeshah? Through me? Can you see this?
*

There was a moment of silence, then a question so wistful that I felt my chest tighten with physical pain.

*
I come there?
*

*
Not now, Keeshah,
* I told him. *
What I’m doing here is too important to my father. But one day we’ll come back together. I can’t promise,
* I told him, thinking about the horrible moment when the point of my sword sank into a man’s throat, *
but if it’s possible at all, we’ll return to Thagorn together one day.
*

Light sparked beside me and I jumped, breaking the contact with Keeshah. Thymas had lit a torch with a small contraption that looked like a pair of tongs. The arms were twisted as well as curved, so that their tips would pass one another. In the tips were mounted a piece of flint and a very small piece of steel. This, I reflected, must be Gandalara’s primary use of Raithskar’s rakor. No wonder a
sword
made of steel was so rare and highly prized.

We turned away from the peaceful scene on the other side of the stream and went back down the hill toward one of the barracks buildings.

“Some of the caravan people are still with us, waiting for the arrival of Eumin, the slave trader from Eddarta,” explained the Lieutenant. “Perhaps one of them has information which will help you find the Ra’ira.”

A recent memory crossed my mind. “Is there among them, by any chance, a man with four fingers on his left hand? The smallest finger missing?”

“I have seen too little of them to know,” said Dharak. “Thymas? Have you seen such a man?”

“Yes, Father,” said Thymas, who had remained strictly silent after the confrontation with his father. There was a note of controlled excitement underneath the subdued tone he used now. “A man called Hural. He has been very quiet since his capture, hardly eating.”

“We’ll soon find out what he knows about this,” the Lieutenant assured me grimly. “I blame myself in part; I should have known that Gharlas, flea though he is, wouldn’t have come to us just for the reasons he gave me. He—”

Just then a shout of laughter rang out from the guards on the wall, which lay now to our right. We had reached the main avenue and had clear sight of the gate area, which was ablaze with light activity. Four men on each side swung open the huge doors of the gate, and two men rode through it. A shapeless bundle was suspended between them in what looked like a rope net; the supporting lines for that cargo net were looped around the men’s hips so that they, and not their cats, would bear the chafing.

The bundle was moving and shouting. I felt every single hair on my head stand at attention.

It was Zaddorn’s voice.

There flashed through my mind, finally, that memory of Markasset’s which had been warning me vaguely but eluding me as to specifics. It was the end of a foot race, an annual event by the size of the crowd cheering as Zaddorn was awarded the cash prize. He looked much younger in the memory, and Markasset felt much younger—and exhausted. He had come in a poor second to Zaddorn, who wasn’t even breathing heavily.

In a world where most people traveled on foot, Zaddorn was an endurance runner. The memory gave me another piece of information, too. Clearly through the years came the special smirk of triumph Zaddorn flashed to Markasset from the awards area. Their rivalry had not begun with Illia.

The Lieutenant called to the two Riders, and they swerved toward the sound of his voice. Their cats stopped barely two yards away from us and sidled closer together so that the bundle slapped to the ground; they released brass catches at their hips to loosen the carrying ropes.

I felt a sweeping relief. Had things happened differently, I was certain that I’d have arrived in Thagorn in exactly this manner.

Zaddorn quieted until he had been unrolled and untangled from the net. One of the Riders leaned down to help him up; Zaddorn grabbed one of the man’s legs and jerked him off balance, delivering a knee into his midsection as the man fell. Zaddorn twisted on the ground to face the other Rider, but stopped dead still. The point of a bronze sword hovered just above his throat.

“You put your groundloving feet in the dirt and stand up, you,” the Rider said. He moved his head toward us, and I stepped back a pace, out of the torchlight. “This is Dharak, Lieutenant of the Sharith, and his son, Thymas. Show some respect or I’ll gladly give your blood to the ground.”

Instantly the snarling, fighting animal who had been hauled into this place as a potential slave was transformed into the elegant city official I had met in Thanasset’s house. He stood up and bowed gracefully to the Lieutenant, then a little less deeply to Thymas.

His clothes were dusty and torn, and his handsome face was swollen along one side of the jaw. His skin was abraded from the friction of the rope; one muscular shoulder was completely bare, crusted with blood.

“Gentlemen,” he said. I could almost see the soft gray of his suit, the swirl of his cape. “May I introduce myself? I am Zaddorn, Chief of Peace and Security for the City of Raithskar. I have come in friendship, seeking only information. I am looking for—”

I had been quiet long enough. “The same thing I am,” I said, interrupting and stepping forward. Zaddorn wasn’t surprised to see me; rather, he smiled with satisfaction. “A man with four fingers on his left hand.”

Zaddorn stared at me, considering. It was obvious he knew I hadn’t told the Lieutenant who I was, and that identifying me would prove me a liar. I was standing, armed, in the company of the leader of the Sharith and he had been dragged into Thagorn like a load of glith skins. He wanted to expose me; I could see it in the way his jaw tensed.

But his jaw relaxed.
You’re a good cop, Zaddorn
, I thought at him.
The crime—or the mystery—comes before your personal feelings. Thanks.

“Have you found him?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I answered, and gestured vaguely toward the barracks buildings. “But he’s here. A man named Hural.”

The Lieutenant had been following our exchange, looking from me to Zaddorn.

“Is this man a friend of yours?” Dharak asked me.

In the silence that followed, I watched Zaddorn. We both knew what the situation was. In Raithskar, I was a suspect in a robbery and a possible candidate for the Gandalaran equivalent of second degree murder—of a cop, no less—and his main rival for an attractive woman. In Thagorn, he knew he needed me. And how he
hated
it.

