The Gandalara Cycle I (71 page)

Tarani came in a few minutes later and said: "She asked me to call her away from the dance tonight, anyway, so that we can say good-bye one more time. I said I would do it - I hope that's all right.'

"Of course it is, Tarani. Let's take a few seconds and go over what she told me about the house where Gharlas will be staying . . ."

The room we had first entered was merely a wide hallway with chairs. It led into a large, private sitting room which connected with several other rooms, including a tiled balcony where meals were served. We were in the private sitting room now, and Tarani was adjusting a fold of the gown while Zefra admired herself in a polished-brass mirror.

"It's lovely," Zefra said, "truly lovely. Rassa herself could have done no better."

A knock sounded on the outer door, and before any of us could react, we heard it open. I made a dash for the bedroom door and pushed it nearly shut after me, just as the inner door opened and I heard a booted step strike the tile which floored the private sitting room.

"Obilin!" Zefra said. "How dare you enter my apartment without permission?"

"I have a higher permission, lady," said the small man's voice, heavy and insolent. "I am to escort your dressmaker to her new apartment."

"My bargain with the High Lord specified that Rassa would be available to him
after
the Celebration Dance," Zefra argued.

"And
his
bargain - as he explained it to me, lady - was that you would keep the dressmaker until your gown was completed. Which it is. And quite lovely, too, if I may say it.

"The High Lord sent me to assure Rassa's safe arrival in her new quarters."

Zefra put on a good show of fuming and fussing. "Does he think I would go back on my word? You may return to him, Obilin, and assure him that Rassa will be awaiting him after the dance.
I
will see to it, as I promised."

"Sorry," Obilin said, and I could almost hear him grinning. "There is a complication - an intruder."

"What?"

"A man named Lakad hired on as a guardsman two days ago, and then disappeared. We have no idea where he is, but he may still be in the area. The Guard has been alerted to watch for him, but the High Lord thinks it wise that all .. . ladies . . . should be . .”

His voice trailed off like the noise in a toy as its batteries finally give up. The short fur on the back of my neck lifted as I heard Zefra speak. Her voice was like a whip of ice.

She said: "Obilin, you have done as the High Lord commanded. Rassa is in the apartment prepared for her, awaiting Pylomel. What's more, you, yourself, located the intruder, and killed him. You will call off the watch. Do you understand all that?"

"Yes." A murmur.

"Then return to Pylomel. When you see him, you will act and think normally. You will remember what I have told you as if it truly happened, and you will not remember that I spoke to you at all. You came here, collected Rassa with no trouble, and delivered her as ordered. Go now."

I came out of the bedroom as Obilin reached the outer door of the entrance room; he had gone through the inner door without bothering to close it after himself. He was moving slowly, just as you'd imagine someone would move, under the control of anther mind. I went through the formal sitting room to close the outside door, then returned, closing the inner door as I came through it.

I couldn't read Tarani's face, but Zefra's was openly triumphant. "Now you see what I have hidden from Pylomel all these years. My mind-gift is as strong as his - even stronger, in some ways. Tonight, when he goes to Rassa drunk and lustful, and finds an empty apartment, I will send him into unconsciousness and give him a memory of all he wanted to experience. And he will never guess the truth."

"It's time for us to go," I said, taking Tarani's hand and pulling her toward the doorway. "We need to be in position to see Gharlas leave the house.”

Zefra moved to Tarani and hugged her. "Be careful, darling. And remember to call me - I must see you one more time before you leave."

"I won't forget, Mother," Tarani said.

As we had planned, Zefra called the two guards inside, on the pretext of moving a heavy piece of furniture. Tarani and I, cloaked by her illusion, stepped out into the main house and left the apartment which had been our home for the past two and a half days.

We moved cautiously through the twisting hallways. Twice, it was necessary for Tarani to conceal us through illusion, as guards or servants walked by. Though it seemed a long trip, it was no more than five minutes before we stepped out into the fragrant garden. Only then could we talk about what we had seen.

