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  “I shall send the Ra’ira back to Raithskar, where it belongs,” she said. “And I shall begin a change in Eddarta, away from the rule of whim and toward fair treatment. I am not so much a fool to think I shall change the attitude of the Lords completely and immediately, but I can make a beginning. That,” she said, “is my only purpose in claiming my rightful place.”

  The Fa’aldu around the dinner table broke out into a bustling noise of approval, while I, seated directly across from Tarani, stared at her in open-mouthed shock. She stared at the empty plate in front of her and refused to meet my eyes, and I recovered my composure.

  Later, in our room—a guest room in the Fa’aldu quarters, rather than in the transients’ cubicles—I repeated her words that had alarmed me at the dinner table. “‘Send the Ra’ira back to Raithskar?’”

  She sat down on the huge salt block that, covered with a pallet, served as a double bed. “Rikardon, please understand—I feel confused and uncertain. Until I was asked the question, until I spoke the words, I had not realized that I expect to—to stay in Eddarta for a time. Shall I win the acclaim of the Lords, deliver them and all of Eddarta from Indomel’s crafty selfishness, only to seize the Ra’ira and abandon them again? Would not that be as selfish an act as anything Indomel might do?” She looked up at me, her eyes troubled. “When the Ra’ira is ours, and any possible danger from Indomel is prevented, will that not satisfy the task?”

  “And what about the vineh, still terrorizing the people of Raithskar?” I demanded. My voice was shaking. I was very much afraid I would hear the very words she spoke next.

  “You and Keeshah could return the stone to Raithskar,” she said. “Without the cubs, you could make the trip quickly, deliver the Ra’ira to the Council, and—and return to Eddarta. Rikardon,” she asked, pleading, “you would return to me in Eddarta?”

  Tarani was as elegant and poised a woman as I had ever met, but she was young in biological age. All the anger I felt—which was, I was sure, an expression of fear of that proposed separation—faded before the protectiveness she inspired in those infrequent moments when she looked young and vulnerable, and let me see that she needed me.

  She told the truth about not thinking this through before, I thought. She’s just had a glimpse of what it may really be like to become High Lord, and the responsibility is scaring her out of her wits.

  I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. She turned her face against my chest and held me, trembling. We sat like that for a long time, and my thoughts rambled anxiously along lines toward the future.

  Don’t worry about it until it happens, I told myself.

  As usual, I found it hard to listen to my own good advice.

  We took leave of Lussim and his family early the next morning. Keeshah carried a freshly killed glith across his shoulders. Yaysha had a similar burden, and, as we climbed toward the Zantil Pass, my attention was thoroughly occupied with reminding the cubs that the food was for later.

  Yoshah and Koshah were showing more endurance than I had hoped for. Apparently those first few weeks of growth had been a natural spurt, enough to get them large and coordinated enough to hunt for themselves. From here on out, it looked as if they would acquire their full size more gradually. We had allowed them to fast for the two days it had taken us to get from Thagorn to Relenor, and they seemed little harmed by it. They had eaten two heavy meals, and would have another before we tackled the Zantil Pass.

  The Korchi mountain range separated the two large sections of Eddarta. They formed a rough triangle with its northernmost point merged into the Great Wall and its east-west base line formed by the Chizan crossing. There were two high passes, the Zantil on the west and the Zantro on the east, with an arid, hollow area nearly at the midpoint of the triangle’s base. That hollow held Chizan, a city run exclusively by an element called the “rogueworld” in other cities. Travelers paid highly for anything they wanted, from water to gaming tokens, to hired assassination. A roguelord named Molik had controlled the city until Thymas killed him. The head man now was Worfit, a roguelord who had started out in Raithskar. Markasset had known him. I knew him. We were not friends. It had been Worfit and his men who had chased Tarani and me into the Well of Darkness, but Keeshah’s appearance had daunted them.

  After the sha’um had fed well, we started across the Zantil. It was an up, down, and up again trip, all in air so thin as to make breathing difficult and through winds that scoured and blinded with dust. When we reached the first crest, Tarani paused and pressed her arm to her chest, and I knew she was thinking of Lonna. The big white bird had been with her for years, and had made this crossing frequently, tucked inside Tarani’s shirt.

