The Search for Kä

by Randall Garrett

  “I provided him with a condensed report on your adventures and your current plans. He was startled and most regretful that you are leaving tomorrow, and that he would not have the chance to see you before you go, or to greet Tarani.”

  I opened the sheet—it was a letter from the Chief Supervisor, the cursive script precise and steady:

  My friend—

  Please allow me to speak for the entire Council in appreciation and in apology. It was our blind and foolish rules, born of the practice of deceit, that caused Thanasset’s hesitation in confiding in you. From his account, a few words from him, before you last left Raithskar, might have saved you much distress.

  Be kind enough to present my greetings to the lady Tarani, and express my hope of meeting her in the very near future. The good wishes of the Council go with her to Eddarta.

  Raithskar is fortunate to have your strength and commitment in our service, Rikdardon. You have the gratitude of a besieged city, and of its Chief Supervisor,

  —Ferrathin

  I handed it to Tarani, who read it and passed it on to Thanasset. When he had read it, Tarani said: “Please tell the Chief Supervisor that I also look forward to our meeting.”

  “Thank him for taking the time to write the note,” I added, “and tell him I got the message. ‘Besieged city,’” I quoted, laughing. “Subtle. Tell him we’ll hurry.”

  The charts had given us information, but little real help in locating Kä. They had verified that a pipeline had indeed been built of expertly fitted ceramic tiles, and that it had taken water from the pool below the Skarkel Falls out toward Kä. But after Thanasset had worked for hours to decipher the badly faded notes, he had announced that the pipeline had not led all the way to Kä on the surface, but that channels had been cut and ceramic-lined in some areas, and natural fissures used in others.

  The ground-based portions of the pipeline would be impossible to detect, but Tarani and I started our search west of Raithskar, looking for traces of the surface construction as a starting place. Keeshah, confident of Thanasset’s devotion to his family, was looking forward to the trip—it seemed a long time since we had shared the exhilaration of a long run. Tarani had parted from Yayshah less happily, but had reported, grudgingly, that the female had protested less than the girl had expected.

  I thought, privately, that Yayshah and Keeshah were both a bit glad of the promised few days’ separation.

  I had studied Thanasset’s collection of maps to determine if the locations of Raithskar and Omergol had shifted much through the years, and concluded that they had not. Somil had defined Kä as equidistant from those two cities, and eight caravan-days away from either one. That translated to about six man-days for mapping purposes—a man-day was the approximate distance a man could walk comfortably in one day, allowing for meals and rest, which I thought of as roughly thirty miles. I had done some triangulation on several of the maps, and had a fair idea of the terrain to look for. I had already decided to spend a maximum of two hours searching for signs of the pipeline construction. After that, with or without that confirmed starting point, we would start southwest into the Kapiral Desert.

  Tarani rode behind me on Keeshah, and both of us carried cargo in the form of sewn-hide bags strung together with thick ropes that rested across our thighs. I had a set of bags filled with dried meat and fruit, and another set which contained water. Tarani carried water bags, and we each had two smaller pouches fastened to our belts. Keeshah could carry us to Kä’s approximate area in two days, and bring us back in the same time period. I had allowed for two days of searching, and brought along a sparing supply of food for Tarani and me for the full six days. Keeshah had fed well this morning and could go the entire time without eating again. He would be hungry, but he could survive.

  Tarani and I were dressed for the desert, wearing tunics which hung loosely from our bodies but fastened securely at neck and wrists, and pants which tucked into mid-calf boots made of soft leather. The triangular scarves which would wrap our faces and heads when we really faced desert travel were presently tucked into our belts, along with extras to use as wet-cloths for Keeshah, when needed.

  We were as well prepared as we could be—for the travel, at least. Tarani’s deliberate silence nudged my guilt and prodded my anxiety. Whatever else happened on this trip, I new I would be forced to share with Tarani the real truth—about me and about her. I looked forward to the relief of having it done with, but not to the uncertainty of its effect on our relationship.

