The Search for Kä Page 9

  … We begin! said Somil’s mind voice.

  I felt no sense of my own substance. I was merely a location from which I could observe, but not act. The physical equivalent of that sensation would have disturbed me deeply, but here it promoted a feeling of security and calm in the face of overwhelming strangeness.

  I knew I was “seeing” not the All-Mind itself, but a visual representation of it. The place that was me, enclosed and protected by the place that was Somil, began to move along one spoke of what seemed to be a geometrist’s fantasy. Shining and translucent, cylinders of light joined an unplanned pattern of points that threaded through a three-dimensional shape that was roughly spherical. Some of the cylinders were short, others long. The only perceptible logic of the pattern was that the ragged, interconnected spines of light moved outward from the center of the sphere. Somil and I seemed to be toward the outer edge of the sphere, which was marked by an amorphous radiance into which the outermost cylinders disappeared. We had begun to move inward, seeking the congested core of the All-Mind.

  I wondered if the All-Mind “looked” like this to everyone, or if this were Somil’s interpretation of it, or mine.

  It is your vision, Somil’s mindvoice said, and I thank you for it. I shall see it this way always.

  The shining spokes were everywhere. They flashed by us, the only source of awareness that we were moving. The spoke we followed joined another, and another, until we were enclosed in a shining, three-dimensional maze.

  How do you find your way? I asked Somil.

  Hush, he warned, I must concentrate.

  Even though all my own perceptions came through Somil, I realized that I was observing independently. In an effort to understand what he was seeing, I “watched” Somil more closely, focusing on his mindvoice and closing off my own awareness of the glowing cylinders. I had felt as if I were floating beside the cylinders without “touching” them. Somil did seem to touch them; it was as if they were tracks which he rode, and he was holding me away from direct contact with them.

  I forced my consciousness into closer bond with Somil, trying to see what he was seeing. I caught the barest glimpse, and my mind jerked backward, reeling from the impressions I had shared with Somil.

  As if we had physical presence, my reaction pulled at Somil, snapping him away from the cylinder he was following. Our linked minds went spinning through the emptiness that was not black, nor white, nor even space, merely a place between shining cylinders. Panic and guilt and vertigo swept through me, so that I was barely conscious of Somil’s mindvoice, speaking to me with surprising calm—surprising because, when I did sense the sound and focused on it, I could also sense fear in the Recorder.

  “Come closer, as you did then,” he advised me. “Join with me, or we are both lost.”

  Somil’s voice soothed my panic. I did the mental equivalent of closing my eyes and hanging on to him for dear life, and our dizzying whirl slowed. I sensed, but did not watch, Somil reaching out for a cylinder, establishing a tenuous contact, and gradually guiding us along that contact. I knew when we were close enough to touch the cylinder, and fear churned up in me again.

  “It will not be the same,” Somil assured me. “We will touch only a single moment. I will not move again until you have withdrawn.”

  He waited until he knew I had control and was ready, then he “landed” on the cylinder.

  I was standing at the edge of a harvested grain field, kicking at the dry dirt and worrying about next year’s crop. The yield, and the income from it, had been the smallest ever. I hated the watermaster, but I knew he was right about the ground drying out. If I paid him for water, would next years crop be bigger enough to give me more profit? Or would I end up like all the rest, owing him so much that, piece by piece, he would begin to own this stretch of ground that had supported my ancestors? What else could I do? We could move—I, and my wife, and our two daughters—but we could not take the land with us, and any land that would still grow crops was sure to be occupied. And I had no other skills. Visions of my family in rags, my girls working as household help or toiling in someone else’s fields tortured me.

  Somil pushed me gently away from the cylinder, and I came free of the memory I had shared with the nameless farmer. I had a moment of disorientation, a flash of anger, a devastating sense of loss, and then I was whole again and I understood what had happened.

  “How can you stand it?” I asked the Recorder, as we began to move along this cylinder, aiming as before toward the center of the spherical mass of tangled light.