  I said nothing, knowing that I could only make her feel worse, and we started into the narrow, high-altitude valley. Tarani and I walked, each between an adult and a young sha’um. I kept a close watch on the cubs and tried to stay alert for any sign of fatigue.

  As it turned out—and as I might have predicted, had I thought about it—the cubs came through in better shape than any of us. They had the more efficient lungs of sha’um, without the tremendous mass of their parents. They were irritated by the sand and bored with the slow pace, but they stuck with us. The six of us stumbled down the far side of the second crest a day and a half after we had topped the first one. We had moved slowly and steadily all that time, and all Tarani or I wanted was to lie down and sleep for a week or two. Keeshah and Yayshah were weary, but the clear air revived them. The cubs revived even quicker, and were soon complaining of hunger.

  Rather than collapsing as we wanted to do, Tarani and I mounted the sha’um and nodded off during the trip to the outskirts of Chizan. We kept off the main road as much as possible, in order to avoid anyone seeing the sha’um. Worfit connected sha’um to me, and Worfit, I was sure, still wanted me.

  We camped in a rocky depression, and I assured the cubs that food would arrive soon. Then I wrapped my face in the desert fashion—it was common practice in Chizan, and no one would think it odd. The hardest part came when I removed my baldric and handed Rika to Tarani.

  “Will you go unarmed?” she asked.

  I took back my dagger, and stuck it through my tunic’s belt. “Have you forgotten the reward Worfit’s offering for the man who carried the sword of rakor?” I asked. “Believe me, I’ll be safer without it. I should be back soon.”

  I had tied all the water pouches together by their lacings. I shouldered the string of pouches and went into Chizan. Deliberately, I chose unfancy places to buy the water we needed—and was mildly surprised that the price had come down somewhat. Then I visited a vlek yard and bought three of the largest animals from an unsavory character who probably did not own them.

  The sha’um prefer glith, I thought. But they’ll have to take what’s available.

  I made it out of Chizan safely, and felt a slight letdown as I led the vleks away from the city toward our camp. I felt angry too.

  Worfit doesn’t have to kill me, I thought. He has already won by intimidation. Fear of him made me sneak in and out of Chizan, didn’t it? That puts him in control.

  We were approching the camp. The vleks caught the scent of the sha’um and went into their usual stamping, bawling frenzy. I couldn’t hope to control them; I let them go, and called the sha’um to the hunt.

  I watched Yoshah bring down one of the animals and thought, One day, Worfit, you and I will have to settle what’s between us.

  13

  The Refreshment House at Iribos was our final stop before Eddarta. It was a bittersweet stay, because some of the Iribos Fa’aldu had been intimately involved in the ill-fated slave escape route. We took aside Veron, the young man we knew to be one of the activists, and told him the truth about the “safe house” in Chizan—that it was one and the same end destination of the less altruistic escape route that recruited dying slaves for the Living Death, a specialized, untraceable corps of assassins. The people helped by the Fa’aldu were recruited in
to the less savory areas of Chizan’s rogueworld, or they were killed.

  The Fa’aldu at Iribos already knew why we were there, of course. Not even sha’um could outrun the fast-flying maufa, dove-sized birds that carried messages in cleverly contrived breast pouches. The Fa’aldu were slightly amazed that we made no effort to conceal the sha’um from the travelers who came and went during the three days we stayed at Iribos, resting ourselves and the sha’um.

  From the foot of the Zantro Pass (the second half of the Chizan Crossing), we had traveled in the same kind of rocky desert that lay between Relenor and Thagorn. We followed the southern wall of Gandalara which, unlike the Great Wall, was named in sections. To the far west, back beyond the Korchis, lay a section I had never seen but which had been identified on maps as the Wall of Mist. In the eastern half of Gandalara, there were the Rising Wall, which was a stairstep series of unattractive hills, climbing to impassable heights, the Desert Wall, which was more sheer and utterly dry, and the River Wall, which formed a miles-wide delta of fertile land and supported the largest city in Gandalara: Eddarta.

