“It is here, isn’t it?”
She jumped slightly, startled.
“I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve been back in the workshop since I took Volitar out … just a minute.” She went to her knees on the floor, and crawled under the table.
“The hiding place is exactly where you told Gharlas it was?” I asked.
“Surely,” she said, her voice sounding odd through the wood and tile of the tabletop. “I was afraid he would know it, if I lied.” I heard something scrape, then Tarani backed out from under the table and sat on the floor. In her hands, she held a brass-hinged wooden box.
“Volitar told me where this was, many years ago,’ Tarani said. “He wanted me to know about it, in case of sudden death, but I’ve never seen what is in it. I suppose, now, that he was in constant fear of being recognized and killed or, worse, sent back to Eddarta.”
I tried not to sound impatient. “Open it.”
She did. She lifted out a gorgeous blue stone.
“If I didn’t know that wasn’t real …” I said, extending my hand. Tarani put the large, irregular, blue chunk of glass on my palm. I held the thing up to the light, looked through it. The interior flaws were there, the color was perfect—as well as I could remember it.
“I don’t know much about glassmaking,” I said, “but I do know this must have taken hours and hours of work. Layers of glass, heated and cooled unevenly to make stress lines, reheated so the next layer would bond without a mark—”
“You do know a lot about glassmaking,” Tarani said. “Look, here is one that failed.”
She held up another glass piece, the same size and shape as the one I held. But in hers, the blue color was visible faintly, deep down in the center. The outside of the copy was crazed, all different colors spreading around the surface in random distribution.
“Why, there is something else in here,” she said, setting the damaged copy on the floor. “A pouch, and—it looks like an old letter.”
She opened the pouch, and poured coins out into her hand. She drew a startled breath at their quantity. Some of them spilled over, rolled and bounced on the floor. I picked one up that had come to rest near my foot. It was a gold twenty-dozak piece.
“How could he have saved all this?” she wondered. “He never seemed to sell more than he needed to, to keep us going.”
“It looks to me like he’s had these awhile,” I said, holding out the coin to her. “This is an Eddartan coin, graced with a picture of Gharlas’s pal, Pylomel.” The face was sensuous and arrogant, with some resemblance to Gharlas. “Maybe the letter—?”
She poured the coins back into the pouch, spilling some more. But she didn’t bother picking them up; she was opening the folded parchment carefully. She made a soft sound, then began reading aloud, hesitating now and then over the faded ink.
“ ‘I have only a moment, and I must take this chance to let you know that I am well. Pylomel was angry when his informants brought me back to Eddarta, but I have convinced him that my going was the whim, soon regretted, of a headstrong girl. It suits his self-esteen to believe that only my pride has kept me from him. There has been a public reconciliation between our families. He and I are to marry in three days.
“ ‘I have accepted my fate, and so must you, dear one. I will not try to escape again, for then even dense Pylomel would guess the truth—that I was not alone when I ran away the first time. I cannot leave, and you must not return; the secret, cherished knowledge that you and Tarani are free of this hateful life is all that makes the prospect of my imminent “marriage” bearable. The High Lord must never suspect—never—that I bore a child during the blessed year we spent together.
“ ‘Let Tarani believe that her parents are both dead, darling. Though it will hurt you to say it, it will quiet her questions.
“ ‘My body is lost to you, but not my love. That will be yours always. Zefra.’ ”
She folded the parchment again, pressed it to her chest, and closed her eyes. “He was my father,” she said after a moment. “Not my uncle. My father.”
“That’s the way it looks,” I said. “I guess this changes things a little.”
Her eyes opened. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the letter,” I said, waving my hand at the parchment. “All that punishment Volitar took from Gharlas before we got here—he wasn’t hiding a chunk of glass, Tarani, he was hiding that letter.”
“Yes, I see that,” she said impatiently. “He was protecting me from Gharlas. But I don’t understand—”
“He was protecting Zefra. Assuming she’s still alive, what do you suppose Pylomel would do, if he found out she’s been deceiving him for twenty years?”
She worried her right tusk with her tongue as she thought about it. “You’re trying to tell me that I should stay away from Eddarta to keep my mother safe? But Gharlas does know about me, Rikardon. She’s already in danger.”
