The Steel of Raithskar Page 11

  And I had to admit he cut an impressive figure. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and the belted tunic emphasized his muscular chest and arms. His voice was deep even when he spoke softly, as he had done to Thanasset. Yet I could imagine that, raised in command, it would stop a mad vlek in its tracks.

  I found myself wondering what it was that Illia saw in Markasset.

  Thanasset went directly to the shelf, but Zaddorn shook his head. “Ah, no. I thank you, Supervisor Thanasset, but barut is too heady for a man who needs all his wits about him. Please do not let me keep you from your pleasure, however.”

  Thanasset filled his glass, and brought it to me. Standing, we made the toast. “Wisdom!”

  “Wisdom!”

  “And good health!”

  Thanasset replaced the bottle and glasses—apparently they were used only for barut, and were thus self-sterilizing—locked the cabinet, and we sat down. Zaddorn wasted no time in coming to the point.

  “I came here because I heard you had returned to Raithskar, Markasset. I presume,” he said, glancing at Thanasset, “that you have learned of our loss?”

  Zaddorn had a thinner, flatter face than most Gandalarans, with a longer, more normal-looking (to Ricardo) nose. But his eyes were still shadowed by the brow ridge, and they were dark and piercing. I could sense the intelligence behind them—and the subtle menace of an honest cop determined to solve a crime.

  Perhaps it was his manner, smooth and deadly as a sword, which irritated me. Or perhaps it was some remnant of bad feeling between Zaddorn and Markasset. But I wanted more than anything to shake him out of his self-satisfied composure.

  “Chief Supervisor Ferrathyn mentioned it when I arrived,” I told him. “But it wasn’t news by then.” Zaddorn blinked, and I waited just until he was ready to say something before I went on. “There were rumors of it all through the marketplace.”

  Zaddorn was cool, but I had seen the well-controlled flashes of expression on his face. Eagerness, thinking it was going to be easy, after all. Disappointment when I didn’t admit anything. And finally, awareness that I had staged it that way on purpose. A glimpse of anger then, before his face closed into a granite-hard expression of mild interest. I wouldn’t be able to break through again—but I was delighted to have done it once.

  “They must have upset you terribly,” he said, “for you to have drawn your sword in Vendor Street.”

  “If you know about that,” I countered, “you know why I did it.”

  He waved a hand negligently, as if to brush aside the reason. “I heard that there was a disturbance. Something about a couple of vineh attacking their foreman.”

  Zaddorn and I both heard Thanasset’s sharp intake of breath. But we didn’t take our eyes off one another. Beneath our normal-toned conversation was a declaration of private war, a contest of wills we both knew had not begun here, nor would it end now.

  “I discounted it,” Zaddorn continued. “Vineh do not behave in that fashion. They are never fierce.”

  “They certainly gave that appearance,” I said.

  “Perhaps. But I think it more likely that both you and the foreman misapprehended their motives. The theft of the Ra’ira is a most serious thing, and if—as you have assured me—everyone knows about it, it has created a general tenseness in the city, ready to be set off by anything unusual. You both panicked; that’s all. And you drew your sword.

  “You realize,” he added, “that I could arrest you right now for waving a naked blade in the streets.”

  “Isn’t it more important,” interrupted Thanasset, “to find the Ra’ira? May I ask what progress you’ve made?”

  Zaddorn looked at Thanasset, then back at me. We had been leaning forward in our chairs; now we both sighed and settled back—a temporary truce, a break before the next round.

  “We are fairly certain that the gem has left the city. There is no trace or rumor of it in the city’s rogueworld. It is my personal opinion that it left the city in the caravan of Gharlas. I have sent a guard command group after them, but it will be some time before that group returns with any information.”

  Again his eyes met mine, and I knew that this was the real reason he was here.

  “I am in hope, Markasset,” he said, “that since you have—ah, left your position with the caravan and returned early, you may have some useful news for us.”

