The River Wall Read online

  “Then let’s go inside,” I said, “where we can be comfortable.” To myself, I added: And private. “It’s a long story.”

  Instead of returning to our suite, Charol led us into his own quarters, where he invited us to share a luxury rare among the Fa’aldu—armchairs made of wood and fabric, instead of the backless salt blocks used for most other furniture. Even after we were all physically comfortable, however, an awkwardness remained.

  “Perhaps it will help,” Charol said, “if I summarize the present knowledge of this matter among the Fa’aldu?”

  “That seems as good a way as any to start,” I agreed gratefully.

  “Balgokh has kept us informed of the state of things in Raithskar,” the Elder said. “He told us of the theft of the Ra’ira originally, of course, and of your pursuit of the thief. It seems to be widely known in the city that an Eddartan stole the gem, and feeling runs high against Eddarta. Most of the rumors make a quite ridiculous connection between the theft of the gem and the illness of the vineh, so that the city’s fear of its former servants is turning to anger toward Eddarta.”

  Tarani and I exchanged glances.

  “How bad is it in Raithskar now?” I asked.

  Charol shook his head. “I only know that the people from the outlying communities and farms have been called to dwell within the city walls, and Balgokh has seen fewer and fewer caravans dare the journey from Yafnaar to Raithskar.”

  Fear clutched at my chest and stomach. Thanasset and Milda are in Raithskar, I thought. Markasset’s father and aunt had accepted me as a replacement for their son. Ricardo Carillo had acquired Markasset’s body, as far as I could tell, at the very moment of the boys death. Ricardo had acquired Markasset’s memory, and become the human-Gandalaran blend of Rikardon, on accepting the steel sword which I had surrendered on entering this Refreshment House. They’re my family now, and they’re locked up with a madman in a city that’s getting hysterical.

  6

  Associating the loss of the Ra’ira with the onset of danger from the vineh is ridiculous to Charol, I thought, because he’s native to Gandalara and has never been exposed to the irrationality of superstition. These people have fewer mysteries than humans because they believe they understand and are part of the All-Mind, a concept humans might treat as a god. They respect the All-Mind, but are not in awe of it.

  Even as the thought was formed, another was contradicting it.

  Except, I reminded myself, when they talk about Visitors, personalities of dead people which reappear in the body of another person. Gandalarans believe such Visitors have spent the time since their death as part of the All-Mind, and fully share its knowledge—the total memory and learning of every member of this race, since it began the mutation toward its present form.

  To the people of Raithskar, the Ra’ira has been a symbol of pride and history. For all they know, the loss of the gem and the rebellion of the vineh are only coincidentally linked. I’ll bet anything that the same reason those events are not a coincidence is the cause for that attitude. Ferrathyn whispers here, mindpushes there, and bingo!—suddenly Gandalara achieves the concept of a lucky charm.

  “You had confided in Balgokh that Gharlas was the thief,” Charol continued. “And it seems clear that, even though Gharlas died during your first visit to Eddarta, you were not able to recover the Ra’ira. Now Tarani is High Lord and you are both leaving Eddarta. I assume that you now have possession of the Ra’ira and are taking it back to Raithskar.”

  He stopped and looked from Tarani to me expectantly. It seemed to be our turn.

  Tarani opened a leather pouch which hung from her belt, and dumped its contents into her hand. Charol gasped. Tarani leaned forward and put the blue stone on the small table around which the three of us were seated.

  It was a beautiful thing, two fingers high, smooth and rounded, shaped amorphously but saved from looking lumpish by faintly crystalline lines that radiated unevenly toward the darker blue at the heart of the stone.

  “That,” Charol said with a gasp, “is the Ra’ira?”

  “That,” I answered, “is a glass copy of the Ra’ira, which was made by Volitar.”

  “I have heard that name—” Charol began.

  “The man who left Eddarta with Zefra,” Tarani said. “He raised me as his niece. For a time, I thought he was my father.”

