The River Wall

by Randall Garrett

  His hand tightened on my shoulder. “I had no fear of your silence, my friend. But I am relieved to know that no one here was so distressed by this disaster as to forget himself entirely. Come, I have your provisions ready.”

  I resisted taking the half-filled water pouch, but Lomir insisted. Keeshah had eaten well, and was deeply asleep when I reached out for his mind. He roused quickly, however, and was waiting for me outside the Refreshment House gate. Lussim returned Rika to me with as much ceremony as he had done before falling salt blocks had left the top of the compound wall looking like an irregular sine wave. I accepted it in the same manner.

  After all, I thought, it’s not the home that makes the man.

  The path from Relenor to Thagorn took us south of the Well of Darkness, and in the flat bed of this desert, the column of blackness that fed the gray stain was clearly visible. I had hoped that the volcano would be content with one explosive cough, and that the poison inside it would rise once, settle again, and be done with it.

  I had known it was a slim hope. The violence of the quake had been evidence that the volcano was doing more than throwing a quick tantrum. The curling black column confirmed my worst suspicions. I knew what must be happening at the bottom of what had once been called the Well of Darkness. A fissure had opened, and molten rock was forcing its way out, releasing a noxious mixture of gases. However, the pressure pushing those gases seemed less; the column rose to a height, now, that I was sure I would not be able to see from the Chizan Valley.

  That was the good news.

  The high cloud I had first seen had mostly dispersed; only a small amount of the airborne sediment could have been carried across the high mountains which cupped the Well of Darkness against the Great Wall. This lower cloud would spread no farther than those mountains, and settle in a relatively contained area.

  That was the bad news.

  The Valley of the Sha’um lay well within the area I guessed would be affected by the volcanic fallout. I had a queasy feeling such as might be caused by breathing air infected by the cloud north of us. But I knew what caused it. Dread.

  Keeshah felt it, too—not just my fear but his own. Our conversation in the Chizan Valley had changed something essential about the big cat. I felt him questioning, as well as sensing. I felt him actively probing to find the reasons for my concern, to touch my mind as well as my feelings.

  And I felt him understand.

  It was night when we reached Thagorn. The flat desert, though cracked and humped by the force of the earthquake, presented much easier terrain for Keeshah than we had found in the high crossings. He had run from Relenor at a steady pace about one notch higher than was comfortable for him, so that he was panting heavily as we approached the little house, south of Thagorn, which Thymas had built for Tarani and me.

  I had called ahead to the cubs, and had been surprised by their joy at hearing me so close. They had seen neither Tarani nor Yayshah since their mother had given them such explicit orders to stay put, just after the earthquake. They had obeyed her—and my—instructions and stayed near the house, venturing only far enough to hunt. The stream had provided them water, and they had suffered nothing but loneliness in the interim.

  As Keeshah stepped from the narrow pathway into the cleared area around the house, Koshah appeared from behind a hidden corner, stretching his forelegs, pulling his torso forward, then stretching his hind legs and tail until they quivered. Yoshah appeared from the bushes at the edge of the clearing, turned aside to the small stream, and drank.

  Their minds, however, belied their lazy show of indifference. The cubs were angry and haughty, affronted that they had been left alone so long, and they were ignoring us to prove they did not care. Yet curiosity and loneliness bubbled just below the surface of their masquerade, so that when I slid down from Keeshah’s back and called to them with my voice, they abandoned all pretense.

  Koshah hit me first, his weight slamming me to the ground. Yoshah was right behind him, and the two of them dragged and wrestled me around until I cried for mercy. I hugged and petted them for a while, enjoying their company and our bond as never before. Then I sat with my back propped against the house, Koshah’s head across my knees, Yoshah curled up against my side. Keeshah lay in the center of the clearing, resting. All of us were dozing, contented, bathed in the silvery glow of the cloud-covered moon.

