She put the rag aside, cupped her elbows in her hands, and leaned on the table. “If you’ve got any thought about riding Keeshah right down Worfit’s throat, you forget them. That’s just what he wants you to do. Think about it. Worfit knows he’ll never find an assassin willing to come after you. Everybody knows about Keeshah. So he provokes you into an attack, and surrounds himself with enough men to handle ten sha’um. To defend their own lives, they’d kill you and Keeshah both.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I thought about what she’d said. She was right. If I hadn’t been suffering from my own sort of shock at seeing Thanasset’s beautiful things destroyed, I’d have seen it myself.
If I don’t do anything, this will happen again. And maybe somebody will get hurt next time. I’ll have to leave Keeshah here all the time, to protect the house. But how will I protect Milda and Thanasset when they’re away from the house?
I was afraid to leave Raithskar for fear this would happen. But it looks like staying here will only provoke Worfit….
“I’m going to Thagorn,” I told Milda.
She nodded. “That seems the right choice to me, Rikardon. Worfit won’t trouble Thanasset and me if you’re not right here to get angry about it. And it does seem unfair of your dad—I mean, Thanasset,” she corrected quickly. I reached over and squeezed her shoulder, and she covered my hand with her own for a moment, “It does seem unfair to put so much pressure on you right away, after everything you’ve already done for us.
“Don’t you worry about this Captain business, either,” she said. “It will work out to whatever is right for you.”
“Milda, you … I’ll miss you a lot.”
“And we’ll miss you, Rikardon. Shall I tell Thanasset about Worfit?”
“I guess you’d better, but please ask him not to take any action on his own. I’ll leave quietly, tomorrow morning. Worfit will know I’ve gone. He might even think he’s scared me off, and that will be enough for him.”
“You won’t leave without saying goodbye to Thanasset, will you?” she asked. “He would be very sad.”
“Of course not. I promised to talk over the Supervisor’s job with him before the Council meeting tomorrow. I’ll have to do that in the morning, so that he can take my answer to the Council for me.
“Tonight … there’s someone else I have to say goodbye to.”
4
I had taken a quick bath and dressed with care in a suit I had admired on my first day in Raithskar. It was a thigh-length yellow tunic and a green, sleeveless surcoat embroidered in a matching yellow. Such color coordination was the mark of evening dress, since ordinary clothing was a jumble of bright colors. With brass-studded sandals and a heavy chain belt, I accepted Markasset’s judgment that I was very well dressed. It didn’t hurt my ego any when I passed a lady and drew a second look.
Illia’s house was located northwest of the Square, halfway across the city from Thanasset’s home. It was a modest house, with a smaller yard and grounds than Thanasset’s had. But it, too, opened directly from the street with two doors, one into the house and one into the garden. Its midhall—a long, central room which divided the house—had walls faced with smooth plaster, spotlessly white. In this house, the sitting room to the right of the entrance door was not closed off with a wall, but formed an extension of the midhall. When Illia’s mother answered the door, she led me into that parlor and we sat there for a while, exchanging slightly awkward small talk.
Her father, a big man with a lopsided grin, came home while I waited there. He worked for the city as a gardener; he said a quick hello, then excused himself to go and get cleaned up. Just after he left, Illia appeared on the stairs which faced the parlor.
Before I had touched Serkajon’s sword, I had been plagued with a sort of double vision, especially regarding the Gandalaran people. To Ricardo, they had been ape-like creatures with prominent supraorbital ridges, slightly pug noses, and outsized canine teeth that resembled tusks. To Markasset, they had looked quite ordinary, like people I had grown up with and known all my life.
Regarding Illia specifically, Markasset remembered her as inordinately pretty, but he had found more value in her unquestioning trust in him than in her looks. In Thanasset’s garden on the day I first came to Raithskar, Ricardo had recognized Illia’s beauty while accepting its alienness.
It was Rikardon who looked at her now. The alienness was gone. She was so beautiful that I stood up and stared, speechless, as she came down the stairs.
