To Ride a Rathorn

by P. C. Hodgell

  There were nine tests in all, three or four a day, administered at random as far as Jame could tell. For each, her ten-command was paired with a ten of a different house, and the twenty of them were sent wherever the appropriate officer waited. With so many tests all conducted more or less at the same time, Tentir and its environs swarmed with sweating cadets and shouting randon. Each time, a candidate was ranked from first place to twentieth, and the scores added as he or she went. A perfect (but unlikely) over-all score would be nine; the worst, one hundred and eighty. No one knew for certain, but the cut-off for admission to the college was believed to be around one hundred and thirty. The Randon Council, comprised of past and present commandants of Tentir, would set the final mark when all scores were in.

  After seven tests, Brier was leading Vant by thirteen to his twenty-one.

  Jame, on the other hand, had already nearly accumulated the fatal number. To qualify as a cadet, she would have to do very well indeed on the last two tests.

  One of them was bound to be unarmed combat, the Senethar.

  Jame only knew that the other took place in the great hall of Old Tentir, and that cadets often emerged from it pale and shaking. A few didn't return at all. Those who had passed refused to say exactly what had happened, on orders of the randon. Each day left a smaller, increasingly apprehensive number of the uninitiated. Finally, among the Knorth only Jame's ten had yet to face the nameless ordeal.

  "I've heard some candidates choose the white knife rather than do whatever-it-is," said one of her cadets at the breakfast table.

  That was Quill, thought Jame, the one whose mother had wanted him to become a scrollsman, hence the name. It had suddenly struck her that despite all they had been through together—raiding Restormir, careening down the Silver in a stolen barge in the middle of an earthquake, riding Mount Alban all the way to the Southern Wastes and back—the only two of the ten whom she knew by name were Briar and Rue. But now they were her ten, her responsibility.

  "If they killed themselves, where are the pyres?"

  That was Erim, clumsy, beetle-browed, and slow of speech, who looked stupid but, she suspected, wasn't.

  "Idiot, they would send the bodies home for the burning."

  Mint. Pretty, with green eyes and a touch of Highborn refinement in her bones. A flirt who liked to set male and sometimes female Kendar against each other, just for fun.

  "Or salt them for the winter larder," said Rue. "God's claws, I'm only joking! Five, what do you think?"

  Brier Iron-thorn, as usual, had drawn her bench slightly back from the table and was taking no part in the nervous chatter. "I think the missing cadets failed the test and went home, all right, too embarrassed to stay."

  "Or in disgrace." Vant flung this from the neighboring table. His ten had undergone the mysterious ordeal early and all had emerged unscathed, if shaken. "What will you tell your lord, shortie, when you come crawling back to him?"

  Rue flushed. "I'd rather die, or be eaten."

  "Maybe they'll give you a choice. Fried, broiled, jerked . . . you're about the right size for a roast suckling pig, though."

  "Ten," said Jame, "shut up."

  Vant sketched her a salute. "As you wish, lady."

  His cadets tittered nervously, unsure if they should follow his lead. He believed he would be rid of her soon, Jame thought. He might be right.

  In the square, the horn blared its summons and all rushed outside to take formation.

  Although they had been half-expecting it, the order that the Knorth and a Danior ten should report to Old Tentir still came as an unpleasant shock.

  Entering the dim great hall, Jame looked around. It didn't appear to be any more of a torture chamber than usual—less, in fact, now that its floor was clean and its roof mended. House banners still hung portentously against the lower walls and randon collars still winked farther up in the gloom. The only difference took a moment to spot: a rope, stretched from one side of the hall to the other from the third story railings.

  Behind her, a cadet gagged. Jame turned to find them all staring up at that innocent length of hemp as if they expected momentarily to be hanged with it.

  Then she understood. Many Kendar suffered intense vertigo and nausea when faced with heights—a potentially fatal drawback for a professional soldier. It made sense that any cadet who couldn't overcome this weakness had no place at the college. Still, what a test to set them so early in their careers!

  A cold voice spoke from the upper gallery: "Come up."

  Above, a gaunt Randir officer waited for them. "So you would be randon," she said, with a thin smile at their carefully blank faces. "And what is that, eh? Would you master others? Can you master yourselves? Here, we find out."

  She began to pace slowly up and down their rigid line, from the Danior ten at one end to Jame at the other and back. Her long coat swished as she moved, like the dry hiss of scales on stone. Her arms folded tight across her chest seemed to hold in and concentrate her malice. In a soft, almost caressing tone she spoke of a randon's duties, harmless stuff often heard before, but beneath the surface ran another voice like the murmur of black water under ice. Jame heard it most clearly when the woman paused before her and fixed her with dark, unblinking eyes.

  "Don't think you'll get away with it," came that subtle whisper inside her mind, echoing her fears and doubts.

  The woman's eyes seemed to be almost all black pupil now, holes plunging into an abyss, and someone else watched through them.

