The Steel of Raithskar Page 12
But in spite of all the impediments to understanding, by the time Thanasset had finished, I did have a conception—my own, certainly, which probably didn’t match Thanasset’s—of what the All-Mind is.
12
The All-Mind is a linkage between Gandalarans. It is not precisely telepathic, but it seems to have some properties closely akin to telepathy. The Gandalarans believe that the All-Mind is the collective mind of all Gandalarans, both living and dead, with only a few exceptions.
They believe that each person is a new individual when he is born, but while he lives, and after he dies, his soul-mind (my word, not theirs) is part of the All-Mind, linked with it irrevocably, and so linked with every other Gandalaran, both living and dead. The webwork of those linkages, throughout the total four-dimensional space-time matrix which is the lifetime of the race, comprises the All-Mind.
I was surprised to find that Thanasset’s attitude toward the All-Mind was respectful, but not quite reverent. Certainly it was implicit in what he told me that he believed in the survival of the individual soul-mind after death through its linkage with the All-Mind. Yet the All-Mind was not a god to Thanasset.
The Gandalarans have no temples, no rites or ceremonies, nothing even faintly resembling what I would call “worship” directed to the All-Mind. Each Gandalaran admires and honors it above all entities which are alive in his world, for he knows that the All-Mind is a greater entity, and that he is a part of it. Thanasset admitted, with a look of mild disapproval, that some radical thinkers believed that the personality—what I would call the soul—of the individual died with his body, and that only the integrated memories remained linked to the All-Mind. But whatever the actual nature of the survival, all Gandalarans are certain of their place in the history of their world. They will be remembered.
I have no opinion to offer as to which theory is correct. But I do understand why, though their regard for the All-Mind is the closest thing Gandalarans have to a religion, they do not worship it.
Thanasset didn’t think of the All-Mind in the way I had been taught to think of God. I think it was Graham Greene who said something to the effect that he could not worship a God he could understand.
Gandalarans think they understand the All-Mind pretty well. They do not worship it, fear it, or try to win its favor. They do not even have faith in it or believe in it. It does not need faith or belief; it is merely a fact.
It is accessible.
Everyone is in continuous contact with the All-Mind. With most of them, however, that contact is largely subconscious. The few who can regularly operate that contact have a special duty in Gandalara. They are called Recorders, and it is their job to put explicit, carefully indexed knowledge into the memory of the All-Mind. And to tap it for stored knowledge.
In some ways the All-Mind functions like a giant computer-recorder. A non-Recorder can go to a Recorder to get information—history, law, customs, economics, and the like. From what Thanasset said, I got the impression that either the Recorder could establish his or her link and search out the information directly, or the inquirer could be put into something like an hypnotic state and his or her subconscious link could be raised to the conscious level.
Either way, it seemed, the answers weren’t always there. Either nobody knew it to begin with, or for some reason it just isn’t available.
In that one way, at least, the All-Mind resembles most of the deities I have ever heard of. It sees all, knows all, and tells what it damn well pleases.
When I said earlier that it was hard to understand what Thanasset was saying about the All-Mind, I omitted one large factor—part of the time I just wasn’t listening. My skepticism was functioning in high gear, and while it stewed over one point, Thanasset covered two more.
Which just goes to show the stubbornness of the human mind. Here was I, who should be dead, living out of my own time and world, in the body of another being who wasn’t even human—and I was discounting half of what Thanasset was saying because it seemed like the same sort of occult mysticism crap I’d laughed at all my life.
But if I gained little true understanding of the All-Mind from our discussion, at least I did realize at last why Thanasset treated me with such respect. To him, I was someone who had died long ago and had been an intimate part of the All-Mind—for how long?—and had come back or been returned by the All-Mind to a particular body for a particular purpose.
And that contributed to my skepticism, too. Because I couldn’t buy Thanasset’s theory about me. Rick Carillo of California, U.S.A., didn’t fit into the matrix of the All-Mind in any way, shape or form. No matter how logical, well-reasoned, self-evident, or even true Thanasset’s explanation had been up until that point, I tore a glaring hole in them.
What I believed, however, was far less important than what Thanasset believed. And that, at least, I could comprehend.
“If you know nothing of the Kings of Gandalara,” Thanasset was saying, “it indicates that your own life-span antedated them. Do you know anything of the City of Kä?”
“Nothing,” I admitted honestly. I didn’t feel that the conversation I had heard, crouching behind a bush out in the desert in the middle of the night, could even be counted.
“What do you remember of the Great Pleth?”
PSleth? Markasset’s memories refused to translate it.
“I’m afraid I don’t know the word. Perhaps if you’d define it …”
“Ah, of course. It is little used these last twenty centuries. It is an extensive body of water. The Great Pleth was very extensive.”
Oh sure, I thought. A sea! I was relieved to be able to say, for once, “Yes, I understand now. The—uh, Pleth was quite extensive in my day.” I tried to frame a sentence which would say that I had even sailed the “pleth,” but the vocabulary would not come to mind. Apparently there was no Gandaresh word for “sail” or “boat.”