  It was a moment of pure peace in a world full of upheaval and fear. It is a memory I treasure.

  It was interrupted by another memory I treasure. One minute I heard the crashing sounds of a sha’um moving fast through thick undergrowth, and in the next moment Yayshah had appeared in the clearing, leaping out from a newly made pathway.

  Tarani nearly fell from Yayshah’s back, and was on the ground before the sleepy cubs had barely raised their heads. They came alert instantly and bolted for their mother, their claws kicking dirt into my face. I was still spluttering and wiping my face, trying to stand up, when Tarani pulled me upright and threw her arms around me so tightly I had trouble breathing.

  Not that I minded.

  I hugged her for a long time, both of us leaning against the wall of the house. She was breathing in little gasping sobs. Had Tarani been human and not a Gandalaran, with a physiology that permitted no unnecessary water loss, she would have been weeping. I felt sort of the same way myself—I had been too busy to realize, consciously, how much I had missed the woman. The truth hit me now, as I held Tarani and rubbed my cheek against her dark headfur. We belonged together.

  At last Tarani unclenched her arms and looked up at me.

  “When Yayshah told she scented Keeshah, I—I could not quite believe it. It seems as if we have been apart for lifetimes, my love. Let us never suffer such distance between us again.” She touched my face, her long fingers tracing the line of my jaw. “I have been afraid for my sanity these past days, out of worry for you.”

  “Relenor was in such disarray, I didn’t feel right asking them to send a message to you,” I said. “A maufa couldn’t have reached you much before we got here, anyway.”

  “You look weary,” she said, moving back to look me up and down. She saw the bandage on my thigh, and stretched out her hand. “Oh, no—you must rest, my love, and let me help you heal.”

  I caught her hand, and brought it to my lips to kiss it. “Time enough for that later,” I said. “I stopped here to see Koshah and Yoshah and give Keeshah a rest, but I need to get to Thagorn, to talk to Thymas and the Riders.”

  She looked at me intently.

  “The illness,” she said. “You know what it is?”

  “I think so,” I said. “The Riders who are stricken—their sha’um are in the Valley, aren’t they?”

  “Why—yes. But how did you—oh!” She stopped herself, and whirled to look in the direction of the Well of Darkness. The dark cloud was totally invisible against the starless Gandalaran sky. “Antonia knew of this, Rikardon. The gases and debris given off by the eruption.” The Gandalaran word she used was not quite eruption, but I understood what she meant. She looked back at me, and I saw the horror of realization in her moonlit face. “The darkness is falling in the Valley of the Sha’um,” she whispered. “The Riders are sick because their sha’um are breathing poisoned air.”

  16

  Miraculously, the high stone wall which filled the narrow mouth to Thagorn’s valley had escaped the earthquake virtually unharmed. So had the routines of the Sharith—the big double gate was closed when Tarani and I rode up to it. The guard on top of the wall could not have recognized us in the dimness, but the outline of sha’um was all the identification he needed. The gates swung open, and it was only after we had ridden through, into the bright circle of lamplight, that someone shouted my name.

  “Rikardon!” said a gruff, familiar voice. Bareff, the veteran Rider who had been my first enemy—and then my first friend—among the Sharith, came down the narrow climbing ledges at breakneck speed, jumping the last ten feet to the ground. “By the
First King, Captain,” he said, coming to Keeshah’s side and extending his hand with a grin for the handshake greeting he had learned from me, “we’ve had some bad moments wondering where you were when the ground started dancing.”

  I shook his hand warmly. “The worry was mutual, my friend. Tarani tells me that no one was badly hurt—I’m so glad.”

  “No. There were some close calls with collapsing walls, but no one was hurt—at least, not while stones were falling.”

  He frowned and sighed, and I said: “I know about that, too. Where’s Thymas? I need to talk to him right away.”

  “I’ll send someone,” Bareff began, looking around.

  “No, don’t,” I urged him, before he had located a messenger. “I’ll go to him—where is he?”

