Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (34 page)

years." I stopped short of the stud and swung around. "I haven't, have I?"

"What?"

"Aged ten--or twenty--years."

Del appraised me critically. "I don't think so. You look the same as before--about sixty, I would say."

"That's not funny," I snapped, and then realized how I sounded. "All right, all

right--but do you blame me? Who knows what Chosa Dei can do, even in a sword!"

"True," Del conceded. "No, Tiger, you do not look like you have aged ten or twenty years. In fact, you look better than a week ago; sparring agrees with you. You should do it more often."

"I would if I could," I muttered. "Maybe at Iskandar."

I turned back to the stud, who greeted me with a bump of his muzzle against my

face, followed by a snort. His snorts are bad enough any time; this time it included dirt. Dirt and mucus make mud.

I swore, wiped slime from face and neck, called him a dozen unflattering names.

He'd heard them all before and didn't even flick an ear. So I caught reins, dug

a foot into the left stirrup, dragged myself up with effort, plopped rump into

saddle. Peered over at Del.

"All right," I said, "all right. I give up. The sooner I get Chosa Dei out of this sword, the happier I'll be... and if that means finding this Shaka Obre, then that's what we'll do."

Del's expression was odd. "It could take months. Maybe years."

I gritted teeth. "I know that," I told her. "What in hoolies else am I supposed

to do? Fight this thing for the rest of my life?"

Del's tone was quiet. "I just think you should realize what sort of commitment

you're making."

I glared at her. "This sword just tried to make me kill myself. Now it's personal."

Her smooth brow creased. "Shaka Obre is little more than a name, Tiger... he will be difficult to find."

I sighed. "We found Chosa Dei. We'll find Shaka Obre, no matter what it takes."

Del's smile was oddly abrupt.

"What?" I asked warily.

"Only that you sound very like me."

I thought about it. About Del's quest to find Ajani, and the sacrifices she'd made.

Now it was my turn.

She brought her roan up beside me. "How much farther to Iskandar?"

"According to what Rhashad told me, another day's ride. We should make it by tomorrow evening." I peered down the track winding through scrub trees and webby

grass. "You know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if there is a jhihadi due.

Maybe

he can cure my sword."

Del sounded cross. "There's nothing wrong with your sword that you can't cure yourself. All it takes is control. And the willingness to try."

I looked at her a long moment. Then shifted in my saddle. "You know," I said lightly, "I'll be glad when Ajani's dead."

It caught her off guard. "Why?"

"Because maybe then you'll remember what it's like to be human again."

Her mouth opened. "I am--"

"Sometimes," I agreed. "Then again, other times you're a coldhearted, judgmental

bitch."

I turned the stud and went on. After a moment, she followed.

Silence is sometimes noisy.

Iskandar, I knew, had been very old even before Harquhal was born. Which meant

the track between them was very new, beaten into the ground only in answer to the Oracle. In time the track would fade, washed away by wind and rain, and the

land would be true again, lacking the scars put on it by pilgrims gone to see the new jhihadi. Until then, however, the track would become a lifeline.

Rhashad had been explicit in his instructions, but it wasn't necessary. It was

easy to see the way. Easy to see the people leaving Harquhal behind on the way

to Iskandar. Harder to avoid them.

We avoided them eventually by riding off the track. It was dusk, growing chilly,

and my belly was complaining. Del and I went over a hill and found a private place for a campsite, not desirous of company. On the road you can never be sure.

"No fire," I suggested as I climbed down from the stud.

Del, saying nothing, nodded. She pulled off saddle, pad, pouches, the roll of pelt and blankets. Dumped everything in one spot and went back to tend the roan.

It took no time at all. We settled mounts, spread bedrolls, ate a journey-meal

out of our pouches and drank water out of botas. By the time the sun was down there was nothing left but bed. But neither of us sought it.

In the white light of a full moon I sat on my pelt, blankets draped around my knees, working oil into my harness. The leather was stiff from newness and needed softening. In time the oil, my sweat, and the shape of my body would coerce the harness to fit. Until then, I'd tend it every night. It was ritual.

