"Well," he said philosophically, "I said much the same myself."
"And did you leap off a spire?"
Nihko’s face was serene. "We all of us leap," he said. "It is how we know."
"Know what?"
"That the magic has manifested."
"To me," I said, "leaping off a spire suggests madness has manifested!"
"Yes," he agreed. "Any man may do so, and die of it. But those of us who survive are something more than simply mad."
"Magic," I said in disgust.
"Mages," he clarified. "Men who are made of it, and who learn how to wield it."
I stirred for the first time. The body — did not cooperate.
"Be still," Nihko said. "The body has used itself up."
"Used up — ?"
"It was a circle," Nihko said, "for you. But in truth it is what each man makes of it. He learns himself up there, learns what and who he is. He must recognize it, acknowledge it, comprehend it, and employ it. Rely upon it. Use it up."
"Then if it’s used up —"
"Gone," he said. "Extinguished."
"Then I am dead."
"The man you were. The slave. The messiah. The sword-dancer."
"No."
"You surrendered it in the circle. You left the circle. You flung yourself out of it."
"Elaii-ali-ma," I whispered.
"You are not what you were. You are what you will be. You are not who you were. You are who you shall be."
"Sword-dancer."
"Mage."
I laughed; it tore my throat. "Would you have me be a priest? Me?"
"You gave yourself to the gods."
"They aren’t my gods."
"You gave yourself to gods, be they mine or yours."
"Semantics," I muttered.
"You survived," Nihko said. "You are what you are."
"Mad?"
"Indisputably."
"I don’t feel mad."
"You don’t feel anything. Yet. Come morning, you will."
"And what will I be in the morning?"
Nihko said, "Mage. And aware of it."
I shut my eyes. I did not echo him. I named myself inside where no one else could see.
"Mage," he repeated.
Sword-dancer, I said.
In, or out of the circle.
In the morning I wasn’t a mage. I was merely a man sick unto death. Fever burned my bones, wasted my flesh, turned my eyes to soup in their sockets. Lips cracked and bled. A layer of skin sloughed off. My belly, bowels, and bladder expelled what was left; after uncounted days atop the spire without nourishment, little enough was left. I was weak and wracked, joints ablaze. What moisture remained spilled out of my eyes. My tongue swelled and filled my mouth, then cracked and bled like the lips. I drank blood, until Nihko gave me water.
He bandaged my eyes, because I could not close them.
He splinted fingers and toes, because I could not open them.
He restrained the skull that risked itself in frenzy against the ground.
He did what was necessary to bring me across the threshold, and when that much was accomplished he did even more.
He made me rise.
I stood upright again for the first time in days. Felt the earth beneath bare feet, felt the wind in my hair. Saw — everything.
Nihko heard the ragged gasp that was expelled from my mouth. "Clarity," he said.
It was too bright. Everything, too bright. Too rich. Too brilliant. I thought it might well blind me. My skin burned from the sun. Ached over the bones. Everything hurt. Everything was too much. I quivered like a child, trying to sort out things I could not comprehend. Things I had comprehended for most of my life, such as taste, touch, odor, sound, light.
All of it: too much.
"What do you hear?" he asked.
It thrummed inside my head. The whisper was a shout. I recoiled. "Too much," I said, then hissed. Then winced.
"All the senses," he said, "Everything is more."
More was too much. I stood for the first time in days and was blinded by the world, deafened by the world, filled with the scent of the world, tasted all of its courses, felt it impinge so much upon me that the flesh ached from it.
Everything was more.
I sought escape inside. But more existed there. I beat against the cage that was my own skull, attempted to withdraw, escape. And knew defeat.
"You cannot," Nihko told me. "It is you, now."
I barely spoke. "What is?"
"Everything."
I stood there and trembled, while the man’s hand steadied me.
And then I knelt. Sought solace in the soil. Its scent was overwhelming. "I can’t," I mouthed.
"You can."
