Sword-Breaker

by Jennifer Roberson

  I caught the blade with my own, twisting, and wrenched the steel apart, hissing invective at her for bringing us to this pass. I had long ago given up wondering, even a little, which of us was better. It simply didn’t matter. Of course we said it did, merely to tease one another, but I knew in my heart of hearts we neither of us knew.

  Del came at me, singing. Northern steel flashed in chimneyed sunlight, throwing slashes against ribbed walls. Clustered crystals of sand and ice glittered in cracks and crannies. The sun gazed down upon us, beneficent arbiter.

  Steelsong filled the chimney, spiraling upward along smokerock ribs. We hammered at one another, knowing each blow would be caught, and turned, and blunted. Because neither of us wanted to die. We simply wanted an ending: Del, to discharge the blade and me; me, to be free of the blackness of spirit that had nothing to do with Chosa, and everything to do with dishonor.

  Elaii-ali-ma is what you make it, binding those who wish to be bound. And I had bound myself by completing the training and rituals, by accepting the oaths of blood before the legendary shodo of Alimat, knowing myself worthy in spite of my heritage. I had made something of myself, banishing the chula in the circle, giving birth to the Sandtiger.

  And I had killed him also, by stepping out of Sabra’s circle and shattering all my oaths.

  Elaii-ali-ma. Making this the final circle.

  “Dance,” Del hissed, cleaving air, then stopping short to twist, and turn, and snap.

  Such tiny, intricate patterns, requiring incredible skill as well as powerful, flexible wrists. I broke the patterns as best I could, slicing through salmon runeglow, then saw the blackened shimmer coruscate up my blade.

  “No!” I jerked it aside, felt Del’s blade slide by, licking through broken pattern to sting me across the forearm. Blood welled, dribbled.

  Chosa was awake.

  “Dance!” Del shouted, using my inattention to nick my arm again.

  I stumbled back, then held my ground, beating away her hungry blade. Saw the blackness rising higher, splashing onto quillons, licking at fingers and grip.

  I staggered. Nearly went down. My guts twisted inside out.

  “Yes!” Del shouted. “Come out and dance, Chosa!”

  The sorcerer, thus invited, surged out of his hidden corner. Ate his way through bones even as I cried out.

  “Come out and dance,” she hissed.

  “Del—no—”

  “It’s Shaka Obre, Chosa. Do you remember him?”

  I shook. Power ran down my arms to the blade. In my hands the sword was black; the sword was entirely black.

  Without warning, I was empty.

  I fell to one knee, struggled up. Blade met blade, held. Del cried out in extremity.

  “Let go!” I cried hoarsely.

  Boreal was abruptly extinguished, swallowed by Chosa’s blackness.

  “No!” I shouted. “Bascha—let go! Drop your sword! Don’t let Chosa near it!”

  Del didn’t let go. Del didn’t drop it.

  Chosa Dei, who’d made it clear from the start he wanted sword and woman, swarmed up the steel toward flesh.

  “Yes!” Del cried.

  “Bascha—let go—”

  She broke the final pattern, letting my blade slip through to slice across one wrist, and staggered to the edge of the circle. Blood ran from the wound, dripping onto crystalline sand. Where it dripped, smoke rose.

  “Expunge—” she murmured dazedly.

  “Drop it!” I shouted.

  Blood fell onto the line she’d drawn in the sand. Black Boreal trembled in Del’s hand. “It’s me, Shaka—” she whispered.

  The line, and smoke, wisped away. Del staggered through, thrust Boreal into the ice-crusted crevice she had inspected so carefully… jammed the blade into the slot… jerked the hilt to the left so violently the steel snapped in two.

  I dropped Samiel even as Del dropped Boreal. “Bascha—no—”

  Chosa was free of the sword. Chosa was free of me. Chosa was free of everything except Shaka Obre.

  Forty-six

  Sand began to fly. It was scooped up from the floor, thrown piecemeal into the circle, then hurled against ribbed walls. Through slotted crack came a howling wind, buffeting flesh and rock. It wailed like a Northern banshee-storm, whistling across ice-rimed smokerock corrugated by Chosa’s magic.

