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“Are you saying,” I asked, “that if things had happened normally, Dharak would be doing that for you? That you and he would share the position of Lieutenant?”

  “I am saying exactly that, Captain,” he said, and seemed relieved that I understood.

  “And you want me here to fill Dharak’s place?” I demanded. “Thymas, you can do this alone.”

  To my surprise, he nodded. “I know that. I also know that I will do it better, with help. And there is something else I fear.”

  I waited.

  “You were right about this being the wrong season for the sha’um to leave. They will be in the Valley for more than a year.” He ran a hand through the thick, startling white headfur he had inherited from his father. “By the time Doral comes back, Rikardon, I might be … accustomed to being Lieutenant. It may be hard for me to release that authority—or, rather, to live here happily, once it has been released.

  “If you are here during that time, the authority transfer will be from you to Dharak. I feel I could live with that much more easily. Will you stay?”

  “I can’t, Thymas,” I said. “You know why.”

  The wry smile returned. “You would not begrudge me the power to wish, would you?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Shall we go have lunch?”

  As we walked through the doorway into the dining area, I looked back over my shoulder at the quiet, white-haired man sitting by the window, and felt a thrill of shock.

  Dharak was no longer staring out the window. His hands remained limp and unmoving on the arms of the chair, but his head had turned, and his eyes were focused on Thymas’s back.

  I said nothing to Shola or Thymas about the change I had seen in Dharak. No use getting their hopes up, I thought. But I’m sure the Lieutenant heard that plea for help, and is working as hard as he can to come back—for his son’s sake.

  I remembered watching Thymas’s face in Eddarta, when he had attacked me under Gharlas’s mindcontrol, resisting that control and finally breaking it.

  Thymas got his physical strength naturally, I thought, but he got his character strength from his fathers example, not his genes. Dharak has made a start—he’ll pull out of it in his own time.

  Throughout lunch, I had the pleasant sensation of knowing someone else’s happy secret and saving it as a surprise for my friends. After lunch, I called Keeshah and we followed Thymas’s directions to the house he had built for us.

  South of Thagorn’s wall, a narrow trail broke away toward the northwest. It had the look of being well-traveled recently, and the ground bore the tracks of wheels and evil-tempered vleks. Obviously, the trail had been used to haul building materials from Thagorn to the site of the house.

  It was a large stone house, set slightly off center in a nearly circular clearing some fifty yards in diameter and, incredibly, beside a small, chattering brook. The rivulet was a ground spring, obviously the surface extension of an underground branch of Thagorn’s river, which seemed not to have a name.

  Around the house was wild country—some of the wildest I had seen. Fed by the plentiful ground water, dakathrenil twisted everywhere, rising even taller than orchard height. I heard movement in the brush, and the touch of Yoshah’s mind, stalking. The sha’um would break their own trails through that growth-choked wilderness, and love every minute of it.

  Tarani came out of the house as I rode up and slid down from Keeshah’s back. The male sha’um drank from the stream and pushed his way out into the brush, seeking his family.

  Tarani lifted her arms. ‘This is wonderful, is it not? The. Rider who directed me here—Innis, I believe his name was—spoke of it proudly. The Sharith seem sure that, enclosed as this place is by higher hills, Yayshah’s scent will not reach Thagorn.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “it is well planned. And, as you might have guessed, it was Thymas’s idea.”

  For a moment her eyes went out of focus, and I recognized the fond look on her face. She and Thymas had been more than friends at one time, and I had finally learned to accept that the closeness that continued between them was based on the fact that they had grown and changed away from a very special relationship, and was not a continuation of that relationship.

  “Everyone wants to see the cubs, of course,” I said. “Thymas has proposed that a few people at a time might visit here—on foot—to meet them. Will Yayshah allow that?”

  Her eyes focused on me briefly, then looked over my shoulder as she spoke to the female sha’um.

  “She agrees,” Tarani said, sighing. “She loves it here, Rikardon. She is planning a den—has already started shaping it, in fact.”

