Sword-Maker, page 16
“Jhihadi,” I said quietly, “is a Southron word.”
“Southron?” Del frowned. “Why? What has a Southron word to do with us?”
“Actually, it’s Desert, not pure Southron … and it might have something to do with the fact that I am, after all, Southron.” I smiled benignly. “Although, knowing the word, I doubt it indicates me personally.” I grinned at her, then shrugged. “He must mean something else, or someone else; he is old, after all, and those are just pretty stones.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously. “What does ‘jhihadi’ mean?”
“Messiah,” I said plainly.
Braids whipped as she turned instantly and faced the holy man. She asked him something courteously, but I heard the underlying doubt. The need for an explanation.
Obligingly, the old man threw the stones again. And again they fetched up into varied patterns, none of which I could read.
He studied them, then nodded. “Jhihadi,” he repeated. And then added something in uplander, ending in yet another Desert word.
“Iskandar?” I said sharply. “What’s Iskandar got to do with this?”
Del looked at me blankly. “I don’t know what that is.”
“An old story,” I said dismissively. “Iskandar is a place, named after a man who was supposedly a messiah. I don’t know how much truth there is to the tale—you know how stories can get all twisted up.” We stared frowning at one another, thinking about Chosa Dei. “Anyway, Iskandar was where this supposed messiah met his death.”
Del’s eyes were intent. “Was he murdered? Executed?”
I grinned. “Nothing so romantic. His horse kicked him in the head; he died ten days later. Which is why there are questions about his identity, since a true messiah shouldn’t be physically vulnerable.” I shrugged. “I don’t know much about it, really, since it’s not the sort of thing I pay much attention to … I just know that on his deathbed he promised to come back. But since that was hundreds of years ago and Iskandar lies in ruins, I have my doubts about this jhihadi the old man’s talking about.”
Del still frowned, locking brows together. “He says we’re going there.”
“Iskandar?” I didn’t bother to hide my amusement. “Then the old man must be sandsick.”
Del chewed her lip. “If Ajani’s there—”
“He won’t be. I promise, bascha … Iskandar is a ruin; no one goes there. Not even Ajani would, unless he likes to talk with ghosts.”
“Then why would the holy man say so?”
After a judicious glance around at the gathered villagers, I couched my words politely. “Shall we just say that sometimes people try to protect pronouncements by insisting they’re true when they’re not?”
“He isn’t lying,” Del declared.
I winced. Here I’d been so careful to speak diplomatically, and now Del was being too blunt.
“No,” I agreed. “Did I say he was?”
“You said—”
“I said perhaps he was mistaken. Now, are we done yet? Can we go to bed?”
Del turned back to the holy man and asked something in uplander. Accordingly, he threw the stones once again. Then told her what he read.
“Well?” I prodded, when she didn’t translate for me.
“Oracle,” she said. “There is an Oracle.”
“Those are oracle bones—”
“No, not bones—oracle. A man is foretelling the coming of the jhihadi.” Del’s expression was blank as she stared at me. “A man who is not a man, but neither is he a woman.” Now she frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re not supposed to, bascha. That’s what these people trade on; they make coin off interpretation.” I smiled at the holy man, inclined my head respectfully, then did the same to Halvar. “Now can we go to bed?”
Plainly, Del was irritated. “Oh, Tiger, I swear—you have become an old man. What happened to the days when you would sit up all night swilling amnit or aqivi, trading lies in cantinas?”
“I met you,” I retorted. “I joined up with you and got the hoolies beat out of me more times than I can count.” I stood up slowly and rewrapped pelts around my shoulders. “Is that answer enough for you?”
Del, taken aback, said nothing in return. I went off to bed.
Some time later I sat bolt upright in the darkness. Beside me, the sheathless sword was glowing. It was red as wind-whipped coals; hot as a smithy’s forge. Hot as Chosa Dei’s fire in the entrails of the dragon.
“No,” I said clearly, and wrapped hands around the grip.
