could swear, the silver night around us would have been tinged with blue.
*
It’s all right,
* I tried to reassure him. *
How could you have known the wind would shift?
* No response. He moved his hind legs, getting ready to lunge into the melee. Eagerly.
*
No, Keeshah!
* I ordered sharply. *
They don’t know we’re here. Keep still; they may yet pass us by.
*
He didn’t move. But he didn’t relax.
For that matter, neither did I. My hand was on the hilt of my sword.
They were beginning to make sense of the chaos. I could hear Gandalaran voices above the vleks braying.
“Settle down, you fleabitten …”
“Hey! Ganneth tripped! Get him out from under …”
The wind shifted again, and the frenzied animals calmed almost instantly. There was a moment of stunned silence, broken by the now familiar voice of Devok.
“Didn’t I tell you we shoulda never left—”
“WILL YOU SHUT UP!” roared a voice I hadn’t heard before. “Now, anybody know what set ’em off?”
“I dunno,” someone answered. I knew they must be peering into the shadows on either side of the trail—I pressed my face into the hard ground, willing myself to disappear.
“There’s nothin’ out there,” someone said disgustedly.
“Almost anything will spook these fleabitten animals. We should just be glad it’s over and nobody’s hurt.”
“Whaddya mean, nobody. My foot …”
“Didn’t hurt you none …”
“AWRIGHT!”
When a muttering quiet had set in: “Your jabbering probably set ’em on edge. It sure as Gandalara was makin’
me
nervous.
“Let’s get moving again. And this time do less talkin’ and faster walkin’. We’ve wasted enough time, and you’ll need your breath before dawn. Let’s go.”
They moved away in silence. Only when the sound of their feet on the hard-worn trail had faded completely did I dare to breathe again. I let what I judged to be another twenty minutes go by before I remounted a restless Keeshah and we were on our way.
From what I’d heard, it sounded as though the cops were out in force tonight. I didn’t know what instinct had driven Keeshah to conceal us from them—a natural wariness of the unidentified, probably—but I was glad he had done so. In my travels, I have learned that even a respectable university professor is wise to steer clear of the police if he doesn’t know what all the laws are.
6
Raithskar was itself a jewel.
It sprawled uphill, following the slope that had risen gradually from the salt bogs. Now the slope steepened swiftly to merge at last into the majesty of the Great Wall, some miles beyond the city.
We had stopped several yards distant from the huge main gate, over Keeshah’s anxious protests. I needed time to get reacquainted with this city.
Through the gates I could see a portion of the wide boulevard which led into the city, and I could
hear
the marketplace that filled the boulevard. Voices haggling over prices. The squealing of children forced to tag along on a shopping trip. The clinking of coins.
I could smell it, too—the tang of blood from the butcheries, sweet fruits, sharp spices, perfumes I could not quite identify.
Raithskar seemed familiar to me in many ways. The smells, the sounds, the look of the place made me feel I had been here before—yet I did not recognize it in the sense of
knowing
it. And it called up Earthly memories. The clustered roofs climbing the slope in a riot of color made me think of San Francisco before skyscrapers spoiled the natural line that was so beautiful when viewed from the bay. Some of the roofs had small interlaced tiles like the one which had formed Yafnaar’s watering trough. They were dark brown in color, but otherwise much like the Spanish-style roofing that had been a feature of Santa Barbara.
Raithskar gleamed and glittered in the early morning light. In different ways, it made both Ricardo and Markasset homesick.
I found my gaze drawn to the Great Wall, four or five miles away. It
*
It’s all right,
* I tried to reassure him. *
How could you have known the wind would shift?
* No response. He moved his hind legs, getting ready to lunge into the melee. Eagerly.
*
No, Keeshah!
* I ordered sharply. *
They don’t know we’re here. Keep still; they may yet pass us by.
*
He didn’t move. But he didn’t relax.
For that matter, neither did I. My hand was on the hilt of my sword.
They were beginning to make sense of the chaos. I could hear Gandalaran voices above the vleks braying.
“Settle down, you fleabitten …”
“Hey! Ganneth tripped! Get him out from under …”
The wind shifted again, and the frenzied animals calmed almost instantly. There was a moment of stunned silence, broken by the now familiar voice of Devok.
“Didn’t I tell you we shoulda never left—”
“WILL YOU SHUT UP!” roared a voice I hadn’t heard before. “Now, anybody know what set ’em off?”
“I dunno,” someone answered. I knew they must be peering into the shadows on either side of the trail—I pressed my face into the hard ground, willing myself to disappear.
“There’s nothin’ out there,” someone said disgustedly.
“Almost anything will spook these fleabitten animals. We should just be glad it’s over and nobody’s hurt.”
“Whaddya mean, nobody. My foot …”
“Didn’t hurt you none …”
“AWRIGHT!”
When a muttering quiet had set in: “Your jabbering probably set ’em on edge. It sure as Gandalara was makin’
me
nervous.
“Let’s get moving again. And this time do less talkin’ and faster walkin’. We’ve wasted enough time, and you’ll need your breath before dawn. Let’s go.”
They moved away in silence. Only when the sound of their feet on the hard-worn trail had faded completely did I dare to breathe again. I let what I judged to be another twenty minutes go by before I remounted a restless Keeshah and we were on our way.
From what I’d heard, it sounded as though the cops were out in force tonight. I didn’t know what instinct had driven Keeshah to conceal us from them—a natural wariness of the unidentified, probably—but I was glad he had done so. In my travels, I have learned that even a respectable university professor is wise to steer clear of the police if he doesn’t know what all the laws are.
6
Raithskar was itself a jewel.
It sprawled uphill, following the slope that had risen gradually from the salt bogs. Now the slope steepened swiftly to merge at last into the majesty of the Great Wall, some miles beyond the city.
We had stopped several yards distant from the huge main gate, over Keeshah’s anxious protests. I needed time to get reacquainted with this city.
Through the gates I could see a portion of the wide boulevard which led into the city, and I could
hear
the marketplace that filled the boulevard. Voices haggling over prices. The squealing of children forced to tag along on a shopping trip. The clinking of coins.
I could smell it, too—the tang of blood from the butcheries, sweet fruits, sharp spices, perfumes I could not quite identify.
Raithskar seemed familiar to me in many ways. The smells, the sounds, the look of the place made me feel I had been here before—yet I did not recognize it in the sense of
knowing
it. And it called up Earthly memories. The clustered roofs climbing the slope in a riot of color made me think of San Francisco before skyscrapers spoiled the natural line that was so beautiful when viewed from the bay. Some of the roofs had small interlaced tiles like the one which had formed Yafnaar’s watering trough. They were dark brown in color, but otherwise much like the Spanish-style roofing that had been a feature of Santa Barbara.
Raithskar gleamed and glittered in the early morning light. In different ways, it made both Ricardo and Markasset homesick.
I found my gaze drawn to the Great Wall, four or five miles away. It
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