The Search for Kä Read online

  Tarani hesitated.

  “Serkajon,” I pleaded. “It can’t take much time. If we don’t learn anything—then I’ll give up.”

  She did not verbalize consent, but we moved along the arc once more. Without warning, we were Serkajon, skipping through his lifememory.

  We were collapsed in the high part of the Alkhum Pass, struggling ever more weakly to breathe. We were thinking of the Valley beyond, imagining the pleasure of riding a sha’um. Suddenly, we thought of our father, and of his memory of us as one who had failed. We rallied against the vision, conserved our breath, began to crawl.

  We led the Sharith cubs in a training exercise, and felt their unity and symmetry as an extension of ourselves. Everyone in the Sharith functioned as a part of the group, willingly shouldering part of the responsibility. We wondered why it could not be so in the Kingdom. We thought of the slaves who labored in the grain fields, tilling and carrying water to the dry earth that yielded less every year. We remembered the times we had walked with Harthim in his garden, and listened to him talk of government. He had made it seem reasonable and necessary, for the good of Gandalara, and we had been satisfied—until we rode through the fields again.

  We began to move faster through the scenario that was Serkajon’s lifememory… .

  We became Captain… .

  We tried to explain Harthim’s policies to the Sharith, but were hampered by our own lack of understanding… .

  We watched the slaves, and wondered how they could bear such a life. We saw one man explode with anger, dropping and spilling the precious load of water he was bringing from ther reservoir, which had been filled from the Skarkel River. We watched him attack his supervisor, who stepped back and readied his sword. We watched him stop, shake his head, mutter an apology, retrieve his water sack, and turn back toward the reservoir. We puzzled over it, thinking that the man had acted as if someone controlled his thoughts… .

  We understood… .

  We were Zanek.

  18

  The shock of discovery jarred Tarani out of Serkajon’s lifememory. “Zanek returned as a Visitor to Serkajon’s body?” she said, her Recorder composure momentarily shattered. “Surely if anyone had known that, it would be remembered in legend as well as the All-Mind.”

  “Obviously, it was kept secret. But it explains why Serkajon knew about the Ra’ira’s power. And if such a thing is possible at all, there is a definite logic to Zanek using the body and position of a man who was sympathetic to his own ideals.”

  Tarani recovered, and plunged us back into the lifememory that had been assumed by Zanek.

  We were surprised to be once again in the world, but we quickly understood that we were needed. We kept ourselves hidden, and wore Serkajon as a mask against the Ra’ira’s power. We were curious that Harthim saw the Captain’s discontent, and addressed it with words, but that he made no effort to control it. Once, in the King’s presence, we used the Ra’ira to see Harthim’s thoughts.

  From that moment, we no longer hated the King, or despised him for the way in which he ruled the Kingdom we had created. Harthim was acting only according to his training. He had been raised amid dissatisfaction and distrust, for which we bore more charge than Harthim.

  We had exercised our vision shortsightedly. Had we not placed Kä at the edge of the Great Pleth, even though we had been the one to perceive that the deserts were growing because the pleths were shrinking? Those who followed us as Kings had been loyal to our vision, but blind to our failing. As the lifegiving water of the Great Pleth had retreated through the years, sustaining Kä had become a heavier burden. Now it stood isolated in desert, its continued life bought at a terrible cost.

  We saw that Harthim recognized in Serkajon an integrity and sense of purpose that was missing in his own friendless life and that, in a pure and true sense, the King loved his Captain. He wished to believe his love and loyalty were returned; Harthim never tested Serkajon with the Ra’ira.

  We did not hate Harthim, and we wasted no guilt on ourselves, but resolved to act. The Kingdom was useless as it now existed; what we had created, we would destroy. We became a thief, and abused the Ra’ira ourselves in pressing sleep and forgetfulness upon Harthim when he discovered us.

  We took the Ra’ira to Raithskar, and threw it into the forge fires of the rakor foundry. The treacherous jewel emerged unharmed. We realized that the power of the best leaders in Raithskar and tested them. To those men alone, we revealed the secret of the Kingdom’s power, and we pledged them to keep it ever safe from such use.

  We skipped through the period still remembered in Raithskarian and Sharith legend, when the Riders had abandoned Harthim. I was curious as to whether Zanek had used the Ra’ira’s power to influence their decision, but I was willing to leave that curiosity unsatisfied.

  We were back in Kä, some years later. We went to the audience hall, and viewed the wall where the Bronze had been mounted. The wall was broken in several places; removing the mountings had been no simple task, and had left sections of stone shattered. We remembered the Bronze and its message, and regretted that it had been so poorly heeded.

  We wished a silent and personal farewell to the Kingdom, and turned away. Our food struck a fallen tapestry, and we stumbled. We lifted the weaving to study it—and rakor gleamed beneath it. Harthim’s sword, discarded during the King’s flight, had lain here all this time, providentially hidden beneath this torn and worthless wall hanging.

  We lifted the sword and mourned, for ourself and for Serkajon, the shattering of our bond. We knew the value of the weapon, but we also knew its history. It had been the King’s sword, as potent a symbol as the Ra’ira, and we thought it best that this symbol, too, should disappear from sight.

