The Gandalara Cycle I (53 page)

He walked over to stand in front of me, and stared down into my face. My eyes could turn to watch him, but my voice was mute. Inside, I was screaming and straining against the holding spell:

“You,” he said softly, almost affectionately, “have been an endless trouble to me. If you hadn't first lied to me about your name, then come snooping after me when I left the caravan, Yolim would have lived a little longer. Not much, to be sure, but long enough to do another service I had planned for him.

If you hadn't found Hural in Thagorn, Zaddorn would still be circling around Thanasset instead of looking for me. I don't know how you found your way here, my double-minded friend, but killing you
permanently
will be a high pleasure."

Double-minded? That's the key! Think about Ricardo. Remember things that have no connection to Gandalara. The Marines. Oceans. Sailing, swimming, diving off a board into cold , clearwater ..

I moved my hand! Did Gharlas notice? No, he's turning back to Tarani and Volitar. All right, now, keep it up. Playing tennis, riding horses, snow skiing. Driving a car. Electricity...

"I see Volitar is awake," Gharlas said. "Now, my dear, you will answer a question for me."

Volitar said: "Don't tell him - aachkk-k-k." His eyes went wide, and his hand came up to his throat in a wide, floppy arc.

"We don't want to be interrupted, do we?" purred Gharlas. "I can keep him from talking. I can keep him from breathing. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Tarani said, and I thought of Molik. "What do you want?"

"A simple thing. Such a simple thing, to cause so much pain," he said, spreading his hands. "Somewhere in this house and workshop, your uncle has a special hiding place. He has been . . .
insufferably
stubborn about telling me where it is." Gharlas's voice wavered a little with frustration.

He wouldn't even let you draw it from his mind!
I translated gleefully.
Good for you, Volitar. Good for you!

I had been straining against the paralysis, wearing at it the way I'd work against a physical bond. Tense and release. Tense and release. Knowing that Volitar had resisted Gharlas's power for two weeks or more was such encouragement that my entire right arm moved, lowering the sword about four inches.

Gharlas still had his back to me, but Tarani had seen the jerky movement.

"I think that is a poor show of gratitude to the man who rescued him from two very unpleasant men. He has also refused to tell me why they were holding him prisoner, though that is unimportant. I was merely curious. But I am most serious about finding your uncle's hiding place. Where is it?"

"I will tell you," Tarani answered. She made no attempt to hide the contempt in her voice. "If you will first tell me what this is all about. What have -you forced Volitar to do?"

While she was talking, I felt . . . something.

It's Tarani!
I realized.
She's stalling Gharlas, and trying to help me break free.

Now I was applying constant pressure against the constraint. I worked alone as Ricardo, and when I tired, Markasset and Tarani took over. It was weakening, we were gaining. It was slow work, but that was an advantage in itself. Gharlas didn't seem to take any notice of the step-by-step erosion of his control.

"Do not think you can set terms for me," Gharlas told Tarani, but he was more amused than angry. "I will answer your questions, purely for the vexation to Volitar, who has tried so desperately to shelter you from the truth."

The old man got agitated, tried to talk, tried to move. Tarani pulled him back to the floor so that his head rested on her knees. Gharlas had his back to me. But I knew he was smiling.

I wanted to kill him.

"Your uncle, my dear,
belongs
to no less a personage than the High Lord of Eddarta himself, Pylomel." He sneered the name. "Volitar was a gemcutter, highly skilled. I wouldn't demean his work, not I, who have so profited by it! After Volitar disappeared from Eddarta - he had some foolish notion that he, and not his landpatron, should be paid for the work he did - nothing was heard of him until I saw him, quite by accident, selling his glass beads in the Dyskornis marketplace.

"Ah, how well I remember Pylomel's fury at the loss of Volitar," Gharlas chuckled, a nasty sound. "He raged more over that, even, than over missing his latest, most beautiful, and least loving bride-to-be, who disappeared around the same time. It was appropriate, as it turned out; the woman came back, but the gemcutter was lost for good The High Lord’s frustration was a keen delight to watch."

