“No?” Pale brows rose a little. “Not the Sandtiger Elamain knew, is it?”
I laughed out loud. “No, thank valhail. No.”
Del’s fingers—callused as my own—were cool on my silk-clad arm. “That’s not why, Tiger. But if we each of us took, gave, shared—on an equal basis … regardless of the reasons?”
“Equal basis?” In the South, a man in bed with a woman knows so little of equality, being taught from childhood he is unquestionably superior.
Unless, of course, he grows up a chula.
Del laughed softly. “Think of it as a sword-dance.”
I thought at once of my dreams. Del and I, in a circle. Facing one another. The image made me smile. The circle she offered now had nothing to do with dreams. At least, not those dreams; another sort entirely.
“Freely offered, freely taken.” I thought it over. “Interesting idea, bascha.”
“Not so different from Elamain.” Del didn’t smile, but I saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“You’re on.” I rolled on one shoulder and caught her in my arms—
—Just as the stranger’s voice came out of the deepening twilight—
—but not a stranger’s at all.
The voice was clearly Theron’s, challenging Del to a dance.
Theron’s voice?
Del and I were on our feet instantly, swords bared. In the light of a full moon I saw the man approaching from the other side of the cistern. He walked. But beyond him, in the distance, stood a horse. A very familiar horse.
My stud—
I broke off the thought at once. Theron had purposely— and cleverly—dismounted, approaching on foot so our own mounts would not give warning.
And in our mutual lust (or love—call it what you will), we hadn’t heard him. We hadn’t heard him at all.
He wore the mouse-gray burnous. The hood was pushed back from his head. Still brown-haired, like me, with a trace of gray. Still tall, like me. But heavier now, because the mine had stripped too much weight from me.
Theron looked at Del. “We have a dance to finish.”
“Wait a minute,” I said “The afreet took you.”
“But I’m here now, and this is none of your concern, Southron.”
“I think maybe it is,” I declared. “How did you get away? What exactly are you doing here?”
“It should be obvious. There is a bit of business remaining between the woman and me.” He looked straight at Del, ignoring me entirely “I came here to finish a dance.”
“Maybe you did.” Butting in had never bothered me in the least. “But before you two continue your unfinished business, I want some answers.”
Theron didn’t smile. “As for the afreet, he lacks a master. As Rusali lacks a tanzeer.”
Well, I wasn’t really surprised. Alric had said Lahamu wasn’t terribly bright. And Theron was clearly a dangerous man to cross.
I looked at the dangerous man. Quietly he stripped himself of sandals, burnous, harness. Of everything save his dhoti. In his hands he held his naked sword, and I saw again the alien runes, iridescent against the steel of palest-purple that wasn’t—really—steel.
Again, we faced one another. Again, I saw the man who wanted to kill her, and I thought of killing him myself.
But it was Del’s dance. Not mine.
Del stripped out of burnous, sandals, harness. Set them aside. With the naked sword in her hands, she turned to look at me. “Tiger,” she said calmly.
I walked away from the rugs and the cistern, closer to the fire. I set Singlestroke’s tip into the sand and began to draw the circle. There was moonlight, more than enough to see by. There was firelight. More than enough to die by.
The circle was drawn. Singlestroke was sheathed. I indicated they were to place their swords in the center of the circle. Silently, they did so, and stepped outside again.
They faced one another across the circle. In the argent moonlight it was a shallow ring of darkness; a thin black line in the ash-gray sand. But the line wavered. It moved on the sand like a sidewinding serpent. Because, though it had no beginning and lacked an end, the wind-whipped flames of the freshening fire lent the line a measure of life. An aspect of independence.
“Prepare.”
I heard the soft songs begin. I looked at the swords in the center of the circle. Both silver-hilted. Both rune-bladed. Both alien to my eyes.
Slowly I walked to the cistern wall. I sat down. The stone was hard against my buttocks. But not as hard as the word I spoke.
“Dance,” I said; that only.
