Sword-Singer

by Jennifer Roberson

  So he was. Against the clouds, against the rain, he was nearly invisible. He flicked a hand and was gone, but I heard the thread of a whistle.

  “Followsong, again?”

  “You’re catching on, Southron.”

  I went after the little man, wary of the hidden canyon. It would be incredibly easy to miss a step simply because clouds blurred the edge, creeping insidiously across the ground to merge earth and sky with themselves. They clung to trunks and earth, filling the spaces in between and lingering in the treetops.

  “Gods,” Del whispered behind me, “I’d forgotten how beautiful.”

  “He’s gone again, bascha.”

  “That’s what the followsong’s for.”

  “I don’t like it, Del.”

  “You don’t like anything.”

  Hoolies. There was no sense in talking to her. She was sandsick, or maybe cloudsick; her loyalties had changed.

  I kept walking, leading the stud, not looking at the cloudbank. It rolled and wisped and caressed, reaching out to touch my face. It made me want to shudder, but I didn’t do it in front of Del.

  Not that she could have seen; the clouds were like a shroud.

  Even I’ll admit it, the Cantéada’s followsong was incredibly compelling. I marched along, resolutely avoiding the edge of the canyon, and felt myself locked in place. As if I knew the way as well as I knew myself, which struck me as odd; who really knows himself? At any rate, I was caught. Which probably was just as well; when the ground suddenly sloped downward without warning, I didn’t panic. I didn’t even hesitate. I just kept on walking.

  “Magic, huh, Del?” The ground continued to drop.

  “He’s taking us into the canyon.”

  “Is this the way you came out?”

  “Yes. Only then there were no clouds; I could see the way easily.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. Del was mostly blocked by the stud, who ambled between us, but I could see her walking steadfastly through the shreds. It looked like fog to me.

  She smiled. Damp hair swung forward, slapping against her shoulders. She was as wet as I, but obviously less bothered. Her gait was smooth and unforced, conspicuously free of tension. She even hummed a little, echoing the lilting tune. Her face was alight with contentment.

  Hoolies. I’m going to lose her.

  Twenty-six

  I could see next to nothing except my boots and maybe a foot in front of them. Everything else was fog or clouds or some other conjured stuff.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “Here I am in a place I have no business being, following a little spit-colored man with blue fingernails who sings to show us the way.” I let that sink in a minute. It didn’t make any more sense aloud than it did in my mind. “Hoolies, I must be sandsick.”

  As if on cue, the clouds lifted entirely and we were done with climbing down, having reached the bottom at last.

  I stopped so short the stud walked into me and banged his nose against my shoulder. But I didn’t pay any attention, I didn’t even move—except to turn my head—as Del caught up and slipped by me.

  “What is this place?” I asked, though it was mostly of myself.

  “The home of the Cantéada.”

  She had stopped not far from me, turning to watch my astonishment. She was smiling, if only a little, pleased to see my reaction.

  Well, it was an honest one. Now that the clouds had lifted I could see the canyon clearly, and what I saw was amazing.

  The walls were very sheer, jutting straight up from the canyon floor. The stone was mostly gray, flecked with chips of black and white, but richer colors cascaded from top to bottom. The walls were sharply cut and pocked by massive natural shelves, as canyons often are, each hollowed shelf packed with moss and grass and dirt. But this canyon differed. Each shelf spilled a fall of flowers and vines, all tangled against the stone. Reds and blues and purples, dappled canary and copper and lime.

  I looked up at the sky. Cloud/fog still blocked the sun, but had lifted out of the canyon, clogging higher ground. I couldn’t see the top, where I had nearly walked off the edge of the world.

  “Nice coverage,” I remarked. “No wonder no one believes they really exist; they hide themselves down here.”

  “They have reason,” Del said. “If they didn’t, men would try to steal their magic, or make them use it for selfish reasons.”

  The canyon itself was fairly small. It was a trap-canyon much as the other had been, although larger, and as pocked with hollows and holes, including the flower-box shelves.

  I glanced back up the path we’d come down. Was glad I hadn’t seen it, buffered by fog and cloud. It was a narrow, switch-backed trail not much wider than a horse.