  “Let her build it,” I said, waving at the house behind Tarani. “After all, we have a home waiting for us now, whenever we need it.”

  Her smile was sad. “It seems we have many homes,” she said, “and none that we can enjoy for very long.”

  “It won’t always be this way, Tarani,” I said. “Someday, we’ll have time—” My voice trailed off as Tarani raised her hand and shook her head.

  “It is this way, for the present,” she said, “and we have both accepted it. To dream of a change is to focus beyond a task that has not yet been accomplished, and thus distract us from it.”

  Her voice was sharp, her manner tense.

  “Afraid you’d like the quiet life?” I asked.

  Her head snapped up, but she bit back what would have been an angry reply when she saw my face. She even smiled.

  “I could bear it as easily as you could,” she said.

  Touché, I thought, and had the odd, unsettling feeling of a man who has just examined his life goal and wondered whose it was. I could have had the “quiet life” with Illia. Maybe when I turned my back on her, I rejected it for good and all?

  I covered my sudden uncertainty by putting my arm around Tarani and moving toward the open doorway.

  “I take it back,” I said. “If you’re there, life couldn’t possibly be quiet.”

  We stayed for six days. In that time, nearly everyone in Thagorn came for a visit, and the cubs grew sleek from the plentiful game and spoiled by all the attention. Yoshah and Koshah were able to stalk and hunt small game themselves, and were eagerly curious about our visitors. Keeshah and Yayshah took advantage of their break from educating the cubs to sleep a lot.

  Yayshah benefited greatly from the long rest. Her darkish fur began to look healthier than it had since she had left the Valley, and the skin of her belly, thinned and stretched by the weight of the cubs during her pregnancy, shrank up and flattened out. Tarani took her out for long runs—always away from Thagorn, and with plenty of warning to the Sharith. Woman and sha’um both came back glowing from the exercise and the closeness.

  Thymas was at our house on the evening of the sixth day, sharing an after-dinner glass of barut with Tarani and me. We had brought armchairs out of the house, to sit and watch the sha’um while we talked.

  Only there were no sha’um to watch; they were out of sight beyond the edge of the clearing. We had only a few minutes before the sun went down and the world went dark, and I already knew—though I had not told Thymas as yet—that this would be our last night in Thagorn.

  Thymas ought to have a chance to say goodbye to the cubs, I thought, then called: *Yoshah. Koshah. Come here for a second, please.*

  We heard a slight rustling, and a dark-colored head popped out of the brush to our left. The cubs had created a warren of tunnels through the tangled brush, their openings cunningly hidden.

  Yoshah stepped out, jumped (I could feel her surprise and flash of anger), and whirled to clout the paw Koshah had used to swat her tail. Koshah lunged out of the brush and tried to tumble her with a rush into her side, but she kept her feet, sidestepping to absorb the shock of his head connecting with her flank. She twisted around and nipped at his shoulder (I felt the pinch, and Koshah’s anger).

  *Here, that’s enough of that,* I said sternly, a little afraid that the play would blossom into a full-blown fight. *Beh
ave yourselves and come over here to say goodbye to Thymas. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.*

  That was good enough news to distract the cubs from their quarrel. They loped over to us and pressed their heads under my extended hands, their minds full of questions and excitement.

  I turned to my left, to speak to Thymas, and realized belatedly that I had not mentioned the fact that I was mindlinked to the cubs. That he understood it now was patently obvious.

  “The female, too?” he asked, after a moment.

  Tarani, who was seated to my right, leaned forward to look around me at the boy. “Only I am bonded to Yayshah,” she said quietly.

  Thymas was in shock, searching for words. “But—is it not too soon for them? Why—how—three?”

  He did not have to say how unfair it seemed, that I should be mindlinked to three sha’um while so many of his men were now deprived of that so-important connection.

  Thymas and Tarani and I had talked frequently in those six days, but our conversation had often been public, and had not seriously included the Ra’ira—past, present, or future—as a topic. Thymas knew we had found the sword, and were on our way to Eddarta to reclaim the jewel. But he had not heard about Raithskar and the situation there.