  Seeing Illia again had made me realize, yet again, how much challenge and complexity and grit there was to the woman who rode behind me—and how much I cared for her.

  It was her sharp eyes which spotted the trace we were looking for, a ridge in a grain field that was too straight to be natural. We followed it southwest for a few minutes, then turned around to look. It lay along a straight line between us and the now-distant spot of whitish-gray that stood out against the darker gray of the cloud-crowned escarpment—the foot of the Skarkel Falls.

  That brief look back nearly cost us dearly. Keeshah recognized the danger and sprang forward, even as his mind gave the warning: *Vineh!*

  Tarani and I kept our seats through Keeshah’s sudden lunge, but dropped to the ground by choice as the sha’um whirled to face the half-dozen apish creatures who had stalked us through the tall rows of grain. We threw aside our cargo, drew our swords and daggers, and moved well out to either side of Keeshah.

  The vineh had spread out, as well, until there were two of them facing each one of us. Only with Keeshah were the odds sufficient to make the vineh hesitate. The others attacked.

  The two I faced were full-grown vineh males, with hands as efficient as a man’s and substantially better muscled. They were covered with pale, curly fur that cushioned blunt blows; unarmed, I would not have had a chance against them. The dual-edged weapons earned their respect quickly, however, and they backed away. The creatures were intelligent, and fully capable of a high degree of teamwork—we had seen a sample of that with the wild group we had encountered near Sulis. It amazed me that these creatures, so recently freed from the habit of docility and an artificial society, could have already achieved this level of group cooperation. It amazed me—but I had no time to dwell on it.

  They came at me high and low, one tackling my legs and the other trying to grab and maim my sword arm—a fairly simple procedure, if it ever got its powerful, underslung jaw in range of any part of the arm. I twisted and brought the dagger across my body, into the side of the creature trying to get my arm. The wounded vineh gave a high-pitched, gurgling cry, and collapsed on the ground. I slammed down not far away, kicking at the vineh trying to bite a chunk from my leg. I stabbed with the sword; it connected, but not vitally. By rolling and kicking, I kept the vineh too off-balance to get purchase with its teeth, but it was slowly shifting its position to limit my movements, and the closest vulnerable area, its throat, was beyond my reach and shielded by its body.

  I was starting to give way to panic when the vineh let go and shot upward, then bounced on the ground near its fallen companion. Keeshah was over him in an instant, his teeth fastened in the neck of the creature this time—and suddenly, it was over.

  Tarani had come through the battle with a torn tunic and a few scratches; I had fared about the same. Keeshah’s main loss was his composure; his mind seethed with battle fury and hatred for the vineh, and he spent a lot of energy in the next few minutes tossing the corpses around.

  He did not, I noticed, eat the flesh of the vineh.

  Tarani and I retrieved the bags, and discovered that one of the waterbags had been damaged.

  “Do you want to go back for a replacement?” I asked.

  “Can we manage without the water?” she countered.

  “I think so.”

  “Then I say we drink what is left in this, and start our journey,” she replied decisively. “We have seen evidence of the need for haste. And I am eager to have this task fi
nished.”

  I agreed, and reached out for Keeshah mentally, trying to calm him. In a few minutes, we were on our way, running through the southwestern outskirts of Raithskar’s farmland.”

  16

  Finding Kä turned out to be the easy part of the trip. We soon lost, as expected, the guidance of the raised ridge, but Markasset’s Gandalaran inner awareness helped me keep a fairly precise sense of direction. Common sense and a knowledge of Gandalaran technology—i.e., the lack of high-pressure pumping devices—would have delivered the conclusion that Kä had to be located at a lower altitude than the Skarkel Falls. The maps I had looked at—one of which I had brought along for reference—had provided enough detail about land formations to confirm that conclusion, and the physical features of the land conformed to what I expected.