  "Fail one more test, and you are gone. Pass, and how long will it be before we drive you out? Fool. Abomination. Besides, you have hurt my cousin and crossed my lady, who is far from done with you. Run. Hide. But in the end, in the dark, she will find you."

  Then she smiled. Her teeth were very white and the incisors chiseled to needle points. Then she passed on, leaving Jame as breathless as if those tightly clasped arms had crushed the air out of her.

  What was she doing here? (Fool.) What could she expect to accomplish, except her brother's ruin and her own? (Abomination.) What place was there anywhere for such a creature as herself, bred to darkling service, in futile rebellion against her own nature?

  Wait a minute, she thought. I hurt her cousin? Who in Perimal's name was that . . . and of whom do those sharpened teeth remind me?

  Then she caught a fragment of what the randon was saying under her breath to Rue: "Border brat. Runt. What made you think that you could fit in here, among your superiors? Give up. Go home. Die. No one cares which."

  This randon's lady was Rawneth, the Randir Matriarch, the Witch of Wilden, who perhaps had been behind the slaughter of the Knorth women thirty-four years ago; and yes, Jame meant to cross her at every possible turn until she not only knew the truth but could prove it.

  Now she recognized the power in the randon's voice. It was similar to that of Brenwyr, called the Iron Matriarch for her fierce self-control—a good thing, too, because she was a Shanir maledight who could kill with a curse.

  "Rootless and roofless. . ."

  No, Jame thought, pushing Brenwyr's words out of her mind. I'll prove her wrong yet. I must.

  Another word floated up in her mind: tempter. That was this Randir's power, aligned with the third face of god, and that was her role: to taunt her victims to destruction, if they were weak enough to fall.

  Beside her, Rue was shivering like a drenched puppy. In a moment, she would stumble forward to end this ordeal one way or another. Jame touched her arm as she moved, stopping her.

  "Age before innocence."

  The randon had reached the other end of the line, and so didn't see Jame step forward. A gasp from the cadets made her turn to find the Knorth already standing on the balcony rail. As they all watched, horrified, she spread her arms and stepped gracefully out onto the rope.

  At last, thought Jame, something at which she was good. Not only had she no fear of heights, but a year of playing tag-you're-dead with the Cloudies across the rooftops of Tai-tastigon
had given her considerable experience in such aerial sports.

  She was half way across the hall when a choked exclamation from below broke both her concentration and her balance.

  Jame recovered enough to part with the rope on her own terms and to catch it as she fell past. Swinging, looking down, she saw the violently foreshortened figure of Harn Grip-hard, who was staring aghast up at her.

  "What in Perimal's name are you doing?" he demanded hoarsely.

  "I was trying to pass a test. Sorry, ran," she added, seeing his stricken face.

  "Come back." If a voice could have chipped stone, the Randir's would have.

  Jame reversed and returned, hand over hand this time. She thought, as she neared the rail, that the rope gave slightly, but the stark face of the waiting randon held her attention. As she swung herself back over the rail into the gallery, she saw half the cadets bent over heaving up their breakfasts and the rest barely retaining theirs. One boy had fainted.

  Kest, she thought. The cadet who had suffered so terribly from height-sickness on their climb up Lord Caldane's tower that even Kindrie couldn't help him.

  Only Brier Iron-thorn watched her with cold detachment, as if the witness to a mountebank's failed trick.

  "Now, why did you do that?" asked the Randir, very softly. Under her voice, the cold currents ran swift and deep. "Did you think these brats would admire your courage and skill? Do you need their approval so badly? Just what were you trying to prove, and to whom?"

  Someone said, "Look!" and when they all did, there was Rue, starting across the rope hand over hand, do or die, her face white and sweating, her eyes screwed shut.

  She was half way across when the rope groaned and sagged. Rue's eyes snapped open. Paralyzed with fear, she stared down at the cruel stones thirty feet below.

  Her mates lined the rail, discipline forgotten.

  "Come back!" some cried.

  "Go on!" shouted others.

  Below, Harn was roaring, "Where are the bloody mats?"

  The rope sagged again. It was parting, strand by strand, some ten feet beyond the rail.

  Brier started forward, but Jame stopped her. "I know you've a good head for heights, Five, but you weigh half again more than I do."

  As she swung a leg over the rail, the Randir grabbed her arm. "Stay here," she hissed. "Haven't you done enough harm already?"

  Jame broke the randon's grip. Black rage flared in her, driving everyone back. "Never. Touch. Me. Again."

  She wanted to keep her anger, to kindle it with all the misery of the past three days into a full berserker flare that would return to her all the power that others had tried to strip away. What she really needed now, however, was self-control. She regained it with a fierce effort. A moment to gauge distances, and out again over the void.

  Here was the weakened section of the rope, between her hands. The outer strands had been pried apart and the inner ones notched. To all but the closest scrutiny, the rope would have appeared to be sound, and so it had proved under her slight weight. She swung past and on to where Rue helplessly dangled.