  Charol reached out, paused to look at us for permission, then picked up the piece of glass at Tarani’s nod.

  “I have never seen the Ra’ira,” he said, turning the blue thing in his hand and peering into it. “Is this a good image of the real stone?”

  I had to answer that, drawing from Markasset’s memory.

  “It’s a nearly perfect duplicate,” I said.

  Charol’s brow creased, wrinkling the skin between his widows peak of darkening headfur and the prominent supraorbital ridge that was a characteristic of Gandalaran appearance.

  “Then—forgive me, I do not question the truth of your statement, I am merely curious—how do you know that this one is not the real one?”

  “The answer to that,” I said, “begins with Zanek.”

  “The First King?” Charol said.

  “Yes, and the first to discover that the Ra’ira allows someone who is already mindgifted the power to actually read the thoughts of another person.”

  Charol glanced at Tarani, who shook her head. “It is not the same thing as the ways in which I—and other Lords—can use the natural mindgift without aid,” she said, and frowned. “I find it hard to describe the difference, but I shall try. To cast an illusion, or to compel another’s behavior, is like … like …” She groped for words. “Like struggling to open a shutter to look inside a dwelling. With practice, the effort becomes less, the task easier.

  “With the Ra’ira, however, it is as if all the windows in the house are paned with glass, and there is no struggle—one merely has to look in through the glass.”

  Charol was staring at Tarani. “You … you have used the gems power, then?”

  “Not I, personally,” she said. “I have shared the experience of its use with Zanek, the First King.”

  Charol opened his mouth, closed it again. I felt sorry for him; this was a lot to take in all at once.

  “You knew me first,” Tarani explained gently, “as the dancer and illusionist. But I was trained as a Recorder. During our search for the second steel sword”—unconsciously, her hand moved to where the hilt of that sword would have rested, had she been wearing it—“Rikardon and I witnessed the fall of the Kingdom through the lifememory of Serkajon.”

  Charol leaned forward then, the stone still cupped in his hands but seeming forgotten in the face of his fascination with what Tarani was saying.

  “You—you both—met Serkajon? And Zanek—did you actually know Zanek?”

  “I met him, alone, at a different time,” I said, not bothering to explain that ‘met’ was not the right concept at all. This is complicated enough without arguing about vocabulary, I thought. “Another Recorder helped me share Zanek’s lifememory at the time he began the Kingdom. Tarani and I, together, met him when he appeared in Serkajon’s body to put an end to Harthim’s Kingdom.”

  “Zanek stole the Ra’ira?” Charol stammered. “Not Serkajon?”

  “Well, both of them, if it comes to that,” I said. “I believe that Serkajon would have done precisely the same thing, if he had known about the Ra’ira’s power. As it was, he knew something was strange, and very wrong; and he wanted to help.”

  “I think,” Tarani said suddenly, “that Zanek appeared as a Visitor because Serkajon’s distress and desire to change things was very strong in the All-Mind. The only thing which could help him understand was the knowledge of someone who had used the Ra’ira.”

  “And,” I added, “someone committed to the proper use of its power—for the benefit of Gandalara, not the comfort of the Kings. Zanek had used the Ra’ira’s power to find out what people really needed, what they were rea
lly arguing about, so that he could find solutions that contributed to peace and harmony. Through the reign of the Kings, however, the use of the stone had shifted.

  “By Harthim’s time, the entire city of Kä was isolated in the desert, and was being maintained by slaves so that the Kings could live in luxury. Harthim was using the Ra’ira to find rebellion and stop it, to enforce a nonproductive slave system.”

  Charol seemed to remember that he was holding the duplicate Ra’ira. He held it out to Tarani who took it and replaced it in her belt pouch.

  “If this only begins your story, my friends,” Charol said, sitting back and clapping his hands, “we shall need refreshment to sustain us.”

  A young girl appeared in the doorway, her face turned toward Charol but her eyes sliding in our direction. The Elder asked her to bring faen (the Gandalaran equivalent of beer) and some food, which she did promptly.