  “In what’s left of the Great Hall,” Bareff said.

  “They have made that a care center for the Riders affected by the—for the ill Riders,” Tarani said.

  “That’s perfect,” I said, and began to turn away from Bareff.

  But the scar-faced man had noticed Tarani’s hesitation. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happening to them?”

  “I want to talk to the sick men first,” I said. “Then I want to talk to all the Sharith. Spread the word, Bareff. Ask everyone to gather outside the Great Hall in a quarter hour.”

  “I’ll do it, Captain,” Bareff said, stepping back from Keeshah. “See you then.”

  I nodded, and directed Keeshah toward the huge building to the left of the road. Tarani rode beside me, and, even though the doorways had been designed to admit a man riding a sha’um, we left Keeshah and Yayshah outside.

  We entered through the south doorway, which had been thrown so badly out of plumb that one of its double doors had come completely off and lay on the ground outside. The other door had been jammed into place by the shifting stone; we passed through the remaining opening, out of moonlight and into lamplight.

  The walls of the Great Hall had survived the upheaval, but the floor had suffered greatly. Green marble tiles, perfectly fitted and aligned, had formed a smooth, cool pavement for the huge Hall. The earthquake had rippled across the floor, lifting the tiles out of place, and had done a less than perfect job of putting them back. In some places the floor was at least flat; either those tiles had been lucky, or the Sharith had done some restoration. In other spots, the tiles were piled and propped at such crazy angles that walking across those areas might be hazardous.

  The usable areas of the floor were filled with men stretched out on pallets, and a soft murmur of distress filled the echoing vastness of the Hall. There were several people attending the sick men, moving with the disturbing quiet of people awaiting death to end their duties.

  A laugh rang out suddenly in the quiet, and I saw Thymas standing beside a pallet. He reached back down to take and press the forearm the sick man lifted to him, then he moved to the next bed.

  “He is nearly finished,” Tarani said. “Can we not wait a moment more?”

  I nodded and watched the young Lieutenant move from man to man, speaking to and touching each man. He was not aware of us until he moved away from the last pallet in the irregular pattern, paused, and stretched his back. We were far enough outside the circle of lamps that he must have been able to see only our silhouettes, for he said: “Tarani? What are you doing back here?” He came toward us, and sounded more weary than angry. “You must rest, Tarani—who is that with you?”

  The lamplight behind him glowed through his pure-white hair, giving him a halo and throwing his features into shadow.

  “I am not the only one who requires rest,” Tarani said, “but time will permit that later. Rikardon has returned.”

  “Ri—” he began, then rushed forward, grabbed my shoulders, and turned us both so we could see each others faces. The boys expression went quickly from disbelief to relief to a grin of pure joy. He hesitated, but I decided for him and pulled him into a rough and pounding hug.

  The noise of our meeting attracted the attention of the man on the nearest pallet, who raised himself on one elbow to peer at us. “Captain?” he called weakly, and I waved. His voice came more strongly then, echoing low across the tile. “The Captains back!” he called. All the attendants turned toward us, and heads lifted from pallets, and the sad murmur was transformed, briefly, into a pitiful cheer.

  Thymas stepped back, still gripping my upper arms. His grin had faded to a weary smile. “They—and I—are glad you are well, Captain. Beyond that, I have encouraged the men to believe that you would find the means to make them well. If you cannot, then tell me now. I will tell them the truth, and beg your forgiveness.” He paused, groping for words, and finally released me with a shrug. “We have found no way to give comfort to their bodies,” he said, “so I tried to give comfort to their thoughts. It was all I could do.”

  “It was the best thing you could have done,” I said. “Because, for one thing, its true—I do know what their problem is. And for another thing, their illness is centered in their thoughts, not their bodies. May I speak to them?”

  “You do not need my permission,” he said, with a bitter laugh, and waved me toward the pallets.