"I can’t."
"You will."
I bent, pressed my hands into the earth. Put my brow upon it, so that the sun beat on my spine. It made its way through flesh into muscle, into viscera. Into my very soul. It illuminated me, betrayed my frailties.
"You can," Nihko told me.
The world was too large. And everything in it too bright, too loud, too much.
To the earth, I said, "I want…"
Nihko waited.
"I want," I said with difficulty, "to go back."
"You are dead."
"I’m alive." I rolled back onto my haunches then, rose to my feet. Confronted him. "I’m too alive to be dead. I feel it in me. Taste it in me. I can hear my blood!"
"Yes."
I clamped palms across my eyes. "I want to go back. To be what I was."
"You are what you were."
My hands fell away so I could see his face. "You said I wasn’t!"
"You were unborn," he explained. "For forty years, the vessel was shaped as it was shaped. The magic was dormant. But it began to rouse two or three years ago. The seeds of it were in you. As you approached the threshold, the seeds began to sprout. Atop that spire, you celebrated your birth forty years before. And the magic manifested."
I remembered unfolding. Unfurling. Within me, and without. The imminence that burst into being as I whelped it on the rock.
"You knew," I said abruptly. "That day on the ship, when you first took us aboard. You knew."
"As you will know it in another. Others will come. And you will serve them as I have served you: lift them up, nourish them, help them across the threshold."
"I want to go back."
"There is no ’back.’ "
"I’m not you, Nihko!"
It echoed against the spire. I recoiled and slapped hands over my ears.
Nihko smiled. "Quietly," he said. "Control is necessary."
"Like yours?" I threw at him; but very quietly.
"My control is negligible," he said with irony. "It is why I deserted my brothers."
"And now you’re back?"
"Am I not here?"
"Helping me," I said bitterly, "across the threshold."
He extended his arm. "Take my hand," he suggested, "and cross."
"Haven’t I already?"
"A step or two."
I laughed at him, though there was no humor in it. "The first step I took off the spire was a killer."
"Yes," he agreed. "For many men, it is."
"Then if they have no magic, why are they up there?"
"They have magic," he answered, "and it manifests. But some vessels are not strong enough. They do not survive the annealing."
"Gods," I said, remembering. Recalling how I begged.
Anneal me.
Nihko smiled. "Precisely."
"No," I blurted. "No, not that…" But to speak of what happened wasn’t possible. It was too new. Too — large. "How did I get up there?"
"Sahdri."
"He took me up there?"
"Took you. Left you."
"How?"
Nihko’s brow rings glinted. "He is a mage, is he not?"
"I want to know how. How exactly?"
His tone was devoid of compassion. "And how e
xactly did you come down from the spire?"
"How did I — ?"
"Come down," he repeated. "Should you not have broken to pieces here upon the ground?"
I inspected a hand. "Didn’t I?"
"How did you come down?"
"I leaped." I grimaced. "Like a madman."
"Should you not be dead?"
"Aren’t I?"
"Be in no haste," he said grimly. "You have ten years left to you."
"You told me twelve."
"Possibly twelve."
I looked into his eyes. "How many have you?"
"Two," he said. "Possibly."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
"How can you tell?"
"I can."
"This is ridiculous," I snapped. "You feed me this nonsense of scars being lifted and put onto another man; of Sahdri using magic to set me atop this rock; of me being born, as if once wasn’t enough; of me surviving this leap that only a madman would make —"
"A madman did."
"— and then you expect me to believe this nonsense?"
"This nonsense will convince you."
"I don’t think so."
"Look at yourself," he commanded. "Look at your flesh."
I scowled. "So?"
"He lifted the scars from you."
I looked at myself. Peered down at my abdomen, where the Northern blade had sculpted flesh and muscle into an architecture I hadn’t been born with.
The flesh was whole. Unblemished.
I clapped a hand to my face. The cheek was whole. Unblemished.
