The Well of Darkness (5 page)

“I conclude, therefore,” Obilin said, “that the sha’um was an invention of the lady’s, to confuse the people who saw you leave Eddarta, and to mislead the dralda. Tarani, you will not use your power
at all
on the journey back to Eddarta. On
anyone
. Understood?”

Tarani nodded. Obilin turned away, and from that moment on treated us as indifferently as he might treat slaves.

We rested the remainder of the day and the night, and moved slowly eastward on the next day. Toward dusk, we met the supply caravan which had followed Obilin from Eddarta, and my thirst and hunger were satisfied for the first time in what seemed like years. The journey became routine after that, physically easier as Tarani’s tending helped my body heal, but mentally burdensome with every step we took closer to Eddarta.

Though neither Tarani nor I dared mention the Ra’ira, I was sure that it was as much on her mind as it was on mine. Obilin had set up the marching order so that we were together—more from unwillingness to bother any of his men with my care than out of consideration for us—and both of us did a lot of staring at the leather pouch swinging at Obilin’s belt. It was as though the blue jewel sent out a glow visible only to us.

It was usually when the group stopped for the night or assembled to begin the day’s march that she and I found ourselves more alone than at other times of the day. On the morning of the fourth day, I broke what had become a weighty silence between us.

“In the desert,” I whispered to her, “it made sense to stay with Obilin’s group. But we’re coming into farmland. You could survive here. You know how much a promise
from
Obilin would be worth—you don’t need to keep a promise
to
him … especially not on my account.”

She had taken off her knee-high boots to empty and dust them, and was in the process of putting them back on. She waited until both boots were on, then stood up to face me. “It is not my promise to Obilin that keeps me here,” she said quietly, then looked at me directly. “Nor is it you—except that escape will be more likely to succeed if we are together.”

“Succeed?” I said. “Like this one did, while we were together?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Did you know Keeshah would leave us?” she asked.

I had to swallow a huge lump to open my throat for speech. The absence of the big cat still hurt—all the time, every minute. Underlying every thought was a continuous fretting: would Keeshah come out of the Valley?

“No,” I managed to say.

“Then you can hardly take credit for our capture,” she said.

The other men in the group had finished assembling their backpacks and were gathering closer. Obilin had a look of impatience I had learned to recognize as ready-to-move-out, and was walking toward us. As always, when he saw Tarani, a new expression crossed his face—sort of a soft amusement that spoke of secret plans.

Tarani turned her back to him so he couldn’t see her face and whispered: “My promise lasts only until we reach Eddarta. Be ready.” Then she reached out and pressed my shoulder with her hand.

Except for her tending to my wounds, it was the first gentle touch we had shared since Keeshah had left. I was moved by her forgivingness and encouragement, but there was no time for words. I pressed my hand over hers and, for that one moment, we were together again.

Obilin hadn’t missed the gesture or its significance. There was no change in his outward manner—that is, his orders to the group were no less gruff—but there was a special look for me when I came into his visual range.

Our entry into Eddarta wouldn’t have rivaled Caesar’s return from Gaul. Dusty and tired, the troop of us dragged our way closer to the sprawling city that was the domain—but not the dwelling place—of the Lords of Eddarta. The seven Lords and their families lived in a second city that crowned a rise of land above Eddarta. “Lord City” was joined to what I thought of as “lower Eddarta” by a wide, paved road and a rushing line of water that was one of the larger branches of the Tashal River.

Sight of the shining river stirred me in many ways. First and most basic, Markasset came from a culture which was reminded daily that the difference between living and dying—for a man or for a city—was the presence of water. Beyond that, seeing this and the other branches of the Tashal tumble their way down from a point so high on the River Wall that the cloud cover obscured it reminded Markasset of the Skarkel Falls and River that shimmered behind Raithskar. If Markasset’s personality, as well as his memories, had been present in this body, he would have been homesick.