  We might have made an easier trip if we had turned northward and followed the fertile crescent hugging the Korchis and the Great Wall. For part of that trip, there would be plentiful game for all the sha’um. But that route would have taken much longer, and carried the danger of running into one of the wild vineh colonies that sheltered in that same crescent.

  So we had pushed the sha’um into fast crossings and long rests, and thoroughly abused the hospitality of the Fa’aldu. From Inid to Haddat to Kanlyr and now to Iribos—we had depended on the Fa’aldu for shelter and food, and they had given generously. We could not offer to pay, both because of the implied insult and because their tradition forbade the acceptance of coin. But Tarani and I were agreed that we would buy—not use her future position to acquire, but buy—something lovely and useful for each Refreshment House, and send them as gifts.

  Tarani walked with me in the outer courtyard of the compound surrounded by walls built of salt blocks. It was the night before we were to leave for Eddarta. Light flickered from the oil lamps lining the wall, and we walked in and out of shadow.

  “Indomel knows that we traveled with a Rider,” she said, “and by now he knows that two Riders are approaching Eddarta. Do you think he knows who we are, or suspects these Riders are connected to us?”

  I considered the question seriously. We had done very little planning for tomorrow’s event, other than to ride boldly into Lord City and let Tarani state her claim to status among the Lords.

  “Only Zefra knows that I’m Sharith,” I said, “and Indomel is slow to give anyone else credit for a cunning that equals his. He might suspect that the rumors he’s hearing mark a vengeance mission from our friends, but I think the fact that there are only two adult sha’um will ease that anxiety.”

  I smiled into the darkness.

  “As a matter of fact, I’d give a lot to know what Indomel is thinking about those rumors right now.”

  “Has it occurred to you,” Tarani said, pausing by a saltblock ledge that, with the wall as backing, served as a bench, “that Indomel might know everything we are thinking?”

  “It never crossed my mind,” I said, truthfully. “Maybe that’s only wishful thinking, but it seems to me that the kid had plenty of time to figure out how the Ra’ira works. If he couldn’t use it when we left, he can’t use it now.”

  She was quiet for a long time.

  “Rikardon,” she said at last, “I have thought about this a great deal. I feel sure that when I read the inscription on the Bronze, the Ra’ira had no part in it.”

  “What?” I said. “How can you be sure?”

  She shrugged, obviously uncomfortable.

  “It is difficult to explain—a feeling, an—an intuition, more than anything else. Mindpower is common in Gandalara in many forms, and some forms seem not far removed from the actual reading of thoughts. Why should it be possible, for instance, for me to control thought and cast illusion, but not to see the thoughts that are replaced by my projections? Does a maufel not guide his birds by imprinting a thought in their minds—the image of a place, or a person? The sha’um bond is thought projection primarily, but the bond is continuous and provides a constant exchange of feelings and attitudes.

  “Yet the very specific skill of learning what another person thinks is not and never has been naturally present among us. Only the Ra’ira can activate that skill.”

  She lifted her hands, and clasped them together in front of her.

  “I cannot believe that one could use the power of the Ra’ira unaware, without feeling close to it, bonded to it as you and Keeshah, Yayshah and I, are bonded. And I felt nothing of the sort when I read the Bronze. The stone in my hand felt inert and lifeless. If Indomel has not found the trigger for the stone’s power, well, neither have I.”

  She sighed and dropped her arms.

  “I believe the thought gladdens me.”

  We had left Raithskar surrounded by a crowd; we rode into Eddarta the same way.

  We followed the main road, holding Yayshah and Keeshah to a walk and keeping the cubs between the adults. People stepped out of our way, stared at us curiously, swore at us as they fought to keep their vleks from going wild. Nobody asked us who we were. They knew, in an unreliable sort of way.

  Some people in Eddarta had followed the raft that Thymas, Tarani, and I had “ridden” through the city, and had watched us meet two sha’um. Some other people had witnessed the procession of guards and dog-like dralda that had escorted Tarani and me back to Lord City. Some people were watching us arrive now, returning unescorted in the company of sha’um.