They met in the center, snatching up swords, circling in the perpetual dance of death and life. I saw how Theron measured her more closely now, as if he recalled all too well how very good she was. No more male supremacy; he took her seriously.
Barefoot, they slipped through soft sand made softer by fire-cast shadows. The curving line of the circle wavered in the light. Such a thin, blade-thin line. For me to say if a dancer stepped outside the circle.
I saw the flash of silver as both swords met and sang. And all the colors poured out, shredding the darkness into a lace of luminescence. Ripples, curves, spirals, angles sharp as the edge of a knife, slicing across the shadows. I began to see the patterns clearly, as if Del and Theron wove of a purpose. A dip here, curlicue there, the whipstitch of a sudden feint.
Thrust, counter, thrust. Parry and riposte. The darkness was filled with light; my ears knew deafness from the crash of ensorcelled steel.
Thighs bunched, sinews rolled. Wrists held firm as they unleashed lurid luminescence. Del’s face was stark in the wavering light, planed down in concentration. But I saw Theron begin to smile.
The shift was so subtle I nearly missed it altogether. I was aware mostly that the sound changed, the clash and hiss of rune-worked blades. Then I saw how the patterns began to change as well; how the intricate latticework became a slash here, slash there, bold and aggressive, until the slashes began to resemble my own.
Theron stood in the center of the circle and rained Northern steel on Northern steel, but the style was distinctly Southron.
No longer did I sit atop the cistern wall. I was at the edge of the circle, frowning at the man who began to dance against Del in a style she didn’t, couldn’t know.
But neither, I thought, could Theron. Or he would have used it in the first dance before the afreet arrived.
He broke her pattern. Once. Twice. A third and final time. He knocked the sword from her hands.
“Del—” But she didn’t need my warning. She leaped up and over his blade, then dropped and rolled. Her hands were bare of blade, but she avoided his as well.
More closely, I watched him. I saw the light in his blue eyes and the satisfaction in the curving lines of his mouth. He was not a man who fought fairly, was Theron; not now. Maybe once. Maybe when he had faced her before. But now there was an edge to the look of the man. As if he had somehow acquired a style he had lacked before.
“Del—” This time I didn’t wait. Not even for Theron. I simply dived over the curving line, caught Del in my arms and carried her out of the circle.
The jivatma lay outside as well. Del, cursing me angrily, pressed herself into an upright postion. “What are you doing, you fool—?”
“Saving your life,” I said grimly, pressing her down again. “If you’ll give me a chance, I can explain.”
“Explain what?—how you lost this dance for me?” Del was vividly, impressively angry. And even as she struggled to shout curses into my face, she lost her Southron entirely.
Theron walked across the circle. With the song silenced, the sword was quiescent in his hand. The darkness was dark again, except for the argent moon.
“Forfeit,” he said, “or yield. That is the only choice I will give you.”
“Neither,” Del answered. “This sword-dance isn’t finished.”
“You have left the circle.”
Even in the South, the custom is the same. Out
of the circle: out of the dance. She had no choice but to yield or forfeit.
“Not my choosing!” she cried. “You saw what he did!”
“He forfeited the dance for you.” Theron smiled. “What’s done is done, ishtoya.” He paused. “Pardon. Your rank is an-ishtoya.”
“I’m a sword-dancer,” she threw back. “No rank. Just the dance.” She struggled briefly. “Tiger—let me up—”
“No.” I pinned her down again. “Couldn’t you sense the change? Couldn’t you feel the difference?” I looked over my shoulder at Theron. “He isn’t the man you faced in the circle in Rusali. He’s someone else entirely.”
“Not quite,” Theron said. He stood near the perimeter of the circle. The silver hilt of his blooding-blade was grasped lightly in his hand. “I’m the same man, Sandtiger. Only the sword is different.”
Del frowned. “It’s the same sword. It’s your sword.”
“What did you do?” I asked sharply. “What exactly did you do to Lahamu?”
