The River Wall (6 page)

I remembered the time I had spent at the Lingis mine—not as a slave but as one of their guards. It had suited Indomel’s humor to keep Tarani and me apart, each of us hostage for the good behavior of the other. The Lingis mine was a surface mine with deposits of copper ore that occurred near the surface of the hilly area, and the duty of the slaves there had been harsh enough. The Harthim mine had followed the ore lode straight into the side of a mountain, so that the slaves were essentially working in an unsupported tunnel mine. Between the collapsing walls and the congested air, the slaves had little hope of survival.

Ricardo Carillo—the man I had been before my personality arrived in Gandalara—had accumulated an amazing assortment of unrelated information during his long life, and I had not lost his habit of examining and comparing information in order to find meaning in facts. It had hampered neither Ricardo nor Rikardon that I often peered out at those facts from inside an empty well of ignorance—very often, the level of water in the well rose in the course of such an exercise.

It occurred to me now to speculate on the geologic trauma that could create an area as large as Gandalara with rich deposits of copper and tin, but almost no iron. The only iron in Gandalara seemed to be mined from the remains of a meteor that had crashed into the wall above Raithskar, thousands of years ago.

There is no native iron
, I thought,
but plentiful native copper. No, wait, there’s another way of looking at that. Copper has been found only in the hills—at a lower level, I think, than the iron near Raithskar, but nonetheless above the floor of Gandalara. You could say that neither one is truly native to Gandalara. The green marble that is quarried in Omergol is also pulled out of a hillside. If you define Gandalara as the flat area between the “walls” (considering that in most areas, mountain ranges are called “walls” as a Gandalaran convention), then the only thing truly native to Gandalara is salt.

Something nibbled at the edge of my consciousness, a frustrating half-image, like the face of someone whose name is familiar but will not come to mind. I reached for it, almost had it—then Charol’s voice drew me back from my thoughts.

Veron was walking away from us, toward a doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard from the visitors’ area. Tarani and Charol were both staring at me, Charol with concern written clearly in his expression, Tarani with faint amusement and a touch of impatience.

“I’m sorry,” I said, laughing. “I was thinking. Do I owe Veron an apology for being rude?”

“Not at all,” Charol said. “It is clear to him, as to me, that you are concerned with grave matters. You spoke of a coming choice, Captain. May I hazard a guess that it has something to do with the theft of the Ra’ira?”

Tarani jumped, and Charol smiled.

“The Fa’aldu have never believed that
knowing
about the affairs of the world is the same as
meddling
in them, High Lord.” His smile faded. “Normally we choose to learn of such things indirectly, but I feel this situation warrants the ill manners of direct inquiry. Captain? The choice?”

“I hope it never comes, Respected Elder, but—yes, the Ra’ira is involved. I would say more, but …”

I glanced at Tarani, who hesitated only a moment before speaking.

“Rikardon hesitates out of consideration for me,” she said. “We share a truth which has been hidden for centuries. I give him my consent to share it with you, as well, Charol, but I give you a warning: in accepting this knowledge, you are making that choice.”

I hadn’t considered it in those terms, but of course Tarani’s right
, I thought.
We would
not
merely be warning the Fa’aldu about Ferrathyn, we would be asking their support against him, should it come to that—all in the same breath.

Tarani and I waited, while Charol thought about it. Slowly, he grew calm—and a little grim.

“The Fa’aldu,” Charol said, “have been following your activities since Balgokh’s first report of meeting you, Rikardon. He spoke then of sensing a difference in you, and foretold that you would have a profound effect on the future of Gandalara. I had thought we had already seen that effect in your becoming Captain of the Sharith, in the appearance of Yayshah and the birth of her cubs, certainly in the acclamation of Tarani as High Lord of Eddarta.

“But now I feel that these are meaningless, that the knowledge you offer me will reveal what Balgokh would not even attempt to guess.”

Charol paused expectantly. I was stunned to learn of Balgokh’s assessment of me, based as it was on a very brief encounter. Tarani seemed to sense my confusion and stepped into the silence.

