The Glass of Dyskornis

by Randall Garrett

  “Ride with you,” I said. I looked at his sha’um, a little smaller and a darker gray than Keeshah, who had settled down at the edge of the clearing. “Ronar can carry you both.”

  “Ronar will not carry a woman,” he said flatly.

  Well, I wanted to get outside of Markasset’s experience, I thought. And here I am. Standing on the sensitive toes of an ancient Sharith custom. Maybe I should just let it go … no, I can’t see making Tarani flop around in that contraption, if there is any other way.

  “Have you asked Ronar?” I said.

  “Why don’t you ask Tarani?” he suggested. “She knows that it is unseemly for a woman to—”

  He was looking at Tarani.

  “We discussed it only once, Thymas,” she said hurriedly. “You were so positive that it couldn’t be done, that I haven’t mentioned it since. But a hundred times, I have wanted to ask—has any woman ever tried?”

  “No Sharith woman would even think it!” he said.

  “I may never be Sharith, if we don’t get to Chizan,” Tarani answered.

  “The net will take you there,” he said coldly. He took out another pad, began unrolling it. “You will be comfortable.”

  It’s possible that male sha’um really won’t accept female riders, I speculated. Then, too, it’s possible that, because the King’s Guard was all male originally, it has simply “always been” this way.

  “Thymas.” I tried to imitate Dharak’s command tone.

  The boy stopped his work and waited, his cheeks red with anger.

  “Try, Thymas,” I said. “It can cost us only a few minutes now, and it might save us from fooling with that net all the way.”

  Thymas threw down the pad, and walked over to Ronar. He mounted the sha’um and brought him over near Tarani. The cat settled down into a crouch, but his head was turned toward the girl, and his lips twitched back from his teeth.

  “Sit behind me,” Thymas ordered gruffly. “Be very still.” His body and face were tense. He was fighting to control the sha’um.

  Something tells me this may not have been a good idea …

  Tarani approached the sha’um slowly. She put her hand on Thymas’s arm, and was preparing to swing her leg over the cat’s hips. I doubt she was even breathing. I wasn’t.

  With a headache-quality roar, Ronar surged up, scraped Thymas off against a tree, and started to advance on Tarani. Thymas was up instantly, panic in his eyes. It would do no good to try to control the sha’um physically. He had to do it with his will, and he was failing.

  Tarani backed away from the creeping, snarling sha’um. She looked less frightened than Thymas did, and I guessed she was trying to calm Ronar with her power.

  It wasn’t working.

  The cat charged.

  It had happened so fast that I had not had time to absorb it. Now it was too late to do anything. I thought, with horror, that it would all be over in a matter of seconds.

  A tan shape hurtled into the clearing and knocked aside the charging sha’um. A tangle of fur and claws and teeth wrestled back and forth on the ground in front of Tarani, making ear-splitting and terrifying sounds.

  *Keeshah! Enough!* I ordered, when I came out of that shocked paralysis. To Thymas, I yelled: “Call Ronar, and control him.”

  We both ran over to the free-for-all, but stayed clear of the snarling cats. We struggled to separate them through their habit of obedience to us. It was Keeshah who rolled to his feet and backed off, his ears tight to his skull, the fur on his neck bristled into a mane, and his tail twice its normal size.

  Ronar had gotten the worst of it. He was bleeding from deep scratches along his flank, and a hunk of flesh and fur had been scraped away behind one ear. But he wasn’t ready to quit, yet. He feinted at Keeshah, and got a claws-out slap across the nose for his pains. He fell back, then, and Thymas regained control. I wasn’t sure how long he could hold it.

  “Tarani, take off that pack,” I said. She obeyed me without question.

  *You saved her, Keeshah,* I said, as I transferred some of the food from my saddlebags into Tarani’s pack. *Will you carry her?*

  He was panting heavily, watching the other sha’um.

  *You want her. I will carry her.*

  *Thanks.*

  I strapped on the pack and, pulling it high on my shoulders, tightened the fasteners.

  “You’ll have to ride first position, Tarani,” I said. “You saw where Thymas was sitting. Sit there and lie forward, tucking up your knees and holding Keeshah’s shoulders.”

