The River Wall Read online

North and west of us, the gray of the rocks stood out starkly against a black stain in the sky. The edges of the stain were leaking dark trailers into the soft gray of the cloud cover. At its center—as much as I could see above the high horizon—it rolled and tumbled like a storm cloud. I was sure that, from the right vantage point, I would see a column of the blackness rising straight up into the center of the stain. I leaped to my feet, fear driving out the pain of my wound for the moment.

  I had walked in that cloud. Was it memory only, or newly created winds that brought me that sulfurous smell? I had come near to dying in it while it lay, idle and isolated, in the Well of Darkness.

  The volcano had been rumbling then. Had it erupted because of the earthquake, or had its eruption caused the earthquake? Either way, the force of its eruption was spewing forth ash and noxious gases.

  13

  Somewhere to my left, Ligor stirred and moaned. I tore my eyes from the high darkness to the west, and stumbled to where he lay. I was relieved to see him come to full consciousness quickly.

  “Got a fleason of a pain in my head,” he growled, rubbing his neck lightly. “And a mighty thirst for a cool faen.” He looked at me sharply. “Looks like you’re the one needs help, my friend.”

  He tugged lightly at an end of the scarf, hanging free from the knot at my thigh. Pain shot through my leg, hip to ankle, and I dropped to the ground, feeling faint. Ligor pushed at me until I was lying flat and straight.

  “I’d kill that fleason Worfit myself, if you hadn’t done the job already,” Ligor muttered. He removed the soiled scarf as gently as he could, but his every touch sent stinging fire through my leg. The word infection lodged in my mind, then gangrene, then amputation.

  I passed out again.

  I was alone when I woke up, with a nearly empty waterskin close to my right hand. Just seeing it made me thirsty, and I sat up.

  At least, my mind did.

  My body lifted head and shoulders, got very dizzy, and lay back down.

  I struggled for a few seconds to get hold of the water pouch, then brought it to my lips and drank from it, lying down. The cool liquid cleared my head and, after a minute or two, I was really able to sit up.

  The wound in my thigh was neatly bandaged. A length of cloth had been folded into a narrow pad and placed against the wound, then another had been tied, smooth and flat, around the thigh to hold the pad in place. My thigh ached dully and twinged when I moved about, but there was no more of the searing, stinging pain.

  I sighed with relief.

  Then I looked at the sky.

  The black spot was spreading.

  I began to feel faint again, looking at it. I lay back down.

  *Keeshah, where are you?* I demanded frantically.

  *Close,* he responded instantly and anxiously. *Well?*

  *l feel better,* I told him. *Do you know where Ligor is?*

  *Yes.*

  I waited about fifteen seconds, and in spite of the fear and pain I felt, I was laughing to myself as I gave in: *Well? Where is he?*

  Keeshah’s response surprised me. It was … guilty.

  *Man rides,* he said, *You need water, help. Man rode to city. Comes back. All right?*

  A sha’um has only one Rider. Others may ride with the tolerance—and in the company—of the Rider. For the sake of my health, Keeshah had violated a trust to which he had been committed since Markasset had brought him out of the Valley of the Sha’um. Clearly, it was a possibility in his mind that I might be angry.

  I was not angry.

  I was amazed.

  *Of course it’s all right,* I told Keeshah. *I know it was a hard decision. I’m proud of you for it. Thank you.*

  I felt Keeshah’s relief just as he and Ligor appeared at the crest of one of the stony mounds that marked the center route of the Chizan passage. In a few seconds, they were beside me. Keeshah crouched, and Ligor stepped off his back to stand on the ground. As the sha’um stood up again to his full height, Ligor, who had half-turned in my direction, turned back to Keeshah. Hesitantly, he put his hand on the cat’s jaw and stroked the fur back along the thickly muscled neck.

  “Thanks, my friend.”

  Keeshah moved past the man, letting Ligor’s hand trail along the whole length of his side. Then he moved off, jumped to the top of a miniature mesa of stone, and lay down.

  “He says ‘You’re welcome,’” I said.