  I spat, thrust up a shielding hand, fell to my knees as the blast howled into the circle. The dhoti was little protection; nearly every inch of me, bared, was painfully vulnerable to howling wind and stinging sand.

  “Del!” She made no answer. For the sand, I couldn’t see her. “Bascha—where are you?”

  But the howling swallowed my words. I heard them myself, barely, only because I knew what they were.

  My eyes were crusted shut. I hunched there in the circle, my back to the slotted crack, and felt ice and Punja crystals worrying at my spine.

  In my mind’s eye I saw where Del had been as she wedged Boreal into the crevice and snapped the blade in two. Slowly, meticulously, I made my way across the circle, then touched a taut-muscled leg.

  “Del!”

  “Tiger?” Hands caught me, hung on. “Tiger—I can’t see!”

  “Neither can I. Come on—hang on… we need to find Umir’s burnous… ah, here!”

  I dragged the priceless garment to us both, then huddled close to Del as I dragged it over shoulders and heads. It muffled the shrill keening and allowed us to open our eyes, peering out through a hooded opening.

  “It’s spinning,” Del shouted over the noise. “The sand—it’s spinning!”

  “Dust demon,” I said. “Whirlwind. It happens sometimes near the Punja… don’t know why, but it does. They blow themselves out eventually, but this one—” I shook my head. “I don’t think this is natural, and it’s awfully big.”

  The shrill keening increased. Eerie sparkling lights crackled and snapped as spinning sand was sucked up chimney walls in a maelstrom of pressure, whistling along the ribs. Aching ears popped; I clapped both hands over them. Blood broke from my nose.

  “It’s them—” Del said. “It’s Shaka Obre and Chosa Dei—”

  “A minor argument, maybe?” I hunched in the burnous. “I don’t care who it is—I just wish they’d stop.” I blotted my nose in irritation. Pulled the burnous more tightly around one shoulder as the wind snatched at fabric, snapping it furiously.

  “Look.”

  “I can’t see anything, bascha!”

  “Look,” she repeated.

  I looked, squinting and cursing. Saw sand, still flying; crystals still yanked upward through ribs and pockets and whorls, sucked out through the chimney hole glowing sunbright and fair far over our heads.

  Something else was flying. Something orange, and red, and yellow, and all the colors in between. “What?” And then I began to laugh. Reached out and caught a feather. “Umir’s burnous is shedding!”

  Del’s head came out of folds. “Is it? It is! Oh, Tiger, no—”

  I just kept laughing.

  “Tiger, all the workmanship—workwomanship, more like!” A yellow feather caught in Del’s tangled hair. “All the care and effort…”

  “Not as much care and effort as went into your jivatma.” I stuck my head out farther. “The wind is dying down.”

  It was. The keening howl faded. The dust demon blew itself out. The floor was now of rock, ice-free, dark-brown smokerock, lacking even a grain of sand. The only things left in the chimney were Del and me and feathers.

  And two Northern jivatmas, one of which was broken.

  I pulled Del up from the floor, shrugging out of the molting burnous. “About Boreal—” I began.

  Del clapped a hand over my mouth. “Listen!”

  I listened. Peeled fingers away. “It’s quiet.”

  “Too quiet.”

  “After all that howling, anything would seem too quiet.”

  “Listen!” she hissed.

  A piece of rib cracked off and fell nex
t to us, shattering on the floor. Followed by another.

  “Out!” I blurted, shoving her toward the slot. “Hoolies, get out of here!” The ribbing of the chimney crumbled.

  Del ran, ducked, twisted, sliding through the narrow slot. I started to follow, paused; looked back at my jivatma.

  “Tiger!” She had a hand and tugged hard, scraping my right shoulder into an outcropping.

  “Samiel—”

  The chimney fell into itself, collapsing into bits and pieces of smokerock large enough to squash a horse.

  “Tiger—come on!”

  “Wait,” I mumbled tonelessly, staring back into the chamber even as it collapsed. “Wait—I saw this—”

  “Tiger! Don’t waste your only chance!” She tugged again at my arm.