  As we looked about the room, we noticed the broken areas of the wall, and went to investigate. The wall was thick, built three stones deep, so that the breakage had only affected the first layer, creating depressions no deeper than two hand-spans—far too shallow to admit the sword. There were two entire surface stones missing, separated by a section of rock still intact. The pattern of three would have been directly under the lower left corner of the Bronze.

  We used a heavy piece of rock to break up the remaining stone, and cleared it out of the wall. We pressed the sword of rakor into the long vertical opening: it lodged securely. Then we began to repack the opening with chunks of rock, flatter stones held in place with sharper-edged pieces. We pounded the covering when it was finished, to even the surface slightly and to force the outermost edges of the mass into what mortar still clung to the boundary stones.

  We stepped back to survey the work. The patching could not be mistaken for a part of the original wall, to be sure, but its placement made it less noticeable, and we felt the sword was well concealed from any but a knowing search.

  We felt a rare and clean sense of satisfaction, and a dawning peace. We realized that the task for which we had returned was complete.

  We were Serkajon once more. We remembered all that Zanek had done, and approved. We left Kä, and considered it truly abandoned.

  Tarani pulled me away from the lifememory of Serkajon/Zanek, and we sped dizzily through the tangle of glowing cylinders to the edge of the sphere. She had to pause there to soothe her excitement and eagerness into the measured calm of a Recorder. In a moment, she said: “I shall withdraw our minds from the All-Mind.”

  The brilliant glow faded into darkness, and I felt union with my body again; it felt stiff and awkward.

  “And mine from yours,” Tarani ended the ritual, and I was alone.

  I sat up and started rubbing my arms and legs with hands that took their own sweet time in becoming responsive. My inner awareness and the dimmer light in the room told me it was late afternoon, and the relative speed with which feeling was coming back to my flesh confirmed it was the same afternoon in which we had entered the All-Mind. Tarani and I had been “gone” from our bodies only a few hours.

  Tarani’s eagerness—or
determination—sent her crawling toward the back wall of the chamber as soon as she woke. Her movement was clumsy at first, but soon became more efficient. I stood and followed her.

  The vertical patch of smaller stones was very close to the floor, and seemed to rise from the other rubble piled around its base. I had seen the place on my first look around the room, and had merely assumed that the top of the pile had fallen in a peculiarly vertical arrangement.

  Tarani and I cleared the rock fragments form the base of the wall and began to pry and pull at the small rocks. A few came free in our hands; a few more could be worried out with our daggers. It seemed as if an eternity had passed while we knelt there, but it really took us only a few minutes to move the stones that would move.

  We had opened small areas at the top and bottom of the patch, but the center of it was effectively blocked by a large flat stone wedged in between the original stones at either side. Its strong purchase served as an anchor for most of the smaller stones above and below it. Neither of the openings we had made were large enough to admit a hand, and it would clearly be impossible to maneuver the sword out of the opening with that center stone still in place.

  Tarani glanced at the doorway of the room, which was the only source of light—the room beyond seemed to be a reception hallway, with many windows, but the audience hall would have needed constant lamplight. It was perceptibly more dim in the room now, and my inner awareness told me we had very little time until dark. This room would be pitch black, and with all our other planning, we had brought nothing with which to make light—not a lamp, not a candle, not even a sparker (assuming we might be able to find something burnable in this ruined city). Fires were unnecessary as a source of warmth, and we had packed dried or long-lasting food for the journey. A sha’um could run even through the moonless darkness, guided as well by his sense of smell as by his eyesight.

  Tarani turned back to me, her face tight and strained. “Rikardon, I do not wish to spend the night in speculation.”

  I nodded, and edged her out of the way. I put the blade of my bronze dagger into the upper opening, braced it and pulled, trying to break the tension of the covering rocks by forcing them outward.

  The dagger snapped.

  It was perceptibly darker in the room.

  I drew Rika, and put its point into the opening. It was conceivable that the edge might be dulled against the rock, but the tempered steel promised the capability of applying more pressure. The opening was awkwardly shaped, and the lever advantage of the sword severely limited by the proportions of blade inside and outside the concealing hollow.

  I braced the point of the sword and pulled. A few stones dislodged, skittering to the floor around my feet. Their leaving enlarged the opening slightly, and another effort cleared away most of the smaller rocks above the flat center stone. I could put my hand inside and touch the blade of the sword, but my fingers could not grip it. The opening was placed where blade met hilt on the concealed sword; the hilt itself was still blocked at the uppermost area of the patch.

  I removed my hand, and slipped Rika’s blade through the opening, forcing it as far down into the hiding space as it would go. I was satisfied that outward pressure, now, would apply directly to the retaining center stone.

  Tarani, who had watched me work, now joined me at the wall, and our four hands found secure purchase on Rika’s hilt or on one another.

  We pulled together, grimacing against the strain. I was afraid that even the tempered steel would break, but it held, bending slightly.

  Nothing moved.

  We caught our breath and pulled again. This time, we were encouraged by a small grating sound.