Her head fur was a dark gold. It shone in the lamplight, looking so soft that I wanted to touch it. Her face was small and delicate, her mouth a gentle curve.
She was wearing a long, sleeveless shift of lightweight linen in a soft shade of green. Glass beads in a darker green decorated the low neckline and the belt which pulled the soft folds of the gown snug to her waist. The skirt was slit up the left side, almost to her hip, to allow walking freedom. There was a single fine chain of gold around her neck.
Somehow, I said goodbye to her mother, for I suddenly found myself outside, walking beside Illia in the direction of the restaurant district. There was a tense silence that I didn’t like, and didn’t quite know how to break.
“I thought we’d eat at the Moonrise,” I suggested finally. It was a restaurant that Markasset’s memory recommended.
“That sounds wonderful,” she agreed. She hesitated a moment, then added: “They have a way of cooking glith steaks that is delicious.”
“I remember,” I said softly. She caught her breath sharply. I took her hand and made her stop walking, then drew her around to face me. “Illia, are you nervous about being out with me tonight?”
“I—yes, of course I am,” she admitted. I thought she sounded relieved that she didn’t have to pretend. “It’s—well, it’s very strange, knowing you and not knowing you.”
“Please don’t be afraid of me.”
“I’m not. It’s just …” She took a deep breath. “Do you remember … everything about Markasset?”
I thought about lying to her, but I decided she deserved at least honesty from me.
“I remember every moment you and Markasset spent together.”
“Oh, dear.”
She turned away abruptly, and we walked along again. But she didn’t take her hand away, and this time the silence was more comfortable.
In a few minutes, she began to talk of ordinary things: the fruit she and her mother had been preparing for the drying oven that morning; her sewing projects; her work as a teacher in a school for young children. I realized that she wanted to deal with only the present, and not to contend with our “mutual” past or the uncertain future. That suited me perfectly, and I set myself to keep that tone in my end of the conversation.
It was one of the most enjoyable evenings I have ever spent. We had a wonderful dinner at the Moonrise, then went on to a dance hall, where we sat at a numbered table, sipping faen, until our table’s number was called. Then we joined the other couples on the patterned dance floor and performed the stylized, intricate dances of Gandalara. There were about a hundred tables, and only twenty couples danced each dance, so we were able to rest well between sessions. Markasset had been a good and an energetic dancer, and I loved dancing with Illia.
There was one awkward moment when, after recognizing us, the band—a harp, two flutes, a clarinet-looking instrument, and bongos I might have bought in Santa Barbara—changed their schedule to play our “favorite” melody when we reached the dance floor. We studied the painted wooden tiles with great concentration while we danced, and burst out laughing as soon as we were seated again.
Just before dawn, we finally left the dance hall. As we walked back toward Illia’s house, I tried to think of a way to tell her I was leaving.
“Zaddorn stopped by my house this evening,” she said suddenly. “He told me that you’ve been asked to join the Council. He also said he wants you to work for him. Which will you do?”
“Neit
her one, I’m afraid. There are … circumstances Zaddorn doesn’t know about. I’ll be leaving Raithskar for a while.”
Her hand gripped mine more tightly. “How soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Did you know this when you came by this morning?”
“If I had known it then, I would have told you,” I said.
“Yes. I believe that.”
We walked together quietly, then, until we reached her home. She didn’t take me to the house door, but led me through the gate into the back yard. I followed along with her, busy with my own thoughts, until I realized where we were going. Behind her father’s bath-house and storage shed, there was a grassy area that was hidden from all the houses nearby, but was open to the sky. It was a very private place—and very special to Markasset.
I stopped; she stopped and turned to me. Her face and hair were pale, and her eyes reflected the glow of the moonsoaked clouds above us.
“You don’t owe me this kind of goodbye, Illia,” I said.
“Isn’t it more of a greeting … Rikardon?”
