Sword Born ss-5

by Jennifer Roberson

  "She would expect you to take them."

  "And Herakleio?"

  Del lay very still beside me. "The first ten times you and he spar with live steel, be very careful."

  "And the eleventh?"

  "By the eleventh, either he will have acknowledged that you will always defeat him…"

  "Or?"

  "Or you will be dead."

  In a matter of ten days, Herakleio had learned he had the body, the reflexes, the power, to be what I was. In a matter of moments, in the face of the metri’s announcement that I was her grandson, he had learned he needed the mind and determination as well as the body. Because he believed now the metri favored me, and the only way he might regain that favor was not to replace me, but to become me.

  The implications of this conviction astonished me. Not the motivation — the metri played us all like counters on a board; not the impetus — she had moved him to precisely this position on that board. But that he understood and acknowledged what it was she wanted of the game, and that she justified her approach because she believed it required.

  And it astonished me also that he accepted it instead of railing against it as a spoiled godling might.

  Herakleio may not have believed in her certainty for himself. But clearly he had done more than merely exist in the metri’s household; he had learned her mind. Until now, apparently, he had never attempted to invoke and employ that knowledge. Until now, apparently, he had never felt the need.

  Beyond the mechanics of technique, a sword-dancer is not required to know why an opponent moves the way he moves. Only that he does move, only when he will move, so he may anticipate and counter that move, or remove the potential for it before the idea of the move exists within the opponent’s mind.

  Herakleio asked for Del. He did it with premeditation, and with a deliberate shrewdness I hadn’t anticipated. My opponent had won the initial pass; my first move was countered before it occurred to me I might need to make it.

  He asked for Del not because he believed it would hurt me if he believed she was better — he was, surprisingly, less petty than he was clever — but because Del of anyone in the world knew best how to fight me. Knew best how to defeat me.

  This move made him better than clever, and therefore dangerous.

  I’d made the mistake of not judging Herakleio shrewd enough to see the option. I did not make the mistake of assuming he’d offer no contest if it came to a dance with the Stessa legacy on the line, nor did I make the assumption he could not win. Because on any day, in any circle, any man might win.

  Or woman.

  Abbu Bensir, on our first day in the training circle beneath the implacable eye of the shodo of Alimat, had made such assumptions about a boy with fewer than twenty years to his twenty-five; with weeks at Alimat when Abbu boasted years; with a wooden blade in a hand that had not yet wielded steel.

  Abbu Bensir had lost that dance and nearly his life.

  While I, in disbelief as the man lay choking from a partially crushed throat, asked what manner of magic had stood in my place, because surely there was no other way I might have defeated Abbu.

  The shodo, an immensely patient and practical man, had upon the instant lost all patience and told me in no uncertain terms the only magic any man needed was that of his mind and heart; that no other existed, lest he weaken that mind and heart by setting crutches beneath them.

  From that day forward the only magic in my life had been pure skill, determination, and the technique to employ both using the context I understood: I was born to and of the sword, and no other power would ever control me beyond my ability to use the sword.

  I didn’t believe Herakleio could defeat me. But neither had Abbu believed I could defeat him.

  And so I won the second pass, because I accepted as truth what another might, in disbelief, name falsehood. I would not be defeated by an accident of misassumption, but by carefully constructed design, correct execution — and luck.

  Technique, timing, talent. Two could be taught, refined. One could only be born. But talent without focus, without determination, without obsessive need, is wild, unchanneled, and therefore diluted. Easier to be defeated. Easier to succumb to the ravages of emotion, of excess passion, instead of controlling and using the power that could fuel technique and timing.

  Del, who had more insight about people than anyone I knew, was training Herakleio. Del, who had an even greater insight into the workings of my technique, timing, and talent, was teaching Herakleio how to comprehend and counter all three.

  And unlike anyone else, he had the physical tools to do it.

  Unlike anyone else save Del. Who had done it once in a circle on Staal-Ysta, even as I had done it to her in the self-same circle.

