Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (29 page)

I tested mine. "I don't have a hook."

"No. Yours is much straighter, though not as straight as some tribes I have seen. Yours is more like a Northerner's. And your cheeks are not so sharp, so arched." Del studied me. "We have discussed this before. You are both, and neither. There are things of the South in you, and also things of the North. Like a Borderer."

I nodded impatiently. "Do I look real to you?"

"Real!" She frowned. "You asked that before."

"Just--do I look real?"

Pale brows arched. "Do you mean to ask, are you the man of my dreams?"

"No!" I glared. "Can't you be serious?"

"Not at the moment," she murmured, and burst out laughing.

Which only goes to prove you can't talk to a woman.

Camp, such as it was, was established with little fanfare: two blankets spread on the ground, wadded--in her case, folded--burnouses for pillows. Nothing at all for a fire: we lay on our blankets and chewed steadily at dried cumfa. Staring up at the stars.

"You meant it," she murmured.

"Sometimes." I lay very still. It was better not to move.

"Earlier. About seeming real."

"Just wondered."

"If you were real?"

I thought about it deeply, eventually dredging up an answer. "You wouldn't understand."

"I promise not to laugh."

"Oh, I don't know ... I enjoy hearing you laugh."

"So long as it's not at you." Del smiled at the sky. "Sometimes, there is cause." She rolled toward me, settling her head into a spread hand on the end of a braced arm. "Do you not feel real?"

"My kidneys convince me I am."

"Then you have proof. Pain means you are real."

"But--" I frowned, chewing violently on the last bite of cumfa. "I don't know anything about me. I have no past."

The amusement died in her eyes. "You have too much of a past."

"I don't mean that. I mean I have no history. Only an upside down nose, and color like a brown burnous left too many years in the sun."

"So do most Borderers. Look at Rhashad: he has red hair."

"I don't look anything like Rhashad."

"Most Borderers do not look like one another. The dye lots are always mixed." Del smiled. "I don't mean to tease. But you do not strike me as the kind of man to need a past. You make your own of the future."

That cut too close to bone. "They said the jhihadi was--is--a man of many parts."

Del's gaze sharpened. She stopped chewing cumfa.

I scratched a patch of bruise. "Nobody knows much about Iskandar, either."

"He died."

I counted. "It's been eight days."

"Since?--oh." Del shrugged. "I think you will outlive Iskandar's ten days."

"Not if Sabra has anything to say about it. Or maybe Umir. The Ruthless."

"They must catch you, first."

"Umir caught me."

"And you got free." Del's brow wrinkled. "How did you get free? You have told me nothing."

I shrugged. "Nothing to tell."

"But they beat you, and you got free."

"I wouldn't have, if I hadn't used--" I stopped.

Del waited. And then realization sharpened her gaze. She pushed herself upright.

"Magic," she finished.

I heaved a heavy sigh. "The sorriest day of my life was getting involved with magic."

"But it got you free of Umir. You just said so."

"It's also got me lugging around an infested sword. One I didn't want in the first place, but now ..." I sighed again, very tired, letting it go. "Hoolies, it's not important."

Del lay down again. "You humiliated him."

"Who? Oh. Him." I sucked a tooth. "Nezbet got what he deserved."

"You might have beaten him fairly."

"I did beat him fairly! I gave him a chance to quit before we started, and two chances to give up. What did you want me to do--cut off his head, like you did Ajani's?"

Her tone was flat. "No. But--"

"But? Did you want me to kill him?"

Del said nothing.

"Did you?" I persisted.

She sighed. "It seems to me you left him injured and angry and humiliated. Some people, with nothing but that to think on, come to trouble you later. They make bad enemies."

"Nezbet?"

"You don't know he wouldn't."

I snickered. "With enemies like Nezbet, I'll live forever."

"I heard them. What they said. A borjuni. Why?"

"Why did I make him one? Or how did it come to be?"

"Both."

"I didn't make him one. It was his choice. And he made that choice by relinquishing his honor, according to the codes." I dug a cumfa string from between two teeth. "You know about codes. You know about honor."

"Yes."

