Sword Born ss-5

by Jennifer Roberson

  Which didn’t bother me in the slightest, in view of how often I’d surrendered the contents of my belly merely for being in his presence.

  Prima complained that Del should release her. "Not yet," I answered, making sure Nihko was tied firmly onto the molah. I didn’t relish the thought of picking him up from the ground if he tumbled off. "First things first."

  Simonides himself stood at the molah’s head, insuring the animal’s cooperation and silence. Once Nihko was trussed to the beast, I stepped back and nodded. Del released Prima, who went immediately to check that he still breathed.

  I looked at the servant, slim and silent in the darkness. "You’re sure you won’t be punished."

  "The household is my responsibility," he answered. "The metri does not keep count of her molahs, or how often one goes out or comes in. Herakleio took a cart to the city earlier this evening to drink in winehouses; this will not be remarked. She will believe you simply left Akritara."

  "Walking," I said dryly.

  Simonides’ expression did not change. "You are all of you uncivilized barbarians. I shall have to have the priests in to cleanse the household. It will be very costly."

  Prima, satisfied Nihko would survive his uncomfortable journey, went to the molah’s head and took its halter rope. "No more talk," she said, and tugged the animal. It stretched its neck, testing her determination, then grudgingly stepped out. She turned it to the front gate.

  Del, at my nod, moved quickly to cut Prima off.

  "You stay," I told her softly. "I will take Nihko to the ship."

  She was outraged. "I will not —" But she shut up when Del’s sword drifted close to her throat.

  "You stay," I repeated. "You and Del will be Simonides’ guests in his rooms until word is brought by one of your sailors that Nihko and I are safely on board, and I’m certain the trap isn’t waiting for me down there. Then and only then will Del permit you to leave. Simonides will escort you both out of the house, and then you’ll join us on the ship." I grinned at her toothily. "Call it insurance."

  Prima was furious. "This is not a trap!"

  "Prove it," I challenged. "Do this my way." She stared at Nihko’s slack body, then jerked her head in angry assent once and stepped out of the way. I traded glances with Del, promising renewed acquaintance later, then took the molah’s halter and led it out of the gate. Behind me, very quietly, Del ordered Prima to move.

  A side from a certain residue of tension, it was quiet and not unpeaceful as I led the little molah along the track from Akritara to the city. Simonides had offered me the use of a second molah, but I’d decided borrowing one was enough; the metri’s servant was already risking himself. Besides, I’d found it more comfortable to stretch my legs and stride than to be jounced atop one of the little beasts, even if it was faster to ride.

  Around me stretched baskets of grapevines huddled like worried chicks against the soil. Illumination was provided by the full moon and wreaths of stars. The breeze tasted of saltwater, smoke, and soil, but also of molah, wine, sweat, and the bitter tang of the drug the captain had used on her first mate. Nihko had not yet so much as snored, nor stirred atop the molah.

  I wondered what Prima would have done had we refused to help. She was a small woman; and I’m not certain even Del, much taller and stronger, could have managed him this slack and heavy. Likely the captain had believed she stood a better chance of gaining our aid if the first mate was already unconscious, but it was amusing to paint a mental picture of Nihko in the morning, in very poor temper, confronting Prima Rhannet after awakening in the metri’s guest bed, attempted abduction in vain. I suspected the confrontation aboard the ship would be no friendlier, but at least Prima would have the consolation of knowing she’d gotten Nihko away. Otherwise he’d still be in the metri’s household and subject to Sahdri’s claim once the guest-right was rescinded.

  It crossed my mind also to imagine the metri’s reaction when she learned we were gone. I didn’t for a moment believe I was truly her grandson; she was enough of an accomplished opportunist to use the tools at hand, and I was one she could employ for multiple reasons in as many circumstances. I had no doubt anymore that I was Skandic; that seemed certain, in view of how closely Herakleio and I resembled one another, or Nihko and I, or even Nihko and Herakleio. But the Eleven Families did not have the monopoly on bastardy; they’d simply managed very cleverly to transform it into some kind of family honor instead of insult. Some Skandic man — possibly even a renegada — had sailed to the South and there impregnated a woman; I was the result. Wanted or unwanted, exposed or stolen, it simply didn’t matter. It made more sense that I wasn’t the metri’s gods-descended grandson; especially since I knew very well I wouldn’t live long enough to inherit. Herakleio was her boy.