  “I have already discussed this with the Chief Supervisor,” I said, keeping my voice steady. Ferrathyn had merely been interested; this Zaddorn was out for blood. His voice slipped out of its impersonal tone into a deeper one which almost rang around the room.

  “Well, you’re discussing it with me now, Markasset. Why should I trouble the Chief Supervisor for second-hand information when I have the original source right here? Now tell me what you know about the theft of the Ra’ira!”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Zaddorn,” I said. “During my time with the caravan, I neither saw nor heard anything that I can remember that would make me think there was anything odd going on.”

  “Why did you leave the caravan?”

  “Personal reasons,” I answered, and I couldn’t keep all the anger out of my voice. “They have nothing to do with the theft of the Ra’ira. In fact, they’re no business of yours whatever!”

  He sat back with a smile and I realized, too late, that he had wanted to provoke me—and he had succeeded.

  “No?” he said, all smooth steel again. “Perhaps not. But one can theorize, eh? I have been informed by usually reliable sources that you owe a certain Worfit some seven hundred zaks—a gambling debt, I believe. Is that correct?”

  “I don’t see how my personal finances are any of your business, either.”

  “You’d be surprised how little bits of unrelated information often come together at unlikely times,” he said coolly. “For instance, I happen to know that you left town still owing him the money. He was quite put out to learn about it, according to my sources.”

  “He’ll be paid,” I said. He was getting at something, I could tell. And it worried me.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it, since other—ah, sources tell me that you returned to town with enough and more to repay him. More, I daresay, than you would have earned from Caravan Master Gharlas, even had you completed the journey with him.” He stood up, walked over to the window and looked out into the garden for a few seconds. Then he came back to his chair, placed his hands on its back, and leaned across it toward me. “Where did you get that money?”

  I couldn’t answer him for several reasons. First, I really didn’t have the least idea where the large coins—twenty-dozak pieces, had Illia called them?—had come from. Second, I knew that the small coins had come from the money pouch of a man who had died horribly in the desert. And last, there was only one way Zaddorn could have learned about the money at all. Dear little Illia did not confine her confidences to me alone.

  I was trying to digest the shock and come up with some kind of answer when my father said calmly, “My son is carrying twelve hundred zaks in the form of five golden twenty-dozak pieces. I gave them to him the night before he left. He told me about the debt, and I gave him enough to cover it and to provide him some spending money during his journey.”

  “But you still have all that money,” Zaddorn said, still looking at me. “And Worfit is still looking for you. Why didn’t you pay him, if you had the money before you left?”

  Good question. C’mon, Markasset, tell me why, I thought, searching the elusive memory of the Gandalaran. To my surprise, he told me.

  “I couldn’t find him!” I answered, and I’m sure Thanasset and Zaddorn were both startled by the sound of triumph in my voice. “That kind of debt you repay in person, and …” I almost laughed, “he had been arrested by one of your agents.”

  For the first time since he had arrived, Zaddorn’s dignity slipped. He stood up and cleared his throat. I’m sure that, if he had been wearing the kind of necktie Ricardo was familiar with, Zaddorn would have adjusted
it slightly at that moment.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I had forgotten—Worfit was being questioned that night about another matter entirely.” He gave Thanasset a long, hard look. “I can see that I’ll get no more information here—but there are other lines of inquiry open to me. Perhaps they will prove more fruitful.”

  He strode out through the doorway, and we stood up and followed him. He was putting on his baldric and sword by the time we reached the door. He swirled the cloak to his shoulders with the same grace he had used in removing it and then, hat in his hand, he turned to Thanasset.

  “Thank you for your time, Supervisor Thanasset. Markasset.” He opened the door, then turned partway back. “I’m sure I’ll see you both later.” Then he put his hat on and was gone.

  “Well, that’s that,” I said as Thanasset closed the door with a sigh. “There’s no question that he thinks I stole the Ra’ira from you.”

  Thanasset shook his head. “You’re only half right,” he told me. “What he thinks is that you and I conspired to steal it.”

