The Bronze of Eddarta Read online

  “Tarani—” I began, but she hadn’t really stopped talking. She gripped my arms.

  “Please, Rikardon, you read people better than I do. I cannot leave her unless I understand how this … corruption could have happened to her.”

  “All right,” I said, drawing her into the concealing shadow of the wall of the house. The sun hadn’t set yet, but brilliant hues of red and orange had claimed the sky.

  “Here’s what I think,” I told Tarani. “First, Zefra had a strong gift to begin with; she admitted she used it when she and Volitar escaped. Second, she’s been virtually a prisoner for sixteen years, and her power was the only thing that gave her some control of her circumstances. Not to mention a touch of revenge against Pylomel, who created the prison for her.

  “And third, the use of power is addictive, Tarani. Zefra’s has become almost second nature—she has used it on me twice.”

  “On you?” she demanded. “When? Why did you not tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t realize it until she showed us how strong she is. Twice, when you and she were together, I was suddenly somewhere else, with no memory of how I got there. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it.”

  She thought for a moment, while I kept a nervous watch for wandering guards. I didn’t feel we really had time for this discussion, but I knew Tarani was right—until she had it settled in her mind, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate fully on Gharlas.

  Finally she sighed and said: “She wants us to think she will stay behind to help the Lords against Pylomel. But that is not the true reason, is it?”

  “For what it’s worth, Tarani, I think she really believes what Volitar taught you—that it is wrong to control another person’s life or mind. She sees herself as defending Volitar’s viewpoint.”

  “But she has to see it that way, does she not?” Tarani said bitterly. “To justify using the methods that Volitar despised.” She shook herself sharply. “As you said, Rikardon, Zefra and I are strangers to one another. I cannot stand in judgment of her—she accepted this life of horror for my sake. But now … I feel less grief for leaving her. She and her power belong here, where the only people who can be hurt are those who inflict hurt.”

  I sensed a change in mood, the shrugging off of her sadness. “So now—the Ra’ira.”

  It was night by the time we slipped into a brushy area in front of Gharlas’s house, which stood far back in the Harthim area, close to the outer wall of the city. Zefra’s information had been invaluable in finding it; many of the homes looked alike in the dimness beyond the lamp-lit walkway. The timing, too, was perfect; we had been waiting less than ten minutes before Gharlas came out of the double entry doors and passed us, walking toward the Family entrance.

  He was wearing dark clothes—a soft tunic and loose trousers, covered by an embroidered, hip-length vest cinched at the waist with a dark-jeweled belt. The dark colors accentuated his extreme height and paleness. When he walked between the marble pillars which supported the lamps, he seemed to be only a floating face and hands.

  Tarani tensed as he passed us, and her hand went to the sword she had smuggled into Lord City inside a bolt of fabric. We were both dressed to travel, in tunic and desert-style trousers that tied at waist and ankle to keep out the salty dust. I kept my hand on my sword, too, and wished that it were Rika. I realized that part of my gladness to have Thymas close by was the prospect of getting Serkajon’s steel sword back into my hands.

  When Gharlas was out of sight, Tarani and I went around to the back of his house and slipped inside. Good thing doors aren’t locked in Lord City, I thought. I guess that’s because everybody’s so busy milking their landservants that they don’t have time to steal from one another. Except Gharlas, that is.

  We lit some lamps, glad the house was in a secluded location. We were in a kitchen area—long unused, by the look of it, which was a relief. I had wondered about servants. If he had any, they didn’t seem to be around.

  We did a quick search of the exposed shelves and the reachable cabinets, then moved through a double doorway into a dining area. Another cursory search, and we passed into a sitting room that was really a huge hallway. Like the midhall in Raithskarian architecture, this one huge room ran the full length of the house, right down its center. Matching, marble-topped tables stood at strategic points. Only two lamps had been left burning, so that the entire room was very dimly lit. There was very little furniture—a chair or two—to cover up the intricate geometric pattern of the floor tiles.

