Sword-Sworn

by Jennifer Roberson

  Silk was gazing at me, black wings of hair hanging loosely beside her face.

  “Thank you,” I said feelingly, and set down the sword again. Fouad had, of course, included aqivi along with food. For just a moment, though, I thought longingly of Umir’s excellent meals.

  “You are alone?” Silk asked.

  I nodded, realizing Fouad probably had said nothing of the circumstances. I sat down on the edge of the bed and dove into mutton stew in a bowl carved of hard brown bread.

  “Will you be wanting company tonight?”

  It stopped me cold. I looked at her over the spoonful of stew halfway through my mouth.

  “Ah,” she said, and the single word contained a multitude of emotions.

  “Wait,” I said as she turned to go. “Silk…” But I wasn’t sure what I’d meant to say.

  Her smile was sad. “It’s the Northern bascha.”

  I nodded. Her mouth twisted faintly. “All those years… we used to say you would never settle on one woman. But inwardly we all dreamed it might be one of us.” She gestured with one square hand. “Oh, I know—it wouldn’t be with a wine-girl. But even women like us have dreams, Tiger.”

  I felt vastly uncomfortable. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then say nothing. Know only that you were—and always will be—special to me.”

  I groped for comforting words. I’d never been very good at them. “There will be someone for you, Silk. Didn’t Fouad say one of the girls just left to get married?”

  She nodded solemnly. “But she was much younger than I, and not so coarse.”

  The best answer was suddenly a simple matter of speaking the truth. “If you were coarse,” I told her, “I would never have shared your bed.”

  After a moment, she said, “Thank you for that.”

  “I meant it.”

  She nodded and turned to go.

  “Silk!” I stabbed the spoon back into stew and stood up. It took a single pace for me to reach the doorway, and the woman.

  She wouldn’t look at me. I cupped her jaw, lifted her face, brushed away the tears with my thumbs. Then I bent and kissed her gently.

  No passion. No promise. She knew what it was. She knew what it meant. But still she twined arms around my neck and clung. My hands rested lightly on her hips. She smelled, as always, of wine and ale, and the faint undertang of the musky scent she wore.

  Silk broke the kiss even as I did. She raised her hands to my face, fingers scraping against stubble. She traced out the sandtiger scars. “Be careful,” she whispered, and the curtain billowed behind her as she left.

  No message came with news of Del’s whereabouts in Julah or that anyone had sighted Nayyib. Since I wasn’t sitting out front watching the world go by with liquor at my elbow, for a long while I paced the tiny room, fighting back a growing feeling of impatience coupled with desperation. Finally my body explained that it was tired even if my mind was not. I sat down on the bed for a while, spine propped against the adobe wall with my legs stretched out, and tried to invent logical reasons for Del’s absence.

  It was entirely possible that she was still at the lean-to. Except that it had been twelve days or more since Rafiq and his friends had hauled me off to Umir’s, and she ought to have recovered enough to be moved to Julah. Even if the stud hadn’t returned, the kid had a horse. He could easily have fashioned a litter using the limbs and canvas from the lean-to and brought her to a healer.

  They just kept going around and around in my head, all the possibilities. And the thoughts I didn’t want to think. I finally scooted down to lie on the bed, staring blankly at the wood-and-mud ceiling. Alric’s questions kept sifting to the forefront of my mind no matter how much I tried to ignore them. I cursed myself for it, cursed Alric, cursed Nayyib, cursed Rafiq, Umir, Musa, and the sandtiger who had attacked her.

  What would I do if I were alone in the world again?

  More than two years before when I had left Staal-Ysta, believing Del would die from the travesty I had made of her abdomen with my newly keyed jivatma, I had focused on the task of tracking down the hounds of hoolies and their master, to save the village of Ysaa-den. It had given me purpose. It had given me the chance to think about something other than Del, for fractions of moments.

  There was, now, nothing else to think about.

