The Gandalara Cycle I (56 page)

After Tarani and I had helped Thymas, back up the hill, and he was resting, Tarani put Ronar to sleep in the shade beside the workshop. She came back in and found me sitting at one of the work table, working with brush and parchment.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing letters” I said. “When I left Raithskar, I had planned to get back by now. There are people there who will worry”

“Family?” she asked.

My mind was still on the letter, so I answered absently: “Yes Markasset’s father and aunt.”

"Thymas told me that you were Markasset, before your name was changed.

Ooops

I looked up at her. She was standing with her arms folded over her chest, her hip braced against the table. She was looking at me speculatively.

"'Double-minded'?" she said. "I think I've suspected it all along. You're a Visitor, aren't you?"

I had a strong urge to tell her the absolute truth, to explain to
someone
that I was alien to this world. But I checked it.

"Yes," I said. "And, before you ask, you've never heard of me. I'm
not
Serkajon."

She laughed, and again I thought how much I enjoyed the sound of her laughter. "I was thinking exactly that," she admitted.

"My being a Visitor - does it bother you?"

She sobered, and looked at me directly with those expressive, dark eyes. "It's why we're here right now, isn't it?"

I sighed. "I can't help but think so, Tarani. A moon ago, I was making plans to settle down in Raithskar, and let Zaddorn - the Chief of Peace and Security - take care of Gharlas. Then things started happening.

"First, I was running from Worfit. Then I was chasing you. Then I was trying to help Volitar. But all of it led me to one place - this workshop, face to face with Gharlas. It just seems that I was meant to find out what the Ra'ira is, and how dangerous it can be. Gharlas will turn the world upside down, if I don't stop him."

"If you don't stop him," she repeated thoughtfully. "You - because you can resist his power, even as it is increased by the Ra'ira. Thymas - he is part of it, too, I sense that. And me, Rikardon. You have been led to me, because I am a weapon of opposition. I will be coming with you, won't I?"

I held out my hand, and Tarani placed hers in it, briefly. "I didn't feel I could speak for you, Tarani, but I hoped you would want it this way. We won this battle, by virtue of surprise. He must have learned about me through the Ra'ira's thought-reading power, but he didn't see the significance of my 'doubleness until we tested one another. He won't underestimate me again. And he still has every reason to want that duplicate stone -

"It
is
here, isn't it?"

She jumped slightly, startled.

"I don't know. This is the first time I've been back in the workshop since I took Volitar out . . . just a minute." She went to her knees on the floor, and crawled under the table.

"The hiding place is exactly where you told Gharlas it was?" I asked.

"Surely," she said, her voice sounding odd through the wood and tile of the tabletop. "I was afraid he would know it, if I lied." I heard something scrape, then Tarani backed out from under the table and sat on the floor. In her hands, she held a brass-hinged wooden box.

"Volitar told me where this was, many years ago,' Tarani said.”He wanted me to know about it, in case of sudden death, but I've never seen what is in it. I suppose, now, that he was in constant fear of being recognized and killed or, worse, sent back to Eddarta."

I tried not to sound impatient. "Open it."

She did. She lifted out a gorgeous blue stone.

"If I didn't know that wasn't real . . I said, extending my hand. Tarani put the large, irregular, blue chunk of glass on my palm. I held the thing up to the light, looked through it. The interior flaws were there, the color was perfect - as well as I could remember it.

"I don't know much about glassmaking,” I said, “but I do know this must have and taken hours and hours of work. Layers of glass, heated and cooled unevenly to make stress lines, reheated so the next layer would bond without a mark -”

“You know a lot about glassmaking” Tarani said. “Look, here is one that failed."

She held up another glass piece, the same size and shape as the one I held. But in hers, the blue color was visible faintly, deep down in the center. The outside of the copy was crazed, all different colors spreading around the surface in random distribution.

"Why, there is something else in here, she said setting the damaged copy on the floor.”A pouch and - it looks like an old letter.

She opened the pouch, and poured coins out into her hand. She drew a startled breath at their quantity some of them spilled over, rolled and bounced on the floor. I picked one up that had come to rest near my foot. It was a gold twenty-dozak piece.

"How could he have saved all this?" she wondered. He never, seemed to sell more than he needed to, to keep us going.

"It looks to me like he's had these awhile," I said, holding out the coin to her. "This is an Eddartan coin, graced with a picture of Gharlas’s pal, Pylomel." The face was sensuous and arrogant, with some resemblance to Gharlas. "Maybe the letter -?"

She poured the coins back into the pouch, spilling some more. But she didn't bother picking them up; she was opening the folded parchment carefully. She made a soft sound, then began reading aloud, hesitating now and then over the faded ink.

“‘I have only a moment and I must take this chance to let you know that I am well. Pylomel was angry when his informants brought me back to Eddarta, but I have convinced him that my going was the whim, soon regretted, of a headstrong girl. It suits his self-esteem to believe that only my pride has kept me from him. There has been a public reconciliation between our families. He and I are to marry in three days.

“‘I have accepted my fate, and so must you, dear one. I will not try to escape again, for then even dense Pylomel would guess the truth - that I was not alone when I ran away the first time. I cannot leave, and you must not return; the secret, cherished knowledge that you and Tarani are free of this hateful life is all that makes the prospect of my imminent marriage bearable. The High Lord must never suspect never - that I bore a child during the blessed year we spent together.

