The Well of Darkness

by Randall Garrett

  “You mean, like through a Recorder?”

  “Yes,” she said, and turned abruptly. Before she could walk away, I caught her arm. She froze, and I moved my hand away quickly.

  “You went to Recorder’s school, Tarani. Can you—”

  “No!” She didn’t move, didn’t look at me. “I did not complete the study. I am not a Recorder.”

  “All I want,” I said, still speaking to the side of her face, “is more assurance that we’re going to something, instead of from something. We’re leaving the Ra’ira in Indomel’s control, and that bothers me, Tarani. Isn’t there some way you can—”

  “You accepted the plan in Lord City,” Tarani interrupted. “Why do you question it now?”

  “I—we—that is, I seem to be able to think more clearly. Now.”

  I steeled myself to tell her, if she asked, that the shock of pleasure she had given me in Carn’s cellar had offset the shock of Keeshah’s loss. But she didn’t ask. She looked at me for an instant, then lowered her eyes and nodded.

  “That,” she said softly, “I understand very well.”

  Well, I‘ll be—I thought. Her, too? Maybe it wasn‘t just Keeshah‘s going that left me in that fog. It might have been the whole trauma of being captured, when we were so close to escape. With everything else involved, it might have been nothing more than the ordinary distraction of wanting each other and denying ourselves. That makes the most sense, considering that relief came when desire was satisfied.

  Tarani glanced over her shoulder. We were still far ahead of any others, but we could hear them behind us, see them dimly in the wavering lamplight.

  “There is no time to debate it now, Rikardon. We are committed to leaving Eddarta.”

  “Not until we meet our contacts,” I said. “We could slip back and …”

  “And be killed trying to steal the Ra’ira?” she demanded.

  “And kill Obilin and get Rika back,” I answered. “You need a sword; that’s a sword.”

  “‘Kill Obilin’ is hardly so simple a task,” she said. “And you must know, as well as I, that Indomel will not spare us if we are recaptured. Please, Rikardon, it is my judgment that the other sword truly exists, and that we shall be able to find it. Let us leave Eddarta now, while we are so close to freedom.”

  “We’ll find it easily, no doubt,” I said, “with the help of my ancestral link to the other sword?”

  Tarani waved her hand dismissively. “That was pure invention, to convince Zefra of your importance in the plan,” she said. “She does have power, and she believes strongly in my right—my sole right—to rule Eddarta.”

  I couldn’t help feeling some resentment as I remembered the scene, but I was glad to note that the anger didn’t return, as well. Good to put things in perspective again, I thought.

  “That’s why you put the compulsion on me,” I said. “So that I wouldn’t act surprised and put the lie to your story.”

  We were silent for a moment, then Tarani said: “I think I see, now, the reason for your anger. It was not that I compelled you, but that my compulsion showed distrust. Is it not so?”

  “It is exactly so,” I admitted.

  “Even as yours,” she said, “my mind was clouded then. But as we have walked, I have thought it through once more. Rika, even should we be able to reclaim it, is still a symbol of betrayal to the Lords. It is the other sword we need to defeat Indomel. Please, Rikardon, show me the trust you would have asked of me earlier.”

  She stopped talking and I hesitated before answering. I wanted to trust her. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I also wanted to know we were doing the right thing. Once we were all the way out of Eddarta, it might be harder to get back safely than it had been to leave—which, so far, I wouldn’t have called a picnic.

  “I am not a Recorder,” she repeated, when she sensed the way I was leaning. Her voice had an edge—of impatience, of fear, of something I didn’t understand. “What you would ask of me is beyond my skill.” She whirled abruptly and took two steps down the road, stopped and looked back. She held out her hand.

  “Are we not together, Rikardon?” she asked softly.

  I took her hand and squeezed it, unable to say anything around the fear that had lodged in my throat at the very hint that we might be separated again. I released her fingers, to let her draw her hand away if she wished—but it pressed warmly into mine as we started south again.

