The River Wall Page 15

  “Surely you have wondered why there is no physical reason for your illness,” I said. “You are not ill—but your sha’um are. You are feeling what they feel.”

  One man tried to sit up, but had to fall back to a propped elbow.

  “It is real,” he gasped.

  “Of course its real,” I replied grimly. “The sha’um are in terrible danger—and so are you. If they die, you may be released from the illness—or you may die with them.”

  A wordless clamor rose around me, and I knew what was running through their minds. I would have the same thought—that death might be preferable to living on without the friendship bond of a sha’um.

  A hand gripped my arm, and I looked down to see Thymas climbing up beside me.

  “Silence!” he commanded, and obedience was startlingly immediate. “The Captain brings us understanding, but he has brought hope, as well. If there is such danger, then there is no time to waste in worry. Listen to him, help him, obey him.”

  The boy stepped back down, and everyone in the room looked at me expectantly. As always, their trust frightened me. But this time, as never before, I realized that I represented their only hope of help, and the cost of failure could be no worse than the cost of failing to try.

  “Bareff!” I called. “Are the others out there?”

  A silhouette appeared in the doorway through which Tarani and I had entered what was left of the Great Hall.

  “We’re all here, Captain,” Bareff assured me, in his deep voice.

  “Ask them to come in—warn them of the uncertain footing.”

  While the others filed into the Hall and stepped carefully over the irregular floor to distribute themselves around the marble dais, I squatted down and spoke quietly to Thymas. He, in turn, spoke quietly to one of the Riders, then returned to the dais to report.

  “Dharak is here,” the boy told me, nodding to the left. I looked, and saw Shola, Thymas’s mother, moving slowly and leading a man with thick white hair and a totally blank expression. When I looked back at Thymas, the boy asked me: “Is Doral already dead?”

  “I have no way of knowing about Dharak’s sha’um,” I answered. “Have you seen any change at all in your father since the—” Not for the first time, I stumbled over the Ricardo concept for which there was no word in Rikardon’s language. “Since the ground shook?”

  Thymas shook his head. “There is no difference that I can see,” he said.

  “Then there is no reason to believe that Doral is dead,” I answered.

  “Can you help Dharak?” Thymas asked, glancing at me only briefly before staring off in the direction of the door.

  “I don’t know whether he is still within reach.” I put my hand on the young Lieutenant’s shoulder. “You know I’ll do whatever I can.” He nodded, and I stood up.

  With the entire contingent of Sharith occupying it, the big room was only about a quarter full. The Hall had been built to accommodate sha’um as well as men, but only people were attending this meeting. Everyone fell silent as I stood up.

  Briefly, I explained to the people who had just arrived what I had already said to the ill Riders—that the sha’um were in danger, and that their danger was causing the illness. There was fear in the faces I could see in the flickering lamplight as I finished the briefing.

  “I want you to understand this clearly,” I said. “These men are suffering because a few sha’um are ill—but all the sha’um are in danger. The poison in the air is a temporary thing, and even the sick sha’um may recover. But the ash and dust that are drifting into the Valley will destroy the plants and small animals, which will mean that the animals hunted by the sha’um will not be able to survive. In a very short time, the sha’um will have no food, no shelter, most likely poisoned water. There will be no more Valley. There will be no more sha’um, except those which are living here, with us.

  “The solution is obvious—the sha’um need to abandon their Valley and live somewhere else. Here. If not with us, then in the hills around us. But the sha’um don’t understand their danger, they only know they are ill. If you don’t feel well, what do you do? You go home, to your own bed, and find some comfort in familiar surroundings.

  “The sha’um will cling to the Valley in their illness, and that clinging will destroy them. We know the truth. We have to help them.”

  I held out my hand to Tarani. She hesitated only a moment before handing her lantern to someone close by and climbing up to stand beside me on the marble block.