  Ligor whirled around, then came over to me, grinning.

  “Say, I’m glad to see you looking so alive,” he said. “I was some worried about you.” He knelt beside me and set down a packet wrapped in his neckscarf. The lower edge of his tunic was ragged and unhemmed—the source for my bandage. He helped me drink from his water pouch, then untied his scarf. There was a fresh loaf of the nutty-tasting bread of Gandalara, some fruit, and a few strips of dried meat.

  “Thank you,” I said fervently, after I had eaten half of what he had brought. As he started in on the rest of the provisions, I looked at him carefully. His tunic was torn in several places besides its hem, and his face was bruised. “Wasn’t easy to get, was it?”

  Ligor paused in his eating, and looked suddenly afraid. He focused his attention on the food, and said: “Yeah, there was a bit of a fuss.”

  “Ligor,” I said, “listen to me.”

  He looked up, alerted by the tone of my voice.

  “I know how you found Chizan. Most of the city was built of clay brick; the earth movement must have shaken it apart. That means the water reservoirs are all broken, lots of people are dead or buried in rubble, and the unhurt ones are fighting for the food and water that can still be used.”

  Ligor looked startled, then glanced at Keeshah.

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t see it through Keeshah’s eyes—I was unconscious until just before you got back. I just know that Chizan is in total chaos because I’ve—well, its logical.”

  I had been on the brink of saying that I had seen it before—but I had caught myself in time. It would have been a lie, anyway, I comforted myself. Earthquakes may be a common part of Ricardo’s history, but not of my personal experience. I lived in California and felt the earth shiver now and then, and I watched the television coverage of major earthquakes, but I was never actually exposed to the aftermath of a big one.

  Well, I thought, it looks like I get my chance now.

  “Ligor, you know how important Chizan is to the people who need to cross through here. And you know the character of the people who settled here. Not exactly your natural leaders, would you say?”

  Ligor snorted. “Not exactly your natural followers, either, I’d say. Folks looking out for themselves, mostly. It took somebody like Molik or Worfit to convince them that they could make more by working together than by cutting each other’s throats.” He took a drink of water, swallowed the mouthful of food he had been talking around, and squinted at me. “What are you getting at, son?”

  “I want you to stay in Chizan,” I said.

  He was silent for a moment. “Me?” he asked. “Not us? You want a natural leader? I’d say you’re it, boy.”

  “Have you looked at the sky lately?” I asked.

  Ligor was sitting with his back to the east. I knew by the way he turned around immediately that he had already noticed the dark anomaly. With his back half-turned toward me, he said: “I should have guessed you’d know what that is. Just looking at it scares the fleas off me. I ain’t sure I want to know any more about it.” He turned back to me. “But then again, I ain’t sure I just want to wonder, either.”

  I struggled for a way to present concepts which were totally alien to this man’s—this race’s—experience.

  “It’s poisoned air,” I said at last. “It used to be in the Well of Darkness.”

  “Now, that’s one place I never been, and never wanted to go.” He paused, trying to understand. “You mean to tell me that the ground-shaking we felt went all the way over there and shook the ‘darkness’ into the sky?”


  “I’d guess everybody felt that shaking, from Raithskar to Eddarta,” I said. The words struck a chord somewhere in the depths of my mind, but the thought was ephemeral and vanished before I could grasp it. “It was more than just the shaking that drove the ‘darkness’ into the sky, but the shaking caused it.”

  Ligor twisted around to look at the eastern sky, and spoke with his back to me. “The shaking threw it up,” he said. “But it ain’t going to stay there, right?” He turned back to me. “And it ain’t going to settle all peaceful back into the Well, right? Will it come over here?”

  I shook my head, thinking: Not unless there’ll be a whole lot of shaking going on.

  The phrase was straight out of Ricardo’s past, and I felt a wild urge to laugh.

  This is no time to get hysterical, I told myself sternly. The sooner you convince Ligor to stay in Chizan, the sooner you can let that responsibility go, and be on your way to Thagorn, and Tarani and Yayshah and the cubs. Another inner voice said: You don’t even know if the Zantil is passable after the earthquake. I took a deep breath and clamped down on the anxiety rising in me.

