Sword-Breaker

by Jennifer Roberson

They seemed a harmless lot. No weapons were in sight, not even a cooking knife. Del and I, after another glance exchanged, dropped off respective horses. I led the stud to the nearest wagon and tied him to a wheel. Del took her mare around the other side and tied her to the back.

  Mehmet and his aketni gathered around us, but with great deference. We were herded respectfully to the very last wagon and gestured to wait. Then Mehmet and the other male drew back folds of fabric and climbed up into the wagon, murmuring politely to the interior. The wagon eventually disgorged an odd cargo: an ancient, withered man swathed in a gray-blue burnous draped over a gauzy white underrobe.

  Mehmet and his fellow very carefully lifted the old man down from the wagon, underscoring his fragility with their attentiveness, even as the others gathered cushions, a palm-frond fan, and makeshift sunshades. The old man was settled on the cushions as the others stretched above his turban the gauzy fabric that cut out much of the sun. Then Mehmet knelt down with one of the botas, murmuring quietly to the old man.

  I’ve met my share of shukars, shodos and priestlings, not to mention aged tanzeers. But never in my life have I seen anyone so old. Nor with such life in his eyes.

  The hairs on my neck rose. My bones began to itch.

  Mehmet continued murmuring, occasionally gesturing to Del and me. I didn’t know the lingo, but it was fairly obvious Mehmet was giving an account of his adventures since leaving the caravan. I thought back on my unwillingness to ride through the night. I’d had my reasons. But now, faced with the bright black eyes of the ancient man, guilt rose up to smite me.

  I shifted weight, easing my knee, and exchanged a glance with Del. Neither of us were blind to the old man’s acuity as he weighed each of us against the truth of Mehmet’s story. If Mehmet had only said—

  No.

  Mehmet had said. I’d chosen not to hear.

  Like the others, he was turbaned. The facecloth was loosened, looped to dangle beneath a chin and throat nearly as wattled. The dark desert face was quilted like crushed silk, with a sunken look around the mouth that denoted a lack of teeth. He hunched on his cushion, weighing Del and me, and listened to the man so many decades younger than he.

  Grandfather? I wondered. Maybe great-grandfather.

  Mehmet ran down eventually. And then, bowing deeply, offered the old man the bota.

  The bestowing of the water. Around us the others knelt. Del and I, noting it, very nearly followed. But we were strangers to the aketni, and both of us knew very well that even well-meant courtesy can be the wrong thing to offer. It can get you in serious trouble.

  We waited. And then the old man put a gnarled, palsied hand on the belly of Mehmet’s bota and murmured something softly. A blessing, I thought. Or maybe merely thanks.

  Mehmet poured a small portion of water into the trembling, cupped hand. The old man cracked his fingers to let the water spill through, watching it splatter, then slapped his palm downward against wet sand, as if he spanked a child.

  I don’t know what he said. But all the others listened raptly, then sighed as he drew a damp sandy line across an age-runneled brow.

  It was nothing. But I stared. At the runnels. The furrows. The lines. Carved deeply into his flesh; now drawn in wet sand.

  “Tiger?” Del whispered.

  I stared at the old man. Pallid forearms crawled, as if trying to raise the Chair Chosa Dei had burned away. My scalp itched of a sudden. Something cold sheathed my bowels.

  I should get out of here—

  Lines and runnels and furrows.

  Del again: “Tiger?”

  I should leave this place, before this old man unmasks me—

  I lifted my hand to my face, tracing sandtiger scars. Lines and furrows and runnels. Not to mention deep-seated stripes carving rivulets into my cheek.

  The old one smiled. And then he began to laugh.

  Dusk. We sat in a circle with the old man atop his cushion. Facecloths were loosened and looped, displaying at last a collection of very similar blade-nosed, sharp tribal faces leeched of water fat. What I’d told Del was the truth: these Punja-bred people were more accustomed to limited water, and didn’t require as much as others. The bodies reflected that.

  We’d passed around the bota, each of us taking a swallow, and passed around the cumfa and bread, each of us taking a bite. Ritual duly completed, the others began to talk quietly among themselves.

