The Steel of Raithskar

Title Page

Preliminary Preceedings

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

End Proceedings

About the Authors

Also by Randall Garrett & Vicki Ann Heydron

—
You understand what you must do. You have undertaken and completed your training for this task. You know that what you are about to do is of the utmost necessity for the further continuance of the well-being, and perhaps the existence, of our descendants. Are you in agreement with that concept?

—
I am, Recorder.

—
Good. What goes into the Record must be of the highest quality. No truth can be absolute, but the truth of the Record must be as close to absolute as it is possible for us to make it. Do you understand and believe that?

—
I understand and believe it, Recorder.

—
Then you know that every detail, down to the slightest, should go into the Record. Every impression, no matter how fleeting; every nuance of thought and emotion; every memory that can be made available must be brought forth.

For all that the work will be purely mental, and not physical, you will find it the hardest labor you have ever undertaken in your life. Do you willingly undertake this labor?

—
I do willingly undertake it, Recorder.

—
Are you ready, then, to begin this Recording?

—
I am ready, Recorder.

—
Then make your mind one with mine, as I have made mine one with the All-Mind …

WE BEGIN!

Heat, pain, and blinding light, burning through my skin and my eyelids. And the taste of bitter salt in my mouth.

The sensations filled me, rooted me in consciousness while that part of my mind which
could
think floated away and returned. Among the jumble of wandering thoughts, one came clearly:

The fireball killed me. This is what Hell feels like.

But it had no real meaning and it ebbed away into a blankness which seemed eternal.

At last I became aware of directional sensation. The incredible heat surrounded me, but under my fingers as I moved them weakly, pressing against my left cheek, scattered in my eyes and mouth, there was a grittiness that was somehow familiar. Rationality was returning. It was sand.

I was lying on the ground somewhere, on gritty, salty sand.

I lifted my head and tried to spit out the sand, but my mouth was too dry and all I could do was push the sand out with my tongue. With one hand I brushed grit from my eyes and opened them.

I groaned, and lurched up into a sitting position. I sat there with my hands covering my eyes and wept away the savage sting of salt.

When I could open my eyes again, I did so very cautiously, shading them with my hands. At first I thought that I had been blinded in a reverse way, that instead of blackness I was destined always to see only a brilliant white glare. Slowly the light grew tolerable, and the whiteness resolved itself into understandable divisions.

Above me a thin cloud layer diffused the sun’s light, but had no discernible dimming effect on it. Light and heat beat down on a fierce white desert, which amplified and reflected them. I had never believed that
anything
could be that hot.

As I turned my head to look around, the pain in my body focused sharply. A lump on my head, above and behind my right ear, was throbbing mightily. And my neck was so stiff that I was forced to wonder how long I had been lying here, slowly frying on the floor of this desert.

What I saw around me was a broad vista of nothing. Or almost nothing. In the flat, nearly featureless desert, two things stood out.

One was nearby. A few yards to my right lay a man, perfectly still, with his face turned away from me. The bright yellow and green of his clothes was oddly comforting, a single spot of color in the gray-white desert.

The other was distant. Toward every horizon but one, the desert flowed unevenly. Here and there were short bushes, spreading almost flat just above the ground. In the sand, crawling around me, were small, pale ants. Yet all this life was a part of the vast, deadly desert, blending smoothly into the endless panorama of nothingness.

Except in one direction.

The land rose slowly to touch the white cloud layer of the sky, and in the far distance a strip of blue, parallel to the horizon, marked their meeting. I had no way of knowing what that line of blue meant, but it was far more attractive than the grayness which surrounded me. It was the only way out of the desert, and I knew I had to move in that direction.

That desperate need carried me clumsily to my feet, and I was instantly grateful that I had managed to stand. My clothes had been crumpled and pressed against my body, but the movement jarred them loose, and, as they fell away from my skin, the heat became almost bearable.

A weight dragged on my right shoulder. I looked at my clothes, touched my chest, and discovered a folded strip of sturdy tan fabric supporting that weight. A baldric—and a sword?

The sword was too heavy for my trembling hands to hold it up for examination, but behind it was hanging a small pouch. At the thought that it might contain food, I was suddenly very hungry. But when I opened it, I found only five large golden coins.

Perhaps the other man had some food …

The other man!

I staggered over to him and fell to my knees. I hadn’t the faintest notion who he was, but if he were still alive …

He wasn’t. The stiffness of the corpse as I rolled him over told me he had been dead for long. And the blood-caked shreds of his tunic made it obvious that he had not died of thirst. He was an ugly sight.

