Overbalanced, I came off. One foot caught briefly in brass stirrup, then pulled free as the stud leaped aside and I twisted in mid-fall. I landed hard, one leg bunched under me, then threw myself full-length and flopped belly-down as Sabra dragged at the harness, trying to jerk it out of my hands.
I called her a nasty name, but she wasn’t listening. By then she had the sword halfway out of the sheath.
“Tiger!” It was Del. I saw the glint of Boreal as she unsheathed the jivatma.
“Kill her—” I said hoarsely. “Don’t let her get the sword.”
But Sabra had the sword.
I pushed up, dove, caught silk. Felt the bite of steel in flesh as the tip dragged across one forearm. I reached to grab for the hilt; to peel her hands away. “Sabra—Sabra don’t… you don’t know what it is.”
But Sabra didn’t care.
“Get away!” Del shouted. “Tiger—you’re too close.”
“Hoolies, she’s got the jivatma—”
Something inside me flared. Chosa Dei, scenting power, swarmed out of the dark little corner he’d used as a place to live, biding his time patiently. Now the time had come.
Sabra screamed. She scrambled through loose shale and tumbling smokerock, kicking dirt and debris and stone as she tried now to escape the sword a moment before she’d wanted so badly. Wet blackness ran up the blade, darkening twisted runes, then danced along the quillons and began to tickle the grip. Began to caress her fingers.
“Let it go—” I rasped. “Sabra—let it go—”
But Sabra didn’t. Or couldn’t.
A convulsion cramped my body. I tied up, spasmed, retched; blurted a grunt against the pain.
Sabra kept on screaming.
Hoolies, shut her up—
Blackness charred her fingers. Reached her wrists. Then, sensing unrestricted opportunity, engulfed her entire body.
The screaming abruptly stopped.
Within me, Chosa moved. No more tentative testing. No more anticipation. He went straight for the heart, and squeezed.
Sabra’s mouth hung open, but made no sound. She sat upright, clutching the sword. Rocking back and forth, with black eyes stretched so wide the whites showed all around them.
Chosa Dei was in her. Part of him, at least. The rest was still in me.
Sabra’s features began to soften. The skin began to droop. The nose slid sideways as the mouth slackened to shapelessness. A keening moan bubbled from her throat.
She bled from nose and ears. The hands on the sword swelled until the flesh split like a melon. Chosa Dei had filled her utterly, and found she wasn’t enough.
Breath came in heaves and gusts: sucked in, then held, then expelled. I crawled across the ground and reached for Aladar’s daughter. Caught the quillons in one hand, both tiny wrists in the other. “Let her go,” I grated. “There isn’t enough of her!”
The Chosa in me lunged the length of my arms, trying to pour himself into Sabra, whom he saw as a means to escape. I felt him swarm into the quillons, up the grip, then to her fingertips.
I wrenched her hands loose. “No,” I said hoarsely. “I said there wasn’t enough!”
“Let him go!” Del shouted. “Let him go into her!”
“She’ll die—she’ll die… and he’ll be loose. Do you really want him loose?”
“Better than in you!”
Nice sentiment, bascha.
Then Chosa came surging back. The tiny body was clearly unsuitable; I offered much better. Bigger. Stronger. Alive.
At least, for the moment.
“Tiger—let go of the sword!”
In leaps and bounds, he came, flowing out of Sabra’s body. I scrambled backward, thrusting the sword away, but realized I’d left it too late. The blade was black again, but so were my hands. Even as I swore, the blackness invaded forearms and climbed up to elbows.
“Drive him back!” Del shouted. “You’ve done it before—do it again—”
Legs flailed impotently as I scrambled to get up. My right knee failed. Belly knotted itself, then spewed out its contents. I grasped the hilt and clenched it in both hands, straining to force him back.
It would be so easy if I simply let him have me.
I lunged up onto my knees and hoisted the sword into the air. Brought it down against shale and granite, splintering dark smokerock.