“I killed him.” Theron shrugged. “The tanzeer was foolish enough to take up my jivatma. Even you must know that isn’t a thing for anyone but me to do. But I was wise enough to let him do it.” He smiled as he looked at Del. “A lesson from you, an-ishtoya. When you are in need of a special skill, you acquire it however you may.”
“You requenched.” Del stiffened into absolute rigidity in my arms. “You requenched your jivatma—”
“You summon up the wind and storm and ice with that one of yours,” Theron told her. “You suck down all the power of a banshee-storm with that sword! I know that much—so does every student who has learned the history of the jivatmas—even if I don’t know the proper name for that butcher’s blade.” He bared white teeth in a smile of feral intensity. “And how do you defeat Delilah’s famous Northern jivatma? With heat. With fire. With all the power of the South, invested in this blade.”
“Theron—requenching is forbidden—” But her protest wasn’t heeded. I wasn’t sure he heard it.
One big hand caressed the glowing runes. “You felt it, didn’t you? A weakness. A warmth. A sapping of your strength. Otherwise, I’d never have ripped that hilt from your hands.” He smiled. “I know it, an-ishtoya. So do you. But it’s important for me to win. I’ll use what methods I can. So—yes, I requenched. I used the forbidden spell.”
Del’s lips were pressed flat, pale against her face. “The an-kaidin would be dishonored by his an-ishtoya.”
“That I don’t doubt,” Theron agreed. “But the an-kaidin is also dead.”
Del wasn’t making an effort to go anywhere now. So I let go and sat up slowly, brushing sand from my hands. “If requenching means what I think it does, you’ve gained more than Southron heat. You’ve also gained the Southron style.” And he was big enough to do damage.
“Yes,” Theron agreed. “The tanzeer was hardly as good as you are—perhaps third level, instead of seventh—but he knew the rituals. Matched with my natural skill, the style isn’t hard to use effectively.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “Of course, against another Southron sword-dancer, the odds are decidedly different.” I shed harness, burnous and sandals and dropped them all to the sand. “My turn, bascha.”
“It’s my fight—” she said. “Tiger—you can’t—you’re not fit for the circle yet.”
She was right. But the choice had been taken from us. “You need to go home,” I told her flatly. “You can’t enter the circle again—you’re too honorable to cheat. But I can. I can take your place.”
“Is this to pay me back for killing Aladar?”
I laughed. “Not even close. I just want to beat this son of a Salset goat.” I grinned at her. “Go home. Face your accusers. You have a chance with them. More than you have with Theron, who intends to cut you to pieces.” I shook my head. “Del—he’s countermanded the rituals of the dance. He’s sought means he shouldn’t have. There isn’t a choice with him.” I took Singlestroke into the circle.
Theron barely raised his brows. “And does the woman forfeit? Does the woman yield?”
“The an-ishtoya bows to necessity,” I answered. “Will you accept a seventh-level ishtoya in her place?”
The sword-dancer smiled. “But who will arbitrate? Who will start the dance?”
I walked past him and placed Singlestroke in the center of the circle. “In the South, we do a lot of things on our own.”
He accepted the challenge calmly. Stepping to the center, he set the requenched sword next to Singlestroke. Both weapons were of a like size. Probably of a like weight. Theron and I were evenly matched in height and reach, but now I lacked the weight. Maybe the speed and power. Because most of what skill I claimed had been left in Aladar’s mine.
“Tell me something before we begin?” I asked.
Theron, frowning, nodded.
“Where’d you get that stud?”
It was obviously not the question he expected. He scowled at me blackly a moment, then sighed a little and shrugged; tolerance is not his virtue. “Found him in the desert, at an oasis. He was standing over a Hanjii warrior. A very dead Hanjii warrior.”
I smiled. I suggested we begin.
Theron sang. I just danced.
Noise: the clangor of blade against blade; the sloughing of feet in sand; the inhalations of harsh, hurried breaths; grunts and half-curses expelled against our wills. The screeching hiss of Southron steel against an alien blade forged in the North and quenched in the blood of an enemy … requenched in the flesh and blood of a Southron tanzeer.