  I scrubbed at my stubbled face, stretching it out of shape. Then growled long and hard into my hands, needing to bleed off the tension. Finally I took the sword from beside the bed, set it on the bed between me and the wall, and closed my eyes. I did not expect to sleep. But my body had other ideas.

  I dreamed of Del, which was much improvement over the skeleton in the desert and the sword I was supposed to “take up.” I dreamed of Del in all her many guises, sparing no truths of her temperament. She could be cold and hard, faceted like Punja crystal, capable of killing at a moment’s notice. She could be sharp-tongued and short-tempered, and there were times her words wounded. But she could also be a soft touch when it came to baby animals and human children, ruthlessly fierce in her tenderness; and, despite a poor beginning among borjuni, passionate in bed. She was woman enough to drive me mad on occasion, because women did that to men; but she also took my breath away with the power of her pride and strength of will.

  Silk had said it for me as much as to me: I had never believed it likely I would settle on one woman. Unlike Alric, I wasn’t made for a wife and children. I wanted no ties. Nearly two decades as a Salset chula had taught me never to be owned by anyone again; and what was a husband but a man owned by his wife?

  Even Alric admitted Lena forbade him things. Who needs that?

  And then Delilah arrived in my life, as driven as I to prove herself, if for different reasons, and having no more interest in putting down roots than I did. Except for an enforced stay on Skandi and then time spent on the island off Haziz to regain fitness, we had never stopped moving.

  A sudden thought occurred: Now I was proposing to rebuild Alimat and take on students. Which would require me to stay put.

  No wonder everyone thought I was sandsick!

  I roused from sleep long enough to mutter something mostly incoherent about old men growing soft, then slid down again into the abyss.

  Where the bones and the sword waited.

  This time the skeleton wears flesh, and a face. It is Del, gazing at me out of empty sockets. A hand reaches, gestures. There, she seems to say, though her mouth does not move. There. Take up the sword.

  It lies just out of her reach, as if flung down or lost in battle. It is more than a sword, I see, but a jivatma, fashioned in the North of Northern rites. Yet it isn’t Boreal. Isn’t Del’s sword.

  It is mine. Samiel.

  “There,” she says, “take up the sword.”

  Sand drifts. Obscures the body. Carries flesh away. Bones remain. It isn’t Del anymore but the other woman.

  “Find me,” she says. “Find—”

  “—me,” I finished, and realized I was awake.

  The sword lay beside me, where I had placed it. Not Samiel, just the sword I’d bought in Haziz. It bore no runes, no Northern magic. Was nothing more than steel, with a leather-wrapped hilt.

  In the darkness, I lifted the sword. Closed one hand around it. Felt again the pressure of four fingers.

  Four, not three.

  I closed my other hand around it, resting the pommel against my abdomen so that the blade bisected air. And again, four fingers.

  After a moment I set the sword down beside me and inspected my hands. Felt two stumps where little fingers had lived.

  Find me, she had said. Take up the sword.

  Find who? What sword?

  “What in hoolies do you want?” I said. “And what am I supposed to do about it? If you want me to do something, you’ve got to give me more to go on!”

  Of course, then I felt utterly absurd for talking aloud to a dream. But I was getting more than a little tired of obscurity. I’ve always been a vivid dreamer
, but this was new. And already old.

  I considered the situation. I had fully intended to go to the fallen chimney formation to search for Samiel. Del and I were on our way there when the sandtiger had attacked. So if I was heading there anyhow, why would the dreams seem to be commanding me this way and that, like a recalcitrant child? And what did the dead woman have to do with any of it? There had been no one but Del and me in the chimney when Chosa Dei met Shaka Obre for the final time. We’d escaped. No one had been killed. What did my jivatma have to do with the skeleton?

  I sat up, planting my feet on the floor. Out of sorts, I scrubbed at mussed hair. I was bone-tired still, since sleep had brought me no rest. Finally I lighted the candle on the table, then bent down to dig through saddlepouches. I found Umir’s book and propped it on my lap as close to candlelight as possible.