  “That stuff is too heavy to go very far,” I said. “But you’re right—it won’t settle back where it was. It will probably come down all around the Well—and bring a lot of smoke and ash and new poisons with it.”

  Ligor relaxed visibly. “Well, that’s a relief, anyway. There ain’t nothing around the Well to get hurt by it.”

  At first, I was appalled by the man’s callousness. Then I realized that, unlike the Sharith, the minds of most Gandalarans did not turn first to the well-being of sha’um.

  “The Valley of the Sha’um is close by the Well of Darkness,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how much danger the sha’um are in, but I’ve got to get over there and find out.”

  “You don’t look real confident that they’re safe.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “In fact, I think they’re all going to die—if not from breathing that stuff, then from starvation, because the animals they eat will die.”

  I had not tried to hide the thought from Keeshah. First, it would have taken a lot of effort. Second, it was not fair for the truth to be hidden from him. Third, it would not have worked, anyway.

  Keeshah sensed my concern about his reaction, but he did not move from where he rested.

  *Know already,* he assured me, with a calmness that puzzled me. *Ready to go.*

  Ligor was staring at me, horrified. “But—son, what can you do about it?”

  “Roughly a third of the Sharith sha’um are in the Valley right now. Normally they wouldn’t come out for the better part of a year. But Keeshah left the Valley early for my sake. I’m hoping that other Riders will be able to call their sha’um out of the Valley. If some come out, maybe others will follow. But I can’t be sure the Sharith recognize the danger. I’ve got to get over there—or at least try.”

  Ligor nodded sharply, signaling a decision. “And you don’t need extra weight to hold you back. I understand, son—I’ll stay behind.”

  I slapped my hand against the ground beside me, stirring up dust and provoking a satisfying sting in my palm. “Will you tell me,” I nearly shouted, “why a man as competent and capable as you are would be ready to believe he’s worthless?” Ligor stammered and scooted back from me, astonished by the outburst.

  “Fleabite it, man,” I said. “Don’t you see that I can’t leave Chizan in that state with a clear conscience? This passage is a river of life for both sides of Gandalara. Somebody has to take charge, get everybody to work together, clear the passes, salvage what water there is, arrange to get more. Sure, these people are rough. You know that better than I do—you know them better than I do. I could stay—yes, I could get the work done. But my heart wouldn’t be in it, and it wouldn’t be as easy for me as it will be for you.

  “You came from among them, Ligor.” I saw him flinch, and I hurried on. “As a vlek handler, you were part of the force that built Chizan and made it prosper. But you stepped out of that, and you’ve gained the habit and the manner of authority. Ligor, you can win these people, lead them, convince them that it’s not just Chizan—all of Gandalara needs their help now.”

  Ligor stood up, walked away, came back and stood over me. “I got two questions,” he said.

  “So ask,” I told him.

  “You wanted me to come with you because of that fleason Ferrathyn. What help can I be if I’m in Chizan?”

  “If you remember, I wasn’t all that sure you could help in Raithskar,” I reminded him. “There just seemed to be a chance. I don’t think that chance outweighs the crisis in Chizan. If somebody with more on his mind than profit doesn’t take charge here soon, the city will never function the same way it did before—as a supply source for travelers. Worse, the people may just fight over the remaining water and then die of thirst. I need you here, Ligor.”

  He nodded. “All right, you’ve got me convinced. Now you want to tell me how to convince them?”

  I grinned. For that, I had an answer.

  “Help me up,” I said, offering my hand.

  Chizan was even worse than I had expected. The upheaval in the earth had shaken most of the structures apart—including the top-of-building tanks that had held the only water available in the Chizan crossing. The water had drenched the city streets, reliquefying the crystalline deposits of vlek urine which lingered everywhere.