“Then you must come from some five hundred centuries in the past,” he said, with a touch of awe in his voice. “This must be a completely different world for you!”
“Oh, it’s all of that,” I agreed wholeheartedly. Then I paused and thought about it for a few seconds. “Yet it is much the same in many ways. People still live and die, love and hate, succeed and fail. And the reasons behind the actions of men—motivation, emotion—are the same here as in my world.”
Thanasset smiled sadly. “Do we progress so slowly, then? Are folk no more noble now than they were in your day?”
I realized that I had been speaking, thoughtlessly, of Ricardo’s world; yet Thanasset interpreted my words as applying to his own history. And that brought the point home sharply to me.
We weren’t so different, after all, Thanasset and I. And he was trying to understand me in the terms of my own world, even as I had needed to know about the All-Mind to understand Thanasset better.
I resolved to be as honest with Thanasset as I could. I had to mislead him, at least to the extent of allowing him to believe that my world was a part of his history. But I wanted his friendship, and I wanted that friendship to be based on truth. As much of the truth as he could accept.
“I received my training as a fighter because I had to oppose a group of people who intended to conquer all the existing territory.”
“And did you succeed in preventing that conquest?” Thanasset asked.
“That one, yes. But fighting continued for most of my life, for various reasons and in different areas. I took a less active role in these later wars, training other fighters and making sure our own borders were well defended.”
Thanasset was nodding. “Yes, that agrees with the few records I have found of the time before the Kings. In spite of later abuse of the power he claimed, Zanek is often given credit for e
nding a period of continual, debilitating conflict between neighboring territories.”
“Zanek was the first King of Gandalara?” I asked.
“Yes, it was he who united the Walled World. Led by the Riders, his armies reached out from the shores of the Great Pleth and first demanded, then won, the tribute and allegiance of city after city, until all of Kä was ruled by Zanek.
“For a long time Gandalara rested in peace. Zanek and his sons ruled wisely. But life became harder as the years passed and the Great Pleth diminished. The Kings began to demand greater tribute as their own fields failed to support Kä.”
“Was that when Raithskar sent the Ra’ira to Kä?”
Thanasset looked at me sharply, but what he said was, “Yes. And it was shortly after we sent that single great prize to Kä that the Kings began to demand a different kind of tribute—slaves.
“Raithskar was spared that degradation because we had a more important gift—water. Our craftsmen built a carrier pipe to transport our clear, pure water to the great city, and that was considered tribute enough.
“But from everywhere else in Gandalara, slaves poured into Kä. They worked a few years—some only a few months—and then they died from the hardship and were replaced.”
“That must have been shortly before the kingdom fell.”
“Why do you say that?” Thanasset asked me.
“Because in my—time, men could not bear to be slaves. And any ruler who was dependent on slaves eventually became so weak that the slaves could break free of his rule. Did that not happen at Kä?”
“No,” said Thanasset, with an odd flat note in his voice. “The slaves did not resist.”
“Then—?”
“It was one of the Riders, the King’s own elite guard, who destroyed Kä.”
“Serkajon.”
“Yes. The Riders were honorable men who served the Kings with absolute loyalty as long as they believed that their rule was good for all of Gandalara. But Serkajon knew—” Thanasset hesitated, searching for words—“he realized that the Kings were no longer ruling Gandalara; they were exploiting it. So he took the Ra’ira.”
“Which had become a symbol of power?”
“Yes,” agreed Thanasset. “When he brought it out of Kä, home to Raithskar, the Kingdom collapsed. The Riders came after Serkajon, of course. But he talked to them, explained what he had done and why, and they never returned to Kä. Instead they settled in Thagorn and kept their own traditions, in the hope that they might someday serve another king worthy of their loyalty.”
“The Sharith,” I said, remembering the conversation with Balgokh at Yafnaar. “Something was said about a ‘duty’ that is paid by the caravans.”
Thanasset sighed. “They claim the right of tribute. To them, they are still the King’s Guard, and entitled to a measure of support from the rest of Gandalara—even though there is no king, and hasn’t been for hundreds of years. If it’s not paid willingly …”
“They attack? That must be why Gharlas was hiring guards. Balgokh said that Gharlas planned to bypass Thagorn.”
“Did he?” Thanasset asked, eyebrows raised.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I woke alone in the desert. I don’t know what happened to the caravan.” I wasn’t counting the corpse.
“Well. I regret what has happened to the Sharith. The Riders had a high and noble purpose when they settled in Thagorn. They deserted Harthim, the last King, because he used Gandalara for his own profit. Yet now—it seems to me they are doing the same thing.”
“Is there no connection at all,” I asked, “between the Sharith and the house of the man who once led them?”
“No. And I believe that Serkajon knew it would be this way when he elected to stay in Raithskar. It has been a kind of exile, really, though there was purpose in his choice, too. Yet every generation since Serkajon has contained a Rider, in spite of the expense of maintaining a sha’um in the city.”
“Were the Riders also the Supervisors?” I asked.
