Sword-Breaker

by Jennifer Roberson

  In counterpoint, Shaka Obre shakes his head. “I won’t let you hurt those people.”

  “Puny, fragile toys.”

  Shaka, angry, lashes out. “Then go make your own! If you’re so good at it, go make your own. Somewhere ELSE, Chosa. Leave my world alone.”

  “Your world! YOUR world? We made this together, Shaka.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t want it anymore. I do.”

  Contempt warps Chosa’s expression. “You don’t know what you want.”

  “Neither do you, Chosa. That’s part of your problem.”

  “I don’t HAVE a problem. And if I do, it’s you!”

  Shaka Obre sighs. “Just go away. You’re cluttering up my world.”

  “You’ll miss me, if I do.”

  Shaka shrugs. “I know how to keep myself busy.”

  Abbu again. “What exactly did you do to him, Del?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “The story is very long.”

  “Tell me anyway. We have time.”

  “The others will come, and then where will we be? I can’t dance against them all, and you won’t.”

  He was amused. “Of course not. You think I’m one of them, after all.”

  “Aren’t you? Why else would you come?”

  “Curiosity.”

  “Greed, more like. Did. she offer you enough?”

  “She offered me a very great deal. I am something of a legend, after all.”

  “Panjandrum,” she muttered.

  “That, too,” he agreed. “Now, as for the Sandtiger—”

  Ice descended abruptly. “You would have to dance against me first.”

  “I know that, bascha. You’ve made that very clear.” He shifted. “What did you do to him? And what did he do to make you risk his life?”

  I struggled to open my eyes. Tried to speak. Tried to do something that told them I was alive, awake, aware.

  Nothing worked.

  —Chosa Dei on the pinnacle, overlooking the grassy valley cradled by forested hills; sunlight glinting off lakes—

  “I made this,” he says. “I could UNmake this—”

  Back.

  “Hoolies,” Abbu remarked. “You did all this by taking his sword away from him?”

  “Not—precisely.” Del’s tone was a mixture of things: weariness, worry, reticence. “As I have said, there is much more to it. A long story.”

  “As I have said, bascha, we have time.”

  Del sighed. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

  “Healing instead of hindering?” He laughed in his broken, husky voice; I’d given him that. “Because maybe I didn’t hire on to catch him. Did you ever think of that? And even if I did, it’s no challenge to capture a man in his present condition. Does nothing for the reputation. This is the Sandtiger, after all…” Abbu paused. “At least—it was.”

  “And will be again.” A cool hand touched my forehead, smoothing back sweat- and sand-crusted hair. “It begins with his sword,” she said finally. “A Northern sword. Jivatma.”

  Abbu grunted. “I know about them. And I’ve seen yours, remember? When we danced.”

  The fingers tightened briefly against my brow. I realized my eyes were held forcibly closed with a damp cloth binding. “There is more,” Del said quietly. “A sorcerer. Chosa Dei.”

  Abbu’s tone was incredulous. “Chosa Dei? But he’s only a story!”

  “Wards!” Chosa shrieks. “You put wards upon the land!”

  “Of course I did,” Shaka says quietly. “I didn’t want you showing up one day, sick to death of boredom, and deciding—out of spite—to destroy what I made.”

  “YOU made!” Chosa bares his teeth. “WE made, you mean. It was both of us, Shaka—and you know it!”

  “But only one of us wants to destroy it.”

  “Not destroy. Unmake,” Chosa explains. “And if you like, we can REmake it once we’re done.” He grins, reaching out to clasp his brother’s shoulder. “It would be fun, yes? To unmake what we made, then remake it all over again. Only better—”

  “I will not release the wards.”

  Chosa’s fingers tighten rigidly, digging into Shaka’s shoulder. “You will. You have to. Because if you don’t.…”

  The implication is clear. But Shaka shakes his head.

  They stand again upon the pinnacle, overlooking the lush green grasslands they had, centuries before, made out of barren wasteland. Five generations have labored on the land, knowing fertile soil, water in plenty, abundant crops. Shaka’s benevolent blessing has allowed them the freedom to blossom and grow, knowing little hardship.

