The River Wall Read online

  As I watched Tarani’s hand wander through the ruff of tan fur behind the young males head, I noticed—with some alarm—how thin her hand was, the pale skin pulled so tightly across her knuckles that I seemed to see the bone in fact as well as in outline.

  Suddenly, I was angry—intensely, righteously, furiously angry.

  It wasn’t that Ricardo Carillo and Antonia Alderuccio had been snatched away from their own world and reborn in Gandalaran bodies. Those people had been dying in their own world, and we could only be grateful for our new lives as Rikardon and Tarani.

  Nor was I angry because Tarani and I could not merely settle down and enjoy our extended lives. We had discussed this on several occasions, and I think we both felt that our commitment to removing the threat of the Ra’ira was fair, a service in trade for a priceless gift.

  What bothered me now was the way we had been forced to fulfill that commitment, with the rules changing every step of the way. I thought of how much time, travel, stress, exhaustion, and pain we might have been saved, had we known at the beginning what we had only days ago learned: that the gemstone stolen from Raithskar had been a fake, an excellent glass imitation made by the same Volitar of whom Tarani had spoken with such respect. Gharlas, an ambitious and bitter relative of Pylomel, had blackmailed Volitar into making two copies of the Ra’ira. In Raithskar, Gharlas had lost one, then unwittingly had stolen it back, thinking it to be the true Ra’ira. That was the stone for which Tarani and I had crossed the length of Gandalara three times.

  Our enemy was not Gharlas, but the man who controlled him, someone who knew and could use the true and long-hidden power of the odd blue stone.

  Many Gandalarans had talents known as mindgifts, which allowed people to affect the minds of other creatures. Some could superimpose a mental image over another’s normal vision. Maufel, Gandalaran bird-handlers, used a technique like that to direct their message-carrying birds to the correct location. Tarani had used that skill liberally in her entertainment troupe, and had won unique recognition as an “illusionist.”

  Stronger and more dangerous was the mindgift of “compulsion,” in which the gifted (or more strongly gifted) individual controlled the behavior of another person. That skill could extend to autonomous physical functions, like breathing. Compulsion could kill.

  The Ra’ira acted as an amplifier to make all those gifts even more effective. It also granted a mindgift totally unknown without it—the ability for one person to actually see and control the thoughts of another person. That power had been used well by Zanek, the First King of Gandalara. It had been used in less beneficial ways by his successors, until Zanek had returned in Serkajon’s body to steal the Ra’ira from Harthim, the Last King.

  The stone had been kept idle and securely guarded in Raithskar, until some enterprising Supervisor had discovered that most of the menial labor in the city could be accomplished by the apelike vineh, under the control of a Supervisor using the Ra’ira. The stone’s power had found use again, and the people of Raithskar, all unwittingly, had become dependent on that power.

  This was not the first time I had felt angry about the teasing way the truth had unfolded itself. Rut until now I had been able only to rail at “fate” or “destiny” or “chance.” Now I knew that the mistakes, the misdirections, the pressures … the thinness of Tarani’s hand—all these had been caused, in the final analysis, by the intricate scheming and deception of one man.

  It was through the All-Mind that Tarani and I had finally recognized our enemy. With Tarani as Recorder, she and I had shared the thoughts and emotions and experience of an ancestor of Gharlas’s. There we had learned of a strongly mindgifted Lord named Tinis, who had proved to be dangerous and who had excellent reason to crave vengeance against the Lords of Eddarta.

  Later, we had discovered a sketch of Tinis. The sketch traveled with us, riding in Tarani’s travel pack. The man who had been called Tinis as a boy was now known in Raithskar as Ferrathyn. He was the Chief Supervisor of the Council of Supervisors. He seemed a kindly, caring old man.

  Ferrathyn was practicing a double deception. The people of Raithskar thought the vineh had gone wild because of a new and uncontrolled illness. The Supervisors thought they were merely reacting to freedom from the Ra’ira’s control. Neither was true.