  “I am trained for it,” Somil replied. “And it does not affect me in the same way. What you have experienced, I have only viewed.”

  Professional detachment—it made sense. In the instant when I had recoiled, throwing us off-course, we had been traveling at what seemed to be tremendous speed, and Somil had been “dipping” into the cylinders, each one of which was the life memories of a single individual. By “looking” at those memories at intervals, Somil kept his bearings of “where” and “when” we were, and flashing instants of contact were all he needed to guide him. I had not been prepared for what I saw when I joined him, and those brief touches had been for me, as Somil said, a succession of different identities, men and women at all life stages, complete with problems and joy and grief and terror—some of the last my own, as I lost touch with myself and feared I could never regain my own identity.

  “Will it be like that when we find Kä?” I asked. We were moving rapidly through the All-Mind now, but I noticed that we no longer swept toward the center, but were following spoke connections, roughly arcing around the densest part of the All-Mind.

  “We have found it,” he said, slowing. “This woman lived in Kä,” he murmured, “born there to slave parents, lived all her life as a slave. She knows only that Kä is surrounded by desert.” We moved past a joining, glided along more cylinders. I sensed that Somil was concentrating deeply, so I kept quiet. “More slaves,” he said. “Ah, here is a merchant … he thinks of Raithskar and Omergol as an equal distance away from Kä. Does that help?”

  “A little,” I said. “How much distance?”

  “Eight caravan-days,” he said.

  “That will help me find the general area,” I said, “but I was hoping for something more specific.”

  The Recorder hesitated.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “The answer to your earlier question,” Somil replied. “It is the common thing to allow you to share memory with someone who knew what you wish to know. Yet, in my experience, no one has been so profoundly affected by that sharing as you are. There could be danger for you in this.”

  “There could also be great learning?” I asked.

  His mindvoice did not hesitate. “The most powerful kind of learning,” he agreed. “Will you seek in this manner?”

  I thought about it, and decided that, if I let myself in for this, I didn’t want to do it twice, and I didn’t want to waste the chance. “Only if I may share memory with Zanek, the First King,” I told Somil.

  10

  The Recorder’s presence shivered with excitement. “I will search for him,” he said, and we headed more toward the center again, moving dizzyingly fast.

  “Are you afraid I will change my mind?” I asked.

  The Recorder responded to the words, but not to the intended humor. “I sense your commitment to learn of Zanek,” he assured me, “and I know you sense my eagerness to share your learning. There is a time factor involved—we must leave the All-Mind soon.”

  “But we’ve been here only moments!” I protested.

  “So it would seem” he said, still guiding us rapidly along a shining spoke. “But the mind and the body experience time differently, and our bodies suffer from our absence. When it is time, we shall go. I need no agreement from you in this; my judgment rules. Is that understood?”

  I was beginning to get excited as well. I did not know whether Zanek’s memories would give me any m
ore information than I already had about where I could find Kä today, but the prospect of getting to know the First King as a person, rather than a legend, was an attractive one. Before going to Eddarta, all I had known of Zanek was that he had organized the far-scattered cities of Gandalara into a peaceful kingdom. In Eddarta, my respect for his wisdom had tripled, as I learned that he had possessed the Ra’ira and had used its telepathic power only in beneficial ways—a testament to his strength and incorruptibility.

  Yes, I decided, even if I had time for only a taste of the man’s true nature, it would be worth it.

  “I understand,” I assured Somil.

  “Good,” he said. I noticed we had slowed our progress in the few seconds my deliberation had taken. “Rikardon, meet Zanek.”

