The Well of Darkness

by Randall Garrett

  A small doubt crossed my mind, brought on by the realization that it was not only the dimness of light, and the flowing angles of Gandalaran cursive that made the note difficult to read. The words had been written in haste, and for a moment I wasn’t absolutely positive that it was Tarani’s handwriting.

  Lonna was resting on my shoulder. I stretched out my arm and she side-stepped along it until her weight rested on my upper arm. “Did this message come from Tarani, Lonna?” I asked. She hunched forward and spread her wings; I laughed, and tossed her into the air. The big wings beat down, lifting her. “I see you haven’t forgotten your stage training,” I said, as she circled around my head and settled again on my shoulder. I stroked the feathers on her breast as I walked along. Your word is good enough for me, lady. Let’s go find Tarani.”

  While I had moonlight, I walked on through the bushes and into farm land. I rested, then moved on at dawn. Mid-morning I struck one of the wide roads that followed branches of the Tashal River, and led into Eddarta.

  The city had no perimeter wall, but looked from a distance as though a giant hand had shaken buildings in a cup, like dice, then cast them in an untidy spill across the lowest slopes of the River Wall. From the time I stepped onto the road—and I knew it was my only choice, since sneaking around would only draw attention to myself—the skin on my back and neck prickled with the expectation of swordpoints behind me. I reached the outskirts of the city at noon, found myself a mediocre inn, had a mediocre meal that tasted like ambrosia after the hard, dried fruit and meat I had taken into the desert with me, and collapsed into a mediocre pallet for a sound eight hours of sleep.

  I woke in the darkness of deep night, my “inner awareness” telling me that midnight was a good two hours away. I was alone in a second-floor room, and slightly amazed that I had rested so well.

  I can think of several reasons, I thought to myself while I dressed, why I shouldn‘t have slept a wink last night. Uncertainty whether Indomel knows I‘ve left the Lingis mine, that just-before-action surge I‘ve felt before when I got close to the Ra‘ira, and—certainly not least of all—eagerness to see Tarani again. So why did I just check in here without thinking twice about anything, and pass out?

  Exhaustion has to be part of the answer, I finally decided. But there’s more. I felt my teeth clench as I speculated. It was Ricardo who found the answer, in a memory from my early days in the Marines, when I’d been a well-trained but green kid on a soggy, enemy-infested island.

  It‘s because I‘m not giving the orders any more, I realized. Tarani said escape, so I did. She said meet her at midnight, when I got here I had time to kill, so I caught up on my rest. It‘s kind of the reverse of Ricardo‘s wartime experience on Pelihau—when I got there, I was a buck private and I slept the sleep of the dead; when I left, I‘d been promoted to Sergeant Carillo by default, and I‘d learned to go for days without sleep.

  I shrugged. She‘s the only one who‘s in a position to know what‘s going on, I admitted, then felt a twinge of the guilt that still hovered at the back of my mind. And she kept us on track while I was nonfunctional. We‘re a team, I reminded myself. Getting the Ra‘ira out of Eddarta is the only thing that counts.

  I slipped the baldric over my shoulder, and touched the hilt of the bronze sword. The Ra’ira—and Rika, if possible, I thought, remembering the sight of Obilin holding the steel sword.

  The city was quiet as I left the inn. The caution I had lacked on arrival here had claimed me again—the fewer people who saw me in Eddarta, the better.

  At the edge of lower Eddarta, I paused to look up the wide avenue at Lord City. Crossing the desert seemed a snap, compared to walking up that paved, nearly empty road. To my right was the freshness and the rumble of the last fall of the Tashal cataract. It was visible only as a deeper darkness with an occasional spark of glimmering wetness. It called up the memory, once more, of our breakneck escape from the place I was now going.

  I shuddered. I hope this is the last time I go into Lord City, I said to myself fervently. This place is unhealthy in more than one way.