“Not as much as if you took your look-alike face back home, Pylomel can’t be too fond of Gharlas; he’d be a fool to accept such an accusation without proof.”
“And I’d be all the proof he needed,” she concluded. She picked up the scattered coins and sat quietly for a moment, letting them sift through her fingers and rattle into the box. Suddenly she dumped them all in, set the parchment on top of them, and clapped the lid down. “There’s something you’ve overlooked,” she said, getting to her feet. “Two things, in fact.”
“I’m listening.”
“First, Volitar’s death. Gharlas had seen me; Volitar must have known the truth would occur to him—sooner or later, with or without the confirmation of the letter. The cause he had protected with his body, with his … pain … was already lost. Why did he kill himself?”
I started to say something, but she cut me off, answering her own question. She had begun pacing about, thinking out loud as she walked.
“I’ve told you what Volitar taught me, what he believed with all his being—that no man has a right to impose his will on another person. When Gharlas had him pinned down as a shield against your sword, Volitar was a tool being used to control us—to control me. He destroyed himself, rather than be used that way. He might have done the same thing when Molik’s men took him, if he had realized what was happening.
“He must have hated it that thought of our safety kept my mother in Eddarta—but for my sake, he accepted her choice. Now Gharlas has the capability of using me against her, and her against me. If she is still alive, which we don’t know for sure. I have no more liking for being someone else’s weapon than Volitar had, Rikardon. And I’m tired of my family being used against me. I want to find my mother if I can, and free her from Pylomel, if I can.”
She paused, and turned toward me.
“The other thing you’ve overlooked is something we’ve just discussed. I’m part of your team. I’m going with you, Rikardon.”
I felt the return of the sensation I’d had, the night it had occurred to me that I might be immune to Gharlas’s power. It didn’t frighten me, now. I welcomed it, drew it in, let it fill me.
I had told Thanasset in my letter—in cautious terms—that I had discovered what he had wanted to tell me. He would know what was happening, and he’d tell Ferrathyn and Zaddorn to look for other job applicants. I’d have to write a letter to Illia, too, and tell her to stop waiting. I’d do it partly because, though I had this need to try to stop Gharlas, I didn’t have any intuition of what the outcome would be.
But partly, I would tell Illia goodbye because I knew I had turned a corner in this new life of mine. A tranquil, domestic scene in Raithskar just wasn’t in my future. I was headed in the opposite direction.
“You and I and Thymas,” I agreed softly. “And Keeshah and Ronar and Lonna. We’ll go all the way to Eddarta, if necessary.”
END PROCEEDINGS:
INPUT SESSION TWO
—I can go no further, Recorder.
—We will separate our minds from the All-Mind … an
d I shall withdraw my mind from yours…. You seem to be in pain.
—My right shoulder hurts.
—That is the lingering memory of your stab wounds. It is regretful that you must suffer through every injury again.
—But I may relive the joys, as well. It is a good balance. I found the Recording easier, this time. But I am tired.
—We will continue later. Rest now. Sleep….
About the Authors
VICKI ANN HEYDRON met RANDALL GARRETT in 1975. In 1978, they were married, and also began planning the Gandalara Cycle. A broad outline for the entire Cycle had been completed, and a draft of The Steel of Raithskar nearly finished, when Randall suffered serious and permanent injury. Working from their outline, Vicki has completed the Cycle. Of all seven books, Vicki feels that The River Wall is most uniquely hers. The other titles in the Cycle are The Glass of Dyskornis, The Bronze of Eddarta, The Well of Darkness, The Search for Kä, and Return to Eddarta.
ALSO BY RANDALL GARRETT
THE GANDALARA CYCLE
(with Vicki Ann Heydron)
The Steel of Rathskar
The Glass of Dyskornis
The Bronze of Eddarta
The Well of Darkness
The Search for Kä
Return to Eddarta
The River Wall
THE LORD DARCY SERIES
Murder and Magic
Too Many Magicians
Lord Darcy Investigates
all available as Jabberwocky ebooks
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The Glass of Dyskornis Page 21