  Keeshah balked at the outskirts of the city, his sensitive nose in mortal rebellion against the stink. I was catching it only lightly, but it wasn’t just Keeshah’s violent disgust that made my stomach want to roll over. The stink itself affected me, but not as much as the noise. We could hear the confusion in the city: voices crying out in search or pain or grief; vleks running, bawling, being cursed for being underfoot; bricks crashing from still-collapsing buildings or being thrown from piles of debris; and the solemn, firm sound of bronze blades clashing against each other.

  Keeshah crouched; Ligor got down, and then took my arm to help me dismount. I wet my headscarf and tied it around Keeshah’s muzzle. *Try to breathe through your mouth,* I told him. *l promise, well do this as quickly as possible.*

  Ligor watched me work with the headscarf and then spend a few seconds scratching Keeshah’s ears and stroking his neckfur.

  “If I was a sha’um,” Ligor said, “I’d be fleabitten before I’d take another step into that mess.”

  “He feels pretty much the same way,” I said. “Its only his loyalty to me that makes him do something so much against his natural wishes.” I looked over my shoulder at Ligor, and realized that I had never spoken the thought that had come so often to mind. “It’s enough to make a man feel rich.”

  “Yeah,” Ligor said, and I felt he really did understand what I meant.

  “Lets go,” I urged, and Keeshah crouched for us to mount.

  Ligor and I rode Keeshah into the chaos that was Chizan. I think all three of us held our breath until we got dizzy. As people took notice of us, a crowd began to follow along behind Keeshah.

  The people looked hurt in an especially moving way. Whether or not they carried bruises or bloody scrapes, there was a look of loss and fear in their faces that I will never forget. In the space of a few minutes, they had lost a way of life. They probably felt they had lost everything of value to them—and that’s why they needed Ligor.

  Chizan had formed a rough semicircle against the steep wall of the valley in which it lay. We moved through its perimeter toward the rich district that would have been the center of the full circle. We were fully prepared to break up fights and, if necessary, drive everyone we met toward the area in front of what had once been the seat of power in Chizan—a large gaming house that also contained the residence of the current roguelord—now the late roguelord. The wide avenue in front of that building offered the only possibility of addressing a large group of people.

  The avenue was less wide now. The building had collapsed, its brick and wood debris coveri
ng a larger ground area than its original foundations.

  Little persuasion was necessary. Most people followed us merely because there seemed nothing else of interest to do. Two men on a sha’um were an effective distraction. Fights quit as we passed by, and we led most of the living population of Chizan into the gaming district. Keeshah climbed an unappealing pile of rubble. I brought my right leg over Keeshah’s neck and slid off to unsteady footing beside him, leaving Ligor mounted.

  His speech was short.

  “So you folks want to keep on fighting each other and getting nothing done, or you want to start to clean up this mess?”

  From somewhere to our right, we heard the coarse voice of a woman. “For what?” she shouted. “So you can take over for Worfit? I say, fleabite this place. I’m going home to Dyskornis!”

  There was a chorus of sounds, both in agreement and in scorn, from the rest of the crowd. I made a quick effort to count heads and came up with a rough estimate of three to four hundred people. I was sure I had heard no more than twenty voices. But as I looked, the vague expressions were leaving the faces of the people around me. The discussion was capturing their attention, forcing them to react.

  “What makes you think Dyskornis is in any better shape?” Ligor shouted over the murmuring voices. “Or that you could get there if you tried? We were in the Zantro Pass when the shaking started: the Zantro split plain in half, and the walls collapsed inward. It will be gamer’s luck whether anybody gets through there, ever again.”

  He paused, waiting for the murmur to crescendo into a roar of fear and confusion. It seemed that I had called it right—these people, totally ignorant of the real nature of this calamity, had assumed that only Chizan had been hurt by it.

  There were no more vague faces now—just scared ones. Ligor lifted both arms, and the crowd gradually quieted.

  “There’s nothing we can do about the Zantro now,” Ligor said. “Our business is to save what we can out of the buildings, help those who are hurt, and see about sharing the food and water we do have. Then we can send our strongest to the Zantro to find out if it’s passable.”