Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (35 page)

"Tiger-"

"You took it away," I said. "And now there's nothing at all."

Del's face was stricken. She stared at me blindly a moment, then drew in a noisy

breath. "Wouldn't you rather know you weren't abandoned?"

"Do you mean would I rather know my parents were murdered by borjuni? Or maybe

murdered by the Salset, who then took me for a keepsake?"

She flinched. "That's not what I--"

I turned my back on her again. Stared very hard into darkness, trying to sort things out. She had changed everything. Altered the stakes. I had to regain my

footing. Had to find a new way of playing.

My turn to suck a breath. "What do I do now? What do I do, Del? Drive myself sandsick wondering about the truth?"

"No," she answered harshly. "What kind of life is that?"

I swung around. "Your kind," I told her. "You punish yourself with your life.

Shall I punish myself with mine?"

Del recoiled. Then swallowed visibly. "I only meant to give you a little peace."

All the anger died out of me. With it went the bitterness, leaving emptiness in

its place. "I know," I said. "I know. And maybe you have, bascha. I just don't

know it yet."

"Tiger," she whispered, "I'm sorry."

The moonlight was on her face. It hurt me to look at her.

"Go to bed," I said abruptly. "I've got to check on the stud."

The stud was tied all of four paces away. He was fine. He was asleep. He needed

nothing from me.

But Del didn't say a word.

Two

Iskandar was a child's toy: a pile of unfired clay blocks left too long in the

sun and rain. There were no corners left on the buildings, only rounded, slump-shouldered shells being transformed slowly to dust. Into the dirt and clay

and piles of shale from which the city had come.

"This is stupid," I said. "All these people, on the word of an unknown zealot,

are leaving behind their homes to come to a ruined city. And for all anyone knows, there isn't even any water."

Del shook her head. "There's water; too much green. And don't you think the jhihadi will provide if this is where he plans to return?"

Her tone was dry, ironic. A reflection of my own. Del believes in religion more

than I do--at least, in the worth of faith--and she had not, up to now, shown any intolerance for the predicted return. If anything, she had admonished me for

my cynicism, saying I should respect the beliefs of others even if they didn't

match my own.

But now, faced with Iskandar, Del wasn't thinking of faith. Nor even of religion. She was thinking of Ajani. She was thinking of killing a man.

And of the oaths to her own gods, far from Iskandar.

"Where's the border?" I asked. "You know all these things."

Which she did, better than I. Part of Del's training on Staal-Ysta was something

she called geography, the study of where places were. I knew the South well enough, particularly the Punja, but Del knew all sorts of different places, even

those she'd never been to.

"The border?" she echoed.

"Yes. The border. You know: the thing that divides North from South."

She slanted me a glance that said precisely nothing. Which meant it said a lot.

"The border," she said coolly, "is indiscernible."

"It's what?"

"Indiscernible. I can't tell where it is. The land is too--odd."

The stud stumbled. I dragged his head up, steadied him, let him walk on again.

"What do you mean: odd?"

Del waved an encompassing hand. "Look around you, Tiger. One moment we are in desert sand, the next in Northern grassland. Then another step into borderland

scrub; a fourth into wind-scoured stone."

"So?"

"So. It is one thing to ride from Julah to Staal-Ysta and see how the land changes... it is entirely another to see the same changes in the space of ten paces."

I hadn't really thought about it. But now that she mentioned it, the land did change a lot. So did the temperature. One moment it was hot, the next a tad bit

frosty. But one melted into the other and made it mostly warm.

We skirted, as did the track, the edge of a broad plateau. On our left rose the

foothills of the North; to our right, beyond the plateau, stretched scrubby borderlands that, if the eye could see so far, would flatten into desert.

Below

us, directly northeast, was another, smaller plateau. In the center, on the top,

stood the city of Iskandar.

It could not be characterized as a hilltop fortress, or even a desert city.

