The Search for Kä Page 12

  At first, Tarani and Keeshah had to reconvince the female sha’um every time we moved from a camp. After a day or so, however, she relinquished her sullenness and seemed actually to enjoy the short spells of exercise.

  Tarani and I rode Keeshah occasionally, but Yayshah moved slowly enough that we walked most of the time, sending Keeshah ahead to a likely stopping place, and letting him greet us with Yayshah’s fresh-killed snack.

  Tarani’s mood lightened, but she remained thoughtful and a bit distant, and I was reluctant to push. I helplessly watched Yayshah as her belly grew until it nearly dragged the ground, and still detected no sign that the cubs were ready to meet the world. Paradoxically, as I became more anxious, Tarani became more confident. She said that Yayshah’s concern had relaxed as she sensed her cubs were not suffering in the travel, and that she would know when the time was near. No matter where the cubs were born, Tarani said, the actual delivery would be guided by Yayshah’s strongest instincts. Tarani never failed to add that, while Yayshah had adapted to the circumstances, she still longed for a dark and cozy den in which to greet the children.

  I was so absorbed in the process of traveling, and with anxiety over Yayshah’s condition and Tarani’s distance, that I was surprised to waken one morning and recognize the familiar farmland that lay northeast of Raithskar. We had spent the moonless pre-dawn hours in a grove of fruit trees.

  “We’re nearly there,” I told Tarani, “and game will be scarce from here on out. If you and Yayshah will wait here, Keeshah and I will ride ahead to the city, and bring food back.”

  “How long?” Tarani asked.

  “Only a few hours,” I said. “Will Yayshah be all right?”

  The girl knelt beside the cat, laid her hands on the swollen belly. The skin jumped with inner movement, as it had done with increasing regularity during the past few days, and I thought: It can’t be much longer.

  As if she had read my mind, Tarani said: “It is nearly time. She cannot say how soon, but soon.”

  I looked around. The sheer cliff the Gandalarans call the Great Wall rose from its base only a few miles away to disappear in the cliffs above. I could hear the distant roar of the Skarkel Falls, might be able to see its source, but for the cloaking mist sprayed up by the crash of the water into the deep pool at the base of the Wall.

  “Now that we have hit farmland, there will be no real shelter for her,” I said. “Keeshah’s house, in my father’s yard, is the most suitable place I know. Can she make it that far?”

  Tarani closed her eyes.

  “Yayshah will try,” she said, and turned a serious face toward me. “Please do not leave us.”

  “Won’t she need food?” I asked.

  “She wishes it, but does not require it,” she said. “At least, not until after she delivers. It is more important that her mate be close by her now.”

  I set aside the homesickness that had nearly overwhelmed me, and we moved on together, causing no little stir among the people we passed along the way. For most of the morning, we moved cross-country, seeing only field workers and farmers. Toward noon, however, we struck the hard-packed caravan road that would take us directly into Raithskar. Had Keeshah and I been alone, we would have traveled parallel to the road, to ease the burden on the travelers who guided vlek-drawn carts or caravans of the pack animals. But Yayshah, moving ever more clumsily, was my chief concern, and the four of us took advantage of the smooth roadway, taking up nearly its full span.

  Word of our approach might have reached Raithskar ahead of us, had anyone who saw us been able to break away. We were followed by a fascinated crowd of people who only served to make Yayshah more nervous. We moved through the open gateway into the marketplace, scattering surprised and terrified people. Yayshah had begun to make a moaning sound deep in her throat, and Tarani urged haste. Keeshah supported the female on one side; Tarani and I leaned against shoulder and hip on the other, less helpful than encouraging.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when we turned into Thanasset’s street, and I shouted to Tarani that it was only a little further. The door of the solid, two-story house opened and Milda, Markasset’s aunt, came out, obviously in search of the source of the crowd noise. When she saw us staggering toward her, her mouth flew open momentarily, then she snapped into action.

  “Thanasset, come out here,” she shouted, and ran to open the large gate into the garden.