  And he wouldn’t weep when he learned we were gone.

  Ahead of me the land fell away. I saw clusters of lamplight glowing across the horizon, crowning the edge of the caldera. The molah and I plodded our way into the outskirts of Skandi-the-City, winding through narrow roads running like dusty rivulets across the top of the cliff. The winehouse district was ablaze with candles and lantern light. In one of them — or possibly in some alley awash in molah muck — was Herakleio, oblivious to the fact his legacy was safe.

  I shook my head, then turned as I heard a thick-throated groan from Nihko. A brief inspection convinced me he was not likely to recover full consciousness any time soon, but neither was he as drug-sodden as before. His body didn’t like where and how it was even if his mind was unaware of the offense.

  I led the molah out of the streets to the track along the cliff face near the steep trailhead. Far below lay the waters of the harbor, all but one of the ships denied to Del and me by the metri herself, who wasn’t, for whatever reason, finished with us yet. All it wanted was for me to lead the molah down the precarious trail to the blue-sailed renegada ship, deliver him, send someone after Prima, then wait for Del and the captain to appear. Which gave me the rest of the night and likely part of the day to somehow survive.

  Nihko groaned again, stirred again atop the molah. The weight abruptly shifted; the molah, protesting, stopped short. I turned back to check on the bonds holding the first mate on the beastie, saw the half-slitted green eyes staring hazily at me in the moonlight, the shine of brow-rings.

  "Go back to sleep," I suggested cheerfully, setting a shoulder under his and heaving him over an inch or three. "You don’t want to see this next part."

  He mumbled something completely unintelligible and appeared to do what I said. The eyes sealed themselves. Smiling, I turned back to take up the molah’s headstall again —

  — and there was a man in front of me.

  Three men. Five.

  A whole swarm of men.

  Ah, hoo —

  Something slammed into the small of my back and then into my ankles, driving me to my knees against the molah even as I reached for the sword hooked to my sash. Hands were on me, imprisoning me, digging into shoulders, throat, hair, wrists, dragging me away from the little animal with its load of Nihkolara; a knife threatened the back of my neck as I was forced to kneel there, head held by dint of a handful of hair snugged up tight, much as Del had imprisoned Prima Rhannet. But they didn’t kill me immediately. They just held me.

  Then they began to strip me of my clothing.

  "Now, wait —" I managed, before an elbow was slammed into my mouth. The next thing that came out of it was blood.

  It is somewhat disconcerting to be thrown down in the dirt as men strip the clothes off your body. It is even more unsettling when they also inspect all of your parts, as if to make certain you’re truly a man. At the first touch of a hand where only my own or Del’s ever went, I heaved myself up with an outraged shout expelled forcefully from my mouth, and made a real fight of it.

  Something caught at my throat. My necklet. I saw the gleam of a blade in the moonlight, gritted teeth against the anticipated stab or slice even as I heaved again, roaring,
attempting to break loose of the swarm. The necklet of claws pulled briefly taut, then, released, slapped down against my throat. And then abruptly everything in my body seized up as if turned to stone, and I fell facedown into the dirt.

  "Throw him over," a familiar voice said in a language I understood.

  I wanted to tense against the hands that would grasp, lift, heave. But nothing worked. Nothing at all — except my belly. Which relieved itself with vivid abruptness of the meal I’d eaten earlier.

  Ah, hoolies, not this again.

  "Throw him over," the voice repeated, and I heard a muttered complaint from Nihko.

  From the dregs of darkness, from the misery of my belly and the helplessness of my body lying sprawled in muck left by molahs, goats, chickens — and me — and through a haze of blood, inhaling that and dust, I dimly saw the naked body on the ground grasped, lifted, heaved over the cliff. It fell slackly out of sight before I could even blink.