There were no walls, only buildings, with dozens of alleys and entrances.

Most

were cluttered with fallen adobe blocks, crumbling away into dust, but shale walls marked foundations, mortared together with dried, grassy mud.

Once, the ruins might have been majestic, markers of human pride. But humans had

returned, and the majesty was destroyed.

Iskandar was a warren overrun by desert vermin. There were carts, wagons, horses, danjacs, and countless human beasts brought to carry in the burdens.

Most had moved into the city, filling in all the chinks, but many had staked out

hyorts around the edges, creating little pocket encampments of desert dwellers

unwilling to mix with city rabble.

We halted our mounts at the edge of the plateau. The trail wound down, but we didn't look down. We looked across at the city.

"Tribes," I said succinctly.

Del frowned. "How can you tell? They look like everyone else."

"Not when you get up close; do I look much like a Hanjii?" I nodded toward Iskandar. "The tribes don't build cities. They won't live in them. Most of them

travel in carts and wagons, staking out hyorts when they stop a while. See?

That's what all those tents are, skirting the edges of the city."

"But they've just made their own city by all settling in one spot."

"Special circumstances." I shrugged as she glanced at me. "You don't find this

many tribes gathered together ever--at least, not without bloodshed. But if this

Oracle's got all of them stirred up, it will change things. They'll suffer one

another until the jhihadi question is settled."

Del looked down at the ruined city. "Do you think the Salset are there?"

Something tickled inside my belly. "I suppose it's possible."

"Would they come for the jhihadi?"

I thought about the shukar. The old man's magic had been failing, or he'd have

killed the cat and left me with no escape. Among the Salset, magic is religion-based; when magic doesn't work, the gods are looking away. They'd looked away from the shukar. Otherwise how could a mere chula kill the cat in the shukar's place?

I thought about Del's question. Would he bring them to Iskandar? If he thought

he needed to. If he thought it would bring him honor. If the old man was still

alive.

He had been a year before.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not. Depends on how things are going."

"You could see Sula again."

I gathered up my reins. "Let's go. There's no sense in staying here just to gaze

across the landscape."

Well, there wasn't. But I might have put it better.

Del turned the roan and headed down the trail winding off the plateau rim.

Down,

across, then up. And we'd be in Iskandar.

Where she might find Ajani at last.

The stud topped the final rise and took me onto the plateau where Iskandar jutted skyward. The trail, instead of narrow, was wide and well-rutted, showing

signs of carts and wagons. It wound around trees and close-knit bushes, then split into five fingers. Five smaller tracks leading toward five different parts

of the city, where they fractured yet again. Most didn't enter Iskandar. Most stopped at clusters of hyorts; at knots made of wooden wagons.

Which told me a thing or two.

"What is it?" Del asked as she put her roan next to me.

I frowned bemusedly at the hyorts. There were tens and twenties of them staked

between the plateau's edge and the city. It changed the look of the place.

Softened Iskandar's perimeter. Altered the lay of the land in more ways than one.

"Tribes," I said at last. "Too many, and too different."

"They have as much right here as anyone."

"I'm not questioning that. I'm wondering where it will lead."

"If there really is a jhihadi--"

"--he could be dangerous." I reined the stud around a goat standing in the middle of the track. "Too much power held by a single man."

Del also passed the goat. "And if he used it for good?"

I make a noise of derision. "Do you know anyone who holds that much power and uses it for good?" I shook my head. "I don't think it's possible."

"Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it can't exist. Maybe that's why

he's coming."

"If he's coming," I muttered.

Hyorts lined either side of the track. I smelled the pungent aroma of danjac urine. The tang of goat's milk and cheese. The almost overwhelming stench of too

many people--of too many customs--living too close to one another.

And this was outside of the city.

Del and I were hardly noticed. I didn't know how long some of the tribes had been camped here, but obviously long enough so that the sight of two strangers

was no longer worth comment. In the Punja, half a dozen of the tribes gathered

would have killed us on the spot, or taken us prisoner. But no one bothered us.