“Often,” Thanasset answered. “But not always. In some generations there were two and three sons. Only one boy in a generation felt the call of the Valley of the Sha’um, and it happened sometimes that the other sons had the skills necessary to act as a Supervisor.”
“So the family of Serkajon has continued to lead—in Raithskar, if not in Thagorn.”
“True, and I have never doubted Serkajon’s choice. But I wonder what the Sharith would be today if Serkajon had gone to Thagorn. I have a strong memory of what they were. I mourn greatly for what they have become.”
“They still ride,” I said. I realized how important Keeshah had become to me. Even then, standing here and talking to Thanasset, the great cat was a comforting presence in the back of my mind.
Thanasset smiled at me. “True. It is a great honor to be chosen by the sha’um. Since they are still being chosen, there is still value in them.”
He sighed, and went on more briskly. “I have answered my own question. We have not progressed. In Eddarta, those who claim the kingdom also claim the rights of kings. They keep slaves there still, starving and terrified tribute from the nearby provinces, which need Eddarta’s water.”
When Thanasset spoke of slavery, I thought about the vineh. My first impulse was to think of them as slaves, but as I remembered how they had looked, one moment docile and the next fierce, and how they had all three attacked their—what would you call it, their “keeper”? When I remembered the entire incident, I was glad that I hadn’t mentioned the vineh in connection with Thanasset’s discussion of slavery. They might be dressed like people, but I was sure they were not. They were work animals that happened to look like people.
“And we may not have ‘wars’,” Thanasset was saying, “but we honor and maintain the martial tradition. A man’s sword is part of his family’s history, to be passed on to his son at the proper age. The bronze sword you were wearing has been in our family for generations. Twice, when it became too damaged to be useful, it was melted and reforged.”
I was beginning to understand why I felt guilty about leaving the dead man’s sword out in the desert. I resolved to retrieve it someday, if I had the chance.
“Boys learn to fight more eagerly than to read, and compete regularly in training games. As men, they carry swords daily, with the implied purpose of defending their cities against attack.
“Granted, Raithskar has more reason than most cities to need such a force of fighting men—for the few times when the vineh have gotten out of hand, and,”—he barked a laugh—“for the protection of the Ra’ira. But I always thought it pointless and backward-looking, especially since I considered the Council sufficient security for Raithskar’s treasure.
“That was another problem between my son and myself. He excelled in the games, especially in personal combat, and I could never appreciate that as much as he would have liked.”
Thanasset looked at the sword on the wall. “When I was a boy, I learned fighting skills because it was required, but I never struggled to be the best. My father told me that in all other ways I was worthy of Serkajon’s Steel, but my lack of interest in our fighting traditions made him withhold it from me.” He reached out a hand to trace the outline of the portrait. “And it was Markasset’s enthusiasm for that, above all else, that made me feel he was unworthy.”
He stood there for a moment, lost in thought, then abruptly shrugged off the mood.
“Well, back to the subject. No ‘wars’, as I said, but personal frailty and violence still exist. Every city has its rogueworld and its share of dishonest merchants, murderers,” —he made a wry face—“and thieves. No, we haven’t really progressed. How very sad.”
“If you really believe that, Thanasset,” I said, “you’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that you shouldn’t believe that it’s a sad thing. It’s a natural thing. People are like that. The trick is to learn to handle things so that the sort of people who want
to take advantage of others have to work at it.
“Raithskar took the first step when Serkajon brought back the Ra’ira. Now, there may still be slavery in Eddarta and forced tribute to the Sharith, but here in Raithskar you live peacefully with only the violence of individuals to contend with. And it seems to me that Zaddorn has that pretty well under control.
“My world was torn with war and full of fear.” Suddenly I wanted to stop talking. My throat tightened up, but I went on, saying things I had always known but had never spoken. “Terrorism and greed were the watchwords of my time. The world had learned to be cynical. To be trusting was to be a victim. To be fair was to be foolish. Virtue and corruption were at constant odds. Honorable men had to fight to be recognized, and still were doubted by other honorable men.
“I am not saying that I was personally unhappy in my world, Thanasset. I wasn’t. But in Raithskar I don’t feel so pressured and defensive. Sure, Zaddorn may believe that you and I have committed a dishonest act. But he suspects that only because something—mistakenly—leads him to believe it, not because he naturally suspects everybody’s motives. And when we prove him wrong, he will accept that proof and trust us as much as he did before all this happened.
“You asked if people had ‘progressed’ since my time, Thanasset. I can’t really judge that. But I will tell you this—I believe that people are more naturally honest in Raithskar than in my world.
“I have never met a more honorable man than you are. Whatever brought me into Markasset’s body, I am proud to be known as your son.”
13
Thanasset stared at me, no less astonished than I at what I had said. I have never been one to confuse sentiment with emotion, and I know that that moment might have been one of the most emotional of my two lives.
But it was interrupted.
There was a loud banging on the door, followed just a bit too soon by Milda literally running down the front stairway to open the door. Illia fell through, sobbing, and Milda caught her around the shoulders. Illia reached out toward me, saying “Markasset” over and over again, until Milda shook her into silence.