  Markasset didn‘t know much about Recorder training, I thought, but then I don‘t expect anybody besides Recorders know much about it. Tarani mentioned, though, that she had gone into school younger than most students—and Zefra told us that she had asked Volitar to be alert for signs of the mindgift in her daughter. So how young was young? Was she six? Seven? And she left at fifteen. Time enough, surely, to have had a lot of practice at whatever they do. Surely, she couldn‘t have forgotten her training.

  So there must be another reason why she won‘t try for a link. Maybe there is a special piece of training that constitutes graduation from Recorder‘s school, that Tarani missed. Maybe it‘s just that she feels guilty about not finishing.

  Now there‘s another thought. She probably doesn‘t really know why she left, what with Antonia just dropping in on her like that—

  Antonia …

  A memory came to me clearly from the cellar.

  She called me Ricardo, I remembered, astonishment freezing me for a moment, so that my pace slowed.

  “What is wrong?” Tarani asked me.

  “Nothing,” I said, falling into step with her again and thinking: She called me Rikardon, too. I grinned foolishly at Tarani, the only expression I would allow myself of the joy that shouted and sang all along my nerve ends. “I—it’s just—I’m glad we’re together.”

  All four of us, I added, feeling a little crazy. Ricardo, Markasset, Tarani, and Antonia.

  Tarani glanced sideways at me, obviously still puzzled, but she seemed willing to let it drop. “I, too, am glad,” she said.

  Or are there five of us? I wondered, feeling a little giddy. Rikardon seems to be a newcomer, a little different from both Ricardo and Markasset. When Antonia and Tarani blend, there may even be six of us. Think of it, six …

  When they blend?

  What if they don‘t? Markasset was dead, after all, and Ricardo needed only to absorb his memories, not his personality. It may not be possible for the same thing to happen for Tarani and Antonia.

  Yet I didn‘t awaken in Gandalara as Rikardon. Markasset and Ricardo were separate until Thanasset gave me Rika. When I touched that steel sword …

  Holy great day in the morning!

  I felt a chill crawling up my arms, lifting the hairs and raising bumps on my skin. It was no more comfortable for being familiar by now. It was fear and eagerness, denial and commitment, bewilderment and comprehension.

  It was a sense of destiny.

  There is another Gandalaran body with two personalities. And there is another steel sword.

  There is another sword, I admitted. But we‘re not going after it to make Tarani the High Lord of Eddarta. We‘re looking for it to make Tarani whole.

  Since my arrival in Gandalara, I had been struggling with my “destiny”. At first I had let myself believe that I needed only to clear Markasset’s father of complicity in the theft of the jewel. It was only in Dyskornis, where I had discovered the Ra’ira’s special powers and the defense my dualness provided, that I had accepted what seemed to be my true charge—to return the care of the Ra’ira to the hands of honorable men.

  I wasn’t really unhappy with that decision. Ricardo had spent a pleasant, productive life with the feeling that in teaching language’s he was performing a service of importance to society. Markasset had felt no sense of purpose, and had drifted uneasily through his short life.

  I couldn’t help feeling a little grateful, too. I had been given a young body, a chance at a second life, a friendship bond with Keeshah that had been sustaining and delightful. It se
emed that one task in return for that was not too high a price for what I had gained, especially when I was uniquely equipped to perform that task.

  I felt exasperated and not a little scared, however, by the piecemeal way “destiny” was revealing itself to me, and by the many opportunities for choice. It would have been easier if I had believed that I was the agent for a conscious, thinking, supernatural force, and that I could count on protection and a sense of commitment from such a being. But that image didn’t jibe with reality, with the way I had stumbled into and through things, with all the chances I had had to go in the wrong direction.

  And if this isn‘t proof that there‘s nobody home, I thought, I don‘t know what would be. Even a kindergarten-level god should have been able to foresee the need for that fool sword. Why couldn‘t we have brought it with us, instead of traipsing clear back across the world to get it now? I wondered, then sighed.

  No use pretending this development bothers me, I admitted. The truth is, I‘m in full agreement with this particular step along our twisting path—though I‘d rather we were riding Keeshah. (The familiar, painful twinge of loss.) Whatever happens when Tarani touches that other sword, it should at least give Tarani some answers to the confusion she must have been feeling.