"She
enjoyed
setting that compulsion, Rikardon;" Tarani whispered, shuddering. "What would Volitar have thought, seeing her like that? How could this have happened to the woman who ran away from exactly that kind of power?"

"Tarani" I began, but she hadn't really stopped talking. She gripped my arms.

"Please, Rikardon, you read people better than I do. I cannot leave her unless I understand how this . . . corruption could have happened to her."

"All right," I said, drawing her into the concealing shadow of the wall of the house. The sun hadn't set yet, but brilliant hues of red and orange had claimed the sky.

"Here's what I think," I told Tarani. "First, Zefra had a strong gift to begin with; she admitted she used it when she and Volitar escaped. Second, she's been, virtually a prisoner for sixteen years, and her power was the only thing that gave her some control of her circumstances. Not to mention a touch of revenge against Pylomel, who created the prison for her.

"And third, the use of power is addictive, Tarani. Zefra's has become almost second nature - she has used it on me twice."

"On you?" she demanded. "When? Why did you not tell me."

"Because I didn't realize it until she showed us how strong she is. Twice, when you and she were together, I was suddenly somewhere else, with no memory of how I got there. She probably didn't even know she was doing it."

She thought for a moment, while I kept a nervous watch for wandering guards. I didn't feel we really had time for this discussion, but I knew Tarani was right - until she had it settled in her mind, she wouldn't be able to concentrate fully on Gharlas.

Finally she sighed and said: "She wants us to think she will stay behind to help the Lords against Pylomel. But that is not the true reason, is it?"

"For what it's worth, Tarani, I think she really believes what Volitar taught you - that it is wrong to control another person's life or mind. She sees herself as defending Volitar's viewpoint."

“But she
has
to see it that way, does she not?" Tarani said bitterly. "To justify using the methods that Volitar despised." She shook herself sharply. "As you said, Rikardon, Zefra and I are strangers to one another. I cannot stand in judgment of her - she accepted this life of horror for my sake. But now . . . I feel less grief for leaving her. She and her power belong here, where the only people who can be hurt are those who inflict hurt."

I sensed a change in mood, the shrugging off of her sadness. "So now - the Ra'ira."

It was night by the time we slipped into a brushy area in front of Gharlas's house, which stood far back in the Harthim area, close to the outer wall of the city. Zefra's information had been invaluable in finding it; many of the homes looked alike in the dimness beyond the lamp-lit walkway. The timing, too, was perfect; we had been waiting less than ten minutes before Gharlas came out of the double entry doors and passed us, walking toward the Family entrance.

He was wearing dark clothes - a soft tunic and loose trousers, covered by an embroidered, hip-length vest cinched at the waist with a dark-jeweled belt. The dark colors accentuated his extreme height and paleness. When he walked between the marble pillars which supported the lamps, he seemed to be only a floating face and hands.

Tarani tensed as he passed us, and her hand went to the sword she had smuggled into Lord City inside a bolt of fabric. We were both dressed to travel, in tunic and desert-style trousers that tied at waist and ankle to keep out the salty dust. I kept my hand on my sword, too, and wished that it were Rika. I realized that part of my gladness to have Thymas close by was the prospect of getting Serkajon's steel sword back into my hands.

When Gharlas was out of sight, Tarani and I went around to the back of his house and slipped inside.
Good thing doors aren't locked in Lord City,
I thought.
I guess that's because everybody's so busy milking their landservants that they don't have time to steal from one another. Except Gharlas, that is.

We lit some lamps, glad the house was in a secluded location. We were in a kitchen area - long unused, by the look of it, which was a relief. I had wondered about servants. If he had any, they didn't seem to be around.

We did a quick search of the exposed shelves and the reachable cabinets, then moved through a double doorway into a dining area. Another cursory search, and we passed into a sitting room that was really a huge hallway. Like the midhall in Raithskarian architecture, this one huge room ran the full length of the house, right down its center. Matching, marble-topped tables stood at strategic points. Only two lamps had been left burning, so that the entire room was very dimly lit. There was very little furniture - a chair or two - to cover up the intricate geometric pattern of the floor tiles.