  And now Chosa Dei wants to unmake it. Out of boredom.

  “No,” Shaka says. “The land stays as it is.”

  “Divide it,” Chosa counters. “Half is mine, after all; you couldn’t have done any of it without my portion of the power.”

  Shaka’s expression is distasteful. “I’ve heard all about you, Chosa. You do destroy. You kill. You—”

  “I unmake,” Chosa clarified. “And remake, yes?” He smiles. “We learn from our mistakes. Each generation is an improvement upon the last; don’t you think we might do better this time?”

  Shaka shakes his head.

  Rage contorts Chosa’s features. “Lift the wards, Shaka. Enough of this folly. Lift the wards or I will unmake them, and then I’ll unmake YOU.”

  Shaka laughs. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

  “What am I forgetting?”

  “I have magic, too.”

  “Not like mine,” Chosa whispers. “Oh, not like mine. Trust me, brother. Test me, thwart me, and you will suffer for it.”

  Shaka assesses his brother. He shakes his head very sadly. “You weren’t always like this. As a child, you were cheerful and kind and generous. What happened? Where did you go wrong?”

  Chosa Dei laughs. “I acquired a taste for magic.”

  “Then magic will be your bedmate.” Shaka no longer smiles nor assesses; his decision is made. “Try my wards, Chosa, and you will find out how powerful they are. And how powerful I am.”

  Chosa scoffed. “You have been here for two hundred and fifty years, stagnating. While I have been in the world, collecting all the magic.” He pauses. “Have you any idea AT ALL how powerful I’ve become?”

  Shaka smiles sadly. “Yes. I think I do. And that’s why I can’t let you ‘unmake’ what I have labored to protect.”

  “You must share,” Chosa appeals beguilingly. “The way we’ve always shared.”

  “Not in this.”

  Rage convulses Chosa’s features. “Then you will see what I am, yes? You will see what I can do!”

  “Probably,” Shaka agrees. “Since I can’t change your mind.”

  “And you will suffer for it!”

  Shaka looks down upon the lush grasslands. “Someone will,” he says sadly. “You. Or I. Or them.”

  “THEM!” Contempt is explicit. “What do I care for them? I can make as many of them as I need.” He bares his teeth. “But I don’t need them, yes?”

  “Yes,” Shaka says. “You do. Though you haven’t the wit to see it.”

  Chosa Dei raises one hand. “Then let the testing begin.”

  Shaka Obre sighs. “It already has. But you haven’t the wit to see THAT, either.”

  One finger stabs toward the valley below. “I will remake it into hoolies!”

  Shaka shrugs. “And I will restore it. One day.”

  “Not if you’re destroyed. Not if YOU’RE unmade!”

  “Someone will,” Shaka says. “If not me, someone else will. Hoolies can’t last forever.”

  “I’ll make it last,” Chosa threatens.

  Shaka merely smiles. “Do try,” he suggests. “You’re ruining a perfectly beautiful day with your danjac’s braying.”

  Chosa’s expression is malignant. “You’ll see,” he says. “You’ll SEE what I can do.”

>   Shaka Obre strokes a languid hand through dark hair. “I’m still waiting.”

  Chosa stares. “You mean it,” he says finally.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re my brother.”

  “You’re not mine. My brother would never have done this. BECOME this.” Shaka’s dark-eyed stare is harsh. “You must have unmade your brain when you were playing all your games.”

  “I’ll send you to hoolies!” Chosa shrieks.

  Shaka’s smile is wintry. “After I send you.”

  “Shaka!” I screamed. “Shaka—”

  Hands closed over my wrists, clamped down, forced me back against the blanket.

  “Shaka!” I cried. My voice was a mockery.

  Another set of hands joined the first. “Hoolies,” Abbu breathed.

  “Do you see?” Del pressed spread fingers against my chest, speaking quietly. “Lie still, Tiger. Shaka isn’t here. Shaka’s never been here.”

  “The wards,” I rasped. “Don’t you see? Chosa destroyed them. He did. Shaka’s magic didn’t hold—Chosa was too powerful—” A bone-deep shudder wracked my body. “He unmade the wards—”

  “And thereby imprisoned himself; remember?” Del asked. “That’s how the story goes.”