  We were a long time removed from that circle and the circumstances that put us into it. But the bones remembered. The flesh recalled. The mind retreated from the brutal honesty of that dance, because in its unyielding purity it had nearly killed us both.

  And each day, as Herakleio learned from Del, he also learned from me. It was a task set before me by the woman who was, she said, my grandmother; who wanted to put into her place the man best suited to it; who believed the acceptance and execution of the task marked a boy’s passage into manhood. Herakleio and I, nearly two decades apart in age, were nonetheless children in the eyes of the woman who was agelessness incarnate. And in the completion of the task, we each of us would have embraced her convictions if for differing reasons: Herakleio to prove he was worthy of her place; and me to prove he was worthy of her place.

  It wasn’t me she wanted. It wasn’t me she needed. Herakleio was and always would be both. And therefore Del taught him, and therefore I taught him, so that on the day we met in the circle it would be a proper dance according to the honor codes that lived in our own souls.

  I knew of men who would swear I was mad to teach my opponent. But if I didn’t, if I merely watched him learn, I learned his abilities without offering him the same opportunity in return. That was dishonest. If I taught him with intent to sabotage his efforts, that was dishonest. Because I was already better. And the shodo had taught me to be honest in all things to do with the dance.

  I knew of men who would blister Del with oaths and suggest she depart at once. But I didn’t do either, because that, too, was dishonest. Del made her own decisions. Her honor was unassailable; it was one of the things I most admired and respected about her. And my honor — as elaii-ali-ma, as borjuni, as a Southron ikepra — was nonexistent.

  In the circle, the sword-dancer with the mind that sees and creates potentials, that manufactures opportunity, is the one who wins. Anyone may kill another by stealth, by deception. But only one who invokes the honesty of the circle may call himself a sword-dancer. Because it was the circle and its inherent codes that bound our souls. No one who stepped inside could deny that, because the circle was the arbiter of our survival.

  The dance Herakleio and I undertook would be honest in the extreme, because though I had the advantage of years of training and experience, he had the advantage of a peculiarly dangerous truth.

  If Herakleio won, he won. If Herakleio lost, he won.

  If I lost, I died.

  Because I wouldn’t kill Herakleio, but I believed he would kill me. And so my next move was obvious.

  I stood up from the terrace wall and asked Del to halt their current exercise. It was afternoon, we were slick with sweat. Del had bound her hair back into its habitual braid, and Herakleio had tied a length of leather around his brow so wind-blown locks would not obscure his vision.

  I nodded at Del, smiling, and offered a blade to Herakleio. A steel blade.

  Once he’d have shut his hand on the hilt immediately. Now he waited. "Why?" he asked warily.

  I hitched a shoulder lazily. "Only so much you can learn with wood. After a while you get complacent. Bruises sting, but they don’t kill."

  He nodded his head at Del. "Then she will show me."

  I shoved
the pommel of the sword into his flat belly. "Take it, boy."

  It stung, as I meant it to. Color stained his face. Anger brightened his eyes as he took it as I intended: with simmering contempt. "So, you will skulk around for table scraps and wait for the metri to die no matter how long it takes."

  I shrugged again. "Not like I’m a total stranger. I am her grandson."

  "Herakleio," Del said sharply. "Be aware of what he’s doing."

  I shot her a glance that told her to back off. Del scowled back, telling me she refused. Herakleio, for his part, stared at me angrily, then shut his hand around the hilt. He settled the matter for us by turning to set the blade onto the tile in the center of the terrace.

  "Stop it," Del hissed at me. "This is too soon."

  "He can stop it if he wants."

  "You’re making it impossible!"

  "All it requires is a little self-control." I saluted her with my blade. "Care to step out of the way?"

  "Tiger —"

  "Go," Herakleio told her. Then, belatedly, "Please?"

  It was the first polite word I’d heard out of the boy. Del was no more happy for his request than she was with my suggestion, but she got out of the way.