  We did not talk while we waited for the girl to bring our food. Charol stared at the wall, obviously trying to absorb the information we had already given him.

  I had never been through what Charol was undergoing now, because, in spite of the integration of Markasset’s memories of Gandalara, I had always seen this culture and its history from the viewpoint of an outsider. When I had learned about the true nature of the Ra’ira, it had come to me simply as another fact.

  Tarani’s experience had been closer to Charol’s, for the news had come to her before the integration of Tarani with Antonia, while the Gandalaran personality was consciously unaware of the human one. For her, however, this fact had been only one of many—some of them far more personal—that she had been required to absorb at once.

  Then, too, acceptance had been forced on us by the circumstances. Gharlas had been demonstrating a tremendous power of compulsion when he told us the truth about the Ra’ira, and Tarani and I had been given little time or opportunity to doubt that the Ra’ira was the source of some of that power. Of course, then we had thought that Gharlas was using it directly. Now we knew the greatest part of that compulsive force had come through him, from Ferrathyn/Tinis, who had been using the real Ra’ira in Raithskar.

  Neither I nor Tarani had ever been told something, calmly and rationally, that changed our perspective of a history we had known and trusted all our lives.

  Charol’s thoughts must have been following similar lines, for after the girl had brought in a plate of sliced bread, ceramic mugs, and a pitcher filled with faen, he said: “This is how you learned about the Ra’ira’s power? Through your meeting with Zanek in the All-Mind?”

  “When I left Raithskar in pursuit of Gharlas,” I said, “I did not know the truth. Gharlas told us the truth when we caught up with him in Dyskornis. He thought he had the real stone; we thought he did, too, and followed him to Eddarta, where he died trying to hold on to a worthless duplicate Ra’ira.”

  “Even then”—Tarani picked up the story—“we believed that this was the real stone. We gave another glass duplicate, also made by Volitar, to my brother, Indomel, and escaped with this stone. By the time we were recaptured, Indomel had discovered that the stone he had was useless.”

  “He made the same mistake we did,” I said. “Because he knew one was not real, he assumed the other one was real. And he had, seemingly, seen proof of the stones reality in the ease with which Tarani read the Bronze.”

  “The Bronze?” Charol repeated.

  “It is a document engraved on a large bronze plaque,” Tarani said, “a message, really, from Zanek. After the scribe had engraved the message—in the old writing, of course, with the lines placed very precisely—Zanek had him add all the other lines to make each figure the master character.”

  “But how could one read a message so totally concealed?” Charol asked.

  “During my first meeting with Zanek,” I interrupted, “I watched him plan and order the Bronze. I think he just knew it would work, and didn’t question it, but I believe I understand the logic he didn’t bother with. Everyone is connected to the All-Mind, with a greater or lesser awareness of that link. By extension, everyone is also connected to everyone else—through the All-Mind. Normally,” I said, “each Gandalaran can only reach the past All-Mind—the lifememories of those who are already dead. Those who have a special sort of mindgift can follow the connection through—or maybe along is a better word—the past and into the present, to affect the minds of their contemporaries.

  “What I think the Ra’ira does, is it makes all those connections effortless. Zanek had planned to test possible candidates for King with the Bronze. He would be present, of course, and have the Ra’ira with him. A mindgifted boy would use the Ra’ira without realizing it, and reach back to connect with the lifememory of the man who had done the engraving, and would be able to read the message.

  “Meanwhile, of course, Zanek (or the later Kings) would be using the Ra’ira consciously to see the boy’s true reaction to the words.”

  “What—I mean, if I may know—what is the message written on the Bronze?”

  Tarani smiled. “If we have revealed the truth about the Ra’ira, which speaks now of danger, why should we conceal Zanek’s message, which told of his goodness and hope? The Bronze carries these words …”

  Tarani closed her eyes and, from memory, recited Zanek’s message:

  I greet thee in the name of the new Kingdom.