  Breathing was difficult. My lungs felt constricted. Abdomen contracted as I labored to draw in breath, then expel it. “I don’t know the story. I only know the truth. I was there—”

  “There!” Del’s fingers tightened.

  “—bascha… gods, Del—” I tasted blood in my mouth.

  “He’s delirious,” Abbu commented. “Remember how he was when his horse kicked him in the head?”

  “—bascha, I can’t see.”

  “You will,” she promised. “You’re not blind. But too much sand got into your eyes… they need to heal, that is all.”

  “I have to see…” I tried to pull my hands from Abbu’s grip, and could not. “Let go. Abbu—take your paws off me!”

  He did. I dragged the cloth from my eyes and realized what Del meant at once. My eyes were gritty, itchy, and very sore. Sunlight made them water.

  But I forgot about my eyes. What I wanted was my hands.

  Flat on my back, I thrust them into the air and inspected every inch of them. Then expelled a gusty breath of relief. “He’s gone,” I murmured dully. And then to myself, bewildered, afraid to say it aloud: No, he’s not. He’s IN me. I can feel him.

  I sprang up, hurling myself against their arms; fell back as my knee collapsed. I was weak, trembling, undone. “Hoolies,” I choked. “Am I him?”

  A thin line of moisture dotted Del’s upper lip. She scraped it away with a forearm. “But you said he was gone.” She exchanged a glance with Abbu Bensir. “Do you believe me now?”

  His face was ashen. “Sandtiger…” But he let it trail off, as if not knowing what to say.

  “Am I him?” I repeated. And then: “Where’s my sword?”

  Del pointed. “There.”

  I looked. “There” was not so far. Unsheathed, it lay in the sand. Sunlight bathed charred steel.

  “Black,” I blurted in relief. “Half of it, now… but that’s better than none of it. Better than—” I let it go, slumping back against the blanket, and stared again at my arms and hands, lifting them against the sun. Turned them this way and that. “Not black,” I murmured.

  No. Pallid white. Like they’d been left too long in the snow. But the hair was all burned off, and the flesh was flaky and scaled. From elbows to fingertips. The nails were all discolored, as if they’d been frozen.

  Del drew in a deep breath. “You asked me to kill you,” she said. “You begged me to kill you.”

  I stared at my hands, working blue-nailed fingers in distracted fascination. “Something tells me you didn’t do it.”

  “No. I did something else. I knew it might kill you, but since that was what you wanted anyway…” Wearily, she scrubbed hair back from her face. Tension had drained her of color, of life. “I sang a song, and then I knocked your sword away. Chosa hadn’t taken all of you yet, just some. I thought it worth the risk.”

  I frowned, chewing my lip. “And by separating me from the sword…”

  Del nodded. “I hoped that because part of Chosa remained in the steel, he would have to let you go.”

  I avoided the truth by denying it aloud. “It could have gone the other way. Chosa could have jumped to me.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And had I judged that accomplished, I’d have done to you what you begged me to do.”

  Memories were not clear; at least, not my memories. They were all jumbled up with Chosa’s. “What was it?” I asked warily. “What was it I asked you to do?”

  “Cut off your head,” she answered. “Like I did with Ajani.”

  “Hoolies.” Abbu again.

  Which distracted me. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Making time with Del?” It hadn’t been beneath him before.

  Fleetingly, he grinned. “No, but now that you mention it—” He waved it away. “Nezbet appeared at my campfire, mouthing nonsense about a white-haired woman sword-dancer.” He shrugged. “I knew right away who he meant. And since I was well ahead of the others, I sent him on his way and came on myself.”

  “Doesn’t Nezbet have any idea who I am?” Del asked. “You’d think Tiger was the only one involved, the way that boy talked.”

  “That boy” was probably all of two or three years younger than Del.

  Which made me feel all the older.

  “Nezbet’s a fool.” Abbu rubbed a hand through gray-frosted black hair. “Like most Southroners, he bears little respect for women—except as bedpartners. Then again, neither do I.” He grinned at Del; she’d changed a lot of his opinions, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “So if he heard anything about a woman being involved, he dismissed it as unimportant.” He shrugged. “So Tiger’s taking the blame for Ajani’s murder.”

