The Steel of Raithskar (18 page)

And saw absolute gibberish.

The big piece of glith-skin parchment was covered with a maze of red lines and black lines. Some were big scrawls of curves and wiggles, others were peculiar little angular squiggles that looked like a cartoonist’s lightning bolts tied in a sailor’s knots.

If that is a map
, I thought,
I am Chesty Pullers maiden aunt.

I turned the sheet of parchment slowly around, trying to figure out which way was up. The one obvious line on the thing was a firm black border line which ran along one side and off two sides of the square parchment. Obviously this was a map of only a portion of Gandalara, which could be matched up to others in the set for an overall map.

I looked around me and tried to orient the map.
That huge wall behind Raithskar should logically be this bold border line.
I turned to face Raithskar.
And there are mountains on my right. Yes, these markings might represent mountains …

Suddenly a little group of the angular figures near the bold border line jumped out at me. There were only six of them in a row, but they read:

Raithskar.

After that, the whole thing suddenly made sense. It had simply taken a little time for Markasset’s memory to come up with the reading skills necessary to understand the Gandalaran conventions of mapmaking. They weren’t all that different, it seemed. North was the top of the map—once Markasset translated the squiggle-code for me, the rest was easy.

The bold line of the Great Wall ran irregularly on either side of Raithskar. It flowed to the southwest until it ran out of map. On the other side, it moved directly east until it made a sharp curve to southeast by south, then it disappeared off the edge.

Beyond the Great Wall, no landmarks were shown. The Sharkel Falls, which gave the city its water, were shown—but no source was even postulated, much less named.

There was indeed a range of mountains shown on the map. They were east of me and ran south by west from the Great Wall, making a sort of peninsula of high ground—the Mokardahl Mountains. At their southern tip was nestled a city marked by symbols:

Thagorn.

I studied the map carefully. Distances were marked in “days”—which meant the distance a man could walk in a day without killing himself. I figured that a sha’um could cover roughly three times that distance in a day—probably more.

I recalculated all the distances into sha’um-days. If we tried to go directly across the desert to the southern tip of the mountain range, it would take us three days. The Refreshment House of Yafnaar lay directly along that route, but I thought it best not to stop there. Zaddorn would be likely to check there, and, though he’d be several days behind, he’d then have definite proof of which direction I had taken.

No, we’d have to go straight across, if we chose the desert. And we’d be three days with too little water and—more importantly—no food for Keeshah.

I decided our best bet was to head southeast by east to the little town of Alkhum shown at the foot of the nearby mountains. Then we could travel almost due south past another little town called Omergol, to the southern tip of the Mokardahls. From there it was a straight shot—or so it looked on the map—east to Thagorn. It would be twice as long a trip as crossing the desert, and more dangerous in terms of being spotted along the way—but we’d have food and water, and our full strength when we reached Thagorn.

*
Sound all right to you, Keeshah?
* I asked. Keeshah had been right behind me, looking over my shoulder at the map. I didn’t believe that he could read the map, but I was sure he had been following my thoughts. He dropped his chin to my shoulder and I pulled gently at one of his ears, scratching behind it.

*
Good,
* came his approving thought, but for a moment I wondered if he meant my plan or my scratching. He followed it immediately with an image and a sense of appetite. It seemed there was game in that area that Keeshah remembered fondly. There was no name identified with the singularly unattractive animal—that sort of thing doesn’t occur to a sha’um. I got only the briefest glimpse of it in Keeshah’s mind, and it was more than I wanted. It was built something like a wild boar, but it had long, curving tusks and it looked trimmer and faster than any I had ever seen photographed. As a matter of fact, it looked mean and rather tough, but Keeshah remembered its taste with keen anticipation.

*
If that’s what you want—at least I won’t have to carry a side of glith slung nonchalantly over my shoulder when I leave town.
*

I mounted Keeshah and we set off for Alkhum.

I was relieved to know that Keeshah could find food easily for himself. Once I had formed the plan of following the mountains southward, I had immediately rejected the idea of riding or leading Keeshah into town, for the same reason I would not have stopped at Yafnaar if we had decided to cross the desert.