Again and again and again. Steel rang a protest.
“Go back—” I husked, “—go back—”
Tried to focus myself. Tried to beat Chosa Dei back as I methodically beat the steel against the hard flesh of Southron mountains.
“go back—”
“go back—”
“GO BACK—”
Del’s voice, strident: “Stop… Tiger, stop—”
“—go back—go back—go back—”
“Tiger—no more!”
“—back—” I gasped. “Go back—”
A litany. A chant. The kind learned at Alimat, to focus concentration.
In the North, they sang. In the South, we don’t.
“Tiger—let go—”
“Go. Back,” I commanded.
Someone hit me over the head.
“I’m sorry,” Del whispered.
But I didn’t care anymore.
I came to in grave discomfort, aware of constant movement, and blood pounding in my head. “What have you done to me?”
Del rode ahead on the mare, leading the stud. “Tied you onto your horse.”
That part I could tell. “Hoolies, bascha—you might have let me ride normally, instead of throwing me over the saddle like a piece of meat!”
“It’s what you did to Sabra.”
I shifted. Swore. I was exceedingly uncomfortable, sprawled belly-down across the saddle just as Sabra had. Wrists and ankles were tied to stirrups. “Do you mind if we stop?” I croaked.
“We don’t have any time.”
“Time for what? What are you talking about? Del—what in hoolies do you mean?”
“Shaka Obre,” she said.
“Shaka—” My belly cramped. “Del, for pity’s sake—”
“It’s for your own good.”
“How is it for my own good?”
“Look at your hands,” she said.
I looked. Saw the pallid, hairless flesh, all flaky and scaly. The crumbling, discolored fingernails. “Not again,” I muttered.
“They told me where to go.”
“Who did? What are you talking about?”
“The Vashni. They told me how to get there. So that’s where we’re going.”
“Told you how to get where? What are you talking about?”
“Shaka Obre.”
I spasmed. “You know where he is?”
“I told you: they told me.”
“How do the Vashni know where Shaka Obre is? And why tell you?”
She twisted in the saddle and looked back at me. Her face was very white. “They know because they have always known; it’s never been a secret among the Vashni. But no one ever cared, and no one bothered to ask. They told me because I am the Oracle’s sister. They also told me because you are Chosa Dei—or so they believe.” She shrugged. “I am to take you there, to imprison you in the mountain.”
“Imprison me!” I flailed. “But I’m not Chosa Dei. I’m me. Didn’t you tell them that?”
“You didn’t see what happened. They did, and they’re superstitious.”
I gritted teeth, trying to keep from shouting. “I didn’t see it—I was in it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was the only way they would let me take you. Otherwise they meant to kill you on the spot… I explained why we needed to find Shaka Obre, and they agreed to let me take you.”
“You could untie me now. There aren’t any Vashni around.”
“They said they’d watch, to make sure I got you there safely.” She paused. “Also myself.”
“So you’re just going to leave me this way?”
“They said they�
�d be watching, Tiger.”
“Do they really know where he is?”
“They said they did. They gave me directions.” She was quiet a moment, letting the mare climb. “They said they took Jamail there once.”
It chilled me. “Jamail.”
“He’d been having dreams. Since he had no tongue, he couldn’t explain anything.” She shrugged. “They took him to Shaka Obre. When he came back, he could speak. He had no tongue, but he could speak.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But you said you heard him talk in Iskandar.”
“Yes, but…” I was fascinated. “How could that happen?”
The mare climbed steadily. So did the stud. “The Vashni said Shaka Obre caused him to speak again so he could carry word of the jhihadi throughout the South. To prepare the way.” Del looked back at me. “If Shaka can do that, surely he can discharge your sword.”
“We had better hope so.” I frowned. “Was it you who hit me?”
“I had to. You were trying to break your sword.”
“I was?”
“And it would have made things worse. Chosa was already back in the jivatma—but you just kept banging the blade into the mountainside, trying to break it. If you had, it would have freed Chosa.”