I’m no saint. I let him worry for a few seconds. I even enjoyed it a little.

“He is not my friend, Lieutenant. But he’s telling you the truth. He’s an officer of the government of Raithskar.” I remembered the phrase Bareff had used. “I’ll stand for him while he’s here.”

“Good enough,” said Dharak, and waved away the guards.

“My sword—” began Zaddorn.

“Will be returned to you when you leave,” said Dharak. “Now listen well. Rikardon has given his life as bond for your good behavior.”

Is that what it means? Holy—!

“In Thagorn, that means silence except when you’re spoken to,” Dharak continued. “Understand?”

Zaddorn nodded, and Dharak grinned.

“All right. Thymas, go find this Hural and bring him here.”

There were several people sitting and standing around the cookfire near the barracks. Thymas went over to them, spoke to one of them, then approached a dark bundle lying against the wall of the building. He said something, grew impatient, then leaned over and dragged a small man to his feet. The man coughed raspily, jerked his arm out of Thymas’s grasp, and staggered toward us. He came into the circle of our torchlight; I was holding the torch Thymas had carried down from the Hall. When he saw me, he lurched forward and peered up into my face. His breath smelled foul.

“You,” he whispered, and spluttered through a choking cough. “You were supposed to guard the fleabitten caravan! Where were you when the Sharith attacked?” His eyes narrowed. He laughed insanely, his voice rising, then gurgling into another racking cough.

“That’s enough out here,” said Dharak. “Let’s go inside. Bring him, Thymas.”

Dharak led the way into another barracks, this one apparently empty. He lit a lamp and placed it on the largest dining table, and we sat down around it. The little man had worked himself into a regular fit, and he lay half across the table, coughing and gasping for breath.

I was glad of the short break. I could almost hear Zaddorn thinking it, and my own mind echoed his question:
That’s right, Markasset, where were you when the Sharith attacked? And what is your connection with Gharlas?

The lamp was a thick, smokeless candle placed inside a beautifully faceted glass chimney. It cast a remarkable amount of illumination over the faces of the others at the table: Hural and Thymas across from me and Zaddorn, Dharak at one end of the table.

“Awright,” said the four-fingered man at last. “Whattaya want with me?” His words were slurred and hurried, as though they were being chased by a cough.

“Answers,” I said. “You helped Gharlas steal the Ra’ira. How did you get into the security room? Where has Gharlas taken the gem?”

“You’ll ride a thaka before I tell you anything, you filthy, sneaking—”

Thymas caught the man by the back of his neck and nearly lifted him from the chair. “Show the proper respect,” he grated, “or you’ll be missing more fingers.”

He let Hural down. The little man rubbed his neck and looked hatefully at Thymas, then over at me. For the first time, he noticed Zaddorn. “Hey, ain’t you the Chief of Security from Raithskar?”

“I am Zaddorn, yes,” he answered.

“Keeping low company, ain’t ya?” he sneered.

“That will be enough,” said Dharak, the command in his voice making Hural cringe back from him. “Answer the questions.”

“Why should I? You gonna give me my freedom and make me healthy again? Eh? What you got to offer?”

“Revenge,” said the Lieutenant. “You’ve no need to keep silent out of loyalty to Gharlas. Rikardon, here, did not betray the caravan to us. Gharlas paid us handsomely—not only to raid the caravan but to kill everyone on it.”

“Kill—?” Hural assimilated it rapidly, and his face stiffened. “Then why didn’t you?”

“It seemed wasteful. Obviously Gharlas never wanted to see you and the others again. We could accomplish that as effectively by assuring your presence in Eddarta’s copper mines as by destroying you. And make a tidy profit.”

“Why?” I asked. “Did Gharlas tell you why he wanted this?”

The Lieutenant frowned. “As I said before, I blame myself for not seeing through him at once. He gave me a complicated story about the trip having been funded by a man he hated. It would be an amusing vengeance, he told me, to use his rival’s money to pay for his rival’s ruin.” Dharak shrugged. “It sounds patently stupid repeated like that. All I can say is that Gharlas in person is a very persuasive man. I agreed to it, though I couldn’t tell you, at this instant, why I did.”

“I’ll tell you why,” spoke up Hural, and there was bitterness in his hurried whisper. “You said he’s persuasive. He’s all of that and more. Gharlas has the ancient power—he can control minds!” This last was almost shrieked, and set off another bout of coughing. When he had recovered somewhat, he stared across at me.

“Yes, I’ll tell you; why not? You asked about the security room. Gharlas used his power to make the old man
believe
he locked the door—he didn’t. We walked right in!” A shrill giggle, choked off by fear of more coughing.

“Why did Gharlas want the Ra’ira?” asked Zaddorn, and Dharak and Thymas were too interested to rebuke him for speaking out of turn.

“Now that’s the weird part. I been overseeing Gharlas’s caravans for a long time. I’ve known he’s not quite right up here.” He tapped his temple with a finger of his mangled left hand. “I’ve always thought it pretty strange that he always—and I mean
always
—got his way around people.

“This trip seemed pretty ordinary until we got to Raithskar. We stopped here, paid the tribute, Gharlas worked his deal—but I didn’t know about that. After we’ve set up in Raithskar, he calls me to his room one night and confesses that he is—get this!—
the rightful King of Gandalara.
And he’s going to prove it by taking the Ra’ira back to Eddarta with him.