Del performed her own even as I completed mine. But it was not her harness she

tended. It was Boreal's blade. Whetstone, oil, cloth. And exquisitely tender care.

She had braided back her hair. It left most of her face bare. In the moonlight,

the angles were harsh. The planes were cut from glass.

Down the blade and back again: seductive sibilance. Then the whisper of silk on

steel.

Her head was bent, and tilted, as she looked down the length of blade.

White-lashed lids were lowered, hiding the eyes from me. Thick, pale braid fell

over a silk-clad shoulder, swinging with her motion. Down the blade, then back

again: slow, subtle seduction.

Abruptly I had to know. "What are you thinking about?"

Del twitched minutely. She had been very far away.

Quietly I repeated it: "What are you thinking, bascha?"

The mouth warped briefly. Then regained its shape. "Jamail," she said softly.

"Remembering what he was like."

I'd only seen him once. Never as she had.

"He was--a boy," she said. "No different from any other. He was the youngest of

us all, at ten--five years younger than me. Trying so hard to be a man when we

wanted to keep him a boy."

I smiled, seeing it. "Nothing wrong with that."

"He thought so. He would look at my father, my uncles, my brothers, then look at

me. And swear he was as brave... swear he was as strong... swear he was as capable as any man full-grown."

I had not had a normal boyhood. I couldn't say how it should have been.

Couldn't

feel what Jamail had felt. Couldn't say the words I might have said if I had been Jamail, wanting to soothe my sister.

"They took us together," she said. "We hid beneath the wagon, trying to make ourselves small, but the borjuni fired the wagon. There was no place left to hide. We ran--Jamail's clothing caught fire--" She broke off a moment, face twisted oddly. "They caught fire, but he wouldn't scream. He just stuffed his fists in his mouth and bit them until they bled. I had to throw him down. I had

to trip him and throw him down so I could smother the flames... and that was when they caught us."

My hands stilled on the harness. Del's continued to work her blade. I doubt she

even knew it.

"He was burned," she said. "They didn't care. He was alive, he would mend; he would still bring a pretty price. That was all they thought of: what the Southron slavers would pay."

No, it was not all they thought of. There was Delilah as well--fifteen-year-old

Northern beauty--but Del wasn't speaking of her. Jamail was the topic. Jamail was all that counted, and the fate of her family.

Del didn't count herself worthy enough to warrant the obsession.

Oh, bascha. Bascha. If only you knew.

"But he survived it," she said. "More than I, surely: slavery, castration, losing a tongue. He survived all of that only to fall to the Vashni." Del drew

in a breath. "So now I am left to sit here, wondering if he's dead."

"You don't know that he is."

"No. No, I don't. Not knowing is what hurts."

Her hand continued its task, never faltering in its stroke. Boreal sang a song,

a song of promises.

"Don't borrow grief," I told her. "Jamail could be perfectly safe with the Vashni."

"They're killing foreigners. He's all too obviously Northern."

"Is he? Was he?" I shrugged as she glanced up. "By the time we found him, he'd

spent five years in the South. Two years with the Vashni. For all we know, they

might consider him one of their own. The old man loved him; that should carry some weight."

"Old men," she said quietly, "often lose their power."

"And sometimes they don't."

"But all old men die."

I shook my head. "I can't make it any easier for you, Del. Yes, he could be dead. But you don't know that."

"And I wonder: will I ever? Or spend the rest of my life not knowing if there is

anyone left of my blood."

"Believe me," I said roughly, "you can learn to live with that."

Del's hand closed over the blade. "And do you say that because I am a coldhearted, judgmental bitch?"

I looked at her sharply, startled by the question. More startled by the raw tone. "No," I answered honestly. "I say that because it's what I've done."

"You," she said blankly.

"Me," I agreed. "Are you forgetting the circumstances? No mother, no father for

me... no brothers or sisters, either. I haven't the vaguest idea if there is anyone left of my blood, since I don't know what blood it is."

