The Bronze of Eddarta (2 page)

Thymas, entrenched in the male-militarist traditions of the Sharith, had been scandalized by the idea. Both Markasset and Ricardo had grown up free of Sharith tradition, so Rikardon’s decision was based only on consideration of Tarani’s comfort. Her alternative to riding one of the sha’um had been swinging and bouncing between the huge cats in a cargo net.

So I tried, now, to read what Ronar could tell me about Thymas. The boy had told me he was impatient to get going, in spite of the fact that he and Ronar were only partially healed. I had been hearing his words as false bravado, but in watching Ronar, I realized that he really was feeling restless and confined.

And what
, I wondered,
is Keeshah saying about the way I feel? Am I—

*
Bored,
* came Keeshah’s complaint, as if in answer. I laughed. He raised up on his forelegs a little, and swung his head suddenly, catching me in the side and knocking me into an ungainly somersault.

“Hey—mmph!” I yelled. I came upright spitting greenery and skidding down the slope. Before I could get good purchase, I felt a whack on my shoulders, and I was tumbling again. I yelped once more when my injured shoulder caught all my weight. I let my body relax; one last roll, and I slid to a halt, facedown.

I lay there, keeping both mind and body as still as I could. I couldn’t hear Keeshah approach, but I could feel his breath on my neck when his anxious thought reached me.

*
Rikardon?
*

It was as though time had turned back, and I lay upon salty sand, instead of the fragrant grassy stuff in which my face was buried. Keeshah had called me Markasset then …

I had meant to “play dead” as a joke on Keeshah. By the time I realized how cruel that was, I couldn’t give up the ruse because I was caught up in a memory, immobilized by it.

It wasn’t
my
memory. It was Keeshah’s.

I felt the torrent of his anguish as Markasset died, felt in my own throat Keeshah’s scream of grief, in my own hands and feet the pull of the killer’s flesh against his razor claws. I grieved for the emptiness in his mind. I ached for the touch of hand on fur.

I felt his need to run, to roar, to speak to his own kind, in his own way, of the lost kinship. And I felt the other need, the strange one, the unbidden knowing. The need to
wait.

I felt his wonder when he sensed new life within the dead shell of his friend. I felt his caution, his hesitation, his awareness that this new person would perish without his help.

In Keeshah’s persona, I accepted responsibility for myself.

In Keeshah’s memory, I touched the stranger’s mind—my own—and found it strong and clear, but needful.

As Keeshah, I accepted Ricardo.

I
was
Keeshah, and every muscle thrilled with the joy of the bond with my new friend, with a fierce pride in our partnership …

Suddenly, I was back in the present, nearly overcome by the unexpected sharing of Keeshah’s intimate memory, totally ashamed of having frightened him.

I rolled over, and Keeshah snapped his head back in surprise.

*
Keeshah,
* I rushed into the apology, *
I’m sorry. I’m not really hurt—hey! What the!…
*

It never crossed my mind to be afraid of Keeshah, even though my own reaction to that sort of joke would have been anger. But I wasn’t prepared for his surge of gladness. He was so happy that I wasn’t hurt that he forgot I
could
be. A sha’um’s idea of mischief …

When I dragged myself through the door of the two-story house attached to Volitar’s workshop, Thymas and Tarani both stared at me in amazement. I looked down at my clothes. Blue tunic and tan trousers, even my leather boots, carried ground-in green and brown stains. I felt an itch behind my ear, slapped an unbeautiful insectish creature to the floor, and stepped on it.

“Keeshah was bored,” I said.

I wasn’t expecting a roar of laughter, but I had hoped for a smile or two. Tarani tried to oblige, but the shape of humor didn’t rest well in her tense face. I glanced at Thymas, sitting sullenly on his pallet, pretending to mend a cargo net that was perfectly whole, and I understood how she felt. She had been alone with Thymas most of the day, and the boy’s self-loathing was a tangible, oppressive burden to anyone around him.

“I saw Ronar moving around,” I said. “How is he feeling, Thymas?”

“He is nearly healed,” the boy said. He threw down the net and stood up with nearly his old grace. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I never would have seen the flash of pain in his eyes as he stretched the muscles around the still-mending wound in his side. “We are ready to travel.”