I looked then at my hands, seeking the cuts, the divots, the over-large knuckle where a finger had been broken, the nails themselves left ridged from hard usage. All of me was whole. All of me was new.
I stared hard at Nihko. "You have scars."
"You begin anew," he answered. "What damage you do to yourself from this day forward will be manifested in your flesh — it can even kill you — but you were reborn on the spire. A child comes into the world without blemish."
I knew better. "Not all children!"
He conceded that. "But not all children are ioSkandic."
"And the ones who are?"
"Are mages. Are mad."
I laughed harshly. "You tell me I have power, now; that I’m a mage, now. And also that I’m mad? What advantage is that?"
"None."
"Then?"
"We are transient," he said. "We burn too brightly. We burn ourselves out."
I stabbed a finger at him. "This is not helping."
He grinned toothily at me. "I live to serve."
"Clothes," I said, focusing on nakedness; on what I could understand.
"In the cart."
"Good. Get them."
"Ah. I am to serve."
"You said that’s what you were here for."
"For the moment." But he went to the cart, found a bundle of linen and tossed it at me.
I caught and shook it out. "What is this?"
"Robes," he answered, untying the molah’s lead-rope. "But you need not concern yourself with how they suit you."
Slipping into the linen, I eyed him irritably. "Why not?"
"Because you will not be wearing them for very long."
The hem of the robe ended just above my ankles. "Why not?"
"Because," he said, "Sahdri will have you stripped."
I froze. "Why?"
"Rituals," he said briefly, leading the molah over. Cartwheels grated on stone.
"What rituals?" I asked suspiciously. "No more leaping off of spires!"
"That is done." He gestured. "Get in."
"Little chance of that," I retorted. "There’s only one thing that will convince me I should."
"Yes?"
"That this cart is going to a ship that can take me back to Skandi."
"No," he answered.
"Then I guess I’m going nowhere. Not to Sahdri. Not with you."
Nihko sighed. "Do you believe I cannot make you?"
"If I’m a mage," I said promptly, "you can’t make me do anything."
"But I can," he said, and touched me.
I tumbled into darkness.
And into the cart.
THIRTY-FOUR
Sense returned with a rash. Ropes cut into me, rubbed wounds into newly sensitive flesh; I felt everything as if it were hot as wire. The pounding of my heart filled my skull, reverberated in my chest. I heard the hiss of blood running back and forth in its vessels, as if my skin were too thin.
I flailed, felt ropes give; realized it was net. I was cradled, captured. Bundled up within the ropes fashioned into nets. And I was suspended.
From a spire.
I flailed again, spasming. Felt the net, harsh as wire. Felt the sway of the rope used to haul me up.
I depended from the spire. Depended on the spire.
Movement. I was being hauled up, winched up; I heard the creak of wood, the rubbing of the rope. Was this how Sahdri had taken me up the other spire?
There had been no rope. And nothing to which rope might be attached. There had only been stone. And spire. And me.
This was different.
I was meat in a net, hauled up. If my flesh wasn’t eaten, my spirit would be.
Sahdri. Who had known the moment he saw me. Saw the brow ring hooked in my necklet.
I snatched at necklet. Found it. Caught it. Closed my hand upon it. Ten curving claws, strung upon a thong. I had cut them from the paws. Pierced them. Strung them. Wore them as a badge: see what I have become? I am the boy that killed the sandtiger; that saved the children; that saved the tribe; that freed himself.
Twenty-four years I had worn the necklet.
I knew that, now. I was forty years old. Nihko had told me. The magic had manifested. Sixteen when I killed the sandtiger; sixteen when I conjured it. And thirty-seven when I met Del.
Not thirty-six. Not thirty-eight.
I had a name. An age. One I gave myself. The other was given to me.
Sandtiger.
Sandtiger.
They would not take it from me.
"There is no magic," I said aloud, "and I am no mage."
Wood creaked. Rope rubbed as it was wound.