  “What? Where would he get such a foolish idea?”

  Thanasset smiled at me with a tenderness that touched my heart. “Thank you for your faith in me, Rikardon. But Zaddorn reads people very skillfully. He knows that I lied about giving you—Markasset—the five gold pieces.”

  “Huh?” We were walking back into the “drinking room,” as I had begun to think of it, with no help from Markasset. But the time had come for serious talk, and Thanasset did not offer, nor did I want, anything which might cloud our minds.

  “Yes,” he said as we sat down. “Markasset did tell me about his debt to Worfit. We both knew that thought of Keeshah would prevent Worfit from applying physical violence. We talked—no, argued, is a better word—on the evening before the theft, a few hours before I went to the Council Hall for Guardian Duty. I refused him the money, told him that I was tired of his irresponsible behavior, that this was one scrape he could get himself out of without my help.” He had been looking at the floor; now he looked up at me.

  “Don’t think too harshly of me, Rikardon. I—I was angry. I would have given it to him the next day, probably. I guess I just wanted him to be frightened for a time, to teach him a lesson. When I read his note, I …” His voice trailed off.

  I thought that the old man had done exactly the right thing—or it would have been exactly right if the complication of the theft hadn’t come up. But I wasn’t about to offer a personal judgment of how a father handled his son. Instead I asked the question that the new information raised.

  “If you didn’t give Markasset the money, why do I have twelve hundred zaks in my pouch?”

  “It is the money I didn’t give to Markasset. A few minutes after I went on duty, Markasset came to the Council Hall and went into my office. He carried his own key—which he left behind after he took the five gold pieces out of my cabinet.”

  “He left his key?”

  “Yes.” Thanasset smiled. “To show that he had taken it—he would not have wished that someone else be blamed for it. I have tried to explain—Markasset is an honest man, in his own way.”

  “I think I understand.” And I was relieved. I wanted very much to think the best I could of Markasset. “It was more a forced loan than a theft.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And when did you learn about it?”

  “After the excitement had died down a little over the real theft. I returned to my office, found the key there and the money missing.”

  “He took your money. Do you think he might also have been involved with the men who stole the Ra’ira?”

  “NO!”

  At last, the question I had dreaded had been asked, and answered. Thanasset’s response was so immediate that I knew he had felt it hanging between us ever since I admitted that I knew little of Markasset’s life.

  “I do not entirely understand my son,” Thanasset said, “but I know him. He would never betray me or Raithskar.”

  Another great weight had lifted from me. I didn’t know much about Markasset, but I trusted his father. “I believe you,” I told him, and relief and gratitude showed in his strong, craggy face. “Who did take it?”

  He shrugged. “You have heard all that I know. Ferrathyn’s theory about the Lords of Eddarta seems likely to me. But they would have needed information only available in Raithskar—someone here must have helped them. That is, if they really did take the Ra’ira to help support their claim as the heirs of the ancient Kings of Gandalara.”

  “Tell me about them,” I said. “The Kings of Gandalara.” Thanasset’s face took on a look of complete astonishment. I must have had the same look on my face as he suddenly stood up and bowed deeply before me.

  “I am fortunate,” he said. “If you know nothing of the Kings, you are one of the Very Ancients. And if you have no knowledge of Kä, then—” he paused, “you must not know about Steel.”

  I knew about “steel” in my world—but “Steel” in Gandalara was a mystery, especially as it was spoken by Thanasset. I could hear the capital “S” in his voice. I shook my head, though what he said had not been a question.

  “Come with me,” he said, and led the way out into the large central room. We walked over to the inlaid wall with the beautifully intricate sha’um pattern, and he pointed to the sword mounted on the wall above it.

  “That is Steel,” he said. “Its name is—” He stopped suddenly, and turned toward me. His voice was almost a whisper. “I should have known. Its name is Rika. Upwards.”