  I considered going east, out of the city, and trying to approach the gate more circumspectly than marching up the entry avenue. No, I decided. That would probably draw more attention than my just walking up to the front door as if I had good sense and urgent business.

  So I gathered my determination, squared my shoulders, and started up the road. By the time I was approaching the wide, guarded gate, the skin between my shoulder blades was itching and crawling.

  Markasset was used to enemies you could see, I thought, and Ricardo certainly preferred them to hidden ones.

  There were two guards at the gate—standing, not leaning on the stone. Oil lamps set into the wall created a circle of wavering light. Visible through the open archway were spots of light from the short pillars that lined the walk to Lord Hall. All of those lamps had been lit on the night of the Celebration Dance. Only a few glimmered now in the darkness.

  And something moved through the uncertain light, coming toward the gate, a darkness visible only when it blocked a lamp. It stopped a few feet inside the city; the guards had their backs to it, and it had made no sound at all. The shape was tall and slim, and I recognized it.

  We’re sitting ducks, both of us! I thought frantically. Panicky and confused, I stopped my approach to the gate, unsure whether I was to go in or she would come out.

  I stopped.

  My legs kept on walking.

  11

  It wasn’t the first time I had felt a compulsion, but the experience was unnerving. Never mind walking boldly between two guards who probably had orders to kill me on sight—but who failed to see me. Discount the eerie setting, with the pale sky, the muttering of the river, the unsteady light, the oppressive sense of danger. What really spooked me was the ease of transition, and the strength of the compulsion. One minute I was walking on my own. The next second, someone else was doing the steering.

  I had a wild suspicion, suddenly, that the tall figure might be Indomel, and not Tarani—but that fear, at least, was quickly put to rest. When I could see Tarani clearly, I saw lines of tension around her mouth and across her brow. She was dressed for desert travel in dark-toned trousers and thigh-length tunic. She didn’t speak, but took my hand, turning with me to move toward Lord Hall and the walkway which led into the Harthim section of the miniature city.

  I didn’t speak, either—because I couldn’t. I couldn’t even tighten my hand around hers in a small gesture of greeting. The compulsion lay on my mind like a weight, numbing everything remotely related to muscular volition, while I walked beside Tarani into Lord City.

  We passed a couple of people near Lord Hall, and there were more guards at the entrance to the Harthim living area. No one took any notice of us. Tarani led me through the back door of the maze of halls and stairways that had been built by generation upon generation of High Lords. We followed a route I had traveled once before, but I doubt I could have gone so unerringly to Zefra’s quarters, had Tarani not been with me. As before, there were two guards beside the door. It had been left unlatched; Tarani pushed it open and we slipped through it; she shut it behind us.

  The sound of door meeting frame, soft as it was, seemed a signal. The compulsion left me abruptly, and it seemed to take with it every ounce of my physical strength. I groped for the arm of a chair and sank into it.

  I felt as if every nerve in my body was vibrating. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was like the throbbing in a leg that was “waking” after having gone to sleep. I waited for the tingling to escalate into pain, but instead it only subsided, gradually, like water settling to smoothness after a disturbance.

  When the sensation was gone altogether, I looked over at Tarani. She was seated in the chair next to me. Glass-chimneyed candles—Gandalaran lamps—gave the narrow, windowless anteroom a brightness that might have been cheery, with the knowledge of a bright day outside to boost the feeling. But it was the mid
dle of the night, and my mood was far from cheery.

  When Tarani saw that I had recovered from the effects of her compulsion, she reached across the gap between our chairs. Her smile faded as she looked at my face, and her hand drew back before it touched my arm.

  “I am glad to see you safe,” she said, her voice betraying her uncertainty.

  “Safe from the mines,” I said, not even trying to hide my anger. “But apparently not from you.”

  “From me?” she asked. “What have you to fear from me?”

  “Control of my own mind,” I snapped. I pushed myself up in the chair and leaned toward her. “After crossing half the world to get here, did you think I wouldn’t follow you into Lord City willingly?”