The people of a town might or might not remember a man traveling on foot. They would remember a man who left town with a huge hunk of meat slung over one shoulder—but they might not think it worth mentioning when Zaddorn came to call.

But a man on a sha’um would be a topic of conversation for days, and when Zaddorn asked about me—I could almost hear it:

“You
see a stranger on a big golden palomino tiger?”

“Shore did, Sheriff. He went thataway.”

So, when we reached the general area of Alkhum two days later, I cautioned Keeshah again about being seen.

*
Do not worry. What I do not eat, I will bury.
*

Like all the big carnivores in my world, Keeshah needed a regular supply of food. He seemed to have an internal system for processing food energy as efficiently as water usage. Nothing else could account for his tremendous endurance and the relative infrequency of his need for fuel. But his storage tank, as it were, had to be maintained at a minimum level and topped off now and then.

Right now, he was hungry. He had been looking forward to the imminent hunt with single-minded anticipation. And I had shared his thoughts until I was about ready to eat one of those evil-looking beasts myself.

I untied the rope that laced the packs together, stood up on Keeshah’s back and hung one of the packs and my sword and baldric over the gnarled branch of a tree. Then I jumped down, told him that I would meet him back here, and watched him disappear into the forest. I turned eastward to where I figured the town should be, and started walking.

It was an odd sort of forest. It had grown up around us as we had climbed into the low hills that sloped toward the steep, craggy mountains still some distance away. There had been grass—real green grass, not the grayish, fluffy stuff that grew on the desert floor—and then scattered bushes, and finally this wooded area.

There were no tall trees such as Ricardo remembered from the California mountains. The tallest were no higher than three yards, and more than once in the last few hours, I had been forced to press myself to Keeshah’s back to keep my head lower than the highest branches. To someone who might be standing on a hill, the head of a man jogging along at treetop level would be a remarkable sight indeed.

There were a variety of trees in the forest, but their one common feature solved a minor puzzle for me. I had thought, from the intricate parquetry in Thanasset’s house, that there was a wood shortage. The forest proved me wrong—it was simply that there was no
straight
wood to be had, or at least it was rare in this part of Gandalara. I wondered, in passing, where Keeshah’s scratching post had come from.

One of the common trees—Markasset’s memory obligingly supplied the name
dakathrenil
—had a trunk which would have been twice as long if straight. But it twisted and curved, zigzagged upward in a ragged spiral until it was as tall as a Gandalaran. Then the trunk disappeared into a slightly mounded webwork of branches, forming a wide, flat umbrella. Its leaves were long and thin, and a rich deep green in color. They grew in clusters directly from the branches, spaced so that not a leaf missed the sunlight, and very little sunlight got past the leaves.

So dense was the shade cast by these trees that the ground underneath them was clear of any growth except the hardy grass which seemed to carpet these hills. Several times Keeshah and I had traveled almost in darkness through groves of dakathrenil trees. Their spacing had been so exact that I thought of them as orchards—as indeed they were. The tree in which I had concealed my pack and sword had been in full bloom with dozens of tiny blue flowers. The air around me was thick with their fragrance—a sweet pungence that reminded me of one of the fruits I had eaten at Thanasset’s table.

I reflected, as I walked along, that I might be tramping through someone’s apple orchard, and I wondered how the owner would feel about that. I decided not to let it worry me—I had plenty of other things to think about.

I wasn’t sure what I would find in Alkhum—but I hadn’t expected
not to find
Alkhum. The map had shown it located at the mouth of a pass—the Khumber Pass—and I had somehow expected a busy trade city at least the size of Raithskar.

When I finally came out into a clear area and saw the brick wall of Alkhum, I saw the reason why it had been hard to find. The “pass” rose behind the city in great craggy steps. It was clearly not easily negotiable for a man, much less a caravan. So I walked through the unguarded city gates into a sleepy farm town. It might still have been a trade center, I thought to myself, if Yafnaar didn’t provide a comfortable stopover along the shorter desert route.