  So for once, “destiny”, I shouted mentally, I‘m on your side. For my own reasons, it‘s true. I love Tarani and Antonia, and I think they‘re both fond of me. I want them to be at peace with one another, work together. Then we‘ll talk about who‘s going to be high mucky-muck in Eddarta.

  I lengthened my stride. Tarani matched it, a look of relief flashing across her face as she sensed that, for whatever reasons, I was now fully committed to finding the second steel sword before we returned to Eddarta.

  “We’re almost there,” I said, pointing ahead.

  The lines of lamps on either side of our avenue merged with four others that had followed the other two main roads from the city. Beyond the edge of the bright pool of light at their merging point was a ridge of darkness, and above it the pale clouds. The ridge was a virtual wall of the reeds that grew along the edge of the rivers. The roads from the city emptied here into a main east-west thoroughfare that wound along a western branch of the Tashal, one side of the road always bordered by reeds. In the farming areas, the reeds were sometimes trimmed down.

  The Lords would have designated reed harvesters, of course, who were authorized to sell the reeds to weavers, furniture makers, paper mills, mine suppliers. But there were also some areas where the reeds were an obstruction to the short-distance water transport system. And I suspected that farmers, by nature and necessity more independent than their city-dwelling counterparts, didn’t waste the reeds they removed to give walking room to the vleks which pulled the rafts.

  Here the reeds grew in their natural state, thickly clustered, man-high, their delicate fern-like top growth waving slightly as the sluggish bank water stirred the bases of the reeds.

  Short of the dark barrier, however, was a bright circle of light—entirely empty.

  “Why is no one there?” Tarani asked uneasily.

  “I doubt they’ll show themselves before we arrive,” I answered.

  That’s logical, I thought, as we stepped into the circle of light and looked around, waiting for the people who were to meet us to appear. So why am I worried?

  I could not help feeling exposed here. There was something eerie about the empty, lighted area, so quiet, waiting …

  “It’s too quiet,” I said.

  There were Gandalaran counterparts to most of the life forms Ricardo had known, including the noisy varieties of insects and amphibians who lived in and near water. The river bank was silent, except for the rustling of reeds as they moved to the current’s pressure.

  “Why would it be this quiet?” I asked.

  We heard noise then—behind us. Vleks. Upset. Men. Shouting.

  “What could that be?” Tarani asked as we looked back toward the ruckus. There was a small rise between us and the travelers who had fallen behind us; we couldn’t see what was going on.

  “Vleks aren’t fond of dralda,” said a voice from behind us, sinister, amused.

  “Oh no,” I said, turning slowly, releasing Tarani’s hand and stepping a bit away from her. “Obilin, how in the name of Zanek did you find us?”

  The small man had stepped out from the reeds. Now two dralda melted into the edge of the lamplight, much closer to us than Obilin was. Silent until now, they growled softly and the fur behind their heads seemed to tremble with anticipation.

  Tarani took a breath and tensed—and Obilin nodded to someone behind me. Before I could react, an arm whipped around my throat, and the bronze blade of a thin dagger gleamed in front of my face. I gripped the arm with my hands and pulled at it, gasping for breath.

  “Do let him breathe, Sharam,” Obilin said, and the tension in the muscular arm eased slightly.

  “You can’t control both the man and the dralda,” Obilin said to Tarani. “And they all have orders to kill your friend if anything, um, unusual happens. Do you understand me?”

  Tarani nodded.

  Here we are again, I thought bitterly. Tarani bound because of me. There was no despair this time, however, only fury—and a determination to find a way out of the trap. Amid the frantic creation and rejection of plans was a small kernel of pleasure in being able to “think on my feet” again.

  Obilin laughed. “To answer your question, Rikardon, I didn’t need to find you, only wait for you. I knew as soon as the messages from Lingis stopped that you were behind it, and that you were free. You had to be coming to Eddarta. When Zefra convinced that fool Indomel that the lady Tarani was too ill to meet with him, I knew the two of you were together and on your way out of the city. I and Sharam and the dralda have been waiting here for you since noon.” He shook his foot, spraying water on the nearer dralda, which jumped, snarled, and edged away. “Uncomfortably, I might add, and at the cost of an excellent pair of boots.”