I felt the tug of longing, too—but for a different “where”. It was impossible not to look at the river and see three people clinging to a cluster of rope-tied reeds … to remember the sight and smell of torches burning in the still night air … to sense, rather than see, the hulking outlines of the sha’um against the wavering light … the gold-filled belt …

(I put my hands to my waist, surprised by the memory. The belt was there, the gold pieces securely hidden within the leather.
How could I have forgotten it?
I wondered.
It’s a fortune. Could I have used it with Obilin—no
, I answered myself immediately, and felt a quick thrill of hope.
But it may yet come in handy
, I thought, and slipped back into the memory.)

The gold-filled belt arching toward the shore trailing a rope … the cat’s snatching at it, pulling … joy spilling from Keeshah, even while he complained.

*Wet
,* he had said, laughing in his mind while his body carried us away from Eddarta.

*Keeshah!*
I called, and touched only emptiness.

Oh, God, Keeshah …

Tarani touched my arm, and I jumped. The sudden movement set off the restless dralda, leashed two to a man behind us, and their howling upset every vlek within a range of two hundred feet. Those traveling with us or in our direction weren’t much of a problem, since the people leading them had allowed us plenty of distance. But there was a group coming west with twenty or so of the stupid pack animals strung out in a long line. The vlek handlers had been doing all right, so long as their goat-size charges had been merely suspicious of the passing dralda. Pandemonium broke loose when the dralda started making noise.

I could well understand the vleks being terrified—
I
felt threatened by the fur-lifting sound the dralda made. But that didn’t make the sudden confusion and noise any easier to bear—vleks bawling, dralda howling, men cursing. I felt as if I could crawl right out of my skin.

The men were doing their best to hold the dralda, but apparently it was only the handler who could calm them into silence. That took a hand touch and some intense concentration, and wasn’t guaranteed, as the first one proved, just as the handler reached number four. Six dralda, one man,
big
noise.

The caravan people were yelling at the guards who held the dralda; the guards were yelling at the handler, who was yelling back in frustration. I sympathized with his situation; I knew he had to be calm in order to soothe the animals, and nobody would leave him alone long enough to do his job. Obilin finally got into the act, shouting his own people into silence.

I realized that Tarani and I were alone.

“Now,” I whispered, grabbing her arm and edging her toward the caravan. “Get away while you can.”

She pulled her arm out of my grip. “Without the Ra’ira?”

“You said Eddarta,” I reminded her. “This is Eddarta. Now go.”

Once more I tried to push her into the confusion of the caravan. She pushed back—so hard that I staggered.

I stared at her, trying to understand. We both knew that her ability to disguise herself through illusion would see her safe from the city, at least. She had as much as told me that she wasn’t hanging around on my account—that is, not in order to protect me, or out of loyalty. That left only what she had said: the Ra’ira. I started to tell her that I’d get the Ra’ira and meet her somewhere, but then I wondered. We had been a team of three when we escaped with it the first time, an Tarani’s skills had been an essential part of that team. Could I do it alone?

It
‘
s obvious why she won
‘
t go,
I thought painfully.
She
‘
s accepted the duty to return the Ra
‘
ira to Raithskar. I
‘
ve flat proved that I can
‘
t be counted on. She won
‘
t leave until that stone is safe in her own two hands.

Tarani watched me think about it, and sensed when I’d completed the logic. Then she pressed my arm with her hands and whispered: “You see, we are both needed for this task.”

Kind of you to include me,
I thought bitterly. I knew full well how irrational it was to resent her consideration of my feelings, but I couldn’t help it.
You’ll be the one to do it, if anyone can. Providing either one of us lives past seeing Indomel.

Our moment of aloneness ended abruptly as Obilin charged over to us. “Help the handler calm them,” he ordered Tarani. A dagger, hidden from everyone but me, pressed against her ribs when she tried to move past Obilin toward the dralda.

“You see how he does it,” she protested. “A touch is necessary—”

“A touch wasn’t necessary when I ordered one to attack you,” he reminded her. “I won’t have you display your power, but neither will I waste any more time with this nonsense. Silence the dralda!”

“But the handler is soothing—what I did was different, a command. It—I hate doing that—enough of it will make them useless to the handler—they will turn on him—”

“Do it!’ Obilin ordered.

