The Glass of Dyskornis (24 page)

“Do not think you can set terms for me,” Gharlas told Tarani, but he was more amused than angry. “I will answer your questions, purely for the vexation to Volitar, who has tried so desperately to shelter you from the truth.”

The old man got agitated, tried to talk, tried to move. Tarani pulled him back to the floor so that his head rested on her knees. Gharlas had his back to me. But I knew he was smiling.

I wanted to kill him.

“Your uncle, my dear,
belongs
to no less a personage than the High Lord of Eddarta himself, Pylomel.” He sneered the name. “Volitar was a gemcutter, highly skilled. I wouldn’t demean his work, not I, who have so profited by it! After Volitar disappeared from Eddarta—he had some foolish notion that he, and not his landpatron, should be paid for the work he did—nothing was heard of him until I saw him, quite by accident, selling his glass beads in the Dyskornis marketplace.

“Ah, how well I remember Pylomel’s fury at the loss of Volitar,” Gharlas chuckled, a nasty sound. “He raged more over that, even, than over missing his latest, most beautiful, and least loving bride-to-be, who disappeared around the same time. It was appropriate, as it turned out; the woman came back, but the gemcutter was lost for good. The High Lord’s frustration was a keen delight to watch.”

Gharlas began to pace slowly around the room, but I noticed that he was careful to keep Tarani and her uncle in his line of sight. He walked over to one of the tile-topped worktables located around the walls, between the porch doors. He picked up a small, truncated pyramid made of clay—it looked like a mold for a barut glass, which could be broken out of the cooled glass and discarded. He turned it around and around with his fingers as he talked.

“Naturally, Pylomel would be delighted to find Volitar after all this time. But I owe him nothing!” Gharlas suddenly shouted. He threw the mold to the floor; it shattered with a snapping sound. He paused to recover his bland, patronizing manner, and then continued. “I spoke too hastily, my dear. I do owe Pylomel something—repayment for his arrogance. Thanks to your uncle, that debt is nearly repaid.

“Through the years of Volitar’s service, Pylomel collected a magnificent array of jewelry. I called upon Volitar, who had learned this new skill of coloring and forming glass, to duplicate some of the stones he had cut for Pylomel. Where his memory failed him, I put into his mind a picture of the finished pieces, as I had last seen them. Volitar did this for me, because he did not care to return to Eddarta to face Pylomel’s anger. I learned much later—only a few moons ago, in fact, after I caught the barest glimpse of you, my dear—that Volitar had another reason for his cooperation. He didn’t want his lovely niece to learn that he was merely pretending to be a free artisan.”

He began his pacing again. Tarani watched him, but I felt her power in my mind, working against Gharlas.

“I took Volitar’s glass duplicates to another, um, friend of mine, who—again, with the help of my images—reproduced the correct setting. In cheaper materials, of course.” He chuckled drily. “The finished pieces were perfect copies to the casual glance, and the jewelry is rarely displayed. Pylomel hoards his wealth jealously.

“Long ago, I found the vault he believes to be impregnable. I have visited that vault on almost every trip to Eddarta, since I relocated Volitar, and each time, I have left it a wealthier man. In Raithskar, or Omergol, or even here in Dyskornis, such fine jewelry commands a rich price.”

He walked by Thymas, who was still lunging stiffly. The sight amused Gharlas, and he laughed out loud. “And how is your traitorous father, Thymas?” he asked. “In poor health, I hope? I must remember to let you live long enough to tell me if Molik did his job properly.”

While his attention was distracted, Tarani looked directly at me. Slowly, I nodded my head, and she flashed a quick smile of satisfaction. She looked down at Volitar again, as Gharlas came toward her. I was in his line of vision, so I kept perfectly still. Internally, I was doing the hardest work I could remember ever doing. I was nearly free.

“Your uncle has given me much, my dear. A great deal of profit from the sale of the replaced jewelry. A great deal of private satisfaction. And, indirectly, a great deal of knowledge.”

Gharlas took a bundle of cloth out of a pouch tied to his belt. He began unfolding layers of cloth.