"When a shodo-trained sword-dancer knowingly relinquishes honor merely to win, or kill, he relinquishes himself. He exiles himself from the circle." I shrugged. "He doesn't have to become a borjuni. But I don't know of a single sword-dancer who would be content to raise goats, or scratch a crop from the Southron desert."

"There are other things."

"Caravan guard, yes. But caravan-serais prefer to hire the real thing, not a dishonored man. They can't be certain of his allegiance--what if he was a borjuni, and leading them into a trap?" I shook my head. "There is no greater, truer freedom than being a sword-dancer. And no greater dishonor than breaking the codes. It follows you for life, mocking you every day. Until all you can think to do is become a borjuni, because none of them care. They just want you to be like them: to kill quickly and effortlessly."

"And you made Nezbet one."

"Nezbet is young. Nezbet came from somewhere. He could petition to reapprentice, starting all over again--but if he's smart, he'll go back where he came from and forget about the circle. He wasn't suited for it."

"Is that why you broke his wrist?"

"No. Well, maybe. Mostly, I did it because I knew I didn't have another chance to give him. If he'd tried one more time, he might have succeeded."

Del grunted. "No."

I smiled. "Misplaced faith."

"You are the best I have ever seen."

"Except for Abbu?"

Silence.

"Well?" I prodded.

"Abbu is--good."

"Umir says he's the best."

Del rolled onto her side. "Do you listen to the word of a man who would steal a woman?"

"A man's morals--or lack of--don't affect his judgment of sword-dancing."

She muttered something in uplander.

"Of course, he hasn't seen me dance. Only heard about me." I paused. "I think."

"Vanity," she murmured. "Vanity--and pride."

I was tired, and sleepy. I rolled onto my side carefully, showing her my back. "You've got your own share of both."

No answer.

I drifted, sliding toward the edge.

Then she touched my back, tracing the line of my spine with a single soothing finger.

"Real," she said softly. "Am I not proof of that?"

"You?" I asked sleepily.

"I am not an afreet. If you were not real, what then could share your bed except an afreet?"

I smiled into darkness. "How do I know you're not? Your say-so? A bit biased, I would say."

The finger departed my spine. Then prodded a sore spot gently. "If I were an afreet, I'd have neither pride nor vanity."

I grunted. "Then I guess we're both real." Del turned onto a hip, bumping against me.

"Go to sleep."

"Stop nattering, then." The night was filled with silence. Unless I snored, of course. Del swears I do. But I never hear it.

Thirty-one

Inside me, something--rustled. It rummaged around in my mind, stirring up old memories, and replaced them with its own.

It was Shaka. Shaka's fault. He twisted childhood truths and made them over into falsehoods, because he was jealous of me. Of the things I had learned to do. The magic I could wield.

The things I had learned to Make.

It was all Shaka's fault.

And my task to put it right--

I sat up, choking, and spat out a clot of--something.

Beside me, Del roused also, levering up on an elbow. "Are you all right?"

Breathing steadied. The world righted itself.

I looked at her, scratching at the stubble I hated. "--'m all right. Just got something caught in my throat." I hacked, cleared it, spat. "Sorry."

She scrutinized the morning. "Dawn," she announced. "We may as well get up. As you would say: we are burning daylight."

"Not yet. The sun's not even up."

"Close enough." Del moved over, knelt in sand, began folding her blanket. "We should be on our way."

"We should," I agreed. "But that means I have to move."

The answering smile was crooked. "Can you not heal yourself again? Restore all your aching bones?"

I snorted in derision, then thought about the suggestion. If there was a chance I could do such a thing.... "Tempting," I agreed thoughtfully. "You know--"

But it was gone.

Just--gone.

Something else was in its place. Not a thought; a lack of thought. A sort of absence of anything.

Except for Chosa, knocking at my door; rapping on my gate; tapping at my soul.

Do it. Do it.

Do it NOW.

Oh, hoolies, bascha... he's here. He's back--

I squinched my eyes shut and willed him away. Willed him to go, to leave me alone.

After all, there was only a little piece of him inside me. Tucked away somewhere. I was much bigger, much stronger.