  Markasset’s father appeared in the front doorway, his silhouette registering shock for only an instant. Then he was behind Tarani, helping to support Yayshah’s shoulder. The crowd of us would not fit through the gateway, but Yayshah had seen the square building made of clay brick, and she staggered toward it under her own power. Either Tarani had told her what it was, or some lingering scent of Keeshah identified it for her.

  She cut a straight and destructive line through Thanasset’s garden, then whined and crashed to the ground just as she reached the doorway. Lying on her side, she caught the stone sill with her forepaws and dragged herself into the dimness.

  Keeshah followed, but Tarani remained with us, standing in the ruins of a flowerbed. I looked at her questioningly.

  “It is Keeshah she needs now,” Tarani said. “She is very grateful to be here.”

  A noise drew my attention to the street and the fence behind us, where three people—young boys—had expressed the crowd’s curiosity by venturing in through the gate. Thanasset herded them out with dignity and good humor and spent a moment in the street, talking. When he came in and closed the gate, we could hear the sounds of people shuffling back down the street toward the business district of the city.

  Thanasset walked back to us and said: “Welcome home, son.”

  I laughed and hugged him; he pounded me on the back. I kissed Milda, picked her up, and whirled her around. The sweet old lady hugged me back and scolded me, laughing all the while.

  I put Milda down and took Tarani’s hand, suddenly at a loss for words. I wanted to tell them who she was, what she meant to me, what we had been through together, what we faced. What I said was: “This is Tarani.”

  Thanasset stared into Tarani’s face. Then he did the odd and tender thing of lifting her free hand in both of his own and kissing the palm. “Our home is honored by your presence, Tarani,” he said. “I am Thanasset, and this is Milda, sister of Markasset’s mother.”

  “Welcome, dear,” Milda said. “Come inside, please. You’ll want some hot food, and then a bath.”

  Tarani followed Milda toward the house. Thanasset and I stood in the garden quietly for a little while longer, listening to the sounds of effort and pain and comfort coming from the brick structure.

  “There is a story in this that I look forward to hearing,” he said, with a smile. “When you are comfortable and rested. But I can wait no longer to hear the good news that you have brought the Ra’ira back.”

  I shook my head, and the tall man’s shoulders drooped. I looked at Thanasset more closely and found him to be thinner, older, sadder than I remembered him.

  How long have I been gone? I wondered, and quickly ran up an estimate of the time. Four moons? Half a year? How could he have aged so quickly?

  “It’s all the same story,” I said, “and it’s a long one. But Tarani and I have both pledged to deliver the Ra’ira safely into the hands of the Council, where its power cannot be misused.”

  “When?” Thanasset demanded sharply.

  “I can’t say, exactly,” I answered.

  “It must be soon, Rikardon,” Thanasset said. “There is something you do not know about the Ra’ira—”

  “But I do know what it can do,” I interrupted. “I tried to tell you so in the letter I sent from Dyskornis—did you get it?”

  “Yes, I received your letter.” He pressed my shoulder. “It was thoughtful of you to send it, and foolish for me to have kept the entire truth from you.” He hesitated. “I know you are weary,” he said, “but would you mind walking a bit with me?”

  I ag
reed, and we left by the garden gate to walk down to the marketplace. Thanasset said nothing, merely guided me and let me be shocked by what I had been too preoccupied to see while guiding Yayshah through the city. At that, the main thoroughfares we had traveled would have seemed little different from the city I had left. I might have noticed the disrepair of the mud-sealed stone pavement, but I would have assumed it was on the list of some foreman of a vineh paving crew.

  Thanasset led me down side streets which were heaped with litter: fruit rinds, seeds, meat scraps that smelled as if they would soon be crawling with insects.

  We stopped to watch a vineh street-cleaning team at work. Two of the pale-furred, apelike creatures swept up trash along the side wall of a square. Another followed, pushing a wheelbarrow. All three wore the slightly ludicrous shorts which somehow eliminated the natural and vicious rivalry between vineh males, which composed all of the city’s maintenance crews. These three worked peacefully together, but they were supervised by two Gandalarans, rather than only one.