  It was a plain, leather-bound book. No inset gemstones, gold or silver scrollwork, no burned-in knotwork designs that might set it apart from other books. I knew it was expensive; all books are expensive and owned only by the wealthy. But it didn’t look particularly special. The hinges and latch were made of tarnished copper, and time-darkened gut threaded the pages onto the spine. I wondered briefly if it was locked against me, but the latch opened easily enough. I turned back the cover and saw the first page: fine sheepskin vellum, scraped to a clean, level sheet. The first letter on the page was bigger than the rest, much more ornate, painted in remarkable colors. The print itself was plain black ink.

  I squinted at it in poor light. Before Meteiera, I hadn’t been able to read anything other than maps, since mostly those were made up of symbols denoting roads, mountains, water, rather than words. Words I’d never been able to sort out in my head, but I’d never really tried. Del could read, so I’d relied on her on the few occasions it mattered. Mostly, it didn’t. Then in ioSkandi, atop the spires, something had happened. Something had changed me. Not only could I read, but I comprehended languages I’d never before learned. I’d always had a few to hand—you just learn phrases over time—but now I knew them all. Fluently.

  I could read Umir’s book.

  Something deep in my belly fluttered. It wasn’t quite fear, nor was it excitement, nor, happily, was it nausea. Then I realized it was the first blossoming of anticipation.

  The Book of Udre-Natha was, supposedly, a grimoire containing spells, incantations, summonings, and other magical oddments. Umir had fancied himself a practitioner of the arcane arts, and indeed I’d seen him do a few tricks. But I had spent most of my life denying magic existed, so I’d paid little enough attention to such things. In time, I’d rather uneasily come to the conclusion that it did indeed exist, and some could even summon and manipulate it to almost any degree—as apparently I had managed to do once or twice. But I didn’t like to think about it.

  Certainly not in connection with me.

  I carefully turned the pages, noting colorful first letters throughout, and diagrams, drawings, even maps. The handwriting changed frequently, which suggested more than one man had written it. Though I could read the words, they spoke of many things unknown to me. It was a comprehension of parts without understanding the whole.

  Then, paging through, I came across a brief scribbled note saying something about some kinds of inborn magic coming to life late, residing unknown in the body and mind. That a man might live most of his life ignorant of his power until something kindled it. Then, suddenly beset by magic like a blind man given sight, he could react in one of several different ways. All of them seemed to entail some kind of danger to himself or to others.

  One line in particular caught my eye. Magic must be used, it said, as a boil must be lanced, lest it poison mind and body.

  Very familiar words. Sahdri had said something similar, as had Nihko.

  I wondered, then, if my unwillingness to use whatever power I supposedly had was causing the dreams. If I had locked my magic away somehow, was it now seeping out around the edges? Would it burst free unexpectedly one day, threatening me and others?

  Sahdri had said Skandic mages went mad from the magic, and that was why they exiled themselves to ioSkandi. That the discipline and devotions learned there in Meteiera could control the worst of the power when coupled with judicious use of it. But it was a finite period of control, because eventually every priest-mage merged with the gods. Of course, their idea of merging was actually self-murder, since they leaped off the spires. So I guess they really did go mad.

  I’d never thought of magic as a disease before, but the book sure made it sound that way.

  I read another line. Magic manifests itself in uncounted ways no one may predict, depending on the individual. But it is known that overuse of the power may kill the man, and denial of it after manifestation may also kill him.

  Oh, joy. Either way I could die.

  Ten years, Nihko had told me I had left. Possibly twelve. Not exactly what I call fair compensation for having magic in your blood.

  Sighing, I closed the book, fastened it, set it on the table. Blew the candle out. Went back to bed.

  This time I didn’t dream.

  SEVENTEEN

  FOUAD STARED at me. He wore brilliant orange this morning. “Are you sandsick?”

  My face got a little warm. “No.”

  “What in the names of all the gods for?”

  “The horse,” I muttered.