If I concentrated on what Del had said, maybe I could give him the slip. If I tried what she suggested--

No.

I vividly recalled the last time I'd done it. Something flared, promising much; something else waited impatiently. Wanting me to do it, because then he would have power.

My belly rolled. I shivered away from the image. "I--don't think so. I think I'd probably better leave well enough alone."

"But if you can do such a thing ..." She shrugged, going about her business. "Imagine what kind of legend you could become if no matter how badly you were injured in the circle, you came back the next day as good as you were before."

"Imagine," I muttered, massaging a stiff shoulder. "Imagine what else they might say--maybe call me a sorcerer?" I shook my head. "No thanks. I've already got a magical sword. I don't need a magical me."

Del began packing saddle-pouches. "I only meant you look like you hurt this morning. I just thought, if there were a way--"

"I know. But I don't want to--" I left it at that, biting off the end of the sentence I'd meant to say: "--risk it." No need to tell Del I felt odd, disoriented, and somehow unbalanced. Let her think I just didn't want to do it, period. Somehow it seemed safer.

I got up very slowly, moving in sections, biting my lip on curses. I was bruised and stiff and sore from the ambush by Umir's men. Kidneys were afire. "Right now I just want to take things slowly, and get on our way." I made my way toward the stud, who would provide a measure of privacy.

Del had to be content with what I was willing to give her. I had to be content with knowing something more: that Chosa wasn't gone. Chosa wasn't quiet. Chosa was growing impatient.

I slung an arm across the stud's brown rump and leaned, shutting my eyes. The bruises would fade, I knew. The pain would diminish. The kidneys would remember what it was to do their task without producing blood. But Chosa would remain.

And continue trying, with brute force and intricate subtlety, to leech me of my will until I had none left, so he could claim the body.

If I used any more magic, I gave him the means to succeed. Because every bit I summoned, no matter the intention, gave him that much to play with.

Chosa Dei, collector--much like Umir the Ruthless--who gathered all kinds of magic so he could "melt" it down and remake it in his image.

As he would remake me.

Del tapped the mare a step away from the stud. "How much farther to the oasis?"

I glanced around, squinting. "Not much farther. Two or three hours."

"And then Rusali tomorrow?"

"Depending on how hard we want to push the horses." I scrubbed the back of a hand across my forehead. "And how hard we want to push ourselves."

Del's brows knitted as she assessed my expression. "Is it your kidneys?"

I scowled. "Kidneys are fine."

"You're lying."

"Yes, well ..." I shifted in the saddle. "Nothing a little rest won't cure."

Her frown deepened. "We could stop for a while."

"Can't afford to stop," I said brusquely. "Our best bet is to keep on going as long as we can, and put as much room between Umir and us as we can."

"Yes, but--"

"Just ride," I snapped irritably. "We're wasting time even discussing it."

Del offered no reply. She just shook up her reins and rode on.

Time--blurred. I sat atop the stud, who pulled at reins in irritation: he wanted to go after the mare, but I was holding him back.

I didn't know why.

Del, ahead, twisted in the saddle to glance back. Frowned. "What's the matter?"

I wanted to tell her "nothing." But it wasn't the proper answer.

"Tiger?"

I just sat there, shivering.

Del turned the mare, heading her back toward me. Her tone sharpened abruptly. "Are you all right?"

No. I felt--thick. Heavy. My skin felt stretched and tight.

Inwardly, I asked it: Is that you, Chosa?

Inwardly, Chosa giggled.

Oh, hoolies. The sun hurt my eyes.

Del reined in the mare before the stud could quite reach her. Her assessment was intense. "What's wrong?"

Something cold ran down my spine. Let her go, Chosa suggested. You don't need HER.

"I don't--" I shook my head. "Nothing. Just-tired."

She swore between her teeth. "Do you think I am blind? Your color is terrible. You're sort of a greenish-gray, in between all the bruises."

Let her go, Chosa said. Right now, I only want you.

I wondered if maybe I should. He'd been very clear about wanting Del before, to collect the magic in her sword as well as Del herself. I knew it was safer if she was somewhere else, where he couldn't hurt her.

But how do I tell her that?