Markasset’s memory of his last night in Raithskar brought me tender images of Illia’s body, its sweet eagerness, its beauty in the moonglow. If I had been Ricardo, in a human world, it would have been easy and natural to accept her invitation. Or if I had been entirely Gandalaran, a new boyfriend, I’d have had no compunction about being in a place she had once shared with Markasset.
But I was an alien personality, in a body which she had known intimately. I fought for a grasp of the ethics of the situation, even while my body and my emotions were responding to Illia’s willingness.
I hesitated so long that she became embarrassed. “I thought … Don’t I … I mean, don’t you want to …”
“Yes!” I said quickly. “Oh, yes, I want to.”
She came to me then, and put her arms around me. I could feel her fingers pressing into my back. The sight of her face, looking up at me with serious eyes, was too appealing to resist. I kissed her, tantalizing my tongue on the rounded tips of her large canine teeth. All thought was swept away in a surge of affection and gratitude, and arousal more intense than I had experienced in a long time.
She broke away from the embrace with a soft sound of contentment, and we walked to the grassy area Markasset remembered. The distant thunder of the Skarkel Falls settled over us as we lay down together.
When I kissed her goodbye at the back door of her house, she whispered: “I won’t decide about—anything. Not until you come back, Rikardon.”
Suddenly I was swept up in an “echo” from Ricardo’s life. I saw Julie, young and loving, saying: “VU wait for you, Rick. No matter how long the war lasts, I’ll wait for you.”
Julie hadn’t been able to wait, and had paid a high price in guilt.
“Don’t make me any promises, Illia,” I whispered to the Gandalaran woman in my arms. “Do what seems best for you.”
She kissed me again, briefly, then pushed herself away from me. “You’re a very gentle man, Rikardon. I do care for you. Keep safe.”
She went into the house, and I walked home under the colorful dawn sky. The first rays of sunlight, diffused by the cloud layer, marched by overhead in a parade of changing, blending color, deep red to pale yellow and all shades between.
I stepped quietly into Thanasset’s house through the front door. I turned left to climb the stairs, but a sound from the sitting room made me look that way. Through the door opposite the stairs, I could see Thanasset. He was standing by one of the tall and narrow wood-latticed windows that lined the outside wall of the room. He had one foot propped on the low stone ledge that ran along under the windows.
There was something about the way he held himself, with his arms propped on his raised knee and his shoulders hunched up, that made me cross the midhall and pause at the sitting room door.
“Father?” I said. He turned away from the windows, surprise and relief plain on his face. “Are you well?”
“Come in and sit with me for a moment, Rikardon,” he said, coming away from the window. “I need to talk with you before you leave.”
“Then Milda told you about Worfit?” I asked as I sat in one of the wood-and-fabric armchairs scattered around the center of the room.
Thanasset looked thin and strained. The small scar beside his left eye seemed whiter, and there were lines of tension around his mouth.
“She told me what happened, yes,” he said. “And she told me what you told her. I want to ask you, bluntly, if you told her the truth.” He was leaning forward in his chair, intent upon my answer.
“Yes, it was the truth,” I said, surprised by the question. “Worfit—”
He waved his hand impatiently, as though Worfit, who had threatened my life and damaged his home, were of no importance.
“Your reasons for going to Thagorn,” he said. “To rest and take some time to think. Are these your only reasons?”
“Yes.”
“But why Thagorn? Why not Omergol, or all the way to Chizan?”
I was thoroughly confused, and beginning to feel a little impatient, myself.
“Father, I don’t have any idea what you’re getting at. Why don’t you ask for the information you really want?”
Thanasset sighed and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes for a moment, then suddenly stood up and began pacing around the room.
“Ever since we had that short talk yesterday, Rikardon, I’ve been worrying about this. When Milda said you planned to go to Thagorn, it seemed to confirm my guess.” He stopped his pacing, and leaned on the back of a chair. “Are you taking it upon yourself to find the Ra’ira and bring it back?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud.