Gharlas began to pace slowly around the room, but I noticed that he was careful to keep Tarani and her uncle in his line of sight. He walked over to one of the tile-topped worktables located around the walls, between the porch doors. He picked up a small, truncated pyramid made of clay - it looked like a mold for a barut glass, which could be broken out of the cooled glass and discarded. He turned it around and around with his fingers as he talked.

"Naturally, Pylomel would be delighted to find Volitar after all this time. But I owe him nothing!" Gharlas suddenly shouted. He threw the mold to the floor; it shattered with a snapping sound. He paused to recover his bland, patronizing manner, and then continued, "I spoke too hastily, my dear I do owe Pylomel something - repayment for his arrogance. Thanks to your uncle, that debt is nearly repaid.

“Through the years of Volitar's service, Pylomel collected a magnificent array of jewelry. I called upon Volitar, who had learned this new skill of coloring and forming glass, to duplicate some of the stones he had cut for Pylomel. Where his memory failed him, I put into his mind a picture of the finished pieces, as I had last seen them. Volitar did this for me, because he did not care to return to Eddarta to face Pylomel’s anger. I learned much later - only a few moons ago, in fact, after I caught the barest glimpse of you, my dear - that Volitar had another reason for his cooperation. He didn't want his lovely niece to learn that he was merely pretending to be a free artisan."

He began his pacing again. Tarani watched him, but I felt her power in my mind, working against Gharlas.

"I took Volitar's glass duplicates to another, um, friend of mine, who - again, with the help of my images - reproduced the correct setting. In cheaper materials, of course. He chuckled drily. "The finished pieces were perfect copies to the casual glance, and the jewelry is rarely displayed. Pylomel hoards his wealth jealously.

"Long ago, I found the vault he believes to be impregnable. I have visited that vault on almost every trip to Eddarta, since I relocated Volitar, and each time, I have left it a wealthier man. In Raithskar, or Omergol, or even here in Dyskornis, such fine jewelry commands a rich price."

He walked by Thymas, who was still lunging stiffly. The sight amused Gharlas, and he laughed out loud. "And how is your traitorous father, Thymas?" he asked. "In poor health, I hope? I must remember to let you live long enough to tell me if Molik did his job properly."

While his attention was distracted, Tarani looked directly at me. Slowly, I nodded my head, and she flashed a quick smile of satisfaction. She looked down at Volitar again, as Gharlas came toward her. I was in his line of vision, so I kept perfectly still. Internally, I was doing the hardest work I could remember ever doing. I was nearly free.

"Your uncle has given me much, my dear. A great deal of profit from the sale of the replaced jewelry. A great deal of private satisfaction. And, indirectly, a great deal of knowledge."

Gharlas took a bundle of cloth out of a pouch tied to his belt. He began unfolding layers of cloth.

"On one of my visits to Pylomel's vault, I found a book that is intended for reading by the High Lords only. It spoke of the Kings of Gandalara, their history, their power. It revealed the secret of that power." His voice shook with emotion. "And now I possess that secret."

He held his hand low, to show Tarani what he had unwrapped. Resting on the palm of his hand was the Ra'ira.

"Is it not beautiful?" Gharlas asked, stroking the blue gem. "But small, so small, to have so much importance.”

"Veytoth was the first King to write about this. It is called the Ra'ira. It was sent to the Kings from Raithskar, where it had been found in their rakor mines. Veytoth was practical. When he became King, he inquired about breaking the pretty bauble into jewellery-sized pieces. But his gem cutters warned that, if it could be cut at all, the lines within it indicated that it might shatter.

In time Veytoth grew fond of it, and kept it near him. He quickly learned that in its presence, his mindpower - the thoughts of people who were days away from him, were made clear. People around him obeyed his wishes, as well as his spoken orders.

“It was the then that the Kings began to breed for the mindpower, a custom continued to this day in Eddarta.- His hand closed around the blue stone, and began to tremble. "The High Lord of Eddarta must be a child of Harthim's descent, the product of a legal union between the last High Lord and a woman of the family of a Lord. If none of those children have the mindpower, the children of the High Lord's siblings may be considered -
provided they are the products of a legal union

He was shouting again, staring at the ceramic curved-brick furnace, but not seeing it.