  Somil must have been exercising some undetectable control, because I didn’t invest myself quite so completely in Zanek’s memories as I had, for example, in those of the young and desperate farmer. Enough detachment remained for me to retain a sense of my own identity, so that what I saw through Zanek’s eyes and in his self-knowledge had some of the quality of watching a live-action, all-surrounding movie. That detachment was amplified by the fact that I was not allowed to become Zanek, but was pulled along his lifememory by Somil. I shared moments of his experience that were sequential but not contiguous—rather like reading an intimate, anecdotal biography of the man. The final cause of difference between this sharing and the others was that I had some preconceptions about Zanek, and I was constantly comparing fact against expectation—with some startling surprises.

  Zanek came from Raithskar.

  And he was a Rider.

  And it was he who had discovered what the Ra’ira could do… .

  I was shaking inside, staring at the woman whose hand I held, shivering with the joy and the strangeness. I had shared thought before—did I not share every moment of my existence, now, with Skerral, the sha’um whose friendship I had won in the Valley? But it had never been like this, to see the thoughts of another person, to feel Mira’s love reaching out to me. I had hoped for her caring, of course—I had brought the strange blue stone, discovered by my father in the rakor mine, as a betrothal gift. I put my hand over the pouch in which I carried the stone, felt its shape pressing into my palm and thigh.

  Mira moved closer to me. We were sitting on the edge of the low stone fence that surrounded the vegetable garden behind her father’s farmhouse. “Is something wrong, Zanek?” she said.

  I knew, then, that she could not see my thoughts as I saw hers, and my wonder was such that I could not even speak to her. I fumbled with the drawstring of the pouch, hoping the presentation of the gift would make words unnecessary.

  My hand was stilled by an awareness that Mira’s father was approaching us. There was no word, no sound—but I knew he was behind me, and I stood to face him. He was a burly man, a farmer, unschooled and rough. It had taken no special skill for him to see how I felt about his daughter, or for me to see how little he approved of my feelings.

  Mira had stood up beside me, her hand tightening on mine. Philon’s sharp eyes had not missed the action, and I was swept up in a storm of emotion—anger with me and fear of losing Mira, jealousy, an unexpected sense of his own inadequacy in the face of my education, suspicious awe of my bond with Skerral, and through it all, determination that I should not be the one to claim Mira as wife.

  I thought, he is stubborn and afraid, but he cannot rule Mira’s life. I know she loves me, but she will not come to me willingly without his consent. He will consent—for his good, and hers, and mine—he will consent.

  I believed that fiercely, as if holding my conviction strongly enough would convince Mira’s father. Philon was moving toward us slowly, and I saw the change expressed in his features even as I felt it in his emotions. The grim look faded from his face, to be replaced by one of resignation, mingled with confusion. His fear and jealousy was still reaching me, but faintly, as if they were being suppressed.

  “I have it in mind, boy,” the big man said, “that you want to marry my daughter.”

  Beside me, Mira caught her breath in surprise and fear.

  “Yes, sir, and you have my promise to care for her well.”

  “Does she wish it?” he asked, then addressed the question directly to her. “Do you want to marry this landless wanderer, girl?”

  “I want that very much, father,” Mira said, strength and pride in her voice, her underlying puzzlement at the change in her father reaching me clearly.

  “Then I’ll—” He stopped, frowned.

  I concentrated harder, thinking “You will consent. You will consent.”

  “I will consent,” he said, then turned and walked away.

  I stared after him, silent and terrified, until Mira pulled at my hand. “You have not asked me, you know,” she said shyly. I could feel her surprise at her father’s sudden attitude reversal fading. In its place was growing a joy so sweet and piercing that I could not bear it—because it was denied to me.

  I could still feel an oddness from Philon’s retreating figure. He knew what he had done; he understood the consequences, but he was beginning to wonder why he had done it.

  I was beginning to know why, and the knowledge frightened me.

  I turned to Mira and mumbled some kind of apology, softened the shock with a quick embrace, and ran away.