  The followsong had stopped. The songmaster, or whatever he was, had disappeared. But I was still aware of a quiet humming, a thread of a sound that was unobtrusive but still evident, like the buzz of bees on a summer day, though considerably more melodic.

  “What’s that noise?” I asked.

  “Wardsong,” Del told me. “Keeping the hounds at bay.”

  Someone shouted my name. I turned, frowning, and saw Cipriana popping free of a hole in the canyon wall like a stopper from a bottle. The hole also disgorged Massou, Adara and, eventually, Garrod.

  Cipriana ran right up to me, making indications she wanted to hug me; I sort of slid out of it by pretending the stud was fractious and turned her enthusiasm aside. Del stood there smiling, half-amused, half-resigned, and didn’t move to help, being disposed merely to watch.

  Luckily, the stud picked that moment to be fractious, so my make-believe wasn’t make-believe anymore, and I had to tend him closely to keep him under control.

  Massou said something nasty, rubbing the place on his shoulder where the stud had bitten him.

  “Then stay back,” I told him, half-distracted by the stud but also annoyed by the boy’s continuing bad humor. “It’s sort of obvious he doesn’t like you; you may as well just accept that fact and leave him alone. Egging him on won’t help.”

  Garrod stood behind Adara’s left shoulder, pale braids hanging to his waist. His fair-skinned face was pinched as he watched me with the stud, and I recalled he had lost all of his mounts. I couldn’t really blame him for resenting me for keeping mine.

  The stud bared teeth, raised a threatening hind hoof, pinned tipped ears flat back. Brown eyes rolled; he was glaring at Adara.

  I sighed, thumbing the lip away from my ear. “Look—let me get him settled and then we can talk. We have to decide what we’re going to do.”

  “Go north,” Cipriana said promptly. “Aren’t you taking us to Kisiri?”

  I shot a quick glance at Del. She masked her face as the girl spoke, but I saw the tension in her mouth. More delay, I knew, would not be tolerated.

  “Like I said, let me get him settled. Is there a place I can put him?”

  Massou shrugged. “The Cantéada don’t have horses.”

  “Well, then, I’ll just stake him out. There’s plenty of grazing here.” I knew better than to ask Massou to find a good spot; the stud, provoked, would probably try to bite again.

  “Let me.” It was Garrod, moving out from behind Adara. “He’s upset, and you are adding to the problem.”

  “Am I really? I think I know my own horse.”

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” Garrod put out a hand.

  I considered it. Wondered if Garrod was the type of man who, having lost something, wanted others to lose it as well. He had ridden with Ajani, he might be a vengeful man.

  “Tell you what,” I said lightly, “let’s both go.”

  Del pointed across the canyon to the hole. “We’ll be there.”

  I nodded, turning to lead the stud away. Garrod followed, watching the stud move with an attentive eye. I heard him click tongue against teeth in dismay as he saw the tears and teethmarks in hocks and flanks, the wounds on shoulders and belly.

  “Hard-used,” he muttered.

  �
��No choice,” I told him flatly. “If I’d stopped, they would have had him.”

  “As they had my horses.” His tone hardened. “Except for the one she killed.”

  I stopped, unlooped the stake and picket rope, bent to push the stake into the ground. Stepped on it to anchor it. “She did it to try and save our lives,” I said evenly, examining my weary horse. “And it did slow them. Maybe just enough to let Del get up the wall…but I guess you’d prefer that she had died.”

  Garrod’s tone was bitter. “She accuses me of murder. Of killing families.”

  “You rode with Ajani.”

  “I sold horses to Ajani! Who is to say that’s wrong? I am trying to make a living.”

  “So is Del,” I said. “What’s left of her life, that is.”

  Garrod watched me in strained silence as I bent, lifted a foreleg, used my knife to carefully cut away mud, inspected hoof and shoe. Braid beads rattled; he was shredding bits of hair.

  “She says Ajani killed her kin.”

  “He did. He and his men.”

  “I was not there.”

  “But you do know Ajani.” I set the hoof down, moved to the other foreleg.