Shock jerked me rigid. Then I began to shake. It wasn’t the heat of the sword, but the power surging through it. Raw, angry power, totally uncontrolled.
“No,” I said again, moving onto my knees. Pelts fell away until I knelt half naked, wearing nothing but borrowed trews. I’d learned it was warmer sleeping naked under fur, but while in Ysaa-den I’d altered the habit a little. It seemed the courteous thing, although only Del shared the lodge.
Power ran through my hands, then crept the length of my arms until elbows and shoulders ached. “Hoolies take you,” I gritted. “I already beat you once. I can do it again.”
It hurt. Hoolies, it hurt … but I wouldn’t give in to it. I can be stubborn that way.
Chosa Dei wasn’t pleased. I sensed him in the sword, testing the confines of his prison. I wondered if he knew what had happened, if he understood his plight; if he realized he was dead. For a man such as he, accustomed to stealing lives as well as magic, it would be a horrific discovery to learn his life had been stolen, along with his remade magic.
He tested the blade again. I exerted my own strength of will. Felt rising curiosity; felt a need to understand.
And also felt Samiel trying to reabsorb the magic the sorcerer had borrowed.
How long? I wondered wearily. How long will this go on?
Power hesitated, then abruptly ran out again, leaving my arms numb. Slowly I unlocked my hands from around the grip and set the sword down again. I trembled with reaction; sweat bathed face and ribs.
Chill came rushing in, the kind that eats at bones. Shakily I crawled beneath pelts again, seeking leftover warmth. I snugged fur around my chin, then tried to relax arms and hands. When the shaking wouldn’t stop, I thrust my hands between drawn-up knees and held them tightly in place. Waiting for the reaction to diminish.
A hand touched my rigid left shoulder, though I could only just feel it through the pelts. “Tiger—are you all right?”
I sucked in a gut-deep breath, then blew it out again. Trying to steady my voice. “I thought you were still out with Halvar and all the others.”
“It’s very late. Nearly dawn. I’ve been in bed for hours.”
Hours. Then she’d seen what had happened.
“Are you all right?” she repeated.
“Just leave me alone,” I told her. “Let me go back to sleep.”
“You’re shaking. Are you cold?”
“Go back to bed, Del. You’re keeping me awake.”
Shock reverberated. The hand went away. In a moment so did Del, crawling back beneath her pelts all of three feet away from my own.
I lay there sweating, shaking, trying to still my hands while my arms threatened to cramp. I felt the strain in shoulder blades, traveling down to tie up my back. I didn’t want to cramp; hoolies, don’t let me cramp … I’d almost rather be knifed. At least the pain is cleaner.
Concentrate—concentrate … slowly, the trembling subsided. I took my hands from between my knees and felt the tendons slacken. The ghost pain of threatened cramp flowed slowly out of back and shoulders; at last I could fully relax. The relief was overwhelming.
I let out a rushing breath of gratitude. Then rolled over onto my left side, resettling pelts, and saw Del watching me.
She sat cross-legged on her bedding, one pelt wrapped around her body. There was not much light in the lodge, only a little from the coals. But pale hair and paler face caught the light and magnified it; I could see her face fairly well. I could see the expression on it.
“What?” I croaked.
She didn’t answer at first, as if caught in some faraway place. She just stared at me fixedly, focused solely on my face.
With more emphasis: “What?”
Something glistened in her eyes. “I was wrong,” she said.
I stared back, speechless.
“I was wrong,” she repeated.
I watched the tears spill over.
“Wrong,” she said huskily. “All the reasons: wrong. All the excuses: wrong. For nothing other than selfishness, I betrayed your trust.”
Finally I could force something past my tight throat. “There was Kalle—”
“Wrong,” Del declared. “A daughter is a daughter, and worth many sacrifices, but to use you as I did—to make you coin with which to barter—” Her voice failed her abruptly. She swallowed painfully. “What I did was no different, in its own way, than what Ajani did to me. He took away my freedom … I tried to take away yours.”