  He learned of it then, as I described the vineh attack and the formation of the link with the two cubs. As it happened, the discussion led right into the topic I had been avoiding all evening. “We have to move on, Thymas. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  The boy stood up, and set his empty glass on a table we had brought out of the house, along with the chairs. Night had come, diffused moonlight providing only a dim gray illumination. Beside the door of the house was an oil lamp; Tarani used a striker to light it, and Thymas’s shadow leaped out into the clearing.

  “I will tell the people in the morning,” he said. “It would be best, I think, if you left quietly. You know that our good wishes go with you.”

  I stood up too. “If circumstances were different,” I began.

  “They are not different,” he snapped, then softened. “I see you know me well, Captain. I would rather go with you than stay here. But I begin to believe as my father did—does… . The theft of the Ra’ira has signaled a time of change—perhaps the very change for which the Sharith have remained ready all these generations.” He frowned. “Yet we are less ready than ever—our Riders at half-strength, our people demoralized and discouraged.”

  I pressed his arm. “Eddarta will fall to Tarani bloodlessly, we hope—but in any case through logic, and not by force. By the time the Sharith are needed as a weapon—which I hope will never happen—Thagorn will have recovered fully.”

  He nodded—a little doubtfully it seemed. “What do you need for the journey?” he asked.

  “Food and water,” Tarani said, coming up behind me, “we can take from the generous stores you have already provided. What we need from you, Thymas, is a friend’s farewell.”

  She moved around my chair to kiss and embrace the boy. I should be jealous, I thought. Instead, I was deeply moved; I stood up and put my arms around both of them, sharing their embrace.

  12

  We left Thagorn at dawn the next morning. The cubs were cheerful and excited, looking forward to a trip I knew would be exhausting and uncomfortable, but happily ignoring my cynicism. Keeshah was glad to be moving, and Tarani said that Yayshah had shown less reluctance to leave her half-built den than she had expected.

  We headed east, and quickly left the valley greenery behind us. In Keeshah’s mind was an awareness that the Valley of the Sha’um lay north of us. In my mind was the terrifying memory of crawling along a gravelly slope through a blinding, poisonous smog.

  The Well of Darkness, the volcanic depression that continually cloaked itself in its own sooty mantle, also lay north of us. Tarani and I had tried to use it to elude pursuit, and had failed. We had climbed out of the blackness to the rim of the Well to face Obilin’s attack—and to be rescued by Keeshah, who had sensed my need and broken free of the layer of instinct entrapping him.

  The country between Thagorn and Relenor, the Refreshment House resting at the foot of the Zantil Pass, was not quite desert, nor was it green. The land was rocky and dusty, but fairly rich with the gray-leaved bushes which had adapted to desert existence. The first day’s traveling went smoothly. The second day, the ground shivered.

  The cubs flattened themselves on the ground, and broadcasted fear so strongly and suddenly that I was caught by surprise. I fastened myself more tightly to Keeshah’s back, and screamed at him with my mind to run, and he was far away from the cubs by the time I found my senses again. There was fear in Keeshah’s mind, but nothing like the absolute terror the cubs were suffering.

  We turned back. Yayshah was half-crouching over the cubs, shielding and comforting them with her body. Tarani was standing beside them.

  “Is the Well of Darkness causing this?” Tarani asked. “The … volcano?”

  “I think so,” I said, still trying to catch my breath after the rush of panic I had shared with the cubs.

  “Does that mean—will it erupt?” Tarani asked worriedly, using the Italian term for a word the Gandalaran language had never needed to develop.

  “I doubt it,” I said, hoping I was right. “It must be mildly active all the time, to keep replenishing that drift of ashy smoke. It’s just getting a little more active, that’s all.”

  I had time to be grateful for Tarani’s accessing Antonia’s memories so that I could explain things clearly without much effort—because calming the cubs took all the patience and concentration I could muster. The tremor had lasted only a few seconds, and I could detect no further movement, but the cubs took a lot of convincing. Finally, they loosened their deathgrips on the rocky ground and nervously followed their parents as we moved on.