  The Skarkel River flowed southeast of the city, to interface with the Kapiral in a treacherous, salty bog. To the southwest, the land was less watered, and therefore less fertile. We soon left behind any trace of farmland and traveled through the gray, scrubby brush that somehow survived in the salty sand of the Gandalaran deserts.

  Over the hours of travel, we realized we were following shallow, wide stairsteps—flat plateaus that led gradually downward. There was no wind, but our passing stirred up clouds of fine, stinging dust, and we wrapped our scarves tightly around our faces, leaving only our eyes exposed. It was not the first desert crossing the three of us had made together, nor was it the most difficult—but it was uncomfortable. Gandalara is always hot, but the reflective quality of the sand in the desert made it seem suffocatingly, blisteringly hot.

  We slipped, without discussion, into the efficient travel pattern of moving for three hours, resting for one, allowing extra rest time for Keeshah when he asked for it. That cut our travel time by nearly a quarter, so that we reached what I judged to be the vicinity of Kä in midafternoon of our second day.

  The land formations we followed had become more clearly defined, and we found ourselves approaching a ridge that marked the end of one of the long flat areas. Keeshah carried us up to it—and we looked down on Kä.

  Tarani gasped and expressed the same thing I was thinking. “Surely it cannot be this simple,” she said.

  I shook my head. “We’ve found the city,” I said, “but not the sword. When I shared memory with Zanek, I saw a huge room where he displayed the Bronze. It would have taken a big building to house that room, in the ‘official’ part of the city. Any suggestions?”

  Kä was enormous. We had stumbled on the one specific vantage point that gave us the best view of the city. We dismounted, allowed ourselves and Keeshah a ration of water, then spent some time looking down on the seat of the ancient Kingdom.

  “I do not understand,” Tarani said. ‘The city is not ‘hidden’ at all—it hardly seems damaged by the passing years. Why has it not been located, and plundered?”

  “We don’t know that it hasn’t,” I said, “but if that happened, I’ll bet it occurred just after the breakup of the Kingdom, when people still remembered, specifically, the wealth of the city. As for why nobody knows where it is now,” I said, shrugging, “Who cares? There’s nothing but desert beyond it. Even those mountains,” I added, waving to the craggy foothills not far to the west, “are desert-dry. There is nothing here to bring people past Kä, to keep its location fresh in the All-Mind. If it had a higher location, and were even faintly visible from the desert route between Raithskar and the Refreshment House at Yafnaar, it might still be popular with history students. But look at it—it’s in a hole.”

  She did look. ‘Those buildings on the far side of the city—the regular grouping, do you see?”

  I followed her pointing arm, and did see what she meant. There was a large center building and, radiating outward, a set of smaller ones. It was reminiscent of the arrangement of Lord City—further encouragement, since the Last King had been the one to lay out the construction of that settlement above Eddarta. The rest of Kä might have been transplanted from Raithskar. There was a large open area near the big building Tarani had noticed, and several smaller openings scattered around it. I presumed they served as Raithskar’s did, as centers for specific business districts.

  “I think you’re right,” I told Tarani. “Shall we go investigate?”

  “We shall go into the city,” she said, “and enter the first building which will provide shelter from the heat. You will tell me why it was so important that I come here with you. Then we shall seek out the sword.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but simply closed it again.

  “The time has come,” ran the quote, remembered by Ricardo, through my mind, “to talk of many things.” In other words, she’s right; I’ve run out of procrastination room.

  Keeshah took us down the slope below the ridge, which was less steep than it seemed, and through the streets of Kä. I had been correct in identifying the building material as stone, at least for the buildings we had seen from the ridge. Their walls were made of small sections of stone, not quarried smooth, but apparently selected and matched for size and color. Whatever had been used to cement the stones together had been designed for long wear—even after centuries, the rock showed more sand-scarring than the medium material.