  In his eyes I saw all manner of thought. Likely none of them had to do with the sanity of one particular sword-dancer. “You want Silk’s tassels for your horse.”

  I stared down fixedly at the saddlepouches on the bar, picking at leather thongs. “Yes.”

  Amusement was replacing the incredulous note in his voice. “Are you sure this is not for yourself?”

  I glared at him. “No, it’s not for me!”

  He cocked his head thoughtfully, examining me. “I don’t know—you might look good with women’s tassels hanging from your—”

  “Never mind!”

  “—neck,” he finished, grinning.

  “He has blue eyes,” I explained.

  Fouad reverted to surprise. “A blue-eyed horse? In the desert?”

  “I know! I know! Just get the tassels, Fouad. And if you’ve got any charcoal and axle grease, I’ll take that, too. Mixed.”

  “Also for your horse?”

  This time I leveled my most threatening sandtiger’s glare at him, and he flung his hands into the air. “All right! All right. I’ll get charcoal and axle grease. Mixed.”

  I watched him turn away. “What about Silk’s tassels?”

  “Oh, you can get those yourself!”

  “But—” But. He was gone.

  Swearing inventive oaths having to do with Fouad’s nether parts and the decreasing amount of time he would retain them, I swung the pouches over one shoulder and went back through the curtain. I didn’t know which room was Silk’s, which was probably intentional on Fouad’s part. So at each curtained doorway I had to stop, ease the fabric aside and peer in, hoping I wouldn’t awaken anyone. After a late night of entertaining various dusty and lusty males just in from the desert, Fouad’s wine-girls wouldn’t exactly enjoy me waking them up this early.

  Fortune followed me until I found the correct room. As I eased aside the curtain, looking for a string of crimson tassels, I discovered the owner of the tassels in the midst of a morning stretch. She stood in the middle of her little room, nude, arching her back with arms outstretched. A long, luxurious, languorous stretch. When a woman does that with her back, other parts of her body shift forward.

  I realized, as my face got warm, that once upon a time I wouldn’t have been embarrassed. But somehow that had altered when I hooked up with Del. I guess maybe you don’t have to get married for a woman to start changing your perspective about naked women who are not the woman who’s doing the changing.

  Not a happy thought, I reflected glumly.

  Silk’s eyes sprang open. I yanked my head back and shut the curtain hastily, then cur
sed myself for behaving like a green boy who’d never been with a woman.

  “Tiger?”

  She had seen me. My face warmed again. “Yes?”

  Silk now stood at the doorway, curtain pulled around her body. The long black hair was a tangle spilling over her shoulders. Brows lifted, she waited for me to explain myself.

  I floundered my way ahead. “I know this sounds strange… but could I buy your tassels?”

  Black brows arched higher. “My tassels?”

  I pointed self-consciously. “Those tassels. The red ones.”

  She glanced back over a naked shoulder, marked tassels, then looked at me. “For her?”

  “Her?” It took me a moment, but I got there. “No, not for Del! For my horse.” Which I realized, as soon as I said it, didn’t sound particularly complimentary. At least Del was a human. I floundered on as quickly as possible. “He’s white. And blue-eyed. He needs shielding from the sun.”

  Silk eyed me a long moment, her expression curiously blank. Then she dropped the curtain and padded naked to the table where the tassels lay. When she turned around again, swinging the tassels on one finger, there was no attempt to cover herself. In fact, she was doing her best to display everything. I cleared my throat, averted my eyes, and busied myself digging through pouches for coins.

  She appeared in front of me, offering the tassels. “No charge.”

  I looked up, wished I hadn’t. “Why no charge?”

  “Because I will have my payment over and over again,” she explained sweetly, “each time I imagine you telling your Northern bascha that you got these tassels from me. And what I was wearing when you got them.”

  Hoolies. Women!

  I muttered thanks through gritted teeth, grabbed the tassels out of her hand, and got myself back to the front room as quickly as possible. Fouad, straight-faced, handed me a small pot of grease mixed with charcoal.