  We walked for half an hour or so, covering a large chunk of the city, then returned to Thanasset’s garden shortly before dusk. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I said.

  “You recall how the stone was guarded?” he asked, and I nodded. “A virtual cell, with a Supervisor in charge of it every minute of the day and night. That guard system was created by Serkajon himself, to insure that the Ra’ira would never be used to deceive and manipulate people again.”

  Thanasset paced through the growing darkness, holding his elbows. Sounds came from the sha’um inside the shelter, but Thanasset and the puzzle he was unravelling held my attention.

  “One day a Supervisor discovered that the power of the Ra’ira could reach out to vineh,” he said. “It had long been recognized that they had the native intelligence and the physical capability to perform simple tasks, but every attempt to train the occasionally captured individual had failed. This Supervisor reeled back from his first contact with a vineh mind—it was unrelievedly vicious. But he learned from that contact, and began to learn more. At a Council meeting while he was charged with care of the Ra’ira, he brought the stone and four male vineh into the chamber, explained to the startled and angry group that imposing docility on the creatures was a small-effort matter, and painted an eloquent picture of a city relieved of its menial chores.”

  Thanasset stopped and picked a leaf from a bush. “Since then, Rikardon, the Supervisors have not merely guarded the Ra’ira. They—we—have used it, watching the beastish thoughts of the vineh for signs of aggression and enforcing docility when necessary.” He waved a hand in the direction of the street. “Some of the vineh are still tractable, as you saw just now. We think that must be the result of the long habit of obedience. But we have no faith that the habit will not wear off, in time, and even these few will join the wild ones that have spread across the hillsides west of the city, below the rakor mine.”

  He turned around and correctly read the expression I wore.

  “I know it shocks you to learn that the Council is not as altruistic as you believed,” Thanasset said. “Programs are under way to organize work crews made up of people; the problems of litter and sanitation in the city will be under control shortly. The real problem lies outside the walls. Our colony of ‘tame’ vineh was larger than any natural tribe could expect to get, and there are no wild tribes to compete with them for territory. The city will be surrounded shortly, and the outlying farmers will be at risk for their lives. We need the Ra’ira, Rikardon. Badly. And soon.”

  14

  Someone screamed from the back of the yard. At the same time, a whining howl of pain sounded from inside the brick outbuilding. Thanasset and I followed the human sound. I burst through the door of the bathhouse to find Tarani wild-eyed and thrashing in the tile-lined tub. I splashed down beside her and wrapped my arms around her, her soapy skin getting grimy from my travel-worn clothes.

  Milda’s voice sounded from the doorway. “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the female sha’um,” I gasped, and checked quickly with Keeshah. He was frantically busy, guiding and helping and licking. He was excited, but not alarmed. “The birth has started.”

  “The girl is bound to the female?” Thanasset asked in amazement. “There are women who ride?”

  “Only this one,” I snapped, my hands busy trying to keep Tarani’s elbows from cracking against the side of the tub. “Please, I’ll explain it all later. We need some privacy right now.”

  “Of course,” Milda said in her practical way. She shoved Thanasset out the door, and closed it quietly.

  “Tarani,” I said, “remember that you are not Yayshah. Come away from her, darling, your suffering can’t help her.” I sat up in the cool water and shook the girl’s shoulders, was relieved to see her eyes waver and focus on me for a moment before she threw her head back and screamed again.

  I pulled her torso out of the water and into my arms, pulled her head around, and kissed her lips. She moved randomly for a moment more, not struggling, merely reacting to Yayshah’s pain. She responded tentatively at first, then seemed to understand that I was offering her distraction.

  By the time the sounds from the sha’um had quieted, Tarani and I had both bathed. Tarani wore the robe Milda had provided, and I wrapped myself strategically in the soggy towel. We left the bathhouse and walked up the path toward the back door of the main house, pausing to look toward the square building from which came only the sounds of suckling. Night had fallen, but the sky was moon gray and the yard filled with light and shadow from the house windows.

  I put my arm around Tarani, and she leaned against me.