  There had been many more buildings in the city at one time, however. The land from the base of the ridge to the first stone building was heaped and pitted, and Keeshah found it difficult going until he located a smooth, straight stretch.

  “We’re on a street,” I said, as the revelation struck me. “All those mounds are buildings that were made of salt blocks.”

  “Like the Refreshment Houses?” Tarani asked. “But those seem as permanent as stone.”

  “They are maintained,” I explained, excitedly. “Surface scars can be patched with saturated salt mud, but the crystal structure will break down completely, given time, as these have done. The Fa’aldu can replace blocks when necessary, adding strength and life to the rest of the structure. These had no one to tend them, and eventually they just fell back into sand heaps.”

  “You speak of this, as you did of language, as if you have studied the destruction of cities,” she said.

  “Uh—” I replied.

  She pointed. “There, a stone house. The roof is gone, but it seems large enough that the wall will shade us. We will stop there.”

  Remarkably little sand had drifted into the building—thanks, no doubt, to the stifling stillness of the desert air. Keeshah left us at the doorway, preferring the shade of an outer wall to the squeeze represented by the people-sized entries. As he curled up to rest, Tarani and I cleared away a mass of petrified wood pieces that must have been a dining table at one time.

  We sat down in the wall’s shade and I offered Tarani some food. She shook her head. “I am more hungry for truth,” she said.

  “All right,” I said, after considering and rejecting softer ways to start. “I have been lying to you. I am not a ‘Visitor’—not the way you understand it, anyway.”

  “But you are not Markasset,” she said.

  “No. I had another name, another life, in another totally different world, much bigger. My world had a pleth larger than all the land area, and rakor was so common that it was used to build cities larger than all the cities in Gandalara put together. The people of my world spoke many different languages.”

  She frowned, concentrating. “I find this—difficult to believe. There is no hint of such a time within the All-Mind.”

  “My world has no All-Mind,” I said, and heard her catch her breath. “I learned about the past of my world through reading what other people wrote down, and by visiting cities like this, lost for centuries in the desert. My deserts were different, though, with constant winds that piled the sand so high that our ancient cities were buried under tons of soil.”

  She was silent for a long time, then suddenly snapped at me: “Why did you not tell me this at the beginning?”

  “I was afraid you would not be able to believe
me.”

  “You have said that strangely,” she commented. “Not that I would not believe, but that I would be incapable of belief. You thought the truth would frighten me?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Doesn’t it?”

  “The strangeness of it disturbs me,” she said, “but it explains many other things which have disturbed me more. For example—your ability to resist mindpower, which thinkers guess has some connection to the All-Mind. It seemed strange to me; I felt that merely having the two identities did not account for your immunity. If you were never a part of the All-Mind, then it is logical that a power associated with it would not affect you.

  “I have always known that you think differently—with greater detachment, sometimes with greater logic,” she said, her voice growing harsher. “I say ‘sometimes’ because I see no logic in your hiding this truth. Your deception has only created confusion and distrust. What did you gain by it?”

  She saw me hesitate before I answered.

  “There is more,” she stated flatly. “Tell me.”

  “This part will be harder to believe,” I warned her. She merely waited. “Just before I woke up in Markasset’s body,” I said, “I suffered a strange disaster in my own world. I can’t begin to tell you what happened or why—but I have learned that the person who was with me also came to Gandalara. The person in whose body she appeared was still alive, and—”

  “Enough!” Tarani ordered, and scrambled to her feet. I jumped up after her and grabbed her shoulders. She struggled, her eyes not looking at me, her mouth pressed into a tight, defiant line. “Let me go,” she demanded.

  I shook her and yelled at her, driven by anger and fear and the need to get this out into the open. “You can’t ask for the truth and then reject part of it,” I said. “There is a woman from my world in Gandalara; her mind and thoughts and personality are alive in you, Tarani. She had been influencing you in ways you can’t really recognize. She might be helping you right now—she could be the reason that knowledge of my world doesn’t frighten you.”