  We had light and energy left for one last try, and Tarani and I prepared for it carefully. I held Rika’s hilt and helped support her weight as she swung her legs off the floor. She braced her feet against the wall on one side of the stubborn center stone. When she was in position, I placed my left foot against the wall on the other side of the patch, directly opposite her feet.

  We pulled, expressing the cost of the effort in a grim, moaning sound.

  The stone hitched, moved again, then let go. I heard it crash and slide on the fragment-littered floor as I was doing the same thing, several feet away from the wall. Tarani had flown even farther across the room, but we both scrambled back to the patch and worked furiously to clear away what was left of the lower covering.

  When it was done, I waited for Tarani to reach into the hiding place and retrieve the sword. She knelt beside me in the dust, her hands flat against her thighs. It was nearly dark, but I could follow her movement as her hands moved toward the opening and stopped.

  “Not in the dark,” she said suddenly. “Rikardon, bring it outside, into the clean air.” Without waiting for my consent, she stood up and ran for the dim gray rectangle that was the door of the room.

  I reached in at the freshly cleared base of the opening, which was at floor level, and worked my fingers carefully around the still-sharp edge of the sword. I pulled at the point until it scraped forward. Guided now by touch rather than sight, I jockeyed the steel blade until the point emerged from the wall, then rocked and turned and twisted and pulled until the hilt came free of its encasement.

  I put Rika back through my baldric, and walked cautiously across the rock-strewn floor, carrying the Sword of Kings. My hands had tingled when my fingers first had touched it, but there was no special sensation now, and I attributed that earlier reaction to the memory of Rika’s effect on me.

  What will this do to—or for—Tarani and Antonia? I wondered.

  Tarani was waiting for me in the huge square that fronted the audience hall. Diffused moonlight provided fair lighting, though shadows were deceptive and perspectives slightly altered by the silvery quality of the light. This place was very similar to Raithskar’s main square, with stone pavement and an occasional bench. I laid the sword down on one of the benches.

  “There it is,” I said. “What we came for.”

  “For different reasons,” Tarani amended. She stood on the other side of the bench, her hands pressed tightly together in front of her. “Did you ever believe in my reasons?” she demanded.

  “Yes and no,” I replied. “I believed what you told me, that the sword existed and that you needed it as a tangible symbol of your right to rule Eddarta.”

  “But you did not believe—” she prompted.

  “You know what my reasons were,” I said. “I was never sure that you weren’t working, subconsciously, for my goal, and that the political value of the sword wasn’t merely a rationalization.”

  “You mean you thought the other was moving me,” Tarani exploded, “and I was searching for a logical reason for my actions.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean,” I snapped, then drew several deep breaths. “Tarani, anger won’t help either one of us,” I said at last. “What bothers you more—knowing that someone else has lived inside you and guided you? Or not knowing her and how she can affect your actions?’

  “Both things trouble me,” Tarani said, “but not so much as the knowledge that you knew her, that you know her now, and that you did not warn me of her presence.”

  “I accept fault in that, Tarani. It was fear that kept me silent. To tell you about Antonia, I had to tell you the truth about myself and make you aware that I had lied to you. Your trust and faith are precious to me, and I was afraid to risk them. I knew, too, that knowledge of Antonia would disturb you and make you distrust yourself. When I first learned about Antonia, I could not offer you even the hope of ending the duality.”

  “When you learned—” she echoed. “When did you learn about her?”

  I hesitated.

  “Rikardon? No more deception.”

  “I had no idea she was here, until we arrived in Eddarta. There was a moment when we were very close… .”

  “And you turned away,” she said, her voice suddenly gentle and sad. “It might have been best to tell me then—it could have caused n
o deeper pain.”

  “I was shocked, and confused,” I apologized. “I was just beginning to see what Antonia’s hidden presence must have meant to you.”

  “How aid you recognize her?” she asked.

  “She called me by the name I carried in that other world,” I said, then shrugged. “Tarani, what is the point of all this discussion?”

  “The point is,” she began angrily, then stopped. “Rikardon, I am frightened. I believe I can pinpoint the other times at which the one called Antonia has spoken to you. They were moments of passion, words of caring, were they not?”

  I nodded. “Until she appeared just before we entered the All-Mind,” I confirmed.

  “Knowledge of her has given me more understanding,” she said, walking closer to the bench. “Outside of Thagorn, when I cried out with all my voice and mind against the frustration and loss and despair I have suffered, I know now that I was expressing her frustration, her loss, her despair, as well as mine.”

  She gestured toward the sword. “I, too, desire the oneness you say this sword may give me. I do, desperately, wish for an end to the uncertainty about what touching the sword will do. But before I commit myself to whatever change may occur, there is one more truth I must know.”

  “Ask it,” I said.

  “The caring we have shared, you and I. Is—is any part of it truly mine?”

  “All of it,” I said. “I admit to being unsure on that point, myself, for a while. But I am sure now.” I went around the bench to be close to her. I touched her face, nearly at a level with my own. “If you and Antonia become blended to any degree, you will know that I love you, Tarani—because she knows it. I can only tell you so, and your believing it depends on whether I have totally destroyed your trust.”

  She came into my arms and held me tightly for a moment, pressing her face into my shoulder. Then she stepped away.