“I am cousin to Pylomel," he said, "his father's sister's son. And I have the mindpower.
I have it.”
When we were tested, as children, even then my skill was greater than Pylomel’s, and it has grown even more these past few years. Now Pylomel is puny by comparison.

"But am I Eddarta's High Lord? No. Those self-righteous fleasons declared me ineligible, because my mother loved a servant. She had only one opportunity to lie with him, and she took it, knowing she would conceive from the union. I have despised her for that, yes, despised my own creation. But no longer.

"I
am
a bastard!" he shouted, shaking his fist in the air. "But I am also the new, the next, King of Gandalara.'"

He seemed to recall where he was, then, and spent a moment calming down. Tarani chanced a quick glance at me, and I shook my head slightly. I was free now, but a little dazed by what I had been hearing.

Why didn't Thanasset tell me? Because I told him I wasn't going to get involved with this crackpot. I convinced him that I just wanted a vacation to think about the Council's offer....

The Council! Of course, the true nature of the Ra'ira has to be top secret, available to confirmed Supervisors only. What was it Thanasset said? "You may need information Markasset didn't have." He meant about the Ra'ira. He wanted me to join the Council so he could tell me the truth.

"But I am wandering from my purpose," Gharlas said, his voice oily again.

He changes so quickly. There's not a doubt in the world that he's as nutty as an almond grove. Let's get the timing just right....

"The Lords have grown soft and self-satisfied, resting in comfort in Eddarta. There hasn't been a High Lord for generations who has suggested seriously a plan to re-establish the Kingdom. When I found that book, I knew that it was my destiny to possess the Ra'ira and rule Gandalara.

"So I came to your uncle and persuaded him to make a duplicate. We went together to Raithskar, to view the stone on Commemoration Day, which honors that despicable traitor, Serkajon.

"I came to pick up the duplicate a few moons ago - that was the evening we nearly met, my dear - and found that Volitar had constructed
two
copies. They were slightly different from one another, but even at close viewing, either would have passed for the real gem. To those who do not know its special quality, that is. And those fools in Raithskar are sworn never to use it - how could they discover that the real Ra'ira had been replaced?

"I chose one of the copies, and took it to Raithskar. By fortuitous accident, I lost that duplicate before I could complete my original plan. It was only then that I realized the folly I had been about to commit.

"It must be clear to everyone in Gandalara that I, and only I, have the Ra'ira. As before, no one shall know it’s true power, but it has a strength and a charm of its own. It carries its own feeling of history, of grandeur. Some people will follow me, simply because I have it.

"So there must be no one else who
might
have the stone," he said. He leaned toward Tarani. "I needn't worry about the copy I lost in Raithskar. It was disguised as a clod of dirt; the street sweepers probably gathered it up and dumped it outside the city that very day, and it is well buried by now.

"But I want the other duplicate," he said, getting to the point at last. "And you will tell me where it is. Now."

Gently, Tarani laid her uncle's head on the floor. He flopped his arms and kicked his legs weakly in protest. To comfort him, she kissed his bruised forehead. She stood up and moved around Volitar. Gharlas fell back to give her room. He was just outside my sword range.

“Yes,” said Tarani. “Now.”

I lunged forward, aiming for Gharlas's back. But he had caught something - a change in Tarani's expression, perhaps, or even her thought. An instant before I lunged, and Tarani reached for her sword, Gharlas threw himself sideways and down to the floor. He rolled over Volitar and came face up with the old man in front of him as a shield. He was pressing the blade of a knife against Volitar's throat.

"You are a most uncooperative man,” he said scornfully. "How interesting that you can break my command. Must be the doubleness of yours.”

“Let Volitar go” Tarani said “I’ll give you your filthy copy. Let him go!”

She was standing to one, her sword shaking in her hand. I was looking right down at Volitar's face. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, looked at me, and said four words. In the confusion, Gharlas hadn't maintained his silence control on Volitar.

"Take care of Tarani," the old man said. Then, his arms and legs still nearly useless, he bucked his body violently upward, driving the knife blade deep into the bruised flesh of his throat.