We were standing in a short hallway that led to the kitchen/dining area through which we had just come. Hulking darkness’s at intervals on either side of the room seemed to be hallways that led from this main room to other living areas of the house. Between those entry areas, the walls were covered with thick tapestries, their scenes concealed from us by the dim light.

Pretty fancy,
I thought.
Just what I would have expected from Gharlas. But spooky, with those flickering lamps. The place gives me the willies.

Our plan was logical: first, make sure the Ra'ira wasn't in the house; next wait for Gharlas to return. Neither Tarani nor I seriously believed that Gharlas would let the jewel out of his possession for an instant, but we had to consider the possibility, if only because it was so unlikely.

But all the logic in the world isn't worth one good, gut- seizing hunch.

"This is too easy," I told Tarani, fighting the panic that was suddenly clutching at me. "Let's get out of here, right now."

"So soon, my friends? Why, you've only just arrived."

There it was - one hunch full-grown into one dangerous situation. Gharlas had appeared from behind the tapestry that hung beside the big, doubled front doors.

Tarani drew her sword and started for him, but I grabbed her.

"Bastard," she snarled at Gharlas.

In a world where women
knew
when they could be made pregnant, the word was a weighty curse, and maligned the mother as well as the child. In our last encounter with Gharlas, Tarani had used the epithet to distract him, but he wasn't going to be baited this time. His long, lean form seemed to ripple and he smiled as the word ran around the room in whispering echoes. Gharlas's smile wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to remember in the middle of the night. It creased his face and never touched the cold light that shimmered behind his eyes.

"Welcome to Eddarta, dear friends," he said. "It will be most beneficial to your future health if you will put down your swords. Now!"

Out of the dark hallways stepped swords with lots of husky muscle attached. It looked like Gharlas had selected the biggest and meanest of Pylomel's Guard.

So this is the payoff for all those "extra benefits", I thought.

I recognized one of the men. Worse, he recognized me.

"You should have told me this was the guy, Gharlas," he said, stepping toward us from the hallway directly opposite the one we were blocking. "I caught a lot of grief for letting him into the city. It's gonna be a pleasure to kill him."

"Stop, Sendar!" Gharlas shouted. The big man did stop, but didn't quit leering at me like I was somebody's dinner.

"Death is very close to you right now, my friends," Gharlas said, his voice oily. "You know what I want. Give it to me."

I could almost feel the duplicate Ra'ira grow warm in the pouch hanging from my gold-lined belt. It was the real reason Gharlas had killed Volitar. Not everyone knew about the Ra'ira's special qualities, but nearly everyone did know it as a symbol of the Kingdom. In the process of forging a glass duplicate for the gem, Volitar had made two replicas. Gharlas had taken one of them to Raithskar with the intention of replacing the real one, and had later seen his accidental loss of the phony jewel as a blessing. He had realized that there must be no question, when the time came for him to reveal himself as King, that he did possess the only true Ra'ira. The existence of the second duplicate, the glass bauble I carried in my pouch, had taken him to Dyskornis. Volitar, having hidden it with his other greatest treasure, the letter from Zefra, had died without revealing either.

I glanced at Tarani, and saw the same determination on her face that I myself felt. We had come too many miles to back down now. Either we would leave here with the Ra'ira, or . . .

"How did you know we were going to be here?" I asked Gharlas. I was stalling for time, and he knew it. But he thought he was in control, and he had already shown us a tendency to boast. Not a modest guy, our Gharlas.

"Simple deduction," Gharlas said. "Hardly worth mentioning. The first thing I heard, when I arrived, was the rumor of an intruder calling himself Lakad. If you were here, so was she - and I knew what you wanted.
My
exceptional mind didn't have to guess when you would try to get it. I invited my friends here tonight, pretended to leave, and returned by the front door while you were scratching for lamps in the kitchen."