  “The compulsion?” she asked, and seemed truly surprised that I objected. “But surely you see that was the simplest, quickest way? Taking the time to explain would have been a ludicrous risk.”

  “To bring me through the gate, yes,” I agreed. “But after that? No speech, no greeting, you just literally grabbed me, mind and body, and dragged me where you wanted to go.”

  Her eyes flashed, not with power but with anger. “And is this not where you wished to go, also?” she demanded.

  “Yes, but as my own choice,” I answered, slapping the arm of the chair.

  She stood up and paced to the end of the small room, her arms crossed, the long-fingered hands gripping her shoulders. “Silence was absolutely necessary,” she said with her back turned to me. “I was casting a difficult illusion to keep us from being seen. Any sound would have given us away.”

  “It didn’t occur to you that I might figure that out on my own, and cooperate?” I asked bitterly.

  “An illusion requires intense concentration,” she said, her head bowed. “I thought, if you were free, you might wish to …” She faltered, then resumed in a steady, brisk voice. “To greet me in a way that would destroy that concentration. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking that such a desire might overcome your sense of caution. Perhaps … no, truly,” she said, turning to face me and throwing back her shoulders, “I knew that the danger I feared would have been real, had I been in your place and you in mine It was foolish of me. No one knows better than I that you are always more mindful of duty than of anything else.”

  It was a sarcastic remark, calculated to sting, and it hit home.

  “I keep forgetting,” I said, standing up, “how good you are at illusion. You had me believing that you didn’t blame me for our getting hauled back here.”

  “Why should I blame you,” she flared, “when you were spending so much energy blaming yourself? And our presence here is a small inconvenience compared to the Ra’ira being within Indomel’s reach.”

  “Small inconvenience?” I demanded. “Were you hauled off to the copper mines? Have you spent the last four days in the desert, plagued by worry about what you’d left behind and what you’d find in Eddarta?”

  The heat of the argument had brought us closer together physically. We were within arm’s length of each other when she said: “Were you not just speaking of trust? I sent Lonna with water and money, and she destroyed the message birds. Could you not believe, with that as evidence, that I would see to your safety in the city, as well?”

  I grabbed her shoulders; she flinched at my grip. “It wasn’t my safety that concerned me,” I nearly shouted.

  Her hands had caught my forearms. For a fraction of a second, I felt upward pressure, as she started to break my hold. But in that brief pause, I saw reflected in her face a thought that paralleled my own: If I care so much for this woman, why am I yelling at her?

  The pressure ceased; her fingers lay lightly on my arms. I could feel their warmth through the fabric of the tunic.

  “I was afraid for you, as well,” she said, so quietly that I could barely hear her.

  I kissed her.

  It was worth a four-day trek across the desert.

  I continued to hold her close to me, and she made no effort to move away.

  “I’m sorry, Tarani. For getting us into this. For seeming not to appreciate your help. Believe me, that letter from you was like a waterfall in the desert. You’ve been doing the thinking for us for a while, and doing it well.” I pulled away a little, lifted her chin to look into her face. “I promise you, I’m back on the team—all the way back.”

  That‘s as true, I thought, as it can be. Keeshah has a part of me with him—but even if the “team” still included him, that part of me would be committed not to the team, but to Keeshah.

  My guts seized up with the sense of loss that was no easier to bear because it was familiar by now. I fought off the sensation and said: “Let’s get the Ra’ira and leave Eddarta behind us for good.”

  Tarani hesitated, and I felt my calming paranoia re-activate itself. Seemingly undirected by rational thought, the space between us grew until we were again at arm’s length.

  “You did say in your letter that you and Zefra have found a way …”

  “to defeat Indomel,” she finished, after a brief pause. “But it is not so simple a task as defeating Gharlas, who was truly no more than a thief.”

  “Indomel,” I said slowly, trying to keep my voice steady through the wave of savage eagerness that accompanied the thought, “will bleed like any other man.”