Now, everybody in the room knew that was an out-and-out lie. Ronar had lain low for days after his fight with Keeshah, before he came forward to offer my sha’um his undefended throat. That gesture of surrender was partially Thymas’s idea—a reflection of the boy’s guilt feelings—but it could never have happened if Ronar hadn’t been badly injured and demoralized, himself. Tarani had used her hypnotic/psychic skills to help him, but Thymas’s sha’um had slept only one night under her spell. The body healed itself faster in that restful sleep, but it still needed a minimum of time to do the job. Ronar was hardly “ready to travel”—at least, not at the grueling pace we had kept since leaving Thagorn.

But I said: “Good. We’ll leave in the morning, then.”

I walked over to the dining table, unfolded the map which I had, fortunately, lost during Keeshah’s first assault, and later retrieved. I ignored Tarani’s questioning look, and spread the parchment out on the table.

“The Walls of the World.” I had wondered about that term, while I was still only Ricardo. When I had acquired Markasset’s memories, I had also, inevitably, acquired his viewpoints. At every opportunity, I made a conscious effort to step aside from them, but lately there hadn’t been much opportunity. I’d been worrying too hard about staying alive to think much about Markasset’s complacent acceptance of the limits of his world.

Now, in a two-dimensional image of Gandalara, the edges of the “world” were clearly marked.

As in the fragmented maps I
had
seen, a thick, dark line winding its way across one long edge of the map represented the Great Wall. Gandalaran charting conventions placed the Great Wall at the top of the map. Though I was sure the Wall didn’t run truly east-west, it did mark the northern edge of Gandalara, so Ricardo was fairly comfortable with using such a map.

The southern border was marked off into sections. At the left edge of the map was a feature with the intriguing name of Valley of Mists. From it, the Wall of Mist ran eastward below the Kapiral Desert toward the Morkadahl Mountains, where it merged into the unnamed mountain range which butted up against the Korchis to form the Chizan Passage. East of the Zantro Pass, one of the two high crossings that enclosed Chizan, the southern wall was divided into three sections. The Rising Wall began at Inid, the Refreshment House at the foot of the slope leading down from the Zantro. It approached a plateau isolated from the walls, and became the Desert Wall. Further east, it was known as the River Wall.

I put the index finger of my right hand on a spot marked in the middle of the River Wall. “This is Eddarta,” I explained to Thymas and Tarani, who were looking over my shoulders. I hooked a chair out with my foot, and sat down to give them a clearer view.

“And Dyskornis is here.” Tarani touched the map.

Thymas studied the area between our markings. “Gharlas will take the quickest route,” he said. “Tarani—which way?”

Without hesitation, Tarani said: “South.” She moved her finger as she talked. “The main caravan route to Eddarta follows the line of Refreshment Houses. Inid. Haddat. Kanlyr. Iribos. You have said that Gharlas was a caravan master—that is the way he must have traveled before.”

The shortest way home is the way you know best
, I thought.
She’s probably right.

Thymas was peering at the map closely, muttering to himself. “Five days to Inid, another five to Haddat. He’s four days ahead, but with the sha’um …” He tilted his head. “We should catch up with him midway between Haddat and Kanlyr.”

“Correction,” I said. “We
would
catch up with him—if he went that way, which I think is likely, and
if
we followed him, which we aren’t going to do.”

“Not follow—”

I held up a hand to cut off Thymas’s explosion. “Use your head. There’s nothing in that direction but Refreshment Houses. Tarani, you tell us—what is the southern route like?”

“The way from Inid to Kanlyr lies in a trench between dry hills. I have gone no further, but that far, at least, it is a miserable trip.” She smiled a little wistfully. “That’s why my troupe did so well through there; the caravans were desperate for some distraction from the journey.”

I nodded, thinking that Gharlas had traveled the main caravan route regularly between Eddarta and Raithskar, yet had never seen Tarani, who had entertained caravans with her dancing and illusions. The odds against his missing her had to be enormous.

But there’s no doubting it—he was astonished when he finally put it together that Volitar’s phantom
“niece”
was the illusionist he had heard so much about.