  “But I saw this… it’s part of the threefold future—”

  “You also saw us die, or you, or me. Come on—” The vision snapped. “All right. I’m coming, Del—let go—”

  Del let go. Hunching, twisting, ducking, we scrambled through the passageway as the mountain around us remade itself. The chimney was gone, I knew, filled up with tumbled rubble. If we weren’t quick about it, the rest of the place might fall down.

  I banged elbows, knees; stubbed toes; smacked my head once or twice. But Del did much the same, so I didn’t complain about it. We scrambled through the smokerock bowels and at last reached the chamber; burst out of the passageway into dim light; out of that into the day.

  We did not, in our haste, take time to judge the footing. We simply ran, taking the shock into knees and ankles, steadying balance with stiffened arms and splayed hands, landing on rumps if we overbalanced. Cursing, spitting grit, sobbing for breath, we slid-scrambled down the mountainside, scraping rock and rubble and dirt.

  The tumbling slide ended eventually, spilling us out onto the flat where we had left the horses. We landed, sucked air, twisted onto bellies, staring up at the ruined mountain.

  Dust still hung in the air. A few feathers drifted down: red and yellow and orange.

  We waited, holding breath. Dust—and feathers—settled. The day was bright, and quiet.

  I flopped facedown in the dirt, sucking in great gulps of air, then heaving them out again. It dusted my face with grit, but I didn’t care. I was alive to notice; there’s something to be said for dirt.

  Del patted my shoulder limply, then stretched out on her back. A lock of littered hair fell across my elbow. “Done,” she croaked. “The jivatma is free of taint.”

  For a moment, too busy breathing, I didn’t bother to answer. When I did, it was half-laugh, half-gasp. “—course, we can’t get it, now—”

  “But it’s purified. It’s clean.” Del breathed noisily a moment. “And you’re clean, too.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty filthy.”

  She slapped a shoulder weakly. “Clean of Chosa Dei.”

  I felt a little better. Managed to turn over; even to sit up, hooking elbows over knees. Peered out at the Southron day, picking grit off a bloodied lip. Then glanced sidelong at Del, still sprawled on her back, and laughed huskily.

  “What?”

  “You. There are feathers stuck to you.” I picked one off, displayed it. “A filthy, sweaty sandhen all ready for the plucking.”

  Del sat up. “Where?”

  “In your hair, mostly. Here.” I unstuck another.

  Muttering, she began to inspect her hair, yanking feathers out of tangles.

  I twisted and looked back at the mountain, twitched prickling shoulders. “Shaka Obre and Chosa Dei…” Another prickle ran down my spine. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think they blew themselves out, as you said dust demons do.” Del glanced up, squinting against the brightness. “You are the one who is sensitive to magic. Tell me: are they there?”

  I stared up at the hollow mountain. Waited for hair to rise, for belly to grow queasy. Nothing at all happened. I was dusty, tired, and sore, but I felt perfectly fine. “I don’t think so.”

  “Where might they have gone?”

  I shrugged. “Wherever magic goes when it has no home.”

  Del looked sharply at me. “Magic without a home…”

  It sounded as odd to me, but it made a strange sort of sense. Then I frowned. Pointed. “Look way off there in the distance, along the horizon.”

  Del looked. “Lightning.”

  “It’s not the right time of year. In the summer, every night, heat lightning lights up the sky, but that’s not what that is.”

  She studied it more closely. “Do you think—?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But they were both reduced to essences… maybe nothing more than the memory of power. And that’s the end result: a crackle in the air and a flash of light now and then.”

  Del shivered. “Why did Chosa have a body in Dragon Mountain? Shaka didn’t here.”

  “I don’t know. But seeing how Chosa worked, luring villagers to the mountain to serve his own purposes, I imagine he stole a body. Shaka wouldn’t do that.”

  Del looked at me. “Was this part of the threefold future?”

  I smiled crookedly. “One of the futures I saw, all mixed up with the others. But it’s hard to see it clearly when you’re right in the middle of it… and then when Chosa’s memories kept interfering with mine—” I shrugged. “I never knew which was which, or whose was whose. But from the looks of things, I’d predict our future is rather quiet.” I reached out and caught a wrist as she dug idly in dirt. “Now. Why did you break Boreal?”