The dry heat had desiccated what could never have been a handsome face. The supraorbital ridges were prominent beneath a high brow. The nose had a pushed-in look, like that of a gorilla, so that the nostrils showed. The chin was massive and squarish.

The dead mouth was open. Cracked and shrunken lips had shriveled back from large, even teeth; the canines were unusually long. Ants were crawling in and out of the open mouth.

I looked away quickly.

But I searched the body thoroughly, hoping to find a bottle of water or some food. All I could come up with was a sword I took to be like the one I was wearing, and another pouch. This one was filled with smaller coins of different sizes, and, without thinking, I poured them out of his pouch and into mine. Some of the coins spilled over my shaking hand. I didn’t pick them out of the sand; it was just too much trouble to try.

I stood up then, and looked around again. There was still nothing that promised change except the tantalizing blue ridge at the edge of the visible world. I started to walk toward it, but something drew me back to the dead man. His sword.

Clumsily I pulled the baldric off the body and tried to lift it over my head—but I hadn’t the strength to lift the sword. So I set off toward the horizon, holding the baldric and dragging the heavy sword behind me. I didn’t know why, but I knew I didn’t want to leave the sword out in the desert.

For an endless time I stumbled across the desert floor. My feet slipped in the sand; I tripped over low bushes I was too tired to avoid; sometimes my legs just let me fall. Tiny, sharp-edged rocks, concealed by the sand, cut my hands and face. Each time I fell, the salty sand ground into my raw wounds, until my skin was on fire.

I kept moving. The only
real
thing in the world was the faint line of blue, always ahead of me but never any nearer. I knew I had to keep walking to reach it, so walk I did. One foot in front of the other, struggling back to my feet when I fell, I forced my way across the desert.

I realized dimly that I must be moving north. The sharp glare in the sky which must be the sun above the cloud layer was behind me and moving toward my left. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

I stopped once with a feeling of surprise. Why couldn’t I move? I traced the problem to my left arm—something was pulling at it. I looked down and saw that I still held the loop of the baldric in my hand. Somehow the sword had become too heavy to move. Why was I dragging it, anyway?

I had no answer. I let go the baldric and almost fell. I started walking again, with a feeling of satisfaction that I had solved an immense problem.

I was suddenly convinced that I was being followed. I whirled around, the violence of the turn making me stagger, and looked for the follower. Nothing. As far as I could see, the desert was empty except for me. But the sensation persisted: I was not alone.

Now my steady, straight-ahead plodding became a zigzag course. I walked a few yards, then jumped around to try to catch whoever or whatever was trailing me. There was never anything: no movement, no sound. So I turned back and walked on—not quite in the same direction I had been going.

So, for a time, I forgot about the blue line. My attention was behind me, and almost as if it were a game, I walked and turned, walked and turned.

My strength failed. My legs suddenly quit, and I slammed heavily into the salt-thick ground. I simply lay there. I knew I could not stand up again.

Could I move at all? Yes. I could crawl.

The shock of this last fall had knocked some sense back into me. Forget the whatever-it-is that’s following;
blue
means salvation. I sighted the line of blue and aimed for it again, began to drag myself through the sand.

I heard a rumbling noise behind me. I was too weak to turn around, so I rolled over on my back and dug my elbows into the sand to lift my head. I wasn’t afraid; rather, I was glad to find the answer to the mystery.

A few yards away from me stood the biggest damned cat I had ever seen.

No wonder I hadn’t been able to spot him. He was covered with a grayish pale tan fur that blended almost perfectly with the drab surroundings. The low coughing sound came from his throat as he paced restlessly back and forth.

He began to walk a spiral, moving slowly around me and coming gradually closer.

I was sure that the cat’s shoulders would have brushed my chin if I were standing. He—I had never thought of him as “it” after I saw him, and as he prowled around me, his maleness was obvious—was built like a tiger, with a powerful chest and a long, agile body. When he growled I could see well-developed canines in his mouth. The image of a sabertooth came to me, but these teeth were nothing like the exaggerated knives of that animal.

I watched the cat watching me. He came in closer, sniffing. I became aware of
his
odor: vaguely muskish, not unpleasant, and somehow familiar.

My neck was getting tired, following the cat’s circling. Suddenly he stopped and looked directly at me.

I couldn’t defend myself against a kitten
, I thought at him.
You might as well come eat me. It’s better than dying of thirst.

The cat didn’t move.

Come ahead
, I urged.
You’re welcome.

As though he had heard my thoughts, the cat let out a roar that literally shook the ground, and bounded eagerly toward me.

I knew that I had invited him. I was even willing to let him eat me, in a tentative sort of way. But the sight of that great cat closing in for the kill drained away my remaining strength. I collapsed back into the sand and my mind slipped away from me.