Any number of responses jumped into my mouth. Each and every one of them was meant to diminish the truth of what she said, to somehow dismiss what she had done. So she would feel better. So she wouldn’t cry any more. So I wouldn’t feel guilty, even though I wasn’t to blame.
I choked all of them back. To give in to the impulse was to dilute the power of her admission.
I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I agreed. “What you did was wrong.”
Del’s tone was oddly empty. “I have done nothing I am ashamed of, save that. I have killed men. Many men. Men who got in my way, in the circle and out. I excuse none of those deaths; all were necessary. But what I offered Staal-Ysta, even for only a year, was not necessary. It was not my right to offer. It was not my life to give.”
“No,” I said softly.
Del drew in a noisy breath. “If you want me to go, I will. You have finished the task you set out to do. You have fulfilled your promise. It is left to me to finish mine; to end my song. Ajani is not your responsibility.”
No. He never had been. But I know I hated the man at least half as much as Del, for what he’d done to her.
I thought about riding alone again. Just the stud and me. No female complications. No mission of vengeance. No obsession. Just riding through the South trying to scare up work. Trying to make a living. Growing older by the day, with nothing to show for it.
And no Northern bascha with whom to pass the time, in argument or in the circle.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve got nothing to do.”
“After what I have done—”
“I’ll get over it.”
It was abrupt. Off-handed. Casual. It was also enough. We’re neither of us good at putting feelings into words.
Del pulled furs into place and lay down on her bedding again. Her back was toward me, right shoulder jutting toward the roof. “I would like that,” she said.
I lay there thinking about it, overwhelmed with new feelings. But I was exhausted from the sword, and it took too much effort to think about emotions. Del had made her admission. Del had fulfilled the task I required of her. So now all I had to do was just shut my eyes and let it go, sliding away. Tumbling into darkness. The pain was gone for good, and the lure of sleep beckoned. Beckoned. Beckoned—
It was pleasant drifting there, just at the edge of the eddy … at the point of dropping off—
“You’re not old,” Del said. Very low, but distinct.
Sleep retreated a moment. I smiled and yanked it back.
Going home, I thought, and slid off the edge of the world.
Part II
One
“Tiger,” she said, “you’re whistling.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Not now, no—but you were.”
“I don’t whistle, bascha—too much like music.”
“Whistling is music,” she pointed out, “and you were doing it.”
“Look,” I said patiently, “I don’t sing, I don’t hum, I don’t whistle. I don’t do anything even remotely connected with music.”
“Because you’re tone-deaf. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do any of those things. It just means you do all of them badly.” She paused. “And you do.”
“Why would I whistle? I’ve never done it before.”
“Because, thanks to the Cantéada and your jivatma, you have a better understanding of what power music holds … and maybe because you’re happy.”
Well, I was happy. I’d been happy ever since Del had made her admission. Happier ever since we’d traded uplands for downlands and then downlands for border country; before an hour was up we’d be out of the North for good.
But I don’t know that it made me whistle.
I drew in a deep breath, then exhaled in satisfaction. “Smell that? That’s air, bascha … good, clean air. And warm air, too . . no more frozen lungs.”
“No,” she agreed, “no more frozen lungs … now we can breathe Southron air and have our lungs scorched.”
I just grinned, nodded, rode on. It felt good to be aboard the stud again, riding down out of hills and plateaus into the scrubby borderlands between the North and Harquhal. It felt so good I didn’t even mind Del’s steadfast silences, or the dry irony of her tone when she did speak. All I knew was that with each stride closer to the border, I was closer to home. To warmth and sun and sand. To cantinas and aqivi. To all the things I’d known so well for the last twenty-some-odd years of my life, once I was free to know them.
“Hah!” I said. “See? There’s the marker now.” Without waiting for an answer, I booted the stud into a startled, lunging run and galloped the distance remaining between me and the South. I sent him past the stone cairn, then rolled him back, held him in check, watched Del negotiate the same distance at a much more decorous pace.
Or was it reluctance in place of decorum?