  “In the past, only one thing has persuaded a sha’um to leave the Valley—a bond between a male sha’um cub and a Sharith boy. It is my feeling that the most effective means of persuasion is for as many of us to attempt bonding with sha’um as can be done. Tarani’s bond to Yayshah has proved two things. First, adults—both sha’um and Sharith—can achieve a bond. Second, those adults do not have to be male.”

  17

  I did nothing to forestall the murmur of response to that statement, which quickly grew to a roar. I heard, and could sense, in that response a rich mixture of attitude and mood: question, challenge, denial, fear, acceptance, bewilderment, approval. It was the sound of people accepting paradox, and learning that the only way to maintain a cherished custom—more than that, the only way to continue their way of life—was to change it, utterly and permanently.

  After a moment, I lifted my hand, and the Sharith quieted.

  “Do you believe what I have told you?” I asked.

  “The danger, yes!” someone called out.

  “But not the solution?” I demanded. “Because you don’t think it’s possible? Or,” I added with emphasis, “because you don’t think it’s right?”

  Tarani’s hand tightened on mine. I took the signal, and stepped aside to allow her to take the center place on the dais.

  “Or because half of you are afraid?” she asked, her voice ringing out. “Not of being killed, but of becoming different, of changing from what you have been?”

  Some people moved, and a woman stepped out into the cleared area in front of the gathered Sharith.

  “You were able to bond with Yayshah because you are mindgifted,” the young woman said. “I have no such gift.” The words were more a question than a challenge, the girl’s whole attitude more hopeful than despairing.

  “Ulla, is it?” Tarani asked. The girl nodded. “Are you not wed to a Rider, Ulla?”

  “Yes,” Ulla said, reaching back into the crowd and dragging out a man in Sharith uniform, a young man. “Virram and I are wed, and …”

  “And?” Tarani prompted.

  “And … our child grows within me.”

  I almost burst out laughing at the double take the boy did at that announcement. The crowd did laugh, and both Virram and Ulla blushed. Virram stepped closer to Ulla, and put his arm around her.

  “Then she must take more care of this new life,” he said, with a serious firmness, “and not take the risk you propose.”

  “Is that not her own choice, Virram?” Tarani asked, but did not wait for an answer. “And what of your child, a son perhaps? Would you deny him the chance to bond to a sha’um of his own?”

  It was Tarani’s turn to reach out to me, and I took her hand and came closer.

  “You are right, Ulla, in saying that my bond with Yayshah was achieved because I have a special gift. Yet it was not mindgift that brought me Yayshah’s trust. It was the caring and trust and experience of this man, whose bond to Yayshah’s mate insured my protection against physical assault. It was that which gave me the opportunity, and the time, to win Yayshah’s regard. Look at Virram. Has he any mindgift?”

  “Not a trace,” she answered promptly, bringing another ripple of laughter from his fellow Riders.

  “If a man needs no mindgift to bond with a sha’um,” Tarani asked, “then why should a woman have need of one?”

  Tarani’s explanation of her own bonding had surprised me, but it made a lot of sense. I felt sure her mindgift had been involved du
ring the at-a-distance, subconscious bonding she had experienced, but there was a lot of logic to the idea that a female would bond more readily to the mate of her own mate’s Rider.

  *Keeshah, are you close by?*

  *Yes.*

  *Come to the north door, and wait for me to call.*

  *Yes.*

  Tarani had paused to allow the Sharith to consider her question, and I spoke into that pause.

  “The sha’um are in danger, but they also are a danger—to us. Those of you who have been to the Valley know what I’m saying.” Heads—riding above tan Sharith uniforms—nodded agreement. “The sha’um protect their territory fiercely. They are ill now, but no less dangerous. They are afraid, and will react more quickly to anything they perceive as danger. There will be fighting in the Valley. But, for the most part, it will not be Sharith fighting sha’um—except in the sense that sha’um who have Riders are, themselves, Sharith.”