  Herakleio stood a pace from the sword he’d set upon the tile. "Well?"

  I stepped to his blade, then on it. And set the tip of mine against his throat. "First mistake," I said. "You assumed this was a dance."

  He lifted his chin, stretching flesh away from the steel. I let the tip drift idly up to follow. "This is how it begins," he declared. "I watched you and the woman!"

  "That was a dance," I told him. "This is not. This is a lesson."

  "Lesson —" he began furiously.

  I hooked a foot beneath his sword, scooped it upward, caught and deflected it directly at Herakleio. He was quick enough to catch it, but in the doing of it he incurred a scratched throat from my blade. Blood trickled in a thin ribbon of crimson.

  I smiled, stepped away a single pace. "Now," I said gently, and set to with my sword.

  It took very little time. Very little effort. He had a firm enough grasp not to lose the sword at once, but there was no grace in his movements, no technique in answer to mine, merely desperate self-preservation. I chased him across the terrace, against the wall, over the wall and a good ten paces beyond before I finally took pity on him and ended it with a trap that broke his guard, caught the sword, snatched it out of his hands. I stood there before the panting young man with a hilt in each of my hands, both tips coyly resting on his shoulders. On either side of his neck.

  "Lesson," I said. "Two swords are better than one. And if you can’t keep yours, be certain the other man will take it."

  Without waiting for his response I lifted the blades from his shoulders and turned to go; stopped briefly as I saw the woman on the terrace but a pace or two away. I heard Herakleio’s hiss of humiliation; he knew she had seen the ease of his defeat.

  I met the woman’s eyes steadily. "Your move, metri."

  She understood. She knew now that I knew. And it altered the strategy.

  "Go," she bade me. "Herakleio and I have something to discuss."

  I’ll just bet they did. I raised eyebrows at Del, who turned and preceded me into the house as the metri and her kinsman discussed the repercussions of abject defeat.

  THIRTY

  Del had the grace to wait until we were on the threshold of our room. "He is good, isn’t he?"

  "Oh, yes." I smeared a forearm against my forehead beneath a shock of too-long hair. "And getting better in a hurry. Why else do you think I did it?"

  She nodded. "Scare tactics."

  "A little intimidation is good for the soul. It makes you cautious before complacency can set in." I set the swords atop the linens chest, then took up the waterjar set on a small tiled table and unstoppered it.

  Del waited until I was halfway through a swallow. "And sets back his training so you have more time to hone your edge."

  I choked, turned away lest I lose control of the spray and soak her with it. Once I’d completed the swallow, I managed, "That obvious, am I?"

  "Not to him; he doesn’t know you well enough." She shook her head. "I didn’t expect this of him, this attention to detail. Not yet." She paused. "If ever."

  I handed her the jar. "And here we are so nicely helping him along."

  She drank, handed it back. Her eyes were guileless. "You are not Abbu, Tiger, so full of complacency you forget to be cautious. And Herakleio is not you. He won’t take you by surprise."

  "You just never know what anyone…" But I let it go as the echoing sound of voices intruded. Vigorous, unhappy voices just this side of anger and full of throttled consonants and hissing sibilants, trying not to shout.

  "Prima Rhannet," Del said.

  "And Nihko Blue-head." I turned toward the open door to listen more closely; not that it mattered, since I couldn’t understand them anyway. The voices grew louder briefly, then fell away as if the captain and her first mate had moved from the hallway to another room.

  "Discord," Del said, "And unsubtle."

  "Subtle enough even if audible," I retorted. "Neither of us speaks Skandic."

  "Others here do."

  I shrugged. "Then I guess everyone but you and I knows what the quarrel is all about."

  Del sat down on the edge of the bed. "But there was one word I did understand. A name."

  "Sahdri." I nodded. "Wouldn’t you like to be a mouse in the floorboards?"

  Del said dryly, "Only if I was a mouse who spoke Skandic."