  The Ra’ira had never left Raithskar, and most of the vineh were still under its control. A red fury swept over me as I thought of it. The terror and devastation in Raithskar was being inflicted deliberately, and not by the vineh. They were merely agents. People were being hurt and killed because of the ambition of one man.

  Tinis of Rusal.

  Ferrathyn.

  Our enemy.

  *Let go,* Keeshah told me, a note of complaint in his mindvoice.

  I was lying on the big cats back, leaning over to the left to scratch at Yoshah’s head. My other arm was laid out in front of me, the hand braced around Keeshah’s shoulder to anchor me. In physical reaction to the strong emotion, that hand had clenched, pinching fur and skin.

  *I’m sorry, Keeshah,* I said, and relaxed my hand.

  I gave Yoshah’s head one final pat, and heaved myself upward to balance more naturally on her fathers back. The cubs displeasure at my quitting reached me through our link. Yoshah shook her head and dropped back briefly as she brought one hind foot forward to scratch her ear one more time. Then she trotted out ahead of us and began to nose along the tall growth that lined the riverbank.

  “Go. Follow your sister,” Tarani said to Koshah, and took her hand away.

  The male cub was already on his way. He caught up with Yoshah and nipped lightly at her flank, eliciting a yowl and a swat. Then both of them began to prowl the edge of the bamboolike growth, occasionally poking a head through the reeds briefly before trotting on to a new place, farther along the road.

  When the cubs left, Yayshah and Keeshah moved closer together, and for a while Tarani and I rode in a quiet, close silence. Then I said: “Thank you for coming back with me.”

  Tarani stared at me for a moment, her dark eyes lustrous against the paleness of her skin. “It was a difficult decision,” she admitted. “I truly feel as if I have abandoned my own children, at their time of greatest need.”

  “What you have started will continue while you are gone,” I assured her, with more confidence than I felt. “And your coming back to Raithskar with me is as much for Eddarta as for Raithskar.”

  “I hope so,” she said, her voice sounding odd.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she said, smiling a little sadly, “that I hope my choice was real—the reasons logical and right—and that I did not deceive myself.”

  “Deceive yourself?” I echoed, confused. “How?”

  “By telling myself that my ‘destiny’ lies with you,” she answered quietly, “when it is only my love, and fear of being without you, that brought me out of Eddarta.”

  “Fear? Of being without me?” I stammered. “But you—didn’t you—you’re the one who suggested I go back alone.”

  “I suggested it,” she admitted. “I did not say I would enjoy it.”

  I reached across the distance between us, but Tarani was too fast for me. With a laugh, she threw herself forward into the true riding position, and Yayshah leaped ahead.

  *Catch her, Keeshah,* I said—begging, rather than ordering. Keeshah responded with a surge of speed that nearly unseated me, and a feeling of joy that was a mixture of his own pleasure in the chase and amusement at the turmoil of emotions he must have felt from me.

  I caught a glimpse of the cubs, looking around in surprise as their parents barreled past them. The rounded points of their ears aimed backward as they quested, with mind and nose, for some source of danger.

  *lt’s all right,* I reassured them. *Follow at your own speed; we’ll wait for you to catch up.*

  *Can keep up,* Koshah insisted, and started to run after us.

  *No,* I said sharply, then spared my full attention
to reach out to both of them with a mental hug. *Take your time, and follow when you feel like it. We won’t be far*

  I suffered a momentary uneasiness about leaving the cubs on their own. Don’t be stupid, I scolded myself. There’s no question of them getting lost—their sense of smell is as keen as Keeshah’s. If nothing else, I can guide them to us through our mindlink. And I can’t believe I’d be worried about them getting hurt. Who’s going to mess with kittens with that much tooth and claw?

  While Yayshah followed the road, Keeshahs marginally longer stride narrowed the females lead. When Yayshah’s dark tail seemed to float in the air beside Keeshah’s head, Tarani directed the female to veer off into a dakathrenil orchard, where Yayshah’s slightly smaller size yielded a distinct advantage in maneuverability.

