The Steel of Raithskar by Randall Garrett

Author:Randall Garrett [Garrett, Randall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625670-27-4
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

13

Thanasset stared at me, no less astonished than I at what I had said. I have never been one to confuse sentiment with emotion, and I know that that moment might have been one of the most emotional of my two lives.

But it was interrupted.

There was a loud banging on the door, followed just a bit too soon by Milda literally running down the front stairway to open the door. Illia fell through, sobbing, and Milda caught her around the shoulders. Illia reached out toward me, saying “Markasset” over and over again, until Milda shook her into silence.

“Now,” Milda said, when Illia was under control, “I saw you running up the street as though Keeshah were after you. If you’ve got something to say, say it!” This was not the sweet old lady I had met earlier and loved almost instantly—this was a woman made of iron! And I still loved her.

Illia looked over at me. “They’re coming after Markasset.”

“What?” asked Thanasset. “Who is coming after him?”

“Zaddorn,” she wailed, and I noticed that though she had all the human reactions of weeping, there were no tears. They would have been a waste of water.

“What happened, girl?” Thanasset demanded.

Illia calmed down, and twisted gently out of Milda’s grip to walk across the floor of the large room toward us.

“Zaddorn sent a guard command group out after Gharlas’s caravan.”

“It couldn’t have gotten back already!” I said. My computation of their travel time wasn’t completely accurate, of course, but given the caravan’s head start …

“How did you know about them?” Illia asked, looking at me sharply.

“The Chief Supervisor told me earlier today,” I answered. “Anyway, does it matter?”

“It matters,” she said. “A maufa just arrived with a message for Zaddorn. The guard group didn’t catch up with the caravan—they met it on its way back to Raithskar. Or, rather, they met what was left of it. Two men and a vlek. The Sharith got the rest.”

Maufa? I was asking myself, then a memory surfaced. A trainable bird, like a pigeon, that carries messages! That must be what I heard in those cages when the posse passed me. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner, Markasset?

Thanasset grabbed Illia and turned her toward him. “What are you implying about my son?”

“I‘m not implying anything, sir. But the men from the caravan said that when the Sharith attacked, Markasset—not by that name, of course, but Zaddorn figured out who it was—was nowhere to be seen. They’re saying that your son was a Sharith agent, but now Zaddorn has some complicated theory about Markasset and the Ra’ira.” She turned to me, her eyes pleading. “I know you didn’t steal anything, Markasset. But your position as guard—why weren’t you there when the Sharith attacked?”

She was hoping for a reasonable explanation. So was I. I was thankful when Thanasset interrupted again.

“What is Zaddorn going to do?”

“He’s on his way here right now,” Illia said. “He has legal grounds for putting Markasset into confinement on a charge of failing to perform a contracted service.

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