  Thoughts fragmented as I saw the body go. The first thing through my mind: Prima was right —

  Or else it was as much a trap for Nihko as for me.

  Herakleio — ?

  But why would he have Nihko killed?

  Then someone touched cool fingers to the back of my neck and I went down into darkness wondering if Nihko was conscious as he fell, and if I would wake up before I hit the bottom.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The shadow passed across the cliff, flitted down the sheer face with its convoluted track folding back upon itself from harbor to clifftop. A bird.

  The shadow soared, circled, returned, drifted closer. The body was a body, but broken. The skull was pulped, the face smashed beyond recognition, limbs twisted into positions no limb was supposed to go; nowhere was it whole.

  The shadow fled across the body, turned back.

  It had been heaved over the edge near the track, but not on it; and so the body was not immediately visible from any angle. Bereft of clothing, the brown skin blended with the soil, the rocks, the small plots of vegetation trying valiantly to cling to the cliff’s face. No human eyes beheld it, but animal nose smelted it. It was too soon for rot to set in, but the odor of death was something every animal recognized, and avoided. Unless it was a carrion-eater.

  Molahs were not. And so when a string of molahs being led down the track rebelled, their molah-man called out to another man to search lest a body be found, some drink-sodden fool fallen from the cliff after stumbling out of a winehouse; it had happened before. And so men looked, and the body was found. It was remarked upon for its nakedness, for the scars on its body, for the ruin of its face and skull, but it was not recognized. It might be one of them. It might not. But it was indisputably dead.

  The bird, deprived of its meal, soared east away from the caldera, crossed the ocean, crossed the valley, found other prey atop a stone spire piercing the sky, and there the bird drifted again, judging its meal.

  And then of a sudden the bird stopped. Dropped. Hurtled out of the skies with no attempt to halt its plummet, and crashed into the body that lay sprawled atop the spire, naked of clothing, naked of consciousness; a shell of flesh and bone empty of awareness or comprehension.

  The body opened, accepted the bird, closed again.

  I awoke abruptly, startled out of senselessness into the awareness that I lived after all. I sat up, poised to press myself upright, saw the sky spin out from under me. I was conscious of a vast gulf of air, of a blue so brilliant as to be overwhelming, and the physical awareness of nothingness. The body understood the precariousness of its place even if the mind did not.

  I rolled, flopped down upon my belly, realized an arm-span away the surface beneath me fell away utterly into sky.

  Stone bit into the flesh of my face. Naked, I was not comfortable. Genitals protested until I eased them with a shift of position, though I did little more than alter the angle of one hip. I breathed heavily, puffing dust from beneath my face. I tasted it. And blood.

  Beyond one outstretched hand lay the edge of the world, such as what I knew. In that moment what I knew was what I felt beneath me, what I saw. Sky and sky. Nothing more.

  I lifted my head with immense care. Rotated it so that my chin touched the stone. Saw the edge of the world stretching before me, its horizon distant.

  Another rotation of the skull, to the left. Again, sky; but this time land as well: stone, and soil, and the scouring of the wind.

  Even now it touched me, teased at my flesh, insinuated itself beneath the hollows of my body at ankles, knees, hips; the pockets under arms. It caught my hair, blew it into my eyes, altered vision. I saw hair and stone dust and sky.

  My belly cramped. There was nothing to expel, but that wasn’t the intent. From deep inside, rising from genitals, something squeezed.

  I wondered briefly if it was fear.

  As swiftly as it seized me, the cramp released me. Surely fear would last longer?

  A tremor wracked me from skull to toes, grinding flesh into stone.

  I shut my eyes, let my head drop. I lay there very still, save for in- and exhalations; was relieved to manage that much.

  I knew where I was. I just didn’t know why.

  Meteiera.

  Stone Forest.

  IoSkandi.

  Where madmen were sent to die, while they made an acquaintanceship with magic.