  I smiled. "I know a mouse who speaks Skandic. A mouse who also speaks a language I can understand. I think maybe it’s time I paid a visit to the person who is truly in charge of the household."

  Del frowned. "You think the metri will tell you?"

  I paused on the threshold. "Not the metri. She only gives the orders. Someone else entirely makes things work."

  I tracked down Simonides in a tiny suite of rooms, numbering two. A petite sitting room, a room beyond holding a bed. It was a spare, unadorned chamber of little exuberance but much meticulous tidiness, like the man himself.

  If he was startled to find me on his doorstep, he made no indication. But a family servant knows how to express no emotions at all unless he is bidden to do so, and I was not the metri to bid him to do anything.

  I had come full of questions, full of demands for explanations. But now that I was here, I hesitated. Even as Simonides gestured invitation and stepped aside to allow me entry, I could not cross the threshhold.

  A slave’s privacy is hard-won. I had claimed none of my own among the Salset, except for inside my head. This man had a place within the household, and rooms within the rooms. I robbed him of that privacy with my presence.

  He read my face, as a good slave will do. One learns to survive by recognizing what even a blink portends, the slight tilting of the head or the tension in the mouth. He knew what I was thinking. And for that reason, his second welcome was warm.

  This time I stepped across. This time I was more than a guest in the house, or even the metri’s heir.

  He set out a bowl of fruit, a small jar of wine, two shallow dishes. Poured them full, then motioned me to drink. I raised my dish in tribute to his courtesy, then sipped the vintage grown on the metri’s lands. It was very good wine.

  I told him then what I had come for, what had provoked my curiosity. He listened in silence, making no attempt to answer before he understood precisely what I wished to know, and why. And when I was done giving him all my reasons, he told me what he could.

  It wasn’t enough. But it was a beginning.

  It took a while to hunt her up, but eventually I found Del in the bathing pool. I couldn’t remember a time when either of us had spent so many consecutive days in the water — especially considering I couldn’t swim — but I’d discovered it was a pleasant way to pass the time. Being clean was nothing to scoff at, but hanging about in warm water was far more relaxing than I�
��d ever contemplated.

  Too bad the South didn’t have enough water to build bathing pools like this.

  Then again, wasn’t my idea for channeling water from places it was to places it wasn’t the means to afford us such luxury?

  Hmm. Worth considering, that.

  I added my clothing to Del’s heap of same and stepped over the edge, trying not to splash too much. My skin contracted at the first touch of warm water, then relaxed. It felt good.

  It felt wonderful.

  Maybe I needed to learn how to swim.

  Del, who had elbows hooked over the side and her chin resting atop flattened palms, turned her head to speak over her shoulder. "Well?"

  I leaned back in the water, wishing I could float the way she could. But that required the ability to lift one’s foot off the bottom without immediately sinking. "loSkandi is an island a half-day’s sail from here. The only people who live there are the priest-mages, like Sahdri."

  "And Nihko."

  "The ’Stone Forest’ is what people call Meteiera, a place on the island full of great stone spires. The priest-mages live in and on the spires, in caves and nooks and crannies, or in dwellings built on top."

  "On top?"

  "On top."

  "How do they get up there?"

  "I don’t know."

  "What do they do there?"

  "That I know: worship and serve the gods," I answered, "and grow crops and raise livestock, and —"

  "On top of the spires?"

  "The worship-and-serve part takes place on top of the spires. The growing-crops and raising-livestock part takes place down below, in the valley."

  She shrugged. "Sounds peaceful enough."

  I went on with my unfinished line of discussion. "— and otherwise examine, learn, refine, and implement the magic that makes them mad."

  "Oh," Del said.

  "It kills them eventually, according to Simonides. The madness — and magic — manifests at a particular age, and while they can learn to control both, it’s only for a while. Maybe ten years. Eventually the madness wins, and they die."

  "Just — die?" Del was intrigued. "How?"

  "They hurl themselves off the top of the spires."