  We were-standing in a short hallway that led to the kitchen/dining area through which we had just come. Hulking darknesses at intervals on either side of the room seemed to be hallways that led from this main room to other living areas of the house. Between those entry areas, the walls were covered with thick tapestries, their scenes concealed from us by the dim light.

  Pretty fancy, I thought. Just what I would have expected from Gharlas. But spooky, with those flickering lamps. The place gives me the willies.

  Our plan was logical: first, make sure the Ra’ira wasn’t in the house; next wait for Gharlas to return. Neither Tarani nor I seriously believed that Gharlas would let the jewel out of his possession for an instant, but we had to consider the possibility, if only because it was so unlikely.

  But all the logic in the world isn’t worth one good, gut-seizing hunch.

  “This is too easy,” I told Tarani, fighting the panic that was suddenly clutching at me. “Let’s get out of here, right now.”

  “So soon, my friends? Why, you’ve only just arrived.”

  There it was—one hunch full-grown into one dangerous situation. Gharlas had appeared from behind the tapestry that hung beside the big, doubled front doors.

  16

  Tarani drew her sword and started for him, but I grabbed her.

  “Bastard,” she snarled at Gharlas.

  In a world where women knew when they could be made pregnant, the word was a weighty curse, and maligned the mother as well as the child. In our last encounter with Gharlas, Tarani had used the epithet to distract him, but he wasn’t going to be baited this time. His long, lean form seemed to ripple and he smiled as the word ran around the room in whispering echoes. Gharlas’s smile wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to remember in the middle of the night. It creased his face and never touched the cold light that shimmered behind his eyes.

  “Welcome to Eddarta, dear friends,” he said. “It will be most beneficial to your future health if you will put down your swords. Now!”

  Out of the dark hallways stepped swords with lots of husky muscle attached. It looked like Gharlas had selected the biggest and meanest of Pylomel’s Guard.

  So this is the payoff for all those “extra benefits”, I thought. I recognized one of the men. Worse, he recognized me.

  “You should have told me this was the guy, Gharlas,” he said, stepping toward us from the hallway directly opposite the one we were blocking. “I caught a lot of grief for letting him into the city. It’s gonna be a pleasure to kill him.”

  “Stop, Sendar!” Gharlas shouted. The big man did stop, but didn’t quit leering at me like I was somebody’s dinner.

  “Death is very close to you right now, my friends,” Gharlas said, his voice oily. “You know what I want. Give it to me.”

  I could almost feel the duplicate Ra’ira grow warm in the pouch hanging from my gold-lined belt. It was the real reason Gharlas had killed Volitar. Not everyone knew about the Ra’ira’s special qualities, but nearly everyone did know it as a symbol of the Kingdom. In the process of forging a glass duplicate for the gem, Volitar had made two replicas. Gharlas had taken one of them to Raithskar with the intention of replacing the real one, and had later seen his accidental loss of the phony jewel as a blessing. He had realized that there must be no question, when the time came for him to reveal himself as King, that he did possess the only true Ra’ira. The existence of the second duplicate, the glass bauble I carried in my pouch, had taken him
to Dyskornis. Volitar, having hidden it with his other greatest treasure, the letter from Zefra, had died without revealing either.

  I glanced at Tarani, and saw the same determination on her face that I myself felt. We had come too many miles to back down now. Either we would leave here with the Ra’ira, or …

  “How did you know we were going to be here?” I asked Gharlas. I was stalling for time, and he knew it. But he thought he was in control, and he had already shown us a tendency to boast. Not a modest guy, our Gharlas.

  “Simple deduction,” Gharlas said. “Hardly worth mentioning. The first thing I heard, when I arrived, was the rumor of an intruder calling himself Lakad. If you were here, so was she—and I knew what you wanted. My exceptional mind didn’t have to guess when you would try to get it. I invited my friends here tonight, pretended to leave, and returned by the front door while you were scratching for lamps in the kitchen.”