“On one of my visits to Pylomel’s vault, I found a book that is intended for reading by the High Lords only. It spoke of the Kings of Gandalara, their history, their power. It revealed the secret of that power.” His voice shook with emotion. “And now I possess that secret.”

He held his hand low, to show Tarani what he had unwrapped. Resting on the palm of his hand was the Ra’ira.

“Is it not beautiful?” Gharlas asked, stroking the blue gem. “But small. So small, to have so much importance.

“Veytoth was the first King to write about this. It is called the Ra’ira. It was sent to the Kings from Raithskar, where it had been found in their rakor mines. Veytoth was practical. When he became King, he inquired about breaking the pretty bauble into jewelry-sized pieces. But his gemcutters warned that, if it could be cut at all, the lines within it indicated that it might shatter.

In time Veytoth grew fond of it, and kept it near him. He quickly learned that in its presence, his mindpower—the thoughts of people who were days away from him, were made clear. People around him obeyed his wishes, as well as his spoken orders.

“It was then that the Kings began to breed for the mindpower, a custom continued to this day in Eddarta.” His hand closed around the blue stone, and began to tremble. “The High Lord of Eddarta must be a child of Harthim’s descent, the product of a legal union between the last High Lord and a woman of the family of a Lord. If none of those children have the mindpower, the children of the High Lord’s siblings may be considered—
provided they are the products of a legal union.
”

He was shouting again, staring at the ceramic curved-brick furnace, but not seeing it.

“I am cousin to Pylomel,” he said, “his father’s sister’s son. And I have the mindpower.
I have it!
When we were tested, as children, even then my skill was greater than Pylomel’s, and it has grown even more these past few years. Now Pylomel is puny by comparison.

“But am I Eddarta’s High Lord? No. Those self-righteous fleasons declared me ineligible, beause my mother loved a servant. She had only one opportunity to lie with him, and she took it, knowing she would conceive from the union. I have despised her for that, yes, despised my own creation. But no longer.

“I
am
a bastard!” he shouted, shaking his fist in the air. “But I am also the new, the next,
King of Gandalara!
”

He seemed to recall where he was, then, and spent a moment calming down. Tarani chanced a quick glance at me, and I shook my head slightly. I was free now, but a little dazed by what I had been hearing.

Why didn’t Thanasset tell me? Because I told him I wasn’t going to get involved with this crackpot. I convinced him that I just wanted a vacation to think about the Council’s offer …

The Council! Of course, the true nature of the Ra’ira has to be top secret, available to confirmed Supervisors only. What was it Thanasset said? “You may need information Markasset didn’t have.” He meant about the Ra’ira. He wanted me to join the Council so he could tell me the truth.

“But I am wandering from my purpose,” Gharlas said, his voice oily again.

He changes so quickly. There’s not a doubt in the world that he’s as nutty as an almond grove. Let’s get the timing just right …

“The Lords have grown soft and self-satisfied, resting in comfort in Eddarta. There hasn’t been a High Lord for generations who has suggested seriously a plan to re-establish the Kingdom. When I found that book, I knew that it was my destiny to possess the Ra’ira and rule Gandalara.

“So I came to your uncle and persuaded him to make a duplicate. We went together to Raithskar, to view the stone on Commemoration Day, which honors that despicable traitor, Serkajon.

“I came to pick up the duplicate a few moons ago—that was the evening we nearly met, my dear—and found that Volitar had constructed
two
copies. They were slightly different from one another, but even at close viewing, either would have passed for the real gem. To those who do not know its special quality, that is. And those fools in Raithskar are sworn never to use it—how could they discover that the real Ra’ira had been replaced?

“I chose one of the copies, and took it to Raithskar. By fortuitous accident, I lost that duplicate before I could complete my original plan. It was only then that I realized the folly I had been about to commit.

“It must be clear to everyone in Gandalara that I, and only I, have the Ra’ira. As before, no one shall know its true power, but it has a strength and a charm of its own. It carries its own feeling of history, of grandeur. Some people will follow me, simply because I have it.

“So there must be no one else who
might
have the stone,” he said. He leaned toward Tarani. “I needn’t worry about the copy I lost in Raithskar. It was disguised as a clod of dirt; the street sweepers probably gathered it up and dumped it outside the city that very day, and it is well buried by now.