“'Let Tarani believe that her parents are both dead, darling. Though it will hurt you to say it, it will quiet her questions.

“'My body is lost to you, but not my love. That will be yours always. Zefra.'”

She folded the parchment again, pressed it to her chest, and closed her eyes. "He was my father," she said after a moment. "Not my uncle. My father."

"That's the way it looks," I said. "I guess this changes things a little."

Her eyes opened. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the letter," I said, waving my hand at the parchment. "All that punishment Volitar took from Gharlas before we got here - he wasn't hiding a chunk of glass, Tarani, he was hiding that letter."

"Yes, I see that," she said impatiently. "He was protecting me from Gharlas. But I don't understand -"

"He was protecting
Zefra
. Assuming she's still alive, what do you suppose Pylomel would do; if he found out she's been deceiving him for twenty years?"

She worried her right tusk with her tongue as she thought about it. "You're trying to tell me that I should stay away from Eddarta to keep my mother safe? But Gharlas
does
know about me, Rikardon. She's already in danger."

"Not as much as if you took your look-alike face back home, Pylomel can't be too fond of Gharlas; he'd be a fool to accept such an accusation without proof."

"And I'd be all the proof he needed," she concluded. She picked up the scattered coins and sat quietly for a moment, letting them sift through her fingers and rattle into the box. Suddenly she dumped them all in, set the parchment on top of them, and clapped the lid down. "There's something you've overlooked," she said, getting to her feet. “Two things, in fact."

"I'm listening."

"First, Volitar's death. Gharlas had seen me; Volitar must have known the truth would occur to him - sooner or later, with or without the confirmation of the letter. The cause he had protected with his buds, with his ... pain ... was already lost. Why did he kill himself?"

I started to say something but she cut me answering her own question. She had begun pacing about, thinking out loud as she walked.

“I’ve told you what Volitar taught me. What he
believed
with all his being – that no man has the right to impose his will on another person. When Gharlas had him pinned down as a shield against your sword, Volitar was a toll being used to control us - to control me. He destroyed himself, rather than be used that way. He might have done the same thing when Molik's men took him, if he had realized what was happening.

“He must have hated it that thought of our safety kept my mother in Eddarta - but for my sake, he he accepted he choice. Now Gharlas has the capability of using me against her and her against me.
If
she is still alive, which we don't know for sure. I have no more liking for being someone else's weapon than Volitar had, Rikardon. And I'm tired of my family being used against me. I want to find my mother if I can and free her from Pylomel, if I can."

She paused, and turned toward me.

"The other thing you've overlooked is something we've just discussed. I'm part of your team. I'm going with vou. Rikardon."

I felt the return of the sensation I'd had, the night it had occurred to me that I might be immune to Gharlas's power. It didn't frighten me, now. I welcomed it, drew it in, let it fill me.

I had told Thanasset in my letter - in cautious terms - that I had discovered what he had wanted to tell me. He would know what was happening, and he'd tell Ferrathyn and Zaddorn to look for other job applicants. I'd have to write a letter to Illia, too, and tell her to stop waiting. I'd do it partly because though I had this need to try to stop Gharlas, I didn't have any intuition of what the outcome would be.

But partly, I would tell Illia goodbye because I knew I had turned a corner in this new life of mine. A tranquil, domestic scene in Raithskar just wasn't in my future. l was headed in the opposite direction.

“You and I and Thymas," I agreed softly. "And Keeshah and Ronar and Lonna. We’ll go all the way to Eddarta, if necessary."

* * *

* *

*

INPUT SESSION TWO

I can go no further, Recorder.

We will separate our minds from the All-Mind . . . and I shall withdraw my mind from yours. . . You seem to be in pain.

My right shoulder hurts.

That is the lingering memory of your stab wounds. It is regretful that you must suffer through every injury again.

But I may relive the joys, as well. It is a good balance. I found the Recording easier, this time. But I am tired.

We will continue later. Rest now. Sleep. . .

* * *

* *

*

The Bronze of Eddarta

Book Three of the Gandalara Cycle

Somewhere in Eddarta, stolen by the treacherous assassin, lay the Ra'ira, the most precious gemstone of the burning desert world of Gandalara. Armed with the Steel sword of Serkajon, Rikardon and his telepathic warcat Keeshah seek the sacred stone. With the aid of Tarani, a beautiful illusionist with a mysterious past, they make a daring raid on Eddarta's royal citadel to rescue the gemstone before its awesome powers can be used for destruction.

INPUT SESSION THREE

Ah, it is you. Is it time to begin once more?

If it suits you, Recorder.

And your shoulder?

The pain of the remembered wound has faded, as you said it would. I feel quite well again, and ready to continue.

Then be comfortable, and we will prepare by reviewing the material you have already given to the All-Mind.

You spoke of the uniting of two lives, one nearly ended, one barely begun. You were Ricardo Carillo, in a world outside the Walls of Gandalara. You saw a fireball which you call a meteor, and after an undetermined period of unconsciousness, you awoke in Gandalara, sharing the body - and some of the memories - of a young man named Markasset.

And sharing his telepathic bond with a member of Gandalara's intelligent feline species, a sha'um.