  Markasset used that alias when Gharlas hired him to guard the caravan. Stupid. STUPID! I scolded myself. But there’s no help for that stupidity now. I concentrated, tried to remember of our encounter in Dyskornis, searched for a weakness. Then I had it. His weakness was the same as his strength. The Ra’ira.

  “I see that the female companionship you’ve been providing to the guards was money well spent,” I said. “Got them to do the messy, dangerous work for you, haven’t you? I see you prefer muscle to brains—otherwise Sendar wouldn’t be here.”

  “Shut up,” warned Sendar. “Gharlas, you want me to make him quiet?”

  “That might be just what Gharlas wants, Sendar. Because he may be just a little bit worried that I’ll tell you what this is all about. You see, he stole a jewel from Raithskar called—”

  “KILL HIM!” Gharlas shouted, and Sendar leaped forward, his sword descending in a two-handed arc that would have split me in two—if I’d stood still.

  But I had ducked around Sendar, and was running straight for Gharlas, scattering or jumping over furniture as it got in my way. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tarani slash at the big man’s back, as his unresisted blow sent his swordtip clanging against the tile flooring. I was too busy to see more than that, because two other guards rushed out to intercept me before I could reach Gharlas.

  These two were used to working as a team; one aimed high, the other low. I blocked the sword aimed for my head, jumped, and aimed a kick at the head of the guy swinging the lower blade. He flinched backward and missed his aim.

  I heard footsteps behind me, and did some quick calculations. Six hallways opened into that room, and there had been a man in all but the one we had come through. That meant there were at least five guards—maybe more. Even if Tarani were calling Thymas in as reinforcement …

  It doesn’t look hopeful for the good guys, I thought.

  *I will help.* Keeshah’s thought struck me an instant before his mind merged with mine.

  The Gandalaran who had been Markasset was a strong and skillful fighter. In the first, awkward days of my residence in his body, Markasset’s trained reflexes had saved me more than once. But there had been an occasion, like this one, where the odds were against me and Keeshah had been unable to join the fight physically. He had saved me then, as he was trying to do now, by lending me some of his abilities.

  The effect of Keeshah’s help was a drastic reduction of my reaction time. I had no greater strength and, in fact, no quicker reactions. What I had was the giant cat’s alertness to sound, scent, and sight clues that were beyond Markasset’s normal ability to interpret quickly. Keeshah’s mind accepted the stimuli of my surroundings, as perceived by my senses. Because of the close joining of our minds, as soon as he interpreted, I had the knowledge necessary to guide my reactions.

  So I knew, from the slightly differing odors, that there were only five men in the room. These two were trying to keep me away from Gharlas. From the sounds behind me, I could tell that Tarani was fighting Sendar, and the other two men were coming after me.

  They don’t know it yet, I thought fiercely, but they just made a BAD choice.

  That was another thing Keeshah gave me. Spirit. When we were together in this special way, we loved a good fight.

  I gauged the distance of the men behind me, and waited to hear the intake of breath that signaled a blow was about to be delivered. Then I whirled and ducked between them, running toward Tarani, and leaving them to scramble out of the way of their own swords.

  That’s your second mistake, guys, I thought, as I saw Tarani bring the big man down by slashing into his thigh, and then finish him. You underestimated the lady.

  I turned to make a stand against the four guards, but Gharlas was smarter than that. “Go after the girl, you fools!”

  Tarani was on her way to join me, but two of the guards broke past me to block her.

  Damn you, Gharlas! I thought. You think I’ll leave myself vulnerable in order to protect Tarani. What you don’t know is, she’s worth any two men in a fight.

  But as my opponents and I circled and feinted, I caught glimpses of Tarani’s struggle. It seemed more desperate than mine—I saw a couple of last-minute blocking moves that just barely saved her life.

  What’s going on? I wondered. It’s almost as though she can’t control her own muscles …

  “Gharlas, you bastard,” I yelled, as the truth struck home. He was using his mindpower to slow her down.

  In Dyskornis, Tarani had proved that she could break through Gharlas’s paralyzing control, given time. Part of her resistance came from her own mindpower, but I knew now that she could resist, partly, for the same reason I could—the non-Gandalaran portion of her mind was less susceptible.

