The Gandalara Cycle I (39 page)

“You have done us great honor this day,” I forced away the constriction in my throat, and tried to project my voice clearly. "Keeshah and I thank you.

"It is not yet time for the Sharith to ride out of Thagorn and back into the affairs of the world. . .I must leave you tomorrow - and I am sad to go - but Dharak will continue his excellent leadership in my absence. Show him the respect you would offer to me. I will return when there is need.”

I guess that's ambiguous enough
, I thought, with a twinge of guilt.
And long enough. I'll bet the little kids are really tired of all this standing.

“I will try to be worthy of the friendship of the Sharith," I finished off, and I could hear my voice crack, revealing how deeply I had been moved by this ceremony.

Keeshah jumped down from the platform and started down the aisle of cats and men toward the double doors. Men ran around the Riders to get to the doors and open them, and I told Keeshah to go slowly, so they would have time to get there.

Behind me, Dharak shouted: "Rikardon and Keeshah'"

The cry was taken up all around me, and this time the men's voices were accompanied by the roaring of the sha'um. Keeshah and I moved through a horrendous, glorious noise, and I was overtaken by a fierce surge of joy.

Keeshah's feeling it, too!
I reached for him, and we merged.
T
he sha'um are saluting him, not me. He can hear it in their voices.

I am not the Captain of the Sharith

We are.

Keeshah and I, together, rode out of the Hall into a world that was sharper and brighter than the one we had left.

"He has gone too far this time," Dharak was saying. "He will pay for his insult to you. I told him, specifically, that I required his presence, in spite of his uncertain feelings about you."

That's mild phrasing. Thymas hates my tusks.

We were standing, with Shola, in the main avenue, facing the gates which were now open. As soon as the wall guards had returned to their posts after the ceremony, they had reported the approach of the entertainment troupe, and we had come here to greet them. The rest of the Sharith lined the avenue, leaving a broad pathway from the gate to where we waited.

"It was part of his duty. That's exactly the way I stated it to him. It was his
duty
to be there to acclaim you the Captain."

I didn't particularly care whether Thymas accepted me or not. But I knew there was more at stake here than Dharak's pride. The Lieutenant had based his plans for controlling an incipient rebellion on my authority, and Thymas had already, indirectly, defied that authority. It couldn't be ignored.

"You are too angry, Dharak," I said, using the same quiet, intense tones Dharak was using, to keep from being overheard by those nearest us. "I will judge him."

Shola stepped between us. "Thank you,
Captain,
" she said.

The Lieutenant turned to face the gate. "Perhaps Thymas won't come back to Thagorn," he said quietly. "Perhaps that would be best."

"Look - the acrobats!" Shola cried, with a forced show of excitement.

The first members of the troupe were, indeed, somersaulting and flipping through the somber gates of Thagorn. They were followed by a procession which reminded me delightfully of the circus parades I had seen when Ricardo had been a child. Jugglers tossed crockery around at dizzying speeds. Men and women strutted by in incredible and intricate costumes: one made up entirely of feathers, one of tiny bronze rings, another covered with tiny glass baubles, so that there was a continuous musical tinkling as the wearer walked by. Musicians were spaced throughout, to lend rhythm and continuity to this preview performance.

The entertainers moved down the line of Sharith to the shouts and laughter and applause of their audience. They stopped directly in front of us, performed a special piece of business, and then moved off to our left. The last barracks building in from the gate had been set aside for them.

Some distance behind the entertainers came the support group vleks and carts laden with costumes, props, and travel provisions. To make things less worrisome for the vlek handlers, all the sha'um had been asked to stay on the other side of the river while the caravan remained in Thagorn.

But between the entertainers and the rest of the caravan walked a tall woman, strikingly beautiful, dressed in a black robe, and carrying a restless white bird on her right shoulder. She moved with a stately grace, seeming to ignore the cheers of greeting which rose when she came through the gate. This was Tarani, the illusionist, and she walked with her hand upon the extended arm of a man.

The man was Thymas.