Call it destiny
, I thought.
Call it fate. Call it scrambled eggs, if you like. But Gharalas wasn’t meant to know about Tarani until we all met here in Dyskornis.

“Right,” I said. “So we’re going to follow the Great Wall—” I traced the northern route with my finger. “—past all these little towns.

“The reasons we are going to do it this way,” I said, forestalling something else Thymas started to say, “are threefold.

“First, there are towns and rivers north of us, which means that the countryside is more hospitable, and it’s likely the sha’um can hunt for their meals along the way.

“Second, Gharlas is crazy, but not foolish. He’ll expect us to follow him. There’s no telling what sort of traps he’ll leave along the way.

“Third, I hope he
won’t
expect us to be waiting for him in Eddarta when he gets there.”

“You mean you’re going to let him reach his home territory?” Thymas demanded.

I sighed.
Why is it that the only time he sounds like himself, is when he’s arguing with me?

It was Tarani who answered the boy. “You’re forgetting that Gharlas is more than just an Eddartan, Thymas. He’s a caravan master. He probably knows every vlek-handler from here to Eddarta. If they do not already owe him service, he can buy them. And those he cannot buy, he can … command.”

I glanced at Thymas, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

He’s remembering that he nearly killed me, while Gharlas controlled him.

“We’re already in his home territory,” Tarani continued, in the vibrant voice that contained its own kind of command. She sat down and leaned over the map. “I agree with Rikardon’s plan, but that has little weight.” She placed her hands flat on the map and lifted her head to look directly at the pale-haired boy. “It does not matter that you
disagree
, Thymas. We will
both
do whatever Rikardon suggests.”

Uh-oh.

I waited for the explosion, but it never came—at least, not from Thymas. He squared his shoulders, stared at his boots, and said: “Yes, I see what you mean. I’ve done enough damage.”

I slammed my hand on the table—Tarani snatched her fingers out of the way just in time—and stood up.

“I’ve had all I can take of your simpering self-importance, Thymas.”

Thymas gasped. “But I—”

“You
think
you keep apologizing, but you know what you’re really doing? You’re trying to take credit, all by yourself, for letting Gharlas get away.
Your
mistakes were the serious ones.
Your
mistakes were the avoidable ones. If
you
had done things right …

“You want to talk about stupid mistakes? What idiot, who knew there was a price on his head, went into the rogueworld and flashed Serkajon’s sword, so that every thief and assassin in Dykornis knew who he was?” I stabbed my thumb at my chest. “This one, that’s who.
You
didn’t let Gharlas get away, Thymas.
We
did. Even Tarani. She could have sent Lonna after Gharlas, but instead she chose to send the bird to help me. If the only important thing is to stop Gharlas, she made the wrong choice.

“She did succeed in saving my life. Maybe you think that
was
the wrong choice!”

“Rikardon!” Tarani’s shout cut me off in mid-harangue. I was leaning across the corner of the table, forcing Thymas to back away from me. I straightened up.

“You once told me,” she said more gently, “that it is easy for you to say insincere things.”

Ouch
, I thought.
Touche.

Thymas tried to read the silent message that passed from Tarani to me, and he was beginning to look angry.

Is that what I’m trying to do?
I asked myself.
Provoke him into being as nasty as he used to be? God forbid.

“Sorry,” I said. I rubbed my hand over the short, dark blond fur on my head, searching for the right words—and sending a small shower of dirt onto the map. “I’m only trying to say that we’re a team, and that none of us can take credit or blame alone, from here on out.

“Tarani is right about this—a team needs a leader. For reasons that mystify me, I’m it.

“You’re right about something else—there is
nothing
more important than getting the Ra’ira away from Gharlas.

“Trust is the key to teamwork, Thymas. You and Tarani have to trust me to give the right orders, and I have to trust you to follow them. Not because you promised your father to obey me.”

Which is yet to happen
, I thought.
Wups, “Captain”—could be you need some lessons in trust, yourself.

“Especially not because,” I continued, “you feel you’ve proved yourself unworthy of command.” He flinched a little at that, and I knew I had touched a nerve. “We can’t afford your self-pity.