  “Keeshah’s as proud as if he’d given birth himself,” I said. “And so am I—though I have far less reason.”

  “Yayshah is already asleep,” Tarani said. “Do you think we might look in on them?”

  I shook my head. “Keeshah’s still fussing over the babies,” I said. “We’ve waited this long—we can see them when we take breakfast to Keeshash and Yayshah.”

  “Thank you for being there when I needed you,” she said quietly.

  “My pleasure,” I said, and won a true smile from her.

  We went through the back door into the midhall of the largish house. The sound of the door closing brought Milda from the dining room on our right and Thanasset from the sitting room, close to the front door and on our left. Milda smothered a giggle and said: “I’ll be serving a late supper—to people who are dressed.“

  “The sha’um—” Thanasset inquired.

  “Everyone is fine,” I said, “There are three cubs: two male, one female.”

  Tarani and I went upstairs. I found clean clothes laid out in my bedroom. Milda had prepared a spare room for Tarani, complete with a few wardrobe items. Tarani did justice to a beautiful gown and, in spite of having eaten lightly before her bath, to Milda’s wonderful supper. I stuffed myself until I could barely move, then waddled into the sitting room and accepted a glass of barut from Thanasset.

  Milda had disappeared at the first hint of “business.” Having gotten to know the competent old lady both as Markasset and as Ricardo, I was fairly sure that she knew everything Thanasset did, but Milda valued the form of Thanasset’s position as a Supervisor, and showed a public respect for his privacy.

  Tarani accepted a glass of barut and listened silently to my recounting of everything—nearly—that had happened since I had left Raithskar. Most of it she had shared; some of it she had heard; a bit of it—in particular, my experience with Somil and Zaddorn in the All-Mind—was entirely new to her. Even as I started the story, Thanasset did not question her right to be present. When I had finished, he turned to her and unhesitatingly shared the secret so long withheld from me—the situation involving the vineh, and the imminent danger to the city.

  Tarani looked at him sadly. “It would seem that the Ra’ira is nowhere safe from the misuse of men,” she sa
id. “I begin to think it should be destroyed.”

  Thanasset nodded. “That has been discussed within the Council,” he said. “Our plan is to use the gem to guide the colony further west, to an area where there are wild vineh to provide them natural competition for territory and food, and then to dispose of the Ra’ira.” He shrugged. “That plan is not universally accepted,” he said, “but Ferrathyn is strongly in favor of it. He and I, with the support already present in the Council, should be able to convince those who want to resubdue the vineh into a work force.”

  “Who is Ferrathyn?” Tarani asked.

  “The Chief Supervisor,” I answered. “Is he well, Thanasset? The last time I saw him, he seemed to show his age more clearly.”

  “The strain of guiding the Council through this crisis has taken its toll on him, I am afraid,” Thanasset said. “His body seems ever more weary, but his spirit is strong and vital. It is almost as though he gathers energy from adversity.

  “I know he would have been delighted to hear this tale of a second sword and your search for Kä,” Thanasset said, “and he would be moved, as I am, Tarani, to say that your effort in our behalf is deeply appreciated. Your commitment to leadership in Eddarta, and to the safe return of the Ra’ira, bode well for a return of good relations between our cities.”

  “Thank you, Thanasset.” She put down her glass and stood up. The gown Milda had loaned her was inches too short, the sandals’ soles far too wide for her delicate feet, yet she managed to look regal. Thanasset and I both stood up with her. “Rikardon has told me, in our few quiet moments together, of the beauty and comfort of Raithskar. I discounted some of his words as an expression of fondness for his birthplace, but I revise that opinion now. There is dignity and goodness here—errors, perhaps, as there must always be among men, but only sincere intentions.”

  “You speak of the city that produced Worfit,” Thanasset said with a grim smile.

  “I refer to the city which looks to the welfare of its people, and not to the profit of its rulers,” she replied. “In all of Eddarta, there is no one, Lord or landservant, who can achieve that viewpoint. There was one who would have understood and appreciated Raithskar, but he died in Dyskornis.”