  It was nearly a year later. I had run, not only from Mira, but from Raithskar, confused by the awesome mindgift I had acquired so suddenly. I had ridden from one end of the world to the other, at first driven by fear of my own power and then by curiosity. For I had found a sameness in all parts of the world—a physical pattern of less water and drier earth, a social pattern of envy and conflict between men and cities. I had learned to appreciate Raithskar, secure from attack by wild vineh because of its high walls, secure from attack by its neighbors because of the presence of the Riders, men who had dared to face the Alkhum crossing and the uncertain fate of the Valley for the sake of that rare prize, a sha’um friendship.

  I had learned, too, that the gift was not solely mine, but linked to the strange blue stone, which no one had seen besides my father. When I had it with me, I could read the thoughts of other people; when I was more than a certain distance away from it, the skill disappeared. I had performed tests, and discovered that I could control another’s thoughts, much more subtly than I had done with Philon. The power horrified me, and I had spent much time in learning to control my own thoughts, to prevent inadvertent influence over others.

  I had returned to Raithskar with a firm purpose, and I had just presented that purpose to a meeting of all the Riders in the city. The Ra’ira, as I had come to call the blue stone, was in my pouch, and I scanned the thoughts of the members of the group. I saw some who saw my proposal as a means to personal power, and these names I noted to myself. For the most part, however, I was gratified to see that I had impressed most of them with my own sense of destiny, my conviction that we held the future of the world in our hands—and I knew that my words, and not my thoughts, had convinced them.

  From Raithskar, the Sharith had scattered to cities and villages and isolated farmhouses on both sides of the world, carrying the message—you are not alone in your suffering; sharing, not conflict, is the only solution. The fact that the message arrived on the back of a sha’um was a subtle statement of power that required that the message be taken seriously. Representatives from almost every city and village had come to Raithskar—some out of fear, some out of curiosity, a few out of desperation—to meet with me.

  It was the third day of the meeting, and the stiff formality of the first day had vanished. The group sat at or milled around the tables which had been set up in the city’s square for this purpose and laid with refreshments. These representatives had agreed, in principle, on the need to share resources; most of them were now haggling over trade rates. Objections were shouted, quarrels settled with fists. Riders, stationed as guards around the square, looked at
me for permission to interfere, but I withheld it. I moved around and through the crowd, my hand on the Ra’ira, and I searched for truth.

  For the most part, the men who were speaking for their cities had honorable intentions. There were a few who were, in fact as well as in appearance, truly representing the ruling authority of their home cities. I felt a lot of outright greed and scheming in the crowd, but more frequently an undirected sense that the situation was a fair opportunity, if one could figure out how to use it.

  At last, I called the group to order through the simple expedient of calling Skerral into the square and mounting him. All eyes turned to me.

  “Go home,” I said. “And take this message with you. A new age has arrived, one in which every Gandalaran will share, rather than take, cooperate rather than be conquered. I and the Sharith will be the body of law to enforce peace in the land—any man who takes arms against another endangers us all, and thus will take the risk of facing a sha’um.

  “The city of Raithskar was gracious enough to host this meeting, at a tremendous cost in food and inconvenience. That will not be necessary again. My Riders and I will start a new settlement, at the edge of the Great Pleth. Tell your people that anyone who is willing to work at farming or building is welcome to join us there—especially those whose land has dried to worthlessness.

  “Within the next three moons, my Riders will come again to your cities, bearing word whether each of you here today will be permitted to represent your cities at future meetings. Most of you will be invited to the next meeting in six moons, which will be held in the new city, to be called Kä. But those of you who harbor secret thoughts of personal gain will be dismissed from representation, as will any successor with the same motives, until every settlement in Gandalara is represented by honest and dedicated people.”

  I resolved, as I rode from the square, to conceal myself near Raithskar’s gate and make written notes of what I learned from the representatives as they passed through on their way to their homes. It would take some time to assure the honest representation I wanted, but I was sure it would happen. For now, I let Skerral carry me out through the gate; I lay forward against his furred back and let his joy in running lighten the weight of the responsibility I had undertaken.