  I noticed that the fur along Yayshah’s tail was fluffed slightly, and I took it for a sign of Tarani’s mood. My reaction probably translated through Keeshah’s mind to fluff his tail, as well.

  Yayshah dodged among the trees, keeping Tarani just out of my reach. Tarani’s back skimmed beneath branches that might have given me a concussion, if Keeshah had not been watchful of my safety. As it was, I had to protect my head and face with my arms, until the sleeves of my tunic were redolent with the nutty odor of the trees.

  I took an extra risk and lifted my head to look around. Through the whipping branches, I saw that this orchard followed the pattern of most others I had seen.

  Most orchards had a system of groves, or fields, in which the trees were planted in successive years, so that one field would reach maturity each year. The sha’um were in one of the older fields; we had run across an open space that marked the area where the trees had already been harvested. To the north was the next field, with less mature trees.

  At my direction, Keeshah began to herd Yayshah northward. The division between the fields was obvious, and Tarani gave a small cry as Yayshah carried her into an area where both of us had to go around, rather than under, the trees. Blocked from retreat to the older trees by Keeshah’s body, Yayshah whirled and plunged into a corridor between the rows. I slipped off Keeshah’s back and sent him after Yayshah with instructions to catch up and drive the female eastward. Then I started running northeast, listening to the progress of the sha’um and adjusting the angle of my run.

  When I caught sight of the sha’um, Yayshah was still resisting Keeshah’s drive, moving eastward slowly but feinting frequently toward the north. I was half-surprised to see Tarani still with Yayshah.

  Tarani has to have figured out what I’m doing, I thought, as I ran up a corridor toward the group, and I slowed down, wary for her next move.

  It came quickly. Tarani caught sight of me and laughed. Yayshah whirled away from Keeshah and pounded down the corridor, straight toward me. I backed up a little, waited until it was obvious Yayshah was not going to stop short of running right over me, then launched myself backward and to the left. My back came up against the young dakathrenil I had spotted. The resilient trunk bent backward, then righted itself, catapulting me back toward Yayshah, who had nearly passed me. I grabbed Tarani’s leg and pulled her down with me as I fell in Yayshah’s wake.

  “Gotcha!” I yelled, noting in passing that I had actually used Ricardo’s slang instead of some Gandaresh equivalent.

  Tarani laughed and struggled for a moment, then abandoned pretense and put her arms around me.

  “Who shall judge which of us is the prisoner?” she asked softly.

  4

  The orchards, grainfields, and berry patches became more scarce, then disappeared entirely before nightfall. We paused for a meal, but all of us agreed to push on to the Refreshment House at Iribos before stopping.

  The moon’s light, diffused through the cloud cover that seemed to be a permanent feature of Gandalara, cast the desert in a silvery glow. Though Keeshah’s fur and muscle and motion made him real to me, the other sha’um seemed to be merely shadows, and the only sounds were their powerful breathing and the amazingly soft thudding of their feet.

  There was little sand here, only dry ground and stubborn bushes. Salty sand was a feature of what I had come to think of as the “inner deserts”—the Kapiral, south and east of Raithskar, the Darshi, of which we were now skirting the southern border, and the Strofaan, largest and most severe of the three.

  It was after midnight when the sha’um halted, panting, before the barrier of heavy fabric that marked the entrance to Iribos. I called the formula softly, so as not to waken the whole compound: “Two are here who request shelter and water.”

  There was a moment’s delay and the sound of a yawn. Tarani and I exchanged smiles. We waited on foot, with the cubs between us and the adult sha’um at either side.

  After a moment, the barrier dropped from between the man-high walls of salt blocks, and two boys appeared in the opening. The smaller one held one end of the rope which, when tied, pulled up one high corner of the fabric. The other boy was bigger, and stood a few feet behind the center of the gateway, his back stiff with pride. He was already speaking as the barrier fell.