  Pressed as she was with immediate physical threat, she couldn’t afford the concentration necessary to block Gharlas’s power entirely. The paralysis trick had surprised us last time; this time, her natural resistance kept her moving, and the weight of his power kept her fractionally, dangerously slower than she needed to be. It might have had the same effect on me, but he had chosen Tarani for his target. First because, of the two of us, she was the weaker fighter. Second because he was counting on Tarani’s predicament distracting me from my own problems.

  It was working.

  I snapped back into focus in time to knock aside a thrust aimed at my throat, but I was too late to dodge the other man’s wild, hopeful slash, and the point of his blade cut a short gash on the left side of my chest.

  The burning pain helped me to concentrate; I told myself I couldn’t help Tarani until I got rid of these two.

  Under the onslaught of these two men, I had been backing toward one of the long side walls, and I had about two feet to go before I wouldn’t have room to breathe, much less fight.

  Do something, I told myself, remembering one of Ricardo’s favorite mottoes, even if it’s wrong.

  Getting myself pinned had lost me most of the advantages of Keeshah’s help, but the eager, feisty presence of his mind in mine gave me a different kind of help—inspiration.

  I took a deep breath and offered my best imitation of the roar of an angry sha’um.

  Everybody paused for a second or two, startled by the unexpected noise. Everybody, that is, except me. I took a quick step backward, dropped my sword, clenched both hands in the fabric of the ceiling-high tapestry that covered the wall, and yanked the heavy stitchery down. As it came loose, I spun around and sent it sailing at the two guards who, recovered from their moment of surprise, were barely two paces away from me.

  The weight of the thing sent them staggering; one corner flipped up to block their vision, and another whipped around behind them. I grabbed up my sword again as one of the guys tripped and fell. The other one was so busy trying not to get dragged down with him that he didn’t see me coming. In another few seconds, both of them were out of action.

  I jumped over them and ran to help Tarani, who was being pressed into the corner furthest from Gharlas by her two guards. She was fighting grimly, with sword and mind; every muscle of h
er face and body seemed wire-tight. I roared as I ran and one guard, distracted, looked around. Tarani thrust her sword through the left side of his chest. His eyes went blank, still staring at me, as he collapsed to the floor.

  The pull on her sword sent Tarani to her knees, and the last guard closed in on her. I was one jump away from him, my sword raised and ready—and Gharlas turned his power on me.

  My body completed the running step that had been in progress, but instead of striking the blow I planned, I skidded past Tarani and the guard without having time to swing my sword. I slammed heavily into the wall. The impact sent the sword flying from my sluggish hand. I turned around, and pushed away from the wall toward the fighting pair. It was like trying to swim through treacle, and inside I was screaming in frustration.

  Tarani let go of the hilt of her sword to reach up with both hands; she grabbed the man’s sword wrist and hung on. He wasn’t as big as Sendar had been, but big enough. He couldn’t pry Tarani’s clutching fingers away from his wrist, so he pulled his body sharply from side to side, dragging Tarani along the floor.

  She stayed with him, her body trailing his sword arm with a violent, jerking motion, until he swung the hilt of his sword at her head. She turned her face aside at the last minute, but the bronze hilt clipped her temple and she went down like a rag doll.

  The guard looked around at Gharlas.

  “Kill her,” Gharlas said.

  17

  The fighting red haze of a sha’um’s rage shot through me, burning away Gharlas’s control.

  In Dyskornis, Tarani had helped me fight that power. Given time now, I could have broken free on my own. But with a sword already descending toward Tarani’s slender throat, I surrendered to Keeshah the control I denied Gharlas.

  I seemed to be only a spectator, as my body lunged for the guard. I caught the man’s throat in my hands and dragged him away from Tarani. He turned the edge of his sword against my back, but before it more than touched me, I threw him to the floor. I pinned his forearm with my knee and shifted my weight to that knee, slowly increasing the pressure on his arm.