The two of them approached us without speaking. I couldn't help staring at the girl - she couldn't have been more than twenty years old, though her height and her air of assurance gave an impression of greater age. Most Gandalarans had light-colored head fur which turned darker through the years. But Tarani's pale, almost luminous face was crowned by head fur that was coal black. Her eyes were large and wide-set, so dark that they seemed solid enough to turn away the light before it entered. They stared back at me for a long moment before she spoke, and during that time, I began to be uncomfortable.

The strangest thing about it was that she was somehow familiar, but I couldn't quite touch the right memory. .

Gharlas!
It came to me.
He was tall, too, and his facial structure was similar - flatters cheekbones and less prominent supraorbital ridges. But that's not the real similarity. Markasset felt almost exactly this way when Gharlas stared at him with that peculiar intensity. Thymas said that Tarani has the same kind of power. I believe him now.

Thymas and Tarani stopped about two yards from us. Before Dharak or I could say anything, Tarani spoke in a low and vibrant voice that set my spine tingling.

“I am pleased to be here to help celebrate your accession, Captain," she said, "and I give you my thanks for sending my good friend Thymas to meet me, deliver the news, and escort me to your gates. In return for this gracious courtesy, may I offer you a small gift?"

Dharak was gritting his teeth, and I sympathized with him. Thymas knew very well we wouldn't air dirty linen in front of these outsiders by calling him down for not being at the ceremony. But if we didn't contradict Tarani's statement, the rest of the Sharith (at least, those who didn't know Thymas very well) would assume that I
had
issued the escort orders, and punishment at a later date would confuse the issue.

Very neat, Thymas,
I thought.
You haven't said a word, so you are technically innocent of lying. She has called me "Captain," but you haven't.

You don't know it, but you've done me a big favor. It would have been tricky, awarding punishment to the Lieutenant's son without seeming to be overly harsh or lenient. Dharak will hate me for this, but I'm .going to let you get away with it. At least for now.

"I would welcome a gift from you, Tarani," I said. I could hear Dharak's teeth gritting again.

Thymas dropped his arm, and didn't try to hide his smile of triumph. Tarani's face registered no emotion at all. She put her right hand into a hidden pocket of the robe and lifted her left hand high over her head, palm opened flat to the sky. She brought her right hand up and dropped something into the open palm.

"Lonna, please deliver our gift to . . . the Captain."

Was that little hesitation a subtle gibe?
I wondered.
To tell me she knows the score, and is on Thymas's side?

The bird had taken flight when she lifted her hands. Its wingspan was surprisingly large. What I had thought to be an odd-looking tail had actually been the tips of its wings, folded over its back and crossed at the base of its tail.

This was a species of bird Markasset had never seen. As a raven of Ricardo's world was so black as to be iridescent in direct light, this bird was that white, almost silver. As we watched it fly upward, the sky's glow was visible through the delicate edges of the wing feathers. Against the gray-white of the clouds, it nearly disappeared.

It flew upward for a few seconds, turned, folded its wings back, and dived straight for Tarani. As it got closer, we could all see its head stretched for the least wind resistance, its sharp, downward-curved beak aimed for the girl's hand. At the last possible moment, the wings spread, the dive leveled out, and the bird breezed across us. Tarani lowered her hand to show that it was empty, and I started to breathe again.

That's quite a show,
I conceded.
But if you think I'm going to give that sharp-nosed torpedo a target.
.

It wasn't necessary. The bird had pulled up its high-speed flight and was coming back toward us, its wings beating the air with unbelievable slowness. It flew right up to me and hovered at my chest level, watching me with a one-eyed stare that reminded me of its mistress, carrying something shiny gold in its beak.

I realized what it wanted, and held out my hand. It dropped the gold thing into it, and then returned to Tarani. Shola came close and Dharak, for all his irritation with Thymas looked over her shoulder curiously.

"It's a bracelet," I said, and held it up for them to see. I did admire it. It was a soft chain made up of golden links so fine that, with five links abreast, the bracelet was only half an inch wide.