  Since noon, I thought. What happened to our contacts? Has he scared them away? Then something else Obilin had said penetrated.

  “Indomel doesn’t know Tarani’s gone?” I asked. “No. Nor you, either, for that matter. The High Lord has been preoccupied lately. The silence from Lingis disturbed him, of course, but I persuaded him to wait for more definite information before he took any rash action.”

  “You mean against me,” Tarani said. “Indomel would have killed me if he had been certain Rikardon had escaped. You protected us both. Why?”

  “That’s easy to figure,” I answered, before Obilin could speak. “He wants you for himself, Tarani, and he needs me to control you. When Indomel finally figures out we’re gone, he’ll pretend to look for us, and fail. The High Lord won’t be happy with him, but Obilin will have plenty of compensation for that—you and me, hidden away and in his power.”

  Obilin smiled grimly. “Well stated,” he said. “And entirely accurate. Our—shall we call it our try sting place, my dear?” He bowed mockingly to Tarani. She merely glared at him, and he laughed. “In any case, it is prepared for us, and it’s time we were on our way. The trip will be more comfortable for all of us if you both cooperate. We shall not, obviously, be traveling by the road. The dralda over there—” He nodded to the roadway behind us, from which there still came the sounds of mass confusion “—are keeping potential witnesses at a distance. They will be allowed to pass, once we are safely off the roadway. Shall we go, please? Now.“

  Obilin gestured to us with his sword, and the man behind me started dragging me off to my left. I went with, him, staggering but not struggling. I was watching Tarani as Obilin approached her. There was a look about her, one I had seen when she walked on stage and prepared to dance—

  Tarani burst into flame just before Obilin’s hand touched her. He jerked his hand back in surprise, but with startling quickness recovered and reached out again. “From now on, your skill will serve me instead of trick me,” he promised gr
imly, grabbing a tongue of flame that shimmered back into the shape of Tarani’s arm. “Sharam, cut the lady’s friend. Just a little.”

  “No!” Tarani shouted, and lunged in my direction. Obilin’s grip held her back, but Sharam’s attention had been distracted just enough.

  I grabbed the hand that held the dagger with both my hands, braced my feet on the ground, and arched my body, pushing his arm over my head. The movement threw Sharam off balance; he staggered backward, grunting and straining to bring his arm down again.

  “Mara,” Sharam grunted, and the dralda on my side of the lighted circle launched itself at me. Obviously following orders from its master, it turned at the last minute and broadsided into me, knocking the wind from my lungs and tumbling me and Sharam off the edge of the road into the spongy ground cover.

  The double shock of the dralda hitting me and my slamming full-length into Sharam as we fell made my head swim and loosened my grip. Sharam had taken a knock, too. He pulled his knife hand free, but in the process loosened his hold around my neck. I rolled to the left, striking back with my elbow.

  We were nearly out of range of the light. I felt, rather than saw, the knife swing by me, a miss too near to bear thinking about. Both dralda were at the edge of the road, ready to lunge. I pulled out my sword, bracing for the attack.

  “Stop!” Tarani called, and the dogs pulled back, shaking their heads furiously, whining.

  “Tass, Mara, attack!” Sharam said, no longer interested in Obilin’s need to keep me alive. He moved into the light, swung his arm at me. “Attack!”

  Obilin’s sword pressed into Tarani’s side. “Release them,” he ordered. They came at me.

  The first beast ran right onto the point of my sword. I rolled back and used its body as a shield. The other dralda concentrated on my unprotected legs and I kicked out and scrabbled around, trying to keep free of its teeth and claws. The weight of the dead one made breathing difficult, and its fur muffled and garbled the noises around me.

  I recognized the howling I remembered from the desert—it came from the direction of Eddarta, and frighteningly close. And I heard voices. Their tone was angry or fearful, but only a few words reached me clearly.