  I did not move. After a moment, surprised, he turned back to me.

  “I’ll say this one time, Thymas,” I began, speaking quietly so that the nearest men could not hear me. “You are the Lieutenant. I am Captain by circumstance and necessity, and I guess right now it helps the Sharith to have someone extra, a symbol to cling to during a time of frightening change. I do have some special knowledge—information you could not possibly have—that will help in this crisis. But the Lieutenants have led the Sharith for generations, and you, Thymas, are not the least of them.

  “Tarani told me how you pulled everyone together after the disaster, and just now I watched you talking to the Riders. I saw what you were feeling, saw the way they feel about you. You are Lieutenant by right, by training, and by instinct, Thymas. I couldn’t take your place, even if I wanted to. So quit acting like you’re ‘standing in’ for someone else. That attitude will only make you uncomfortable and less effective.”

  “That attitude,” he said, “may be my only comfort—the belief that I will not be required to carry this responsibility forever.”

  “Or the belief that the responsibility is really Dharak’s, and he will return to reclaim it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “In the beginning, perhaps,” he admitted. “But not now.” Thymas waved his arm toward the pallets. “He is not here—the only empty Rider not to be touched by this … malady. He is still exactly as he was when you left—quiet and compliant and unseeing. I believe he is gone forever.

  “So you,” he said, smiling sadly, “were my only hope for relief. And you are denying it to me.”

  “Yes,” I said, unwilling to be less blunt. “But you’ll feel less need for relief, once you’ve accepted it.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “You are leading the Sharith more capably than I could,” I said, “and fully as well as Dharak would have done. I’m sorry about your father,” I said, sincerely.

  I would have sworn he was coming back, the last time I saw him, I thought. He looked straight at me, and I’m sure I saw awareness burning in those empty eyes. Perhaps he realized that Thymas needed permanence before he could find his full potential as a leader, and he consciously chose to go away again.

  “Now, Lieutenant, may I speak to your people?”

  “I will say it again, Captain—though I thank you for your words and I understand your message—you do not need my permission.” But the bitterness was gone, and I felt I saw a new confidence beginning in the boy.

  In roughly the center of the huge room, the massive block of marble which had served as a speaking platform was still there, if slightly canted. It was close enough to the “hospital” area that it seemed the logical place to begin. Thy mas and Tarani each took a lamp—candles mounted on tiles, with faceted glass chimneys—and stood at either side of the platform to
light it while I stepped up.

  When I turned back to face the men, I saw even the weakest of them struggle to raise head and shoulders to look at me.

  “Please, rest yourselves,” I said. I was gratified that the disruption of the Great Hall had not totally destroyed the acoustics. I spoke in a normal voice, yet the farthest man heard me, and lay back with a sigh of relief.

  “I want you to listen carefully, and believe what I tell you. Not just because I am your Captain, but because I have experienced something like what you are feeling now. Like you, I thought that my sha’um had returned to the Valley and abandoned me totally. I could not reach him, speak to him, feel with him. At least, I thought I couldn’t.

  “But you know, too, that when I needed Keeshah, he came out of the Valley to help me. He knew I needed help. The instincts of the sha’um demanded that his conscious awareness of me be forgotten—but nothing could truly break that bond. It was there when we needed it, when it was important enough.”

  I could not prevent the flash of memory: hiding in a damp earthen cellar with Tarani, our coming together in something more than love, something animalistic, freeing and frightening. Only later had we realized that something in Tarani’s special powers had allowed her to begin a bonding, long distance, to the female Keeshah had chosen as mate, and that our physical experience had been changed and enhanced by a concurrent experience between the sha’um. I felt the rushing thrill of the memory, then set it aside.

  “In much the same way, each of you still has a bond with your sha’um. The illness proves it.”

  I heard Thymas gasp beside me, and knew he had understood the implication. From several pallets, however, heads lifted and I saw only expressions of puzzlement.