  “I have traded with him, yes. I don’t kill people.”

  “But you provide horses to those who do.” I cleaned the hoof, pried a stone loose. “And do you also buy from Ajani the horses he steals from families?”

  Garrod was conspicuously silent.

  I lowered the hoof, straightened, looked at him across the stud’s back. “I think she is well within her rights to distrust and dislike you. You and men like you make Ajani’s trade possible.”

  “And you?” he accused. “Are you better, either one of you? Hiring out your swords to whomever has money to buy you?” He spat at the ground. “How many men have you killed in the circle? How many men have given up their lives to you in the ritual of the dance? Does it make it pretty? Does it make it right? Does it make you feel powerful?” Pale eyes were angry, hard and cold as ice. “I have killed men in my life, men who have sought to cheat me or steal from me or have forced me into a fight. I am not Ajani; I don’t kill or steal families. But neither am I you; I don’t step into a circle and hold myself above the rights of other men, justified by a jivatma.”

  I had not for some time thought about my life. It was what I was and did: sword-dancer for hire. If you think about what you do and question why you do it, it gets in the way of things. It makes you wonder why you bother to live at all. And that’s deadly in my profession.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry about your horses, but provoking me won’t bring them back.”

  His face was tight. “I’m a horse-speaker; it matters. But that’s not why I say this now. I say this now because I am accused of doing things I have never done, nor have a wish to do. I am not a murderer.”

  “She has reason,” I repeated.

  “To her way of thinking, no doubt; it’s easy to justify. But I think she is warped. I think she is twisted and warped and misshapen, all bound up by a need for revenge that eats at her soul like a canker.”

  “Just because you two don’t get along—”

  He shook his head so violently the braids flopped against his chest. “I’m speaking of other things. I’m a horse-speaker: I know things of the emotions. Things of men’s and women’s emotions, which are not so different from horses, when reduced to needs such as the one driving her.” He paused, took a steadying breath, put out a hand and touched the stud. “I dismiss none of Ajani’s actions; he is a ruthless, cold-hearted bastard. But she should look at her own actions. Is she so very different?”

  I felt a flicker of anger. “If you’d survived the sort of hoolies she did—if you’d lived through what she did—”

  “—undoubtedly I would be warped as well.” Garrod nodded. “But she did survive; she lived through Ajani’s raid. Why let him triumph now by shaping her into a woman who has no kindness, no mercy; a blade without a name?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Blade without a name,” he repeated. “A thing of Staal-Ysta.” His mouth twisted a little. “Ask her,” he said. “Ask her if she’s a blade without a name. Ask her if her song has an ending.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “No? Ask her. Ask her what I have said. And tell her—” He paused. “Tell her even an upland horse-speaker has heard of Staal-Ysta, and the honor codes of the voca.”

  I sighed. “Garrod—”

  He cut me off with a shake of his head. “No more of this, sword-dancer. Go and see your woman. Let me tend your horse. It is something I can do.”

  Eventually, I let him, and went to see my woman.

  No, not mine; I went to see Delilah.

  Twenty-seven

  In the South, I’m used to ducking down to enter low doors because I’m taller than most Southroners. In the North, where men are routinely as tall as I am, I don’t have to do it as much. This time, though, I did. I nearly had to crawl.

  The canyon walls, I discovered, were honeycombed with holes. The largest ones were at the very bottom, half-buried in the ground to form an arched opening. This, in turn, formed half-tunnels into the rock, which led into bigger caves. It was a unique way of living, but I wasn’t thrilled by it.

  I bent down outside the hole. “Del?” It echoed into darkness.

  I waited. No answer. So, sighing, I bent down very low and ducked into the opening.

  Not a lot better here. I couldn’t stand up straight. “Hoolies, I feel like an old man.”

  The tunnel extended farther on. I pushed my way through, bumping head and scraping shoulders, twisted sideways, pulled free, discovered the tunnel ceiling was higher here. But the side walls were hardly wider than my shoulders.

  It hit me then. Sweat broke out, and trembling, and I tasted the metallic flavor of fear in my mouth.