  From chaos have we created order.

  From strife have we enabled peace.

  From greed have we encouraged sharing.

  Not I alone, but the Sharith have done this.

  Not we alone, but the Ra’ira has done this.

  THESE ARE THE WEAPONS OF WHICH I GIVE THEE CHARGE AND WARNING:

  The Sharith are our visible strength—

  Offer them respect;

  Be ever worthy of their loyalty.

  The Ra’ira is our secret wisdom—

  Seek out the discontented;

  Give them answer, not penalty.

  THIS IS THE TASK I GIVE THEE AS FIRST DUTY:

  As you read the scholar’s meaning

  Within the craftsman’s skill,

  So read within yourself Your commitment

  To guide

  To lead

  To learn

  To protect.

  If you lack a high need

  To improve life for all men,

  Then turn aside now,

  For you would fail the Kingdom.

  I greet thee in the name of the new Kingdom,

  And I charge thee: care for it well.

  I am Zanek,

  King of Gandalara

  Charol sat motionless as Tarani’s vibrant voice spoke the words which the First King had left for all of his successors. When Tarani opened her eyes and smiled shakily, obviously moved as deeply by this memory as when she had first read those words, Charol twitched as if he were rousing from a trance.

  “I—forgive me for my slowness, but I see contradiction in this. You have said that the message could be read only with the aid of the Ra’ira, and you have also said that the true Ra’ira was never in Eddarta to aid the High Lord?”

  I felt that welcome sense of confidence that comes at the end of a struggle for understanding of a worrisome problem. Charol was verbalizing a lot of the same questions I had been suppressing or dealing with on the subconscious level. As we had talked, the questions—and some unrecognized answers—had surfaced to the conscious level.

  “I think,” I said slowly, “that the specific mindgift discipline of the Recorder was developed long after Zanek’s time. Because of her Recorder training, Tarani has a very strong link with the All-Mind. I believe that her skills were functioning on an unconscious level, and they guided her and connected her to the craftsman’s memory.

  “The Bronze has continued to be a test for mindgift—but the boys who have been tested since the fall of the Kingdom have been able to get only a few words, without the benefit of either the Ra’ira or Recorder training.”

  “The
words,” Charol said, with a deep sigh. “How could the Kings have turned against those wonderful words?”

  “That,” I answered, “could be a matter of perspective. Once the Kingdom was well established, and all of Gandalara dependent on the Kings for leadership, it would have been an easy and logical step to begin to believe that the ‘highest benefit to all men’ lay in the comfort and security of the Kings.”

  “So,” Charol said, “Zanek returned as Serkajon and took the Ra’ira away from the Kings. Having heard his message, I see why he would want to deprive them of its power, but—well, if it had been my choice, and I had seen my—well, my vision so corrupted, I believe I would have destroyed the gem.”

  Good for you, I cheered silently. You just climbed a few points on my scale of good people, Charol—and removed any doubts I might have had about telling you all this.

  “Zanek did try to destroy the Ra’ira,” I told the Elder. “The stone seems to be indestructible. So he did the next best thing; he used the Ra’ira one more time to choose twelve honorable men. He entrusted the secret of the stone to them, and charged them with keeping it safe from misuse.”

  “The Council of Supervisors?” Charol asked.

  “It seems to me,” Tarani said, “that Zanek would have made a deliberate choice against the mindgifted, so that the Supervisors themselves could not be tempted by the Ra’iras power.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, “but it does make me wonder about the vineh.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “Could the mindgift of controlling the vineh be a different quality of mindpower? Something like that used by the maufel in directing their message birds? Perhaps the Supervisors were not on guard against that sort of gift—or could not recognize it.”

  “Or it may be,” I added, “that the Ra’ira has different levels of function—that the mindgifted can affect other people, but those with no natural gift—or one that has been unrecognized until the Supervisor screening—could learn to use the Ra’ira on animals.”