“It’s rather more likely,” I told him, “that I’ll swim up the Skarkel Falls. Why would I have lied to you about my motives, if that were true?”
“Two men have died, already, because of their involvement with Gharlas,” he said. “It was conceivable to me that you would want to protect me from worry for your safety. I viewed it as … considerate, rather than deceptive.”
There are three men dead, I corrected him silently, sobered by the thought. Hural and the man who killed Markasset, both of whom were Gharlas’s accomplices, and the man I killed the last time I left Raithskar. The worry lines were still present in Thanasset’s face. He doesn’t just want the truth, I realized. He wants to be convinced that it’s the truth.
“I haven’t had a chance, yet, to tell you about the Sharith. Let me tell you now, so that you’ll really understand why I’m going to Thagorn.”
He nodded and sat down, and I related everything that had happened to me in the stronghold of the Sharith. I told him about Dharak’s strength, and Thymas’s impatience. I described the valley, and the call of kinship I had felt when I had looked at it that night. I told him about the huge Hall, built to hold men riding sha’um. Last of all, I told him what Dharak had said about my future place with the Sharith.
“So I’m going back to Thagorn to tell Dharak exactly what I’m telling you now, Father. Zaddorn seems confident of finding Gharlas through his contacts with other peace officers. He’s a good man, and I believe him. I have no intention of chasing Gharlas clear to Eddarta on my own.”
Milda appeared at the doorway with a big bowl of fruit and two glasses of fresh, cool water. “Thought you might want some breakfast,” she said. She stared pointedly at my clothes as she set the things down on a table within our easy reach, and asked: “Did you have a good time last night?”
I grinned at her. “None of your business.”
She laughed and went out of the room. I was relieved to see Thanasset smiling, his face smooth again. “I hadn’t noticed what you were wearing,” he said. “It’s obvious you haven’t had any sleep at all. Do you still plan to leave today?”
I was already munching on a tart, thick-skinned fruit, and I had to sip some water and swallow before I could answer. “The sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll f
eel that you and Milda are safe from Worfit. I’ll bathe and change clothes and pack—I should be ready to go by noon. I’ll be able to nap while I ride.”
“Then you won’t be going to the Council meeting, after all?” Thanasset asked.
I shook my head. “I’ll write a note to Zaddorn, but I hope you’ll take my answer to the Council in person.”
“What is your answer?” He was suddenly tense again.
“Only that I can’t decide right now. I’ll be back in a moon, perhaps less time. Maybe if you explain that I have some business to complete before I can commit myself—?”
“Of course. I’m sure they will make the offer again, when you return. Though Ferrathyn will be disappointed not to see you before you leave. He has taken a great interest in you. Did you know that it was he who suggested creating a special post on the Council for you?”
“No, I didn’t,” I admitted. Ferrathyn’s a nice old guy, I commented to myself. It’s too bad he and Zaddorn don’t get along better. Power politics, I suppose. But it’s no wonder Ferrathyn expected me to accept the position—I’m sure he set it up simply as a favor to me and Thanasset.
“What about you, Father? You seemed really to want me to take the job of the thirteenth Supervisor.”
“You haven’t decided not to take it, have you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well then, since you’ve convinced me that all you want is a vacation, and you’ll be coming back to us soon, I feel better about—well, about everything. We’ll find a way to handle Worfit. And I hope I’ll see a Supervisor-in-the-making when you return.”
5
It surprised the hell out of me that I could ride right up to Thagorn’s gate without being challenged. The explanation occurred to me as soon as I heard the voice bellowing from the top of the wall that filled the narrow opening to the valley.
“What in the name of Kä are you doing out of uniform outside the city gates? You’ll serve a seven-day cleaning the bath-house for this!”
Of course, their sentries aren’t looking for strangers on sha’um! Any who may have seen me probably thought the same thing this guy does—and they probably chuckled about the reception I’d get. Latrine detail, yet!
The Glass of Dyskornis Page 4