  The odds were very good that some people had been in two or more of these groups, and were putting all the pieces together. I wasn’t surprised to learn, from some strategic eavesdropping, that nobody knew exactly who we were, but folks were pretty sure we were the people who had killed the former High Lord.

  Whether out of deference to the sha’um or out of agreement with that supposed action, no one tried to bar our entry into Eddarta. We followed the same route by which Obilin had brought us back in to Eddarta. A main city street ended at the foot of the broad single avenue that sloped up to Lord City, a walled area that housed the seven families who comprised the Lords of Eddarta. By the time I asked Keeshah to start uphill, we had a sizable following of curious people.

  They kept a fair distance behind us and maintained a steady hum of conversation until we stopped in front of the entry gate. The guards—normally only one was on duty, but someone, on seeing this procession, had called out a squad of eight—watched us nervously as the biggest one stepped forward.

  Tarani did not give him a chance to speak.

  “Inform Indomel and the Lords,” she said, in her clear, throaty voice, “that his elder sister has returned to Eddarta. Tell him to convene the Council at once, so that Tarani may be tested and proclaimed High Lord of Eddarta.”

  In the meaningless vernacular of Ricardo’s world—it knocked their socks off.

  The crowd roared and went running to spread the news. The guards stood as if turned to stone. One of them, recovering more quickly than the others, actually had the nerve to draw his sword.

  By the time he had it out, Koshah was in front of him, snarling. The cub was a little less effective than Keeshah would have been, but the man backed up until he hit the stone wall, and then he dropped his sword and flattened his empty hands against the wall. He looked familiar.

  “You,” I called to him. “What is your name?”

  His mouth worked silently for a minute, and finally he croaked: “N-Nulan.”

  “Do you remember me, Nulan?” I asked, edging Keeshah closer and calling Koshah to step back a little. The other guards made room for us.

  “Y-yes,” the man said. “Sir.”

  “You knew me as Lakad,” I reminded him. “And you kept me locked up, on Obilin’s orders, for nearly a seven-day.”

&n
bsp; “O-Obilin ain’t here no more. Sir.”

  “I know.”

  I said it softly, but I was sure every guard in that squad heard not only the words, but the truth behind them—that I had good reason to know why Obilin was no longer there.

  I whirled Keeshah to face the man who had stepped out front. He would be in charge of the squad.

  “What are your orders concerning us?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, at Tarani, and at each of the sha’um. He started to smile, and then his face went rigid, his sword came out, and he launched himself—not at me or Keeshah, but at Tarani, who was seated with Yayshah’s flank facing the guard.

  Yoshah intercepted him, her jaws closing around the extended sword arm. The man gave a yell and tumbled aside, rolling over and under the sha’um.

  *Yoshah, that’s enough!* I called, fighting for control of the young mind that had slipped into battle madness. *Come away, Yoshah, come back, girl!*

  She backed away from the prostrate and now unconscious man, whose mangled arm still kept a mockery of a grip on the sword that had been aimed, unmistakably, for Tarani’s heart.

  Tarani looked down at the body, and her anger flared.

  “Look at him,” she ordered the other guards, “and see your High Lord. For it was he who ordered the attack. It was Indomel who compelled this man to risk his life.” She stared around at the guards, forcing each one to meet her gaze. “Indomel fears me,” she said, “but not because he knows my claim is true. He fears me because I have my own strength, and have no need of the unwilling service of others.

  “This man was compelled,” she repeated. “Are there any among you who wish, of your own will, to destroy me?”

  Surprisingly, Nulan stepped away from the wall and spoke. “Er, ma’am, I just thought you’d like to know—the High Lord told us to keep you out of Lord City. Just that, and nothin’ more. We was offered a bonus if we did it, and—and death if we failed.”

  Tarani swung her left leg over Yayshah’s back and slid to the ground, landing with lithe grace. She walked over to face the man. I—and the three sha’um who knew what I felt—got very tense.