  They were, Mehmet explained, close kin all. Aketni were like that, he said—founded in blood and beliefs. He was the youngest of all, the last born of his aketni, and unless he found a woman to wife there’d be no more kin of the old hustapha.

  The hu-what? I’d asked.

  Mehmet had been patient. The hustapha, he explained, was the tribal elder. The aketni’s father. Each aketni had one, but theirs was very special.

  Uh-huh. They always were.

  Their hustapha, he went on, had sired three girls and two boys on a woman who now was dead. They had, in their turn, sired other children, but none remained in the aketni. Two had died in fever season; three others had fallen away.

  Del and I looked at each other.

  Fallen away, Mehmet repeated. They had deserted their aketni to seek out a tainted life.

  Ah, yes. Any life outside of the aketni—or outside of any belief system, for that matter—always had to be tainted. It was easier to explain.

  Hoolies, but I hate religion.

  The aketni was very small. Seven people, no more, and only one young enough to sire more. Mehmet needed a wife.

  I looked at Del. Mehmet looked at Del. Everyone in the circle looked at Del.

  The recipient of such rapt attention abruptly tensed like wire. Even without the language, Del knew something had occurred. The air vibrated with it.

  “He wants a wife,” I told her, enjoying the moment.

  Del stared at Mehmet. I have been in warmer banshee-storms.

  But Mehmet wasn’t stupid. He lifted a limp hand. “O white-haired afreet of the North, I am too humble for you.”

  It was, I thought, a deft way of escaping her wrath, and of killing off the aketni’s instantly burgeoning hopes without being too rude. No doubt it had crossed Mehmet’s mind on more than one occasion during the ride back that he’d like Del in his bed—only a dead man wouldn’t, and even then she might resurrect him—but he knew better. A woman such as Del was not for the likes of him.

  He had to content himself with bringing back help and water. Enough for a start, I thought sourly. He shouldn’t be so greedy.

  Del settled slowly, like a dog unsure of surroundings. Her hackles barely showed, but I knew how to see them underneath the outward demeanor.

  Mehmet went on explaining things, telling us how even they, deep in the Punja, heard word of the jhihadi, and what he was meant to do.

  I perked up. That was me he was talking about.

  Of course, it had long been expected by their hustapha, that such a one would come. It was why their aketni existed.

  I frowned. Mehmet saw it. Voluble as he was, he explained it thoroughly.

  When he was done, I nodded. But Del didn’t. He’d couched most of it in the dialect she didn’t understand.

  “What?” she prompted.

  “An aketni is what we thought it was: a group of people who have developed their own religion. This sort of thing happens a lot in the Punja… tribes break up into little pieces whenever the auspices are bad, or when they lose a battle, or when sickness invades, the ‘magic’ weakens, and so on. Sometimes whole families do it, which is what this one seems to be. They just go off from the tribe and live their own lives, working out their own rules and religion.” I shrugged. “I never paid much attention, except when I had to.”

  “Then khemi are an aketni?”

  I twisted my mouth. “The khemi are different. That group got entrenched early, spreading taproots into the Punja. Then someone dug up some scrolls from a ruined city, and decided to worship them.”

  “The Hamidaa’n,
” she said sourly, “that claims women are abomination?”

  “Never mind that,” I said hastily, before she got carried away. “The thing is, Mehmet’s aketni dates way back. This old man—the hustapha—is grandson of the founder. Which means it’s been around for awhile, as time exists in the Punja.” I shrugged at her frown. “Groups—tribes—die out. Sometimes within a single generation. Borjuni, simooms, drought, disease… this one’s lasted five. That’s a long-lived aketni.”

  She glanced at the old man. “This—hustapha. What is he?”

  “Holy man,” I answered. “Seer, if you will. It’s what the word basically means, as far as I can tell.” I shrugged. “Each aketni develops its own language hand-in-hand with a religion. I can only catch half of what Mehmet says, and translations can’t be trusted.”

  “Why are they here?” Del asked. “Why have they come so far?”

  “Bound for Iskandar,” I explained gravely, “to witness the jhihadi’s arrival.”

  Del recoiled. “No.”

  I lifted a chastening finger. This one still had a nail; for how long, I couldn’t say. “Now, now—you’re viewing it in terms of what you know about me. These people know only what they’ve heard… and what the hustapha’s told them.”