  Still watching Ronar, Keeshah crouched down. Even after a sha’um had nearly killed her, Tarani went up to Keeshah with no trace of fear. She lay on his back with her eyes closed. Keeshah waited calmly while I checked her position on both sides.

  I settled on Keeshah’s hindquarters and leaned forward across Tarani’s back. Keeshah stood up, lifting both of us easily, and I asked him to turn so that I could see Thymas.

  The boy was spluttering with outrage.

  “We need to keep the sha’um apart for a few hours,” I said, “so I’m going to ride ahead. How far is Relenor?” I asked Tarani. I could see one side of her face. Her eyes opened, but her expression reminded me of the way she had looked when she was dancing.

  “A day and a half, walking,” she answered.

  “We’ll meet you at the Refreshment House tonight, then,” I told Thymas. “Bring my packs, too, after you get Ronar calmed down. And repack that cargo net.

  “We may need it for something else.”

  13

  “Two are here who request shelter and water,” I called, as Tarani and I stood in front of Relenor’s gateway, about an hour before nightfall.

  Relenor sat in the middle of a wide valley that would narrow and climb until it became the Zantil Pass. The Refreshment House looked just like the one at Yafnaar, with the entire compound surrounded by a man-high wall made of whitish blocks of rock salt.

  The only opening in that wall was covered by a strip of yellow cloth, to remind travelers that staying here meant obeying the laws of the Fa’aldu. The desert-dwellers were called by that word as a single group; it meant “bringers of water.” The Refreshment Houses took individual names based on the first person to settle in each location.

  “I am Lussim, Elder of Relenor,” said the man who appeared in the gateway, when the cloth barrier was dropped. He was wearing the traditional long white robe. He was younger than Balgokh, but he carried the same air of authority the Yafnaar elder possessed. “No quarrel shall enter here,” he said. “Put aside your weapons, and be welcome to any service we can provide.”

  He stood aside, and Tarani moved through the gateway, removing her baldric and placing the sheathed sword in the Elder’s out-stretched hands. He turned and handed it to one of the two boys who had lowered the barrier cloth. While he was doing that, Tarani was speaking her own formula.

  “I have a weapon which cannot be surrendered,” she said. “I give you my oath that it shall not be used while Relenor shelters me.”

  “Your oath is accepted,” Lussim replied, with a smile. “As always, it is a pleasure to see you, Tarani.”

  She stopped aside, and I moved in, holding out Serkajon’s sword. “I am Rikardon, Respected Elder, and I must ask for food and water for my sha’um, as well as for myself.”

  He had been in the act of handing the sword to the kid when he heard my name. He pulled it back, held it gently before him as he spoke to me.

  “I know the value of this sword, Rikardon, and I will guard it, myself, while you shelter here. In the name of my cousin Balgokh, you may enter Relenor only as the guest of the Fa’aldu.”

  I bowed slightly. “I am honored, Respected Elder. If you please, I will see to my sha’um before I enter.”

  Lussim signaled to the boys, who went running off, staring at me over their shoulders. One bounced against a wall before he found a door and disappeared.

  There has been time, since I left Yafnaar, for a letter to get her
e, I was thinking, even if it came with a caravan, instead of a bird. I wonder what Balgokh said about me.

  I untied Tarani’s pack, slipped it off, and handed it to her. She looked tired. She had been running from us, and following us, for two days without sleep. “I’ll wait for the supplies,” I said. “Go ahead and get settled.”

  Lussim led Tarani off toward the line of cubicles on one side of the crowded courtyard. There was an enormous stack of goods in one corner of the yard, and twenty or thirty vleks were stamping around nervously, their low-slung bellies nearly dusting the floor of the courtyard.

  *Stay downwind, Keeshah,* I said. *Did Tarani ride well?*

  *Yes,* he answered. He sounded almost as tired as Tarani had looked.