Tarani clenched her teeth, closed her eyes … and the dralda were quiet.

I looked from the animals, who were shuffling their feet and shaking their heads slightly, as though they had been stunned, to Tarani, whose face had gone past its normal paleness into a sick pallor. The skin had shrunk back against her skull, hollowing the areas beneath her fine cheekbones.

She opened her eyes and reached for my hand; I held it while the trembling passed. As always, Obilin showed enjoyment of her discomfort, disapproval (if not actual jealousy) of our closeness, and anticipation of a final confrontation with me.

By now
, I thought,
he ought to be able to read me well enough to see how much I
‘
m looking forward to it, too.

When Tarani had made her move, the dralda had voiced, in chorus, an upswinging whine of surprise. The noise itself had been bad enough; when it ended so abruptly, everybody—man and beast—became quietly alert. I guess even the vleks figured that it wouldn’t be wise to attract the attention of anything that could scare a dralda.

So when the return column resumed its journey toward Eddarta, the only sounds were Obilin’s clipped orders and the whisper of leather-shod feet against the hard-packed dirt of the roadway. The silence was positively eerie, and we carried it with us long enough for me to catch the content of what was whispered among three men who passed us leading a pack vlek loaded with baked goods.

“Obilin!” one said in surprise. “Who is that with him?”

“In his proclamation, Indomel said that Obilin had gone after the intruders …”

“Intruders my left tusk,” the other snorted. “That dralda whelp killed his father himself, I say!”

“Sssh!” the third one cautioned. “Speak softly of the High Lord! And anyway—doesn’t this prove that he was telling the truth? There
were
intruders.”

“Those can’t be the ones, though!” the first man protested. “They had sha’um.”

The group had my full attention then, but they were moving further away, and I had to strain to catch even snips of the rest of their conversation:

“… drank too much faen …”

“… other people …”

“All of them crazy …”

“… too dark to see the people clearly …”

“… there
were
sha’um, I tell you!”

Laughter and protestations, all in suppressed voices, faded as we left the group behind us.

The conversation had given me two important pieces of information.

First, lower Eddarta’s understanding of what happened that night had to be varied and tenuous, based as it was on a blend of official statement, rumor, and skepticism.

Second, I wouldn’t call Indomel beloved of his people. Even the two who had defended him seemed more concerned with whether he had been truthful than whether he had suffered any grief over his father’s death.

Maybe they know him pretty well already,
I thought.
Certainly the “change of command” doesn
‘
t seem to have affected them much.
I sighed.
But, then, it wouldn
‘
t. After all, it
‘
s part of the system. People come and go, but the High Lord has had his place in this society for centuries. They accept him in the same way they seem to have accepted slavery
—
they don
‘
t worry about it unless it involves them directly.

That brought to mind a topic I had been avoiding.
Slavery,
I thought.
I wonder if that
‘
s what Indomel has planned for us?

We were in the city proper by this time, and Obilin released his grip on Tarani’s arm and moved down the line, tightening the formation to make the marching group less an obstacle to other pedestrians. Whispers followed along behind us—as did a ragtag group of kids, until Obilin barked at them.

I reached for Tarani’s hand. She returned my grip, and even managed a quick smile. “I fear for Zefra,” she whispered.

The thought had crossed my mind, too. It was obvious that Indomel knew the Ra’ira still in Eddarta was a phony. What had that discovery done to Tarani’s mother, whose mindpower had been boosted by her confidence that the glass bauble would give her extra strength? When we had left Eddarta, Zefra had revealed her long-hidden mindgift, had succeeded in dominating Indomel, if only temporarily.

“Indomel doesn’t strike me as the forgiving kind,” I said, knowing it wasn’t a comforting thought for Tarani. “But he’s not stupid, either. Did you hear those men a little ways back? The Eddartans are already wondering if he’s behind his
father’s
death. He wouldn’t dare take any steps toward his
mother
—it would be like admitting he killed Pylomel, too. I doubt if Zefra is much worse off than she was before.”