I frowned. “I don’t remember that part.”
“At that point, I doubt you remembered your name.” Del reined the mare around a tumble of boulders. “So I hit you with my sword hilt.”
“Thank you very much.”
“And now I’m taking you to Shaka Obre, where you can discharge your sword.”
“And me.”
“And you.”
“But can’t we do this with me riding upright?”
Del’s tone was flat. “I don’t want to take a chance with the part of Chosa that’s in you.”
“Hoolies, bascha—I’m not Chosa, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not now, maybe.”
“Del—”
She interrupted. “You don’t understand. The Vashni told me. The closer we get to Shaka, the stronger Chosa becomes.”
That shut me up.
I hung slackly over the saddle and contemplated my state. Blackened nails, dead skin… a bruised knee (again)… general discomfort. I felt sick and cold and tired. I needed some aqivi. I needed a hot bath. I needed a healthy body that hosted no part of Chosa.
“Hoolies,” I muttered wearily. “When will this all be over?”
“Soon,” Del answered.
It made me feel no better.
Forty-four
Del took one look at my face. “Are you all right?”
I cleared my throat pointedly, rubbing wrists with elaborate attention. “It’s what happens when you’re forced to ride slung across your own saddle on your own horse.”
“No, it’s not,” she retorted. “But if that’s your answer, you must be all right.” Lines creased her brow when I didn’t respond. “Are you really all right?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “You want me to go in there, don’t you?”
“There” was the mouth I’d seen inside my head as I lay chained in Sabra’s palace. The blackened, peeled-away opening; a hole leading into the mountain.
Del and I had left the horses down below, in a sandy, level area with a little bit of grazing, if you like Southron drygrass. We’d climbed up a little ways because Del said it was what we were supposed to do; now we stood facing a hole. The hole I’d seen in my mind, all mixed up with Chosa’s memories of what he’d done to his brother. Like it or not, Shaka Obre was near.
Or what was left of him.
Del slid a step, flung out arms, caught her balance. “This is where Shaka’s supposed to be. They said it looked just like this: all broken, choppy smokerock, gaping open like a mouth. See? There are the lips—and just inside it looks like teeth.”
A ripple tickled my spine. “I don’t like it, bascha.”
“It starts out small, then opens up,” she persisted. “They’ve all been inside the first chamber.”
I ignored the pinching in my belly. “The first chamber?”
She shrugged. “They didn’t go any farther.”
“But we’re supposed to, right?”
Another shrug. “If we’re to find Shaka Obre, we’ll have to do what we must.”
I sucked in a deep breath, held it, blew it out gustily. Scratched at a prickling scalp. “It’s a lot like the mine.”
“Aladar’s—? Oh.” Now she understood. “Do you want me to go first?”
“No, I don’t want you to go first. I don’t want either of us to go.”
“Then I guess we’d better leave.” Del turned on her heel, slid down a step, then began to pick her way laboriously down the slope.
“Del—”
She stopped. Looked back. “Your choice,” she said. “You’re the one with a piece of Chosa trapped inside.”
I kicked a rock aside. “I went into the Canteada hidey-holes. And into Dragon Mountain—where I rescued you. If you’ll just give me a moment, I’ll go in here, too.”
She climbed back up the slope, slipping and sliding through rolling pebbles and crumbling smokerock. “If you want—”
“Never mind, Del.” I ducked my head way down and squeezed my way through into the first chamber, scraping past the “lips.”
The “mouth” was small. Very small. And very, very cold. I stopped just inside and felt the hairs rise on my neck. The ones on my arms tried to, too—except Chosa Dei had burned them away.
Deep inside me, something quivered. Trouble was, I couldn’t tell if it was Chosa, or just my normal discomfort when faced with cave or tunnel.
“Tiger?” Del ducked through, blocking out the light. “Is this—it?”