  "Rue, move."

  "Can't," said the cadet through clenched teeth.

  "Must. Just a bit farther. Do it."

  With a sob, Rue loosened the fingers of one hand, groped ahead, and clutched.

  "Again. Good girl. And again."

  The rope parted. Jame tightened her grip on it as it plunged away and wrapped her legs around Rue's body. They swung down with a heart-stopping rush toward the far wall and into the fibrous mass that was the Caineron banner. As Jame had hoped, it cushioned their impact nicely, if with a choking billow of dust. She let the rope slide through her gloved hands. They hit the floor harder than she would have liked, given her already sore bottom, but that was nothing compared to what it would have been like if Rue hadn't inched forward those last, vital few feet.

  "Yow," said Jame, letting out her breath.

  The shock-headed cadet gulped, turned, and cast herself into Jame's arms, bursting into tears. Jame held her, oddly touched. She looked up to see Sheth Sharp-tongue standing over them.

  "All right, children?"

  "Yes, ran," she answered for them both. "In a minute."

  The other cadets came scrambling down the stair, slowing in a wary gaggle as they recognized the Commandant.

  "Return to your barracks and rest," he said, addressing both squads. "You are excused this trial until later in the year, with a provisional pass for now. Your last test will take place this afternoon."

  Harn reentered the hall, dragging a large, heavy floor mat. He dropped it, panting, when he saw that they were safe. "This was bundled up in a side room. And why was that rope slung three stories up instead of the usual two? What in Perimal's name is going on? Here, you!"

  He stalked toward the Randir, who was descending the stair more slowly than the cadets into the hall. The Commandant sauntered over to join them.

  "Take the squads back to their quarters," Jame told Brier. "I'll be along shortly."

  The big Southron gave her an unreadable look, and a curt nod.

  Jame was left irresolute, watching the three senior officers. Two of them were immortal in song and legend, the greatest randon of their generation. Who was she to interfere? However, she had stayed because Harn Grip-hard was her brother's oldest friend, and a berserker with reputedly failing self-control. She could easily guess what the Randir Tempter was saying to him under her soft voice, between those sharp, sharp teeth:

  "Give in to your rage. Let it devour you. Become the beast that you know you are . . ."

  And the Commandant merely watched, as he had when Tori had fought Ardeth for mastery of the Kencyrath's very soul.

  "You say the hall was set up as you found it." Harn loomed over the smaller woman, his big fists clenched at his sides. "You say the rope appeared to be sound. But you know we don't set it that high this soon, much less without safeguards. And before that, arrows in the wood, as if anyone would conduct an archery trial there! What the hell are you Randir playing at?"

  "Let go. Give in."

  Harn shook. Veins stood out on his neck and burst in his eyes, turning them red. Sheth drew back a step, as if to enjoy a better view. The Randir woman smiled.

  This was intolerable.

  Jame slipped between the Knorth Kendar and the Randir. "Ran Harn," she said, raising her voice and her hands to stop him. He caught her by the wrists in a brutal grip. Bones ground together. Both Highborn and Kendar might be called berserkers, but with the former it was a colder, more considering thing. A Kendar like Harn could rip a foe limb from limb, only later realizing what he had done.

  "Harn," she repeated, louder, trying not to wince, "Blackie trusts you."

  Finally he looked down at her, blinking blood-shot eyes, then thrust her aside and blundered out of the hall.

  Jame watched him go, rubbing her bruised wrists.

  "If he should break," said the Commandant mildly, behind her, "better it be among his peers, who can defend themselves, than among his students, who cannot. You, perhaps, are an exception." She turned to find him regarding her speculatively. "I haven't quite figured you out yet, child."

  "No, ran. Nor I, you."

  He smiled and flicked her under the chin with a careless finger. "No doubt we will both eventually succeed." With that, he strolled away, his white scarf the last thing to melt into the shadows of Old Tentir.

  Jame turned to confront the Randir. She put all the strength she had left into her voice, where it echoed hollowly. "Ropes and arrows, burrs and notched bows . . . whatever is going on, ran, it's between your precious Witch of Wilden and me. Leave my friends out of it."

  The Randir raised an eyebrow. "You blame us? Why should we wish you to fail more than, oh, say a dozen others? You don't belong here, girl. Your mere presence tarnishes the honor of all randon, alive or dead, just as it calls into question the sanity of the brother who sent you. I, too, have reason to wish you ill, all the more so because the cause
means so little to you that you can't even remember it. And who are these precious friends of yours? If they exist, which I doubt, point them out to me so that we may mark them too. Tentir has no place for fools."

  Then she turned on her heel and was gone.

  Alone at last, Jame sagged against the wall, feeling utterly spent. It had already been a very long morning, and quite likely it was only an hour past breakfast.

  The Kendar had a phrase: to ride a rathorn. It meant to take on a task too dangerous to let go. Also, since the rathorn was a beast associated with madness, it implied that to ride one was to go insane.