Obviously there was some foot traffic through the city, because no one I saw on the streets paid any attention to me. They lounged in front of stores or pursued their normal work. Just inside the gate, a man was molding the cupped tiles that seemed to be a universal roofing material. Women with bundles walked along, chatting together, and at the far end of what seemed to be the only street in the town, vlek-drawn carts were being unloaded. Baskets of greenish-brown grain were handed into a doorway by a line of men. Past them at another door, carts were being loaded with bulky sacks—a grain mill.

No one I saw was wearing a sword, and I congratulated myself on having had the foresight to leave mine behind.

I didn’t need a sign to lead me to an eatery—a mouthwatering aroma was coming from an open door on my left. I went directly there, and stepped out of the bright sun into a cool dimness.

“Welcome to the house of Nasin, traveler,” a raspy, friendly voice greeted me. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I saw the man who had spoken as he came out from behind a square window at the back of the room. He was the oldest Gandalaran I had yet seen. The top of his head was entirely free of fur, and the skin had darkened over his skull and clear down around his eyes until he looked as though he were wearing a close-fitting black mask and hood. He smiled at me broadly and without embarrassment, even though most of his front teeth were missing. The skin had wrinkled and shrunken in around his mouth, so that his one gleaming tusk, still solid and straight, hung outside his lower lip when he talked.

“A thirsty day out, sir. A glass of faen?”

“Yes, please. And some food.”

“Right away.” He went back through a doorway and appeared in the window again. I was just wondering if I should sit down at one of the small tables when he called out, “Here you are, sir.” I walked over to the window. Its sill served as a counter—there was a rough clay bowl of delicious smelling stew and a glass of faen. I reached for my pouch, but the quick old man shook his head. “No, sir, thank you. You can pay me when you’re through—you might be hungrier than you think!”

“If this stew tastes as good as it smells, you may be right!” I told him.

“The best to be had anywhere, sir! I make it myself.”

I threw my pack under the nearest table and sat down with the dishes. The stew was indeed delicious, and both the glass and the bowl were refilled before I was finally satisfied.

“It’s a pleasure to see a man appreciate good cooking!” rasped the old man. “Tell you what, I’ll only charge you for the first bowl—that will be a zak six.”

I opened my pouch and went cold all over. I had forgotten that Illia had bought a side of glith for me—she had used almost all of the smaller coins. Feeling like a man offering a hundred dollar bill to pay for a candy bar, I pulled out one of the large gold pieces. I said, “I’m afraid this is all I have.”

The old man stared at me in surprise, tried twice before he was able to speak. “I couldn’t change that for you, sir. Even if I charged you for the second bowl. Have you nothing smaller?”

“Only these,” I said, and showed him the three quarter-zak coins Illia had left. The old man shook his head.

“That’d be only half your debt, sir. I hate to put you to the trouble, sir, but Lorbin the goldsmith has his shop just across the street. He’ll be able to change that gold piece for you—at a fee, of course.” The squinty gaze dropped quickly to my pack, where it still lay on the floor, and then back to my face. “You go on over, sir. I trust you to bring me my due.”

“You’re very kind,” I said, and went out the door—leaving my pack.

Lorbin was a short Gandalaran, not fat but round-faced and sleek. His voice was smooth and rich.

“Ah, young man!” he said the moment I walked through his doorway. “How may I help you?”

“The proprietor at Nasin’s can’t change a twenty-dozak piece,” I told him. “He said you could help me.”

“Certainly, certainly.” I handed it to him and he looked it over, measured it with a pair of calipers, and weighed it on a small balance. “Raithskar coinage—workmanship second only to Eddarta. Are you from Raithskar, young man?” He began counting out bronze and silver coins, still talking. “We get a little news here, and I’ve heard rumors of some trouble back there.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” I managed to get out, then went on with what glibness I could muster. “I am from Raithskar originally, but I’ve been away for a few years.”

“Ah, yes, restless youth. Wanted to see more of the world.”