  “You can’t tell me they’ve left their home—”

  “Others did,” I declared. “Alric and Lena, Elamain and Esnat, not to mention all those tanzeers, and the tribes.”

  She stared at me. “But you say you’re the jhihadi—”

  “Someone has to be!” I scowled, switching to Northern in mid-spate so the aketni wouldn’t understand. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, or why your brother pointed at me—”

  “—if he didn’t point at Ajani—”

  “—and I don’t know what’s expected of me—” I glared balefully, “—but I do know one thing: you can’t tell them who I am.”

  Del blinked. “What?”

  “You can’t tell them I’m the jhihadi. Even if you don’t think so.”

  She frowned. “Why not? If they’ve come to see the jhihadi, shouldn’t they be allowed to?”

  I glanced at the old hustapha, at Mehmet, at the rest of the aketni. And was glad I could speak Northern, so they couldn’t understand.

  “Because,” I gritted through tight-clenched teeth, “if you’d based your life on a lie, would you want to find out?”

  “On a lie?”

  “These people worship the jhihadi. According to Jamail, that’s me; would you worship me?” I continued before she could answer, since I knew what she would say. “They also worship that silly prophecy about changing the sand to grass.” I scowled, recalling Del’s discovery of word similarity. “Grass or glass, whatever; it’s what they live by. That’s what this gesture is all about—” I slapped sand, then traced a gritty stripe across my brow. “It means the sand will one day be grass again, as it was at the Making. When the jhihadi comes.”

  “Making,” Del murmured. “You mean—like a jivatma?”

  “They’re talking about the world, Del—not a magicked sword.”

  “So,” she said finally, having digested that, “they want to get to Iskandar to see the jhihadi.” She flicked a glance at the old man. “Are you going to tell him the truth? Your version, that is?”

  “No. I told you that already.”

  “You’ll just let them go on believing as they have for five generations; that the jhihadi’s coming.”

  “It won’t hurt anything.”

  She arched pale brows consideringly. “It might save old bones a long, wearing journey.”

  I looked at the hustapha. Saw the glint in eyes so dark pupils were indistinct. Measured the old man’s power. I could smell the stink of it. No one, Mehmet or anyone, had to tell me he was special. I could taste the truth.

  “Tiger?”

  Hair rose on the nape of my neck. My belly clenched painfully. “No,” I said thickly, knowing it wasn’t enough.

  Del’s mouth tightened. “Do you want your reward so much?”

  Without thinking, I answered in Southron. “I don’t care about the reward. These people don’t have anything.”

  Mehmet stiffened. “But we do,” he insisted, “and we intend to reward you.”

  I waved a hand, sighing. “No, no—it’s not necessary—”

  Mehmet ignored me, speaking quickly to the old man. The hustapha smiled, fingered his mouth, said something in return. His grandson turned back. “The hustapha agrees.”

  “Agrees to what?” I asked warily.

  “He will cast the sand for you.”

  Something writhed in my belly. Sweat dampened my brow. Even the words were powerful. “Cast…” I let it trail off in dull surprise. Something was pressing me down. A huge, encompassing hand. “You mean—” I thought about something he’d said the day before, about the man who’d stolen food, water, coin. “You said their futures had been cast.”

  Mehmet nodded. “Of course.”

  “Then…” I looked at the old man. Black eyes wreathed in ancient folds glittered blackly at me.

  “What is it?” Del asked. “What is he saying, Tiger?”

  Mehmet looked at her. “He is a sandcaster.”

  “A sandcaster…” Blue eyes slewed to me, asking explanation.

  My chest felt tight. Breathing was difficult. “Sandcaster,” I said dully. “He can foretell the future.”

  Del’s brows arched. “But you don’t believe that nonsense—or so you’ve always said.”

  Feeling sick, I licked dry lips and gazed across the circle at the old man. “You don’t understand.”

  “He tells the future,” she said lightly. “There are many who do that. At kymri, at bazaars, even in the streets—”

  “This is different,” I snapped. Something stirred deep within. “I don’t want to know. Not today, not tomorrow—not next month. I just don’t want to know.”