I was surprised to hear a derisive sound from Dharak. "Why, it's nothing but a chain of mud-beads!” he said. Then, in a lower voice: "Thymas, you are behind this. Now dare you arrange a public insult to Rikardon? You'll -"

At his first words, the bracelet had changed in my hands. It was, indeed, a string of tiny, brownish beads. But as I stared at it, I saw the glint of gold beneath them. I blinked.

"Dharak," I interrupted the Lieutenant. "You are forgetting who gave this gift."

Tarani looked at me, and this time, I found her gaze easier to bear. Slowly, she smiled. I swear she out-dazzled the gold bracelet.

"You have found the trick quickly, Captain." She waved her hand. "Now see it truly.”

Shola and Dharak oohed and ahed over the golden chain, Dharak less enthusiastically because of his accusation against Thymas.

"How does it open?" Shola asked.

"The clasp is hidden," Tarani said. "May I show you?"

"Please," I answered, holding it out toward her. She came to me. Over her shoulder, I saw Thymas scowling.

Tarani took the bracelet in long, tapered fingers, twisted the chain inside-out, and showed me the clever clasp mechanism. She opened it, and then hesitated. I extended my left wrist, and she put the bracelet on it. For a moment, both her hands pressed the gold chain into the flesh of my arm.

"May this gift bring you only good fortune, Captain," she said, with a return of that queer intensity.

"Thank you, Tarani. I am looking forward to the performance tonight. Perhaps, after it is over, you will join our table for some refreshment?"

"It would be my pleasure," she said. But she didn't smile.

Thymas hadn't missed any of that. He flashed a look of pure hatred at me as he and Tarani turned toward the barracks.

The caravan, part of it already a good way inside the gate, began moving again, but nobody was much interested in watching a bunch of vleks plod along... I turned the bracelet around my wrist and stared in that direction, thinking. I did notice that the vlek handler in the first position of the caravan was the biggest man I had ever seen. Not just tall, but massively wide. He could have wrestled a vineh and won.

The crowd was scattering, the Riders going back to their duties, the children, free for the day, running after the troupe. Since _only the Riders and their wives (or guests) would be present at the performance that evening, there would be a special daylight matinee for everyone else.

The women were on their way back to their cook-stoves. Preparations had been going on all day for the banquet that was scheduled for three hours ahead.

As soon as Shola had excused herself, and there was no one within earshot, Dharak started to fume again.

"Let it go," I pleaded. "Dharak, I want you to ask yourself something. Are you angry on my behalf, because of the insult to me, or because it was your son who caused it?" I put my hand on his shoulder. "Thymas is an adult, my friend. You are no longer responsible for his actions. He pulled a smooth trick today. It's irritating, yes, but most of your people don't understand what happened. Unless he flaunts it - and we both know he's too smart to do that - it will remain a private itch, and nothing more.

“Tomorrow I'll be gone, and things will be back the way they were, except that Thymas will have more trouble getting support for his crazy schemes." I grinned. "At least, I hope so. That's what today was for, wasn't it?"

"It worked, too," Dharak said, clamping down on his angry mood. "You made a deep impression on us, Rikardon. Can you doubt, now, that it was right?"

"No," I said, and then changed the subject. "Tell me about Tarani."

"I don't know much about her," he said. We started walking back toward his house. "She and her troupe showed up here one day - two years ago, now, and it was a smaller group - and she has been returning regularly since then."

"Do you pay her well?"

"Very well," he said, without hesitation. "And she earns it. You will see, tonight." He glanced at me from the corner of his eve. "You're thinking of Thymas? Does she come here because of him?" He shrugged. "'That's a possibility. Thymas believes it."

"Don't you?"

“Thymas thinks she'll stay, one of these days."

"Marriage?" I suggested. Dharak only chuckled at my astonished reaction. "How did this get started between them?"

We had reached the house, and we settled down in armchairs which overlooked the opposite bank of the river. It was peaceful, with the sound of rushing water nearby and the conversation of sha'um in the distance.