“But I want the other duplicate,” he said, getting to the point at last. “And you will tell me where it is. Now.”

Gently, Tarani laid her uncle’s head on the floor. He flopped his arms and kicked his legs weakly in protest. To comfort him, she kissed his bruised forehead. She stood up and moved around Volitar. Gharlas fell back to give her room. He was just outside my sword range.

“Yes,” said Tarani. “Now!”

I lunged forward, aiming for Gharlas’s back. But he had caught something—a change in Tarani’s expression, perhaps, or even her thought. An instant before I lunged, and Tarani reached for her sword, Gharlas threw himself sideways and down to the floor. He rolled over Volitar and came face up with the old man in front of him as a shield. He was pressing the blade of a knife against Volitar’s throat.

“You are a most uncooperative man,” he said scornfully. “How interesting that you can break my command. Must be that doubleness of yours.”

“Let Volitar go,” Tarani said. “I’ll give you your filthy copy. Let him go!”

She was standing to one side, her sword shaking in her hand. I was looking right down at Volitar’s face. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, looked at me, and said four words. In the confusion, Gharlas hadn’t maintained his silence control on Volitar.

“Take care of Tarani,” the old man said. Then, his arms and legs still nearly useless, he bucked his body violently upward, driving the knife blade deep into the bruised flesh of his throat.

Tarani screamed.

I lifted my sword for an overhand slash. Gharlas was trying to scramble out from under Volitar’s body, and I had a flash vision of the way Molik’s head had bounced when it fell off the lifeless trunk of the roguelord. The face changed to Gharlas’s narrow features.

Off with his head
, I thought, amazed at the savagery of my hate.
Off with the sonofabitch’s head.

I put all my strength into that deathstroke—but a sword came out of nowhere to block it, and Gharlas slipped out of reach.

Furious and frustrated, I jumped back to get room to fight this new threat. My stomach started to churn when I saw what it was. Thymas was coming after me, his face contorted with self-disgust. Gharlas was controlling him; it probably amused him to see Thymas’s reaction to what he was being forced to do. The boy’s face was a pathetic plea for help—but how could I help him?

It was all I could do to stay alive.

Dharak hadn’t exaggerated his son’s fighting skills. He must have been a little slower, a little clumsier, than usual, moving under the control of another man’s mind. But he was still a strong and cunning fighter.

I backed away from him, blocking when I had to, trying desperately to think of a way to avoid hurting him and still save my own skin.

I couldn’t find one. I had to fight back.

I aimed a two-handed swing to his midsection. He blocked it, slid his blade across mine, and brought his sword down hard, slashing at my left shoulder. I ran out from under it; he changed it to a diagonal cut at my legs. I dodged his blade, and managed to score a cut across his left forearm. I backed away, facing him, waiting.

I tripped over Volitar, and landed flat on my back. The wind was knocked out of me, and my vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared, Thymas had kicked away Rika and was standing over me, arms and sword raised in almost the same position I had held over Gharlas.

Thymas didn’t move. His face was a mask of sickness and fury.

I lifted my head and looked around. Across the room, Tarani was standing stiffly, awkwardly. Gharlas was beside her. He grinned, and came toward me, holding Tarani’s sword. He stopped beside the furnace and lifted a square ceramic tile out of the floor. He dropped Tarani’s sword into a hole; we could hear it sliding into the firebowl underneath the furnace.

*
Keeshah!
* I called.

*
Coming,
* Keeshah answered, impatient and anxious. *
City big. Can’t smell.
*

*
I’ll show you,
* I said, and we merged for an instant, into that closeness that required no images for complete communication. *
Do you know it now?
*

*
Yes, Coming.
*

*
Bring Ronar.
*

His reply was the equivalent of a snort of derision, as if to say that Ronar could find his own way; Keeshah didn’t have time to fool with him right now.

I broke the contact, which had taken only a few seconds, to find Gharlas standing over me, still grinning.

“Well, my dear,” he said, over his shoulder, “now that you are safely tied down, I wonder if this meddling fool means as much to you as your uncle. I offer the same trade—his life for the duplicate Ra’ira. I think I’ll let you speak, so that you may agree.”