  The walls closed in, and suddenly I was back in Aladar’s mine. No chains weighed me down, but recollections did. And they were all incredibly clear.

  The tanzeer had robbed me of months. The months had robbed me of me.

  Oh, hoolies, will I never forget?

  Forcibly, I collected myself. Looked ahead at the tunnel, knowing Del was not so far. And managed to go on.

  “Little men,” I muttered. “Little men build little homes.”

  I walked on carefully in muted illumination that filtered in from the canyon behind me. The walls were gray but glittery, catching some of the light. The passage itself was short, for which I was thankful, and opened rather abruptly into another archway. Beyond, the light was quite good.

  Shadows stroked the archway. Del’s head appeared. “This way,” she said. “Watch out for your head.”

  I grunted, bent, climbed through. And stopped to gawk, for the cave was more like a cavern.

  Candleight. Lanterns. Bright bits of glass and polished metal. I saw beakers, amphorae, cups, bowls, platters, all made of polished metal. Not silver, not copper, not gold. Not anything I’d seen.

  I squinted. The motion of my entrance caused the candleflames to gutter, throwing back glints of light. “Some house, bascha.”

  “This is the songmaster’s home,” Del said. “He’s hosting us for the night.”

  I glanced around. There were rugs and blankets, leather furniture, wooden flutes and pipes, other things made of reeds or carved from gourds. Even some made of mud with finger holes carved in hollow bellies, or small drums with heads stretched tight.

  I spread inquisitive hands. “Well—where is he? I haven’t seen any of these Cantéada since I reached the bottom.”

  “Songcircle,” Del answered. “Everyone meets to discuss things; I think they’re discussing us.”

  “Private, I take it.”

  “Very.”

  I had not expected privacy in the cave, much as I wanted it, which was just as well. Already Adara and Cipriana were rising to make me welcome. The ceiling arched high overhead, swept down to meet the floor. Some
one had painted the walls with muted pigments: melon, magenta and teal, offset with a trace of lilac. The patterns flowed together like the runes on Del’s sword, line after fluid line, knot after tangled knot. Enough to confuse the eye.

  Del saw my frown of incomprehension. “Music,” she said, smiling. “I can tell you more later; right now we should discuss what lies ahead.”

  Cipriana stood very close to me. “We’ll go on, won’t we?” she asked. “Go on to Kisiri?”

  “No horses,” Massou said, staying behind in a tangle of blankets.

  His sister shrugged and tossed back loose blonde hair. “Garrod can get us horses.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “maybe not. Things are different, now.”

  In the glow of candles and lanterns, Adara’s hair was bronze. “How different?” she asked. “Will you forsake us after this?”

  Oh, hoolies. Now we were forsaking.

  Del’s tone was carefully neutral. “Tiger and I must go on.”

  “No!” It was Massou, tearing free of his blankets to run and catch Del’s hand. “You can’t leave us behind!”

  She didn’t try to disengage, but I saw the tension in her stance. “We have to go on,” she repeated. “Time is running out. Tiger and I must take a shorter route through the Heights. Kisiri will be out of our way.” The cave squashed voices and flattened tones. It made her sound harsher than ever.

  “You’re just jealous,” Cipriana accused. “You’re just afraid he’ll decide he wants me instead of you.”

  Visibly, Del collected her patience. “No man owns a woman; no woman owns a man. Tiger does as he pleases.”

  Cipriana was adamant. “And if it pleased him to take me?”

  Oh, hoolies. Gods keep me from jealous women!

  Still, I felt a flicker of deep-seated pleasure. Del, Cipriana, Adara. Three women for one man, and all of them willing women.

  Then again, maybe two. Del was still loki-spooked.

  Which, rather abruptly, made me testy. “Enough,” I said shortly. “Sit down and we’ll hash this out.” They sat, even Del, taking places on pelts and rugs. I remained standing, avoiding commitment entirely. “We are guests for the night of these people. Come morning we’ll leave the canyon.” I thought briefly of the hounds, clustering in clouds to wait at the edge of the world. “We have one horse: mine; Del and I will ride him.”