They looked, then looked away.

Looked away from Del.

I frowned. "There must be Northerners here."

"Why do you--oh. Oh, I see." Del glanced around. "If any are here, they must be

inside the city."

"It's where we're going," I said. "We'll know sooner or later, bascha; sooner--we're almost in."

And so we were. We passed through the last cluster of hyorts and wagons and entered Iskandar proper. No walls, no gates, no watch. Only open roads, and the

city.

The city and her new people.

Southroners, most of them. Fewer Borderers. A handful of towheaded Northerners,

head and shoulders above the rest. And goats and sheep and dogs and pigs running

loose through the streets of Iskandar.

I couldn't help grinning. "Doesn't much look the kind of place a long-awaited jhihadi might come back to."

"It smells," Del observed.

"That's because no one actually lives here. They don't care. They're only borrowing it for a while... they'll leave with the jhihadi."

"If the jhihadi leaves."

I guided the stud through a narrow alley. "Wouldn't make sense for him to stay.

Iskandar's a ruin. He might prefer a livable city."

"It could be made livable... Tiger, where are we going?"

"Information," I answered. "Only one place to get it."

Del's tone was dry. "I don't think there is a cantina."

"There probably is," I remarked, "but that's not where we're going. You'll see."

So she did, once we got there. And it wasn't a cantina, either. It wasn't one thing at all, but two: the well, and the bazaar.

In every settlement, the well is the center of town. It is where everyone goes,

because it is a necessity. Also an equalizer, especially in Iskandar where no tanzeer reigned. It was the only place in the city where all paths would cross.

Thus it becomes the bazaar. Where people go, they buy. Others had things to sell. Even in Iskandar.

"So many," Del exclaimed.

More than I expected. Stalls filled much of the central square and spilled into

adjoining alleys. There were vendors of all kinds, shouting at passersby. The whine of dij-pipes filled the air, keening in ornate Southron style, while street dancers jangled finger-bells and beat taut leather heads of tambor-drums.

They wound their way through the crowds, trying to scare up a coin or two, or lead customers back to the stalls of the merchants who'd hired them.

"It is," Del said. "It's just like a kymri."

But this was the South, not the North. We don't have kymri.

I reined in the stud. Before us lay the choked square. "No sense in riding through there," I said. "We'd do better to walk--hey!" The shout was to stop a

boy trying to squeeze by the stud. "You," I said more quietly. "Have you been here long?"

"A six-day," he answered, in Desert.

I nodded. "Long enough to know a little something about the place, then."

The boy smiled tentatively. Black-haired, dark-skinned, light-eyed.

Half-breed,

I thought. But I couldn't name the halves.

"How do we go about finding a place to sleep?" I asked.

The boy's eyes widened. "All around," he answered. "There are many, many rooms.

Many more rooms than people. Stay where you want." His eyes were on my sword hilt. "Sword-dancer?" he asked.

I nodded confirmation.

"Then you will want the circles." He waved a hand. "On the other side of the city. It's where all the sword-dancers are."

"All?"

"All," he repeated. "They come every day. That's where they all stay, to challenge one another so they can impress the tanzeers."

"And where are the tanzeers?"

The boy's quick smile flashed. "In the rooms that still have roofs."

Ah. Of course. In a ruin as old as Iskandar, timber would have rotted.

Dwellings

would be roofless, except for those with more than one story. Which was where the tanzeers would go.

So. The division of power began.

Boys often learn things other people don't. "How many?" I asked. "How many tanzeers?"

He shrugged. "A few. Not many yet. But they have brought sword-dancers with them... the rest they are hiring." His eyes were very bright. "You'll have no trouble finding work."

It didn't ring quite true. "And do you know why they're hiring so many of us?"

The boy shrugged. "Protection against the tribes."