  “I speak for Charol, Respected Elder of Iribos,” the boy said with stiff pride. “No quarrel s—shall …”

  He gaped at the six of us for an awkward moment, then recovered and spoke to the wide-eyed boy beside him. “Bring a skin of water to the gate,” he said. The little boy stared at him. “Hurry,” the bigger boy whispered. The younger one dropped the end of the rope and ran away from the circle of light cast by the lamp, toward the single door on the left that marked the entrance to the living quarters of Charol’s family.

  The boy straightened his shoulders, and restarted the formula greeting. “No quarrel shall enter here,” he said. “Put aside your weapons, and be welcome to any service we may provide.” He took a step toward us, his sandaled feet nearly treading on the slack barrier. Through the ritual, he had spoken with a kind of nervous dignity that betrayed his youth. Now his formality slipped in favor of sincerity.

  “I regret we cannot invite your sha’um into the compound,” he said, with a small bow toward each of us. “The vleks—their noise would rouse the other visitors.”

  The lamp held by the boy cast little light inside the compound, but the inner walls were set with lamps. Against the far wall of the open space we faced was a huge, lumpy shadow—twenty-five or thirty vleks, sleeping all clumped together and seeming to lean, en masse, on the compound wall. It was pure luck that they had not already scented the sha’um. The slightest shift in the direction of air movement—there were few places in Gandalara where it could be called a breeze—would set them to bawling and stamping.

  “I regret we have brought them close enough to create that danger,” I said. “It was thoughtless.”

  The little boy came back, staggering under the burden of a huge water pouch. It was made of tanned hide from the haunch of a glith, the deer-sized meat animal. Sewn and sealed at the large end and along the side, the neck was tied with a hide thong. I pulled out my sword and dagger and handed them to the bigger boy, then lifted the heavy skin from the little boys shoulders.

  “I will give the sha’um only a little water now, and send them away until morning,” I said. “Please make the lady Tarani comfortable.”

  The older boy bowed deeply. “The High Lord honors us,” he said, and accepted the sword and dagger she held out to him. Tarani did not look back as she walked through the gateway, but I could guess what she was thinking.

  The Fa’aldu claim to be uninvolved in the world, totally neutral, I thought. But they seem to know everything that goes on. They’re sworn to aid anyone in survival-type need, but they’ve helped us far beyond that oath. What do they think of Tarani becoming High Lord? How do they view their own role in that?

  These thoughts ran through my head as I poured water from the pouch into one of the troughs built against the outer wall of the compound. The troughs were made of nested semicylindrical tiles, supported by small salt blocks the size of large bricks. The mai
n watering troughs were inside the walls, down the center of the large open space between the family residence and the line of cubicles that served as overnight lodging for travelers. These on the outside were provided for the use of caravans so large that both vleks and people could not be accommodated inside.

  I petted all the sha’um once more, as they drank, and told my three to put some distance between them and the Refreshment House before they settled down. After Keeshah finished drinking, he rubbed the top of his head across my midsection, then waited to lead his family away.

  When I returned to the gate, the older boy was waiting for me. To my surprise, he bowed and said: “The Captain of the Sharith honors us.”

  “What is your name?” I asked him.

  “I am called Thuren, sir,” he said, a little uncertainly.

  “I expect to speak with Charol tomorrow, Thuren. I will tell him how responsibly and graciously you represented him tonight.”

  The boy led me to one of the cubicles on the “visitor” side of the compound. “The High Lord refused to let me rouse anyone else, in order to offer you Fa’aldu shelter,” he explained in a whisper. He pulled aside the fabric curtain that hung across the doorway. Light spilled out, and he avoided looking inside. “Rest well, Captain,” he said.

  I wished him good night and stepped inside, letting the fabric fall behind me. The cubicle was lined with three large salt blocks which, covered with thin pads, served as sleeping ledges. Tarani was already stretched out on one, and the sight of her nearly asleep made my own eyelids feel heavy. I lifted the glass chimney from the lamp which stood in a niche in the wall, sighted the ledge I had chosen for my bed, and blew out the candles flame.

  The vleks woke us just past dawn, when their handlers stirred and began packing the caravan to move out. The vleks could draw small carts or carry baskets which were tied into a brace and rested across their backs.