  There was a stunned silence. Then a Rider’s voice echoed forward from somewhere near the door. “They will not do it,” the Rider said.

  “Not what?” I asked. “Not take us there? Or not fight the others?” I held up my hand. “It doesn’t matter which you meant,” I said. “Because they will do both things.

  “It is essential that you stop thinking about yourselves and your sha’um as you ‘have always been,’” I urged. “Dharak talked of change; you have felt it; it is happening. This is part of it.”

  “With respect, Captain,” called the same voice, “how can you promise what my sha’um will or will not do?”

  I let myself smile. “I have it,” I said, “on the best authority.”

  I gestured toward the huge north doorway; unlike the northern entrance, both north doors stood open to let the air in.

  *Come in, Keeshah.*

  The big cat appeared in the doorway and paused to look around. I choked back a laugh. He knew exactly where I was, but he stood there anyway, his massive body silhouetted against the gray of the doorway, reflection of lamplight winking on one gleaming tusk and glinting from the heart of one gray-green eye.

  *Great entrance, Keeshah,* I told him. *You’re turning into quite a showman.*

  *Important,* he said gravely, almost scolding me.

  I accepted the scolding meekly, and turned my attention back to the Sharith, every one of whom was watching Keeshah. “Keeshah understands. He has made the same commitment I am asking of you—to go into the Valley and, if there is no other way, to drive the sha’um out. He does this for our sake—so that our children may Ride. He does it, also, for the sake of the sha’um—so that sha’um children may share a bond with Riders.

  “Are you listening, my friends? Keeshah understands. So will your sha’um understand, and accept this need, if you can make that commitment.”

  Keeshah moved into the room and, to my surprise, Yayshah stepped in right behind him. The two sha’um stepped carefully over the men on the pallets and waited for people to move aside, so that they could crouch down on either side of the dais. Thymas stepped up on the marble slab behind Tarani and me, to give the sha’um equal places at our sides.

  “Yayshah,” Tarani said, “also understands, and accepts. I will go to the Valley, as must all Riders. She commits not only her strength and will to this task, but consents to taking her cubs, as well.”

  I controlled my start of surprise. Tarani and I had not discussed this, and my first instinct was to leave the cubs behind. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, however, two voices were there to protest it.

  *Want to go!* Yoshah said.

  *Important!* said Koshah, in much the same tones his father had used.

  I had never fathered children, but I suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for the fathers I had known. I had few real facts about the lifecycle of the sha’um, but I was beginning to suspect that Koshah and Yoshah were about to enter the equivalent of their teenage years, even though they were only a few months old.

  It was sign enough of their growing up that their verbal and mind skills had developed to the point that they could hover unnoticed at the edge of my consciousness, listen to my speech and thought, and understand content as well as emotion. There was further confirmation in the sense of resolution I got from them. More than stubbornness or eagerness for a new adventure, I felt that they did, truly, understand, and would not be denied the opportunity to make a contribution. I could tell them to stay behind, but even if Yayshah tried to give them the same orders, it would never work. They would be eyesight-distance behind us (or ahead of us) all the way to the Valley.

  *Yes, you may come with us,* I said, conscious of the irony of giving permission where denying it would be pointless. *Now let me concentrate here, please *

  “Tell your sha’um what is happening,” I urged the Riders. “Tell them what we have to do, and why. If they continue to hesitate, tell them—” I bent over slightly, and smoothed the short fur between Keeshah’s eyes and ears with my hand. “Tell them that Keeshah understands, and agrees.”

  There was a moment in which voices were quiet but there was a lot of foot-shuffling, as the Riders in the group spoke mind-to-mind to their sha’um, and the people around them turned to watch the outward sign of the several, separate communions. Bodies grew still, eyes went out of focus, expressions went lax. The few seconds seemed to be an hour, and I jumped as if I had been shot when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

  Thymas pushed me aside, breaking my hold on Tarani’s hand, and leaped forward.