"There are no gods," I said, "and I am no priest."
Sandtiger.
Sword-dancer.
No less.
No more.
This spire was taller than the one I had roused upon, danced atop, leaped from. This spire was wider, thicker, shaped of twists and columns and shelves and pockets and caves cut into the stone by wind, by rain. Trapped in my net I stared at the stone. Saw through the stone. Saw deep into its heart where the minerals lay, wound within and around the bones.
I blinked. The stone was stone again.
Wood creaked. Rope rubbed.
Higher by the moment.
I swung in the net. Spun in the net. Saw the sky encompass stone, stone overtake sky. I shut my eyes: saw it. Opened them: the same.
I lifted a hand. Studied it. Saw no blemishes. Saw only flesh that had existed for forty years. Not young. Not old. Somewhere in the middle, were I to survive to be as old again as I was now.
I turned the hand. The palm was lined, callused. It was a hand, not a construct. Rebirth had renewed the flesh, but not leached away the time.
The flesh of a sudden went white. Stark white, like snow. I blinked. In shock, I watched flesh thin to transparency. Saw the vessels pulsing beneath, the blood running in them; the sinew, the meat, the bone.
"Gods," I blurted, and clamped my eyes closed.
When I opened them, the hand was a hand again. Whole. Normal. The bones were decently clad in human flesh once more.
My own.
I touched my face. Felt the cheek that had borne the scars for so long. Rubbed fingers across it. Stubble had sprouted; I was not so much a child newly born that I couldn’t grow a beard. I needed to shave. I needed a haircut. I needed to eat, to drink, to empty bladder and b
owels — though nothing was in them — so I knew I lived again as a man is meant to live.
And I needed Del. To know I lived again as a man is meant to live.
Gods, bascha. I want you.
No scars met seeking ringers. I dug them in, scraped fingers across the stubble. No marks of the sandtiger.
I sealed my eyes with lids. Clamped a hand around the necklet. Let the claws bite into palm.
Bleed, I said. Bleed.
There was no blood.
Nihko had said I could manifest such wounds as a man might, were he given to injury.
Bleed, I said, and shut my hand the tighter.
When two mage-priests hooked me into the winch-house, undid the net, pulled me free of rope, I at last unclamped my hand and displayed the palm to Sahdri, who waited.
"Bleeding," I said.
His eyes were dark. They were not rimmed with light.
It had been a trick that night. "Then you must have wanted it so."
"I’m a man," I said. "I bleed. I can die."
"Is that what you wish?"
Blood ran down my hand. It dripped to the floor of the winch-house. I followed the droplets, saw them strike the stone. Saw them swallowed by the stone. Saw them go down and down through stone until they reached its heart, where they were consumed. Changed to mineral.
Transfixed, I knelt upon the stone and tried to reach through it, to recapture the blood. It was mine.
"You are very young," Sahdri said gently, "and very new. But give me time — give yourselftime — and you will understand what it is to be one of us."
I looked up at him. "I saw through it," I said. "This hand."
He smiled. "It takes some people so." He gestured briefly, indicating two shaven-headed, tattooed men with him. "This is Erastu." The man on the left. "And this is Natha." The man on the right. "They are acolytes here, as you shall become shortly. They shall assist you."
I stood. I ignored Erastu and Natha. I looked into Sahdri’s face. "I can see through you."
And I could. I saw the rings in his flesh melt, saw the flesh of his face peel away, saw the bones of the skull beneath tattooed flesh glisten in a bed of raw meat. Beneath the meat, the bone, I saw the brain. And the light of his madness, pulsing as if it lived.
The shudder took me. Shook me. I fell. Pressed a bleeding palm against the stone; felt blood and substance drawn away, pulled deep.
"Lift him," Sahdri said to his acolytes. "He is far gone, farther than I expected. But he is not to merge yet. There is too much for him to learn; he is as yet soiled with too many things of the earth, and the gods would repudiate him."
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