  “I said ‘defeat’,” she snapped, “not ‘kill’.”

  “Why not?” I demanded. “Because he’s your brother?”

  “No—because he is the High Lord.”

  “So was your father the High Lord, but you didn’t seem to regret his loss,” I said.

  “Neither,” she said angrily, “did I wish his death. If you recall the circumstances, Thymas moved too quickly to give me any opportunity to make a choice.”

  “And would you have chosen to let him live?” I asked. “After the tortured life he had forced on you and Volitar?”

  “I would choose to grant life to any man rather than demand his death,” she said, straightening her shoulders.

  The gesture seemed to be conscious, and it was a clue to something; part of my mind grabbed hold of it and started tracing a logic path, working beneath and in spite of the emotional turmoil that was dominating my reactions.

  “I suppose that is true,” I said, recognizing but helpless—no, unwilling—to control a nasty streak that surfaced now and then. “If you’d let Molik live, then any man could expect your mercy. And you can afford the appearance of generous intentions when you know that someone else will do your killing for you.”

  The first thing to register from the blow was surprise, then shock, then the stinging pain in the skin of my left cheek. My body reacted faster than my mind; I reeled back from Tarani’s slap and then raised my hand to retaliate.

  She faced me without flinching, but there was more pain in her face than anger.

  I held back.

  Molik‘s name did it, I thought. That bastard‘s memory still has the power to shame her. When we were here before, she wouldn‘t even tell Zefra …

  My God, what have I done?

  As soon as that logic, memory, and realization flashed through my mind—it took only an instant—I tried to lower my hand.

  I couldn’t.

  In fact, now that I applied conscious effort to things outside my argument with Tarani, I realized there were several things I couldn’t do.

  Like … move … speak … breathe.

  I must have been capable of some movement, because Tarani, looking straight into my face, had to be able to read my growing panic. She whirled away from me; from the corner of my eye I could see the inner door opening and Zefra stepping through.

  “Release him, Mother!” Tarani ordered.

  “He tried to hurt you.” Zefra said in a low voice. “I have said it before, Tarani—you do not need this man.”

  Gharlas couldn‘t hold me in compulsion, I thought, mentally gritting my teeth and pushing back against the weight that had taken me over completely, with the same quickn
ess that had unnerved me at the city gate. Zefra gasped with surprise.

  “He is fighting me,” she told Tarani. “Such a strong mind, so … different.” She put her hands to her head, as though to shelter her eyes from a light too bright. “What is it, daughter? This man is too strange …” She looked at Tarani. “You have lied to me about him. Who is he?”

  “He will be no one at all if you do not …”

  “His death will be your doing, Tarani. Tell me who he is!”

  I had been watching this with less interest as the struggle to free myself and the pressing need for air in my lungs consumed my attention. But I did see Tarani draw herself up—and again the gesture rang a bell—directly between her mother and me.

  “And you have forced me to this,” the girl said quietly. Suddenly she was with me, as she had been against Gharlas, and together we resisted Zefra’s paralyzing compulsion. It was different this time. Then I had called up that part of me which had been Ricardo by concentrating on memories unique to a world two-thirds covered with water. But then the compulsion had been less severe, restricting only voluntary movement. Here there was no time. Tarani and I both pushed as hard as we could.

  Zefra stepped back as if physically threatened, her arms straight in front of her. “No—oh!” She backed into the door, stood there for a moment as if pinned to it, then collapsed, sliding down to sit in a huddle on the floor. At that same moment, the compulsion let go; my body jerked, and I had to scramble to keep my balance.

  Tarani knelt by her mother, reached for her arms, hesitated when Zefra flinched away from her, then persisted until she was holding her mother’s upper arms and helping her to a chair. When Zefra was comfortable physically—her daughter turning against her, and proving to be more powerful was a shock from which she would recover slowly, if at all—Tarani stood up and came to me.