  *Have you felt that before?* I asked Keeshah.

  *Yes,* he answered.

  *While you were in the Valley?* I prompted him.

  *Yes,* he said, and I began to breathe more easily. If the tremors had been going on since Keeshah’s cubhood in the Valley, then this one was nothing special to worry about.

  We reached Relenor toward evening of the second day, and were welcomed with the same friendliness we encountered at every Refreshment House. For reasons I never have understood clearly, the Fa’aldu—desert dwellers who seemed to be able to draw water from out of nowhere, and guarded the secret carefully—had chosen to honor me as if I were a hero. Part of it lay with Balgokh, at the Refreshment House of Yafnaar, who had been the first person to see the revived Markasset. He had helped me, and had been aware of the difference in me. He was another, like Dharak, who seemed to sense imminent change, and he had alerted all the Fa’aldu to provide me (and Tarani) anything we needed.

  Tarani and I had the privilege of dining with the Relenor family in the interior court of the Fa’aldu dwelling, rather than in the spartan guest quarters the Fa’aldu maintained for the use of travelers.

  It had become a minor tradition that I traded stories for the meals the Fa’aldu so generously shared with me. Hold Lussim, the Elder of this Refreshment House, about trying to shelter Yayshah in Thagorn, and the tragedy that resulted. I took the story to Raithskar, to the birth of the cubs, and out into the desert. The family was shaken and awed by the idea of walking through a city so ancient, and the secret of the sword’s hiding place was a wonder to them. I had developed a real skill at the artful omission of fact, and managed to avoid any reference to Tarani’s true state and the effect of the sword on her two personalities.

  They grieved over the loss of the third cub as if one of their own had died, and expressed deep concern over the state of things in Raithskar. I edged around the truth again, and let them believe that taking the sha’um from the city had reduced the danger to the citizens of Raithskar, and that the vineh illness would wear away in time.

  They had known Tarani before meeting me, though their friendship had not been extended so completely to her. The
announcement that we were going to Eddarta to proclaim her real identity as the rightful High Lord was greeted with amazement and a mixture of dismay and delight—delight at the newest twist of what was taking on the proportions of a romantic saga, and dismay that she was to become a fixture in Eddarta.

  The Fa’aldu maintained a neutral position in the affairs of men outside the walls of Refreshment Houses, but they knew a lot about them, and were too normal not to make judgments. On the other side of the world, the Fa’aldu had violated their own tradition to offer succor and help to the slaves who escaped from Eddarta’s copper mines. They were unaware that the system they thought foolproof ended in Chizan—in death or a different sort of slavery for the people they “helped.”

  The Fa’aldu in the Refreshment Houses west of the high crossings that divided Gandalara did not know of their kindred’s activity against Eddarta, but they shared the feeling of disapproval. Eddarta was a weighted society, top-heavy with the Lords’ wealth at the expense of the effort of the “common man.” And the Fa’aldu had an historical reason for disagreeing with the concepts governing Eddarta. The Refreshment Houses were the product of a generous King who had set up a fair system by which everyone could share the skill of the Fa’aldu, and they would be well compensated for their art. Eddarta was the product of the last King, a selfish King, who had fled from Kä and rebuilt his power in the form of an economic autocracy.

  By Fa’aldu reasoning, there was nothing good about the Lords. To find out that Tarani, whom they respected and liked, was a Lord by birth was something of a shock.

  “And when you rule Eddarta,” Lussim asked quietly of Tarani, “what will you do?”

  “The present High Lord, my natural brother Indomel,” Tarani said, “has the Ra’ira.” The group gasped. That the Ra’ira had been stolen from Raithskar was common knowledge; Lussim and his people knew that I had been pursuing the thief on the last occasion I had stopped here. Obviously, they were not blind to the history of the stone, or the possible significance of its being in the hands of a descendant of the Kings.