  I said nothing as he looked back at the sword and stared at it thoughtfully for several seconds.

  “That sword was forged for Serkajon. It is one of the few swords in the world made of the Most Precious Metal.” It was another Gandalaran term for Steel. “They stay strong and sharp for lifetimes of men, and they carry an imprint of the men who have wielded them.

  “Serkajon was the first to hold Rika. In the generations since his death, it has been the duty of each father to judge whether his son was worthy to carry it. There have been only five, since Serkajon, strong enough in body and spirit that their touch on the hilt would not dishonor his memory.” He smiled. “You will be the sixth.”

  Who, me? But …

  Thanasset had turned away from the wall and was pacing slowly around the large room. I followed him, trying to think of something to say. But he was talking again.

  “The Most Precious Metal came to Gandalara with the skybolt.” He raised his heavy brows as he glanced at me. “Even as ancient as you are, you must know the legend. Back, far back, long before the first written history, a starbolt struck down from the sky, blinding everyone near it, killing many of our ancestors.”

  I bit my tongue; I had been about to remind him that if they had died, there was a strong possibility they hadn’t been his ancestors. And besides, the image he had given me recalled one of my own. A starbolt? A meteor, certainly. What else could it be? And I, Ricardo, had been killed by a meteor—or my body had. Yet that was in a different world. Why did it seem to me that the two events were linked?

  “Yes,” I told Thanasset. “I know of the starbolt.”

  He nodded. “I thought you would. The memory of it remains in the All-Mind, though dimly now. For it happened in the unthinkably remote past—a hundred hundred centuries ago.”

  A million years, I calculated. And the All-Mind, whatever it is, still remembers it!

  “It struck here,” he said, swinging one arm generally in the direction of the waterfall behind the city, “in what is now Raithskar. Some theorists believe that it brought the Most Precious Metal with it. Others say that the metal is a transformation product of its power. In either case,” he shrugged, “it remains the only known deposit of Steel in all Gandalara.” It seemed that the term for the finished metal was also applied to its main and indispensable ingredient: a chunk of nickel-iron meteor.

  “Our Ancestors at that time were little more than animals, barely aware of their l
atent ability to think rationally and to anticipate the future. After the skybolt struck, those who survived began to use that ability. The trend was magnified threefold in their children, and, within two generations, the All-Mind had become fully aware.”

  It all made sense.

  A huge chrome-nickel-iron meteor had come smashing in through the atmosphere in the distant past at somewhere between ten and twenty miles per second. At those velocities, plenty of hard radiation is given off during the time it takes to go through the atmosphere—between ten seconds and two minutes, depending on the speed and the angle at which it struck. That radiation would be lethal to those creatures near enough to barely survive the impact, and disabling to those who caught a smaller dose. And it was certain to produce mutations—most of them probably unfavorable.

  But at least one favorable mutation had survived, and its descendants mined and worked the very fabric of their beginnings when they forged swords like Rika from the Steel of Raithskar.

  “And the All-Mind?” I asked. “You were going to tell me about it, just before Zaddorn arrived.”

  “Yes, I was,” Thanasset agreed, then hesitated. Suddenly he chuckled. “You’ll have to forgive me, Rikardon. The All-Mind is so much a part of us now—I hardly know where to begin. But I’ll try.”

  And so he did. We walked slowly around the beautiful parquet floor of the midhall as he talked, and I listened attentively, trying very hard to understand. But it was difficult. The meteor was a physical phenomenon which my world and Thanasset’s, no matter how far apart, could share. But there was nothing in Ricardos experience to help me now.

  The concepts and vocabulary were strange to me—some of the terms Thanasset used simply had no equivalent meaning, and they were apparently so second-nature to Markasset that I got no help from his unreliable memory.

  Besides, I don’t believe that Markasset understood the All-Mind. And Thanasset, who was trying his very best to explain it to me in simple, logical language, didn’t completely understand it, either. But both of them accepted it. For them, it was a basic fact of life.