  “Ronar will come,” Thymas cried triumphantly. “Who else?”

  Suddenly the Hall was filled with male voices shouting out names as each Rider confirmed the agreement of his sha’um. When the babel had died down, Thymas whirled to face me.

  “All the sha’um are with us,” he said, his eyes glowing with pride. “But the illness will grow worse with time, will it not?” I nodded. “Then we must travel quickly—which means we must Ride.” He gestured to the people in the room. “Not all the Sharith may come. Will you choose?”

  “I will not choose,” I said. “The choice is dictated by the situation. First, the Riders whose sha’um are in the Valley must come, for they already have a bond. It will be easier, I think, to awaken a sleeping bond than to establish a new one.”

  “I would give my life to go,” said an older man, lying in the row of pallets nearest me. “But I—I am so weak.”

  “And reluctant, perhaps, to ride another man’s sha’um?” I asked gently.

  He started to say something, then looked away and nodded.

  “I believe your weakness can be helped, and that your sha’um’s life is more important than your pride,” I said. “However many of the ill Riders are able must come. All others should be women.”

  Again the front edge of the crowd was jostled from behind, and a boy of ten or eleven shoved his way out. Ulla and Virram, who still stood a bit forward of the mass of people, looked at him curiously.

  “I am of the age to go to the Valley,” he said, “and there are others like me. Let us go.”

  “No,” I said firmly, to a chorus of objections from both young voices and the older voices of Riders. “We are not going to the Valley to bring out as many bonded sha’um as possible,” I explained. “We will try to bring all of them out. Yayshah left the Valley because of two bonds—one to Tarani, and one to her mate. If there had been only one of those bonds, I wonder whether she would have had the courage to leave.”

  Tarani spoke up.

  “Keeshah and Yayshah and their cubs will be an example for the Valley sha’um, but more than one example will be needed,” she explained. “The more family units which agree, of their own will, to follow us from the Valley, the less resistance the others will have.”

  “First choice of the women to go will be those who are married to the Riders whose sha’um are already there,” I said. “If our sha’um can carry more than those two groups of people, then women who are married to the unaffected Riders may come.”

/>   A voice called out from the crowd. “My sha’um has consented to carry three; he is strong enough.”

  I shook my head. “To get there, perhaps,” I said, “but not to go quickly and arrive with most of his strength. No more than two per sha’um; that will give us the best balance between speed and people.”

  “And the Riders who are ill?” Thymas prompted. “You said they might be helped.”

  I stepped down from the dais, waited for Tarani to join me, and walked into the midst of the pallets. “Your bonds to your sha’um are buried deeply in your minds, and in theirs. I know what you are feeling; I have been through it. My bond was brought back to the surface because I felt such fear and need and loneliness for Keeshah that he could sense it through that unfelt link.

  “I had held the small hope that once you accepted that your sha’um are sick, you could break the bad part of the bond, and make yourselves well. I see that it hasn’t worked that way.

  “I propose a gamble, and I won’t hide the stakes from you. If it works the way I think it will, you will reach your sha’um, free your bodies of their pain, reestablish your bond as it was before the sha’um left, and send them a warning of their danger. Their instincts will still rule, and you won’t be able merely to call them out of the Valley. But I think you can tell them to find some high ground, and move as little as possible before we get there. They will be stronger, then, and less ill than the rest, so that if they can be persuaded, they can help us with the others.”

  “And if it—whatever it is—does not work the way you expect, Captain?” asked a man lying in the corner.

  “Then your bodies will be free of the pain you share with the sha’um—but you will also destroy the bond altogether.”

  I heard the Riders in the crowd utter a gasp of fear, almost in unison, but I ignored them. These men on the floor all around me were the key to the entire plan—unless they could persuade at least some of the sha’um in the Valley to come out of their own free will, I doubted that the Thagorn sha’um were powerful enough, in themselves, to force the colony of sha’um out of the Valley.