  Del laughed. “Do you think he would tell you a bad fortune, after what you have done to help them?”

  “He tells the truth!” I hissed. “Good or bad doesn’t matter. What he shows you is what will happen, no matter what you do.”

  Del shrugged. She just didn’t understand.

  Neither did I, really.

  But Chosa Dei did.

  Twenty-two

  The ritual was meticulous. A designated plot of bone-white Punja sand was tended carefully by each aketni member save the old hustapha. He sat on his cushion, overseeing the work being performed directly in front of him.

  Each member took turns employing a short-handled wooden rake to rid the plot of impurities. Then a finer rake, combing the selfsame plot. And finally a slender straight-edge to smooth the plot very flat. Both rakes and the straight-edge were of blood-veined, age-dyed wood daubed with ocher squiggles. I assumed the squiggles were runes, but I didn’t recognize them.

  I shivered. Sweat ran down my temple. I scrubbed it away with a hairless, scaly forearm, then let the limb fall away. The old man was staring at me.

  Dusk had faded to night. Mehmet and another had removed two staff-torches from the hustapha’s wagon, planted one on either side of the old man, then set the oil-soaked wrappings afire. The torches cast eerie sharp-edged shadows across the tended plot, limning its perfect smoothness.

  Mehmet brought seven small pouches to the hustapha, setting three on each side, and the seventh directly in front of the old man’s cushion. The pouches were of pale, soft leather, closed with beaded drawstrings. Mehmet carefully opened each one, taking care not to slip a finger inside or spill the sacred contents, then withdrew to join the semicircle of burnous-swathed, veiled aketni hunched behind the turbaned hustapha.

  Del and I sat side by side. Between us and the hustapha stretched a flat rectangle of silk-smooth sand, and an acre of reluctance.

  On my part, that is.

  Sweat dribbled, scribing a runelike squiggle down my right temple, until it was caught in sandtiger welts and channeled to my chin.


  Of their own accord, fingertips rose to trace the dampened scars, following the pattern of lines excavated in my face.

  Del gathered herself. I knew she meant to rise, to leave me by myself. But I reached out and caught a wrist. “Stay,” I hissed.

  “But—this is for you—”

  “Stay,” I repeated.

  Only an instant’s hesitation. Then she settled again at my side.

  I swallowed painfully, nearly choking on a closed throat. The back of my neck itched. Layers of sinew tautened, threatening to burst crawling flesh.

  The hustapha closed his eyes. For a moment I thought crazily he had merely fallen asleep, until I saw the stuttering of wrinkled eyelids and the twitching of his lips. Gnarled hands curled limply over bent knees.

  The aketni made no sound.

  The torches tore in a breeze that, an instant before, had not existed. Smoke shredded in silence, like sun-rotted, ancient gauze.

  The old hustapha murmured. Then the eyes snapped open.

  He was blind, I realized. Swallowed by his trance, he saw nothing of the night. Nothing of the sand. Nothing of the unsettled sword-dancer who sat in front of him, with the baby’s butt of Punja shining pure and pristine before him.

  Blind, he reached unerringly for the first pouch. Poured a measure of sand into one hand. A fine, bronze, burnished sand. He cast it across the tended surface, shaking it from his hand as he chanted unknown things, letting it fall as it would.

  Six times he did this. Six measures of sand: bronze, vermilion, ocher, carnelian, sienna, slate-blue. Each cast against the ground.

  There was no artistry to it. No attempt to blend hue, or juxtapose color for contrast. He merely cast and let it fall.

  One last pouch. He reached into his voluminous burnous, removed an object from it, and held it up to the light. A small wooden spoonlike thing, hollow, with a square of gauze stretched across the bottom, bound on with brass wire. He placed the flat of one palm against the gauze, sealing it against spillage, then poured a measure of sand from the last pouch. Perfectly transparent Punja crystals glittered in the torchlight, like a shower of Northern snow.

  He removed the sealing hand from the bottom of the spoonlike object. He began to shake it smoothly, slowly, with methodical precision. Punja crystals sifted through the gauze, powdering the colored drifts. All hue was muted by an almost translucent layer of glittering icelike crystal.