“No one knows what Balgokh foresaw,” Tarani said, “and I would not call ‘meaningless’ the changes you cite. I would say, rather, that they have been preparatory to the purpose contained in the knowledge.”

The man nodded vigorously, as if he regarded Tarani’s answer as total and direct confirmation of his statement. “It would be cowardly, then, to retreat to ignorance now. I choose to learn what you would tell me.”

“Then let’s go inside,” I said, “where we can be comfortable.” To myself, I added:
And private.
“It’s a long story.”

Instead of returning to our suite, Charol led us into his own quarters, where he invited us to share a luxury rare among the Fa’aldu—armchairs made of wood and fabric, instead of the backless salt blocks used for most other furniture. Even after we were all physically comfortable, however, an awkwardness remained.

“Perhaps it will help,” Charol said, “if I summarize the present knowledge of this matter among the Fa’aldu?”

“That seems as good a way as any to start,” I agreed gratefully.

“Balgokh has kept us informed of the state of things in Raithskar,” the Elder said. “He told us of the theft of the Ra’ira originally, of course, and of your pursuit of the thief. It seems to be widely known in the city that an Eddartan stole the gem, and feeling runs high against Eddarta. Most of the rumors make a quite ridiculous connection between the theft of the gem and the illness of the vineh, so that the city’s fear of its former servants is turning to anger toward Eddarta.”

Tarani and I exchanged glances.

“How bad is it in Raithskar now?” I asked.

Charol shook his head. “I only know that the people from the outlying communities and farms have been called to dwell within the city walls, and Balgokh has seen fewer and fewer caravans dare the journey from Yafnaar to Raithskar.”

Fear clutched at my chest and stomach.
Thanasset and Milda are in Raithskar
, I thought. Markasset’s father and aunt had accepted me as a replacement for their son. Ricardo Carillo had acquired Markasset’s body, as far as I could tell, at the very moment of the boys death. Ricardo had acquired Markasset’s memory, and become the human-Gandalaran blend of Rikardon, on accepting the steel sword which I had surrendered on entering this Refreshment House.
They’re my family now, and they’re locked up with a madman in a city that’s getting hysterical.

Associating the loss of the Ra’ira with the onset of danger from the vineh is ridiculous to Charol
, I thought,
because he’s native to Gandalara and has never been exposed to the irrationality of superstition. These people have fewer mysteries than humans because they believe they understand and are part of the All-Mind, a concept humans might treat as a god. They respect the All-Mind, but are not in awe of it.

Even as the thought was formed, another was contradicting it.

Except
, I reminded myself,
when they talk about Visitors, personalities of dead people which reappear in the body of another person. Gandalarans believe such Visitors have spent the time since their death as part of the All-Mind, and fully share its knowledge—the total memory and learning of every member of this race, since it began the mutation toward its present form.

To the people of Raithskar, the Ra’ira has been a symbol of pride and history. For all they know, the loss of the gem and the rebellion of the vineh are only coincidentally linked. I’ll bet anything that the same reason those events are not a coincidence is the cause for that attitude. Ferrathyn whispers here, mindpushes there, and
bingo!—
suddenly Gandalara achieves the concept of a lucky charm.

“You had confided in Balgokh that Gharlas was the thief,” Charol continued. “And it seems clear that, even though Gharlas died during your first visit to Eddarta, you were not able to recover the Ra’ira. Now Tarani is High Lord and you are both leaving Eddarta. I assume that you now have possession of the Ra’ira and are taking it back to Raithskar.”

He stopped and looked from Tarani to me expectantly. It seemed to be our turn.

Tarani opened a leather pouch which hung from her belt, and dumped its contents into her hand. Charol gasped. Tarani leaned forward and put the blue stone on the small table around which the three of us were seated.

It was a beautiful thing, two fingers high, smooth and rounded, shaped amorphously but saved from looking lumpish by faintly crystalline lines that radiated unevenly toward the darker blue at the heart of the stone.

“That,” Charol said with a gasp, “is the Ra’ira?”

“That,” I answered, “is a glass copy of the Ra’ira, which was made by Volitar.”

“I have heard that name—” Charol began.