  Del’s brows knotted. “It was the only chance. And only that: a chance. I thought if Chosa were loosed behind the wards, even his own wards, Shaka might destroy him, or at least overpower him. But I knew as long as Chosa was in you, needing you so much, you wouldn’t be able to break Samiel. So—that left Boreal.” She shrugged defensively. “I wanted to lure him out, tease him into my sword during the dance… and then break her.”

  “But—your jivatma—”

  Del dug a deeper hole. “I don’t need her anymore. My song is finished. Now I start a new one.”

  “Bascha—”

  “Leave it,” she said softly.

  I nodded, respecting her wishes. Then heaved myself to my feet, muttered as knees cracked, limped my way to the stud.

  “So, old son, couldn’t leave me yet.” I patted a sweat-crusted shoulder. “Even in the midst of that, you waited here for me.”

  The stud shook his head and snorted, showering me with dampness.

  “Thank you,” I said gravely. “What happened to the mare?”

  The stud didn’t tell me, but I had a good idea. She’d probably broken her rein and headed down the mountain when the chimney collapsed, or when the howling began. We’d find her down below, waiting for a person. Horses are like that.

  I patted the shoulder again. “We’ve sure been through some times.…” I rubbed a scraped shoulder. “Most, I’d like to forget.”

  “Tiger?” Del. “We have company.”

  I spun and looked up at her. “Where?”

  She pointed. “There.”

  I moved around the stud, one arm across his rump, wishing I had a sword; any sword—then saw I wouldn’t need one.

  “Mehmet!” I blurted. “What are you doing here?”

  Mehmet grinned. He wore dusty saffron burnous and equally dusty white turban. “Sandtiger,” he said. “May the sun shine on your head.”

  I squinted very hard. “Am I sandsick? Or dead?”

  “Neither. I am I, and here.”

  Frowning, I nodded. “That’s something, I guess. But—why are you here?”

  “The old hustapha is dead.”

  Which baffled me even more. “I—uh—I’m sorry. I mean—” I gestured helplessness. “He was a nice old man… I’m sorry.”

  “He was old, and his time was done.” Mehmet climbed up the slope that lipped over onto the flat. “I have left the aketni below.”

  “You brought them here, too?”

>   “The hustapha said I must. It’s here it all begins.”

  “What begins?”

  He grinned. “You are to give me a message.”

  I touched my breastbone. “Me?”

  Mehmet nodded. “The hustapha said: the jhihadi.”

  “But—” I stopped. Glanced upslope at Del, who continued picking feathers as if there was nothing else as important. Frowning, I looked back at Mehmet. “I have no message for you.”

  He was perfectly serene. “The hustapha cast the sand. He saw it would be this way. He sent us here to find you, so you could give us the message.”

  “I don’t have a message—ah, hoolies, horse—do you have to do that here?”

  The stud spread back legs and began to water the dirt. I moved quickly, avoiding the deluge; found myself stepping this way and that as he splattered. We stood on the lip of the slope—Mehmet, the stud, and I—and water runs downhill… so do other things.

  “How much do you have?” I asked crossly, as the stud continued to flow.

  “The message,” Mehmet mentioned.

  “I told you. I don’t have any—” I stared at the urine as it ran down the slope. I watched the flow split, diminish; watched it channeled by dip and pocket; saw it diverted by bits of smokerock too big to dislodge on its own.

  Patterns in the dirt. Channels and runnels and funnels. Lines filled, and overflowing; diverted in other directions.

  “Water,” I said blankly.

  Mehmet waited politely.

  “Water,” I repeated. Then looked around intently, found the proper twig, bent down to draw in the dirt.

  “Tiger.” Del, from upslope. “What are you doing?”

  I heard her come down, scraping dirt and pebbles as she moved. But I didn’t give her an answer, too busy with the task. Consumed by the pattern.

  She stopped next to me. Didn’t say a word.

  Eventually I looked up. Saw two pairs of eyes staring: one pair blue, one black.

  I laughed up at them both. “Don’t you understand?”

  In unison: “No.”

  “Because you’re both blind. We’ve all been blind.” I stood up, tossing the twig aside. “Look at that. Look at that. What do you see?”