"Borderer," she said. "Borderer, or foreign."

I straightened. "That's what you think?"

Del shrugged. "You have the size of a Northerner, but your color is mostly Southron. Not as dark, of course, and your features are not as harsh. You are a

little of both, I think, which might make you a Borderer." She smiled a little,

assessing. "Or a foreigner. Have you never imagined it?"

That, and more. Everything. Every day of my enslavement. Every night in my bed

of dung. Admitting it to no one. Not even to Sula, or Del. Because the admitting

could make me weak. The weak do not survive.

"No," I said aloud, driving the weakness away.

"Tiger." Del set the sword aside. "Did it never occur to you that the Salset might have lied?"

"Lied?" I frowned. "I don't understand."

She sat cross-legged. Fingers curved around her knees. "You have spent your life

believing you were left in the desert to die. Abandoned by mother, by father...

that's what you have said."

"That's what I was told."

"Who told you?" she asked gently.

I frowned. "The Salset. You know that. What is this all about?"

"About lies. About deception. About pain inflicted on purpose, to make the foreign boy suffer."

Something pinched my belly. "Del--"

"Who told you, Tiger? It wasn't Sula, was it?"

My answer was instant. "No. Sula was never cruel. Sula was my--" I stopped.

Del nodded. "Yes. Sula was your salvation."

In my hands I clutched the harness. "What of it?" I asked. "What has Sula to do

with this?"

"When were you first made aware you weren't Salset?"

I had no real answer. "I just always knew."

"Because they told you."

"Yes."

"Who told you? Who told you first? Who told you so young that you would never think otherwise?"

"Del--"

"Was it the adults?"

"No," I said crossly. "The adults completely ignored me until I was old enough

to be useful. It was the children, always the children..." I let it trail off.

Recalling all too well the painful days of my past; the nightmare of childhood.

Recalling and wondering.

Could it have been a lie?

I sat very still. Everything was suddenly, oddly, clear, the way it is just before a sword-dance. When you walk the edge of the blade, knowing an instant can make the difference.

All my senses sharpened. I knew who and where I was, and what I had become.

And

I knew it was hard to breathe.

In perfect stillness, Del waited.

"The children," I repeated, feeling the abyss crack open below.

Del's face was taut. "Children can be cruel."

"They said--" I broke it off, not daring to say it aloud.

After a moment she took it up. "They said you'd been left for dead in the desert

by parents who didn't want you."

"They all said it," I murmured vaguely. "First one, then all the others."

"And you never questioned it."

I couldn't sit there anymore. I couldn't sit at all. How could I just sit--?

I thrust the harness aside and stood up stiffly, then walked away four paces.

Stopped. Stared blindly into darkness.

Swung back numbly to challenge. "There was no one to question. Who was I to ask?

What was I to say? I was a chula... chulas don't ask questions... chulas don't

talk at all, because to talk invites a beating."

"There was Sula," she said gently.

Something stirred sluggishly. Anger. Desperation. A kind of pain I'd never felt

because I'd never cared before. Not the way she made me care. "I was fifteen."

I

didn't know how to explain it; not so she could see, could understand, could comprehend. "Fifteen when I met Sula. By then I knew better than to ask. By then

I didn't care. By then there was nothing in me to even wonder who I was."

"That's a lie," she said.

Despair cuts like a blade. "Oh, hoolies... oh, bascha, you just don't know

..."

I scraped stiff fingers through my hair. "There's no way you can know."

"No," she agreed.

I stared at her in the moonlight. It hurt to look at her. To think about what she'd said. To wonder if she was right.

"You were wrong to do this," I said. "You shouldn't have done it, bascha. You should have left it alone--should have left me alone... don't you see what you've done?"

"No."

"--Before, I knew what I was. I knew what had happened. It didn't make me happy--who would be happy knowing he was abandoned?--but at least I had an idea.

At least there was something to hate. At least I didn't wonder if it was falsehood or truth."