“The man who left Eddarta with Zefra,” Tarani said. “He raised me as his niece. For a time, I thought he was my father.”

Charol reached out, paused to look at us for permission, then picked up the piece of glass at Tarani’s nod.

“I have never seen the Ra’ira,” he said, turning the blue thing in his hand and peering into it. “Is this a good image of the real stone?”

I had to answer that, drawing from Markasset’s memory.

“It’s a nearly perfect duplicate,” I said.

Charol’s brow creased, wrinkling the skin between his widows peak of darkening headfur and the prominent supraorbital ridge that was a characteristic of Gandalaran appearance.

“Then—forgive me, I do not question the truth of your statement, I am merely curious—how do you know that this one is not the real one?”

“The answer to that,” I said, “begins with Zanek.”

“The First King?” Charol said.

“Yes, and the first to discover that the Ra’ira allows someone who is already mindgifted the power to actually read the thoughts of another person.”

Charol glanced at Tarani, who shook her head. “It is not the same thing as the ways in which I—and other Lords—can use the natural mindgift without aid,” she said, and frowned. “I find it hard to describe the difference, but I shall try. To cast an illusion, or to compel another’s behavior, is like … like …” She groped for words. “Like struggling to open a shutter to look inside a dwelling. With practice, the effort becomes less, the task easier.

“With the Ra’ira, however, it is as if all the windows in the house are paned with glass, and there is no struggle—one merely has to look in through the glass.”

Charol was staring at Tarani. “You … you have used the gems power, then?”

“Not I, personally,” she said. “I have shared the experience
of
its use with Zanek, the First King.”

Charol opened his mouth, closed it again. I felt sorry for him; this was a lot to take in all at once.

“You knew me first,” Tarani explained gently, “as the dancer and illusionist. But I was trained as a Recorder. During our search for the second steel sword”—unconsciously, her hand moved to where the hilt of that sword would have rested, had she been wearing it—“Rikardon and I witnessed the fall of the Kingdom through the lifememory of Serkajon.”

Charol leaned forward then, the stone still cupped in his hands but seeming forgotten in the face of his fascination with what Tarani was saying.

“You—you both—met Serkajon? And Zanek—did you actually know Zanek?”

“I met him, alone, at a different time,” I said, not bothering to explain that ‘met’ was not the right concept at all.
This is complicated enough without arguing about vocabulary
, I thought. “Another Recorder helped me share Zanek’s lifememory at the time he began the Kingdom. Tarani and I, together, met him when he appeared in Serkajon’s body to put an end to Harthim’s Kingdom.”

“
Zanek
stole the Ra’ira?” Charol stammered. “Not Serkajon?”

“Well, both of them, if it comes to that,” I said. “I believe that Serkajon would have done precisely the same thing, if he had known about the Ra’ira’s power. As it was, he knew
something
was strange, and very wrong; and he wanted to help.”

“I think,” Tarani said suddenly, “that Zanek appeared as a Visitor because Serkajon’s distress and desire to change things was very strong in the All-Mind. The only thing which
could
help him understand was the knowledge of someone who had used the Ra’ira.”

“And,” I added, “someone committed to the
proper
use of its power—for the benefit of Gandalara, not the comfort of the Kings. Zanek had used the Ra’ira’s power to find out what people
really
needed, what they were
really
arguing about, so that he could find solutions that contributed to peace and harmony. Through the reign of the Kings, however, the use of the stone had shifted.

“By Harthim’s time, the entire city of Kä was isolated in the desert, and was being maintained by slaves so that the Kings could live in luxury. Harthim was using the Ra’ira to find rebellion and stop it, to enforce a nonproductive slave system.”

Charol seemed to remember that he was holding the duplicate Ra’ira. He held it out to Tarani who took it and replaced it in her belt pouch.

“If this only
begins
your story, my friends,” Charol said, sitting back and clapping his hands, “we shall need refreshment to sustain us.”

A young girl appeared in the doorway, her face turned toward Charol but her eyes sliding in our direction. The Elder asked her to bring
faen
(the Gandalaran equivalent of beer) and some food, which she did promptly.