Color: from Theron’s blade, not mine, pouring out of the black night sky filled up with the light of the moon, the stars, the fire, and all transfixed upon the Northern blade as it slashed out of the shadows to blind me with its light, that all-encompassing Northern light.
So much noise … So much color …
So much—
—fire …
So much—
—heat …
So much—
—light—
But all I knew was pain.
“Tiger—no—”
In shock, I came back to myself. I saw the lurid lights before me, with Theron in their midst. And felt the unsettling lack of balance in my sword.
Singlestroke.
I glanced down. Saw the broken blade. Heard the shriek of Theron’s sword as it slashed down through the darkness and lit up the sky beyond.
“Tiger—no—”
Del’s voice. I threw myself aside. Felt the icy blast of the winter wind; the scorch of a Punja summer. Heard Theron’s contented laugh.
“No sword, Theron!” Del’s voice shouted. “You dishonor your an-kaidin!”
The lights died. The winter/summer went away. I found myself kneeling in the sand with a broken sword in my hand, while Theron scowled down at me.
Singlestroke.
Blankly, I looked at the broken blade. A blemish? No. Blued-steel, shodo-blessed, doesn’t ever break. Not of normal means.
I looked at the requenched weapon Theron held in his hand. At the alien shapes in the hilt; the alien runes in the blade. And I hated that sword. Hated the power that made it more than just a sword. Singlestroke’s destruction.
Bewitched. Ensorcelled. Magicked. Cheater’s blade; no better.
Singlestroke.
“Yield,” he said, “or forfeit. For the woman and yourself.”
“No.” In my anger, in my shock, one word was all I could manage. But I thought it might be enough.
Theron sighed. “You have no sword. Do you mean to fight with your hands?”
“No.” From Del this time, as she came up to the edge of the circle.
“Bascha.” But she had the sword in her hand—
—and she put it into mine.
“Take her,” she said softly, so only I could hear. “Use her. Her name is Boreal.”
Theron shouted something. Something about breaking oaths. Something to do with the sword. The name of the sword, divulged. But
by then it didn’t matter. By then the sword was mine.
Boreal: cold winter wind, screaming out of the Northern Mountains. Cold banshee-storm blast, freezing flesh to the ice-cold hilt. And yet I gloried in the ice. I gloried in the wind. I gloried in the pain. Because I needed it all to win.
Boreal: a sword. A sword of alien metal. The North personified. Empowered by all the strength of Del herself. And the skill of a dead an-kaidin.
The Northern sword-dancer didn’t stand a chance against the Southron one.
How we danced, Theron and I. How we did our best to carve the guts from one another; to cut the heart from one another. No finesse. No intricate, glowing patterns. No delicate tracery. Simple power, unleashed within the circle. An elemental fury.
Cut, slash, hack. Catch a blade and try to break it. Thrust, engage, riposte. Try to scythe the head from shoulders.
The requenched sword made him good. The requenched sword made him better. But no better than Del’s made me.
—fire—
—light—
—pain—
And a wailing winter wind …
“Tiger?”
I woke up: silence. Opened my eyes: morning. Prepared myself for pain: nothing happened. “Del?”
No immediate answer. I was flat on my back; rolled over onto my belly. I lay sprawled within the circle. I vaguely recalled collapsing after sheathing Del’s sword in Theron’s belly.
I turned to look over my shoulder. Yes—still dead. Had to be, with all his blood and guts spilled into the sand.
I turned back. “Del?”
I saw her then. She knelt outside the circle, still not profaning it with her presence. For her, regardless of what had happened, the rituals were still in force.
Hoolies. Got up slowly. Felt earth and sky trade places a moment. Waited. Scrubbed a hand across gritty, burning eyes. “That’s some sword, bascha.” Anything else would be overkill.
“Can I have her back?”
I glanced behind me and saw the sword lying in the circle. I wasn’t sure she’d let me touch her.
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