  Not me.

  Surely not me.

  Wind crept beneath my body, insistent. It shifted the stone dust, drove it into the sweat-slicked creases of my flesh. I itched.

  The tremor wracked me again.

  I painted a portrait: me atop the spire. I lay at the edge; to my right, the world fell away. To my left, it stretched itself like an indolent cat, the bones beneath lean flesh hard and humped as stone.

  It was stone.

  This cat was neither indolent, nor stone. This cat was flesh, and afraid.

  I painted a portrait. I knew where I was. Comprehended the risks, and where the dangers lay. To my right, an arm-span away. To my left, much farther.

  The body gathered itself, rose onto naked buttocks, moved away from the edge of the world. It stopped when it sensed stone encompassing it: an island in the center of the sky. It sat there, arms wrapped around gathered knees, and made itself small.

  Wind buffeted.

  I shut my eyes against it. Hair was stripped from my face. Sweat evaporated as the wind wicked it away. Buttocks and the soles of my feet clutched at the stone.

  All around me was sky, and sky, and sky.

  And, according to io- and Skandic alike, gods.

  It occurred to me, finally, to wonder why.

  Why this?

  Why not simply heave me over the edge of the caldera cliff, as they had Nihko?

  Why this?

  And then, belatedly, wondered how.

  If there was a way up, there was also a way down.

  I smiled then, into the face of the wind.

  The spire’s crown was not so small as I had initially believed. It was, in fact, approximately the surface area of two full circles, a good thirty paces across. This afforded me the latitude to move without fearing I’d fall off the edge: I’d spent half my life — or possibly longer — learning how to stay inside a circle, and two of them was a surfeit.

  Eventually I stood up against the wind. I let it curl around me, buffet me, try to drive me down or off the edge. But I understood my place now, and how to deny the wind purchase. I used weight and awareness, and comprehension. I learned what to expect of it, to respect it, to use it. By the time I paced out the crown of stone I was no longer afraid of the wind, that it might blow me off into the sky.

  By the time I had inspected every edge of the spire’s crown, I knew no ropes existed.

  As the sun went down, I sat atop the tower of stone and made note of the valley below, the distant glow of lanternlight, of cookfires. My spire was not the only one. I counted as many as I could see, clustered throughout the valley, suspecting there might be more beyond. No
two spires were alike: some were thick, knobbed with protuberances, shelves, cave-pocked. In the dying of the day I saw light sprout atop other spires; saw the arches and angles of dwellings built there; the wooden terraces clinging to shelves and cave-mouths. As the light faded, plunging the valley into darkness, I lost definition and saw only the wavery glimmers of lanterns, the dark blocky bulwarks of stone against moon and stars.

  There was no lamplight for me, no lantern, no cookfire. Only what I took for myself out of the luminance of the skies. Doubtless a priest-mage would say the moon and stars were a gift of the gods.

  Before he merged with them.

  I shivered. The sun took warmth with it, and I had no clothes to cut the wind. I was hungry, thirsty, and confused.

  If there was a way up, there was also a way down.

  Wasn’t there?

  Eventually I lay down atop the stone.

  Eventually I slept.

  In my dream Del found me. She sailed to ioSkandi, walked into the Stone Forest, came to the proper spire, found a way up and climbed over the edge to rise and stand beside me. We linked hands, stood together against the wind, and knew ourselves inviolable.

  The touch of her flesh against mine granted me all the peace I knew, all the impetus for survival and triumph a man might know, were he to trust a woman the way I trusted Del. Together we stood at the edge of the crown of stone, arms outstretched, and let the wind have us. Let it tip us, take us, carry us down and down, where we walked again upon the earth as we were meant to do.

  I turned to her, to embrace her, to kiss her, and felt stone against my mouth.

  I sat up into wind, into light, and watched the day replace night. Dew bathed the spire, and me. Sweat joined it, welling up beneath hair to bathe my skull, my face; to sheen the fragile flesh stretched over brittle bone.