  *There will be fresh meat soon,* I told him. *I hadn’t realized how much of this trip would be uphill. Will you be able to carry us both over the mountains?*

  *Try. Let woman ride behind.*

  That made sense, putting the lighter person where the rider’s weight had to be less evenly distributed, right over Keeshah’s hips. I voted for it, too, because I had been very uncomfortable all day. Keeshah’s movement had been bad enough while I was sitting nearly upright. But the inevitable movement of Tarani’s body under mine had created a different kind of discomfort, and the continual need to think of other things.

  Mostly, I had thought about Gharlas. Why had he hired those assassins? To kill Dharak? His power might have let him learn that Dharak didn’t fulfill his agreement to kill everyone on that caravan. Revenge is always a good motive.

  But what if I were the target? How had he known that I would be in Thagorn? More use of that power? He had hired Molik sometime after I had decided to go to Thagorn. Could he have known about that decision?

  But why kill me? Because I had been the one to track down Hural and prove to Zaddorn that Gharlas has the Ra’ira?

  What if he tried to read my mind, and couldn’t do it? I wondered, as I waited for the boys to bring out meat for Keeshah. Another motive enters the picture. Fear of the unpredictable, maybe the uncontrollable. But then he couldn’t have known where I would be. Maybe he had Molik send assassins to Raithskar, too. Expensive insurance. Would peace of mind be worth it to him?

  The boys came back, lugging a haunch of glith and a large waterskin. They wouldn’t let me take the things, but insisted on carrying them outside the gate for me. There were water troughs along the wall like the ones in the center of the yard—large semi-circular tiles, braced by a frame of salt blocks. The boy with the waterskin poured the smallest trough half full.

  Keeshah came around a corner when I called him, and the boy next to me—I thought he was the younger of the two—staggered backward under his load of meat when he saw the cat. I grabbed hold of the glith to steady the boy.

  *Here’s dinner, Keeshah,* I said. *Try not to scare the kid to death.*

  The boy hung on, wide-eyed and fascinated, as the big cat approached, and sank his teeth into the fresh meat. Tiny rivers of blood oozed out around Keeshah’s tusks as he lifted the weight from the boy’s hands. The blood dripped on the ground, as the sha’um carried his dinner to one of the empty troughs and set it down.

  *Thirsty,* he told me. *Drink first.*

  He came over to the water trough. I lifted a palmful of water for him to lap up. This was part of the tradition of Serkajon’s house, that a sha’um would not feed or drink among men, unless his rider offered him his first taste.

  The other boy was watching us. Looking at the boys closely, I was sure they were brothers.

  What’s fair for one …

  *Will you drink from the boy’s hand, Keeshah?*

  *Why?* The thought was complaining; he wanted a drink, not a sip.

  *It would please me. And the boy would like it.*

  *Yes.*

  “Your turn,” I said to the boy, and waved him into my place by the trough. He turned pale and started to stammer, but I grabbed his shoulder and nudged him forward. “Go ahead. He won’t hurt you.”

  He let the waterskin fall to the ground, and scooped up a double handful of water from the trough. He held it up to Keeshah’s muzzle. I saw him shiver when the raspy tongue flicked across his hands. Then he stepped away, and Keeshah lowered his head to the trough.

  “Keeshah thanks you for your service,” I told the boys. “If you’ll leave the water with me, I’ll return what he doesn’t drink.”

  I could see they wanted to stay, but they knew a dismissal when they heard one. They backed through the gate without a word, then ran across the yard again, chattering excitedly. As I turned to watch them, I saw Lussim waiting beside the gate.

  “That was generous of you, Rikardon,” he said. “You have given them a precious memory. The Sharith patrols stop by here now and then, so that the boys have seen sha’um before. But not so closely. The Sharith are not … thoughtful, as you are.”

  The Sharith encourage everybody to see their cats as dangerous creatures. To them, a sha’um is also a weapon.

  That’s true. But I like it better, my way.

  “I should tell you, Respected Elder—”

  “My name, please,” he requested.

  “Since I was last at Yafnaar, Lussim, I have become part of the Sharith. Another Rider will be arriving soon.”

  “Tarani has told me that Thymas would join you.”

  “You know Thymas?”

  “Slightly,” he said, noncommittally. “Um … it was my intention to ask you to dine with us this evening.’