“Come on, Del,” I called. “The footing’s good enough. Let that blue horse run!”
Instead she let him walk. All the way to the cairn. And then she reined in, slid off, looped his reins around the pile of stones. Saying nothing, Del walked a short distance away and turned her back to me, staring steadfastly toward the north.
Oh. That again.
Impatiently I watched as she unsheathed, balanced blade and hilt across both hands, then thrust the sword above her head as if she offered it to her gods. It brought back the night she’d called colors out of the sky and painted the night with rainbows. It brought back the night I’d realized she wasn’t dead; that I realized I hadn’t killed her.
Impatience faded. Del was saying good-bye to her past and her present. No more Staal-Ysta. No more Kalle. No more familiar life. As much as I was pleased to see the South again, it wasn’t the same for her. It never could be, either, regardless of circumstances.
The stud stomped, protesting inaction. I stilled him with a twitch of the reins and a single word of admonishment; for a change, he paid attention. Then he swung his head around as far as he could swing it, staring toward still-invisible Harquhal, and snorted. With feeling.
“I know,” I told him. “Just a moment or two more … you can wait that long, even if you don’t like it.”
He shook his head, clattered bit shanks, slashed his tail audibly. It needed cutting badly; I knew almost instantly because the ends of coarse horsehair stung me across one thigh.
“Keep it up,” I suggested. “I’ll cut your gehetties off, too, and then where would you be?”
Del came back down to the blue roan and pulled reins free of the rock, leading him toward me. She still carried a naked blade, and showed no signs of putting it away.
I frowned. Reined in the stud as he seriously considered greeting the roan with a nip. Tried to ask a question, but was overridden by Del.
“It’s time,” she said simply.
Eyebrows rose. “Time?”
Sunlight glinted off Boreal. “Time,” Del agreed, “to face one another in a circle.”
It had been three weeks since the last time the subject had come up, just before reaching Ysaa-den. Del said nothing about sparring, and I’d been content to let the matter rest. I’d hoped it could rest forever.
I glanced down at the hilt of my own jivatma, riding quietly next to my left knee in a borrowed sheath buckled onto my saddle. Halvar had been generous enough to give me the sheath he’d used for his old bronze sword; it didn’t really suit me, since it was only a scabbard and not the sheath-and-harness as I preferred, but I’d needed something to carry the weapon in. I couldn’t lug it around bare-bladed.
“I don’t think so,” I told her.
Del’s brow furrowed. “Are you still afr—”
“You don’t know this sword.”
She looked at the hilt. Considered what I’d said. Sighed a little and tried valiantly to hang onto waning patience. “I need to practice, Tiger. So do you. If we’re to earn a living while we try to track down Ajani, we’ve got to get fit again. We’ve got to spar against one another to recover timing, strength, stamina—”
“I know all that,” I said, “and you’re absolutely right. But I’m not stepping into a circle against you so long as Chosa Dei’s in this sword.”
“But you can control it. You can control him; I’ve seen you. Not just that night in Halvar’s lodge, but all the other times on the way here—”
“—and it’s all those other times that make me refuse now,” I told her plainly. “This sword wasn’t exactly easy to control before I requenched it in Chosa Dei … do you think I really want to risk losing whatever control I’ve learned while you and I spar?” I shook my head. “Chosa Dei wanted your sword. He wanted to drain the magic, to reshape it—remake it—for his own specific needs. As far as I can tell, I think he still does.”
Del was plainly startled. “How can he still—?” She shook her head, breaking it off. “He’s in a sword, Tiger.”
“And do you, not knowing what he’s capable of, really want to risk letting him make contact with Boreal?”
“I don’t think—” She stopped. Frowned. Stared pensively at Samiel’s hilt poking up beside my knee. Then made a gesture of acknowledgment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe if your sword and mine ever met, he’d steal my jivatma’s magic. And then—” She broke off again, staring at me in realization. “If he bound your magic and mine together, what would that make him? What kind of man would he be?”