  “People saw me,” she declared. “Have they all gone sandsick? Hundreds of them saw me cut off his head!”

  “Ah, but there’s a story going around that you’re a Northern afreet conjured by Tiger to distract the jhihadi’s attention long enough for Tiger to kill him.” He laughed. “I told you about the stories.”

  “Afreet!” Del was astounded. “I’m not a spirit!”

  Abbu leered pointedly. “I know that.”

  It made me irritable. I shifted against the blanket, aware of aches and itches; the protests of a body driven beyond its final reserves. “Bascha—”

  But what I’d intended to say wisped into nothingness.

  “Tiger?” she asked.

  No, bascha.

  Chosa.

  Sixteen

  Dawn. Three of us gathered as the sun broke over the horizon. Two of them would watch. I would do more than that.

  Del’s frown was clearly worried, drawing pale brows together. Boreal glinted in her hands, as Abbu’s blade in his. Only I lacked a weapon; mine lay on the ground.

  “You don’t—” But she broke it off.

  “Yes, I do,” I told her.

  “Why?” Abbu asked in his half-throttled, broken voice. “If it’s that dangerous…” His tone was a mixture of disbelief and disgust, that he could give any of it credence. Underscored by reluctant acknowledgment: he, like so many others, had seen me call fire from the sky.

  “Because I can’t just leave it here,” I told him. “Believe me, if I could I would… but Del’s told me time and time again that it’s too much of a risk to take. If someone else wound up with this sword… someone innocent…” I shrugged, suppressing a shiver born of morning chill. I still wore only a dhoti, wishing I’d pulled my other burnous from the saddle-pouches. But there had been other things to concern us.

  “Or someone Chosa Dei could unmake, then remake for his own uses,” Del added. “But—I wish…” She sighed, raking loose hair from her eyes. She had yet to confine it in a tightly woven plait. It spilled across her shoulders, tumbled down her spin
e, lingered at her breasts. Snagged on the rune-broidered leather tunic that bared so much arm and leg.

  Chosa Dei had seen her. Deep in Dragon Mountain, when he’d asked her for the sword that could break imprisoning wards set by Shaka Obre. Chosa remembered her.

  With effort, I shut him out. “You know what to do,” I said harshly. “Don’t wait for me to invite you… I can’t—I don’t think—” I stopped, sucked air, tried to speak more evenly. “I don’t have the strength to hold him off. Not this time.” But I couldn’t tell her why.

  “Tiger—” But she bit her lip on the rest.

  I flicked a glance at Abbu. “If she can’t—or won’t—you’ll have to be the one.”

  His dark Southron face, older than mine, was oddly gaunt and tight. Silently, he nodded.

  I bared my teeth in a grin. “Look at it this way, Abbu—you’ll finally be able to say you really are the best.”

  He raised his Southron sword. He managed a ghost of a smile. “Any way it comes.”

  I didn’t look at Del. I bent and picked up the sword.

  —nothing—

  “Tiger?” she ventured, and I realized I’d been standing there for gods’ knew how long, waiting for something to happen.

  I considered things. “My knee hurts,” I said. “My eyes itch like hoolies. I’m still in need of a bath.” I arched eyebrows. “Nothing seems to have changed.”

  “Is he—in there?”

  I looked down at the sword in my hands. Samiel was blackened to the halfway point of the blade. My hands on the grip were blue-nailed, pallid white, still cracked and scaly, but not a drop of blackness touched them.

  Nothing on the outside. How much was on the inside?

  “He’s in there,” I confirmed, offering part of the truth. “But—I think he’s hurt.”

  “Hurt?” Abbu blurted. “First you expect me to believe there’s a sorcerer in your sword, and now you say he’s hurt?” He snapped his own back into its sheath, harnessed diagonally. “I think you’ve made this up. I think there’s no truth in this at all, and you are using it to keep from dancing against me. Because you know you will lose.”

  “Oh, I’d lose,” I agreed. “I’ve only got one knee.”

  He scowled. “And how long will you use that as a crutch, Sandtiger?”