  You’re wondering what the situation is among the three of us, aren’t you? It’s plain that you like Tarani, but if Thymas has to be included, you’d rather not offer the invitation.

  “I am not required by courtesy to dine with Tarani and Thymas,” I said, to get him off the hook. “In fact, I think they would prefer to take their meal alone. I would be very pleased to dine in the inner court.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Well … Tarani … We’re very crowded, as you can see. Tarani assured me that one room for the three of you …”

  “It will be sufficient,” I assured him. He gave me the dinner hour, identified our room, then went into the family buildings.

  Keeshah had taken the glith haunch off somewhere. I poured out another portion of water and took the skin inside. Behind me, two different boys hauled up the cloth barrier.

  The room we had been assigned was about fifteen feet square, with man-sized blocks along three walls. Plain pallets and folded blankets rested on each of the three beds. One corner was screened off by wood-framed tapestries to provide a private dressing area.

  Tarani was sitting on one of the beds, letting her head rest against the wall, when I came in. She sat up straight when she saw me.

  “Thymas is probably no more than an hour behind us,” I said.

  “I wanted the chance to talk to you, before he arrives.”

  “Oh?” I said. I unrolled the pallet of the bed opposite hers, bunched up the blanket for a pillow, and stretched out. “What about?”

  “About Thymas. The scene you described this morning—Thymas traveling with me, Ronar performing—you said that would make me happy. Do you really believe that?”

  “It shouldn’t matter to you what I believe.”

  “Thymas is Sharith,” she said stiffly. “You are the leader of the Sharith. Your opinion matters to us, naturally.”

  Thymas probably loves latrine detail a lot more than he cares about my opinion, I thought. You’re just worried that what I think will influence what he thinks. See previous thought, and quit worrying.

  But, for the record …

  “I was impatient and angry when I said that,” I told her. “I can’t have watched you mount Keeshah and think that you would ever demean a sha’um in that way.”

  “Thank you,” she said. The long, fine fingers of her hands were interlacing and pulling apart, twisting together and separating. She noticed them, closed her hands into fists
, and dropped them into her lap.

  “I am to marry Thymas,” she announced suddenly.

  I felt as though I had swallowed an iceberg.

  “Does Dharak know this?” I asked.

  “Not yet. Thymas brought his betrothal gift to my dressing room, just before the performance.”

  “Just before he found out you were involved in a plot to murder his father,” I corrected. She winced.

  “I offered to return the sword to Thymas today, while you were gone—” she began heatedly.

  “Thymas gave you a sword for a betrothal gift?” I demanded.

  “Yes, why not?” she flared back. “He has taught me sword work. I go through Chizan so often—he believes I need the protection.”

  Like a porcupine needs a shotgun, I thought. Thymas knew she had that sword, and that she could use it. If she hadn’t been so tired this morning …

  And he didn’t say a word about it. Some cooperation.

  “I see you still have the sword,” I said drily. “After you told Thymas about borrowing money from Molik.” I knew it was cruel, but there was a queer pain blocking my kindness channel. “You needn’t worry about how he’ll feel after he learns the truth. There are a lot of things Thymas lacks, but a sense of honor isn’t one of them. He will keep his promise to marry you.”

  Her eyes blazed. “Will that be his only reason for the marriage, because it was promised?”

  “Of course not,” I answered. “By now, he probably needs you very much.”

  She sat up as though I had slapped her.

  “Do let me know if Thymas wants a dose tonight,” I went on, cringing away from my own nastiness. “I’ll sleep in the yard.”

  She was on her feet, her fists clenched.

  “If that is all you think Thymas wants of me, rest easy,” she said, her low voice trembling. “I have sworn not to use my power in Relenor. I, too, keep my promises.”

  She left the room.

  Should I go after her? She needs sleep more than I do.

  She knows what she needs, I told myself gruffly. And it’s a little late for gallantry now.

  I turned to my left side, facing the wall, and tried to sleep. An hour later, I gave it up, and went into the yard to wash my face and hands before dinner. Water was too precious for bathing. At least, for the travelers. The Fa’aldu themselves lived a life of considerable comfort.