I drew in a breath. “Seems to be.” With two of us, it was cramped. I edged back toward the daylight as Del moved through. “So—now we’ve done it. I guess we can go…”
“This can’t be it,” she murmured, looking around. “One little two-person cave?”
“I’m cold. It’s dark. We’re done.”
“Wait.” She put a hand on my arm. “It is very cold.”
“I said that. Let’s go.”
“But why? This is the South. Why should it feel like the North?”
“It’s confused, maybe.” I edged away from the restraining hand. “There’s nothing for us to do here—”
“Tiger, wait.” She knelt, pressed a hand against the floor. “It’s cold… cold and damp.”
“So?” I peered around impatiently. The chamber was little more than a privacy closet, with a low rock roof. If Del and I linked hands and stretched out either arm, we’d knock knuckles against both sides. “There is water in the South, bascha… or none of us would be here.”
She moved her hand along the wall. The damp stone was pocked with hollows and holes, falling away into darkness. Del followed it to the back, then blurted in surprise.
I stiffened. “What?”
“Move.”
“Do what?”
“Move. You’re in the light.”
Reluctantly, I moved away from the opening. The absence of my body allowed sunlight into the tiny chamber. Then I saw what Del meant.
The first chamber was exactly that: the first. Cut into the back wall, hidden in shadow when a body blocked the opening, was a narrow passageway leading deeper into the mountain.
Hairs stirred on neck and in groin. “I don’t think so,” I blurted.
Del, still kneeling in Umir’s priceless burnous, looked up at me in assessment. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty sick of all this.”
“No. How are you feeling?”
I sighed, summoned a smile. “He’s being very quiet.”
Del frowned. “We should be close to Shaka, and the Vashni said Chosa would grow stronger. I wonder why he’s being so quiet.”
“I don’t. I’m just happy he is.” I took a single step, reached down to catch a sleeve. “Let’s go, ba
scha.”
She pulled sleeve—and arm—free. “I’m going deeper. Stay or go, as you like… or maybe you’d rather come with me.”
“You don’t know what’s in there.”
In muted light, she smiled. “Shaka Obre,” she said. And turned to go through the door.
In a moment, bright white samite was swallowed by the darkness. So was Del.
“Oh, hoolies,” I muttered. “Why does she always do this?”
A muffled echo came back to me. “You’ll have to take off your harness. There isn’t very much headroom.”
“Or much room inside your head.”
But I didn’t say it loudly. I just slipped free of straps, wound them around the sheath, followed Del into darkness.
Swearing all the while.
She was all hunched up when I made my way to her, sitting on the rock floor with doubled up knees jutting roofward. One arm cradled harness-wrapped sheath and sword. The other was stretched out, picking at crevices cut into the walls.
“Ice,” she said briefly.
“Ice?”
“Feel it yourself.”
I sat down next to her, easing myself past outcroppings that threatened to snatch at bare flesh. All I wore was a dhoti, and no sandals, either. I sat for only a moment, then shifted hastily to a squat. “Hoolies! It’ll freeze my gehetties off!”
Del smiled. “Ice.” She dug into a crevice, then pulled her hand out and displayed fingertips.
I inspected. Touched. Ice, all right. Frowning, I scraped my own share out of the crevice. It was gritty, frozen hard. Not in the slightest mushy. “Like Punja crystals—hard and sharp and glittery.”
“Only this is real ice.” Del rubbed fingertips together. “Like the ice-caves near Staal-Ysta.”
“But this is the South.”
She shrugged. “A sixth-month ago, I would have said there could be no such thing. But that same sixth-month ago, I’d have said there would be no need to find a Southron sorcerer in order to discharge a sword.”
I grunted. “We don’t seem to be doing much other than sitting here discussing ice.”
“It is odd,” she growled. “An ice-cave in the South?”
“So maybe it’s a holdover from when there was no Southron desert, or Northern snowfields… maybe the world they made was nothing but a world, with no divisions at all.” I shifted, rose carefully, rubbed at a stiffened neck. “Are we going on?”
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