Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (35 page)

Del did her best not to give the game away. But Fouad wasn't buying it. He grinned as she explained she was a Borderer who had hired the Sandtiger for escort. And he nodded, agreed politely, then shot a bright-eyed glance at me full of amusement and understanding as he moved away to fill my order.

"It's not working," I mentioned. "I just thought you should know."

Her mouth hooked sideways. "You might have chosen a cantina where the proprietor doesn't know you." She paused. "If such a place exists."

I sighed noisily. "Right now, I'm content. You may as well relax, too. By morning I'll know what to do, so we may as well enjoy the rest of the afternoon."

She'd hooked elbows on the table, but now sat more upright. "By morning?"

I glanced around the room, marking a few men here and there, dicing, drinking, talking.

Glumly, I murmured, "You may have the right idea. About asking Chosa. It's time I gave him his chance to punish his brother."

"That's what you'll tell him?"

I snorted. "Let's just say I'll let him know I won't oppose him. I don't think Chosa can ignore the chance to punish Shaka, so he'll have to tell me where he is."

Her brow puckered. "Just like that?"

Some of the amusement faded. "Nothing to do with Chosa is 'just like that.' Given a choice, I'd never talk to him again--but in order to get that choice, I have to talk to him."

I scowled gloomily. "Let's talk about something else."

Fouad arrived with aqivi, mutton, cheese, and set everything down on the table.

"Bascha," he said respectfully, "may the sun shine on your head."

Del smiled faintly. "And on yours, Fouad."

Content with that, he left. I poured us both full cups--accepting no protests from Del--and pushed hers across the table. "Watch the accent," I suggested.

"I'm a Borderer," she murmured. "Borderers have accents."

"Border accents, yes. Yours is uplander."

"They won't know the difference, down here."

"Fouad does. But Fouad doesn't matter." I lifted the pewter cup. "To the end of a quest, and to a future of adventure."

Del's mouth crimped a little, but she tapped her cup against mine. "The quest is hardly ended, and the adventure is growing old."

"Oh, now, let's not be down in the mouth about it. Look at all we've accomplished."

Del sipped, nodding. "Indeed, look. We are both of us panjandrums--but I'm not so certain it's good."

I drank half a cup, then grinned. "Neither of us is the sort to do anything without stirring up attention. It's the kind of people we are."

Del swallowed more aqivi, then set the cup down. "And shall we alter our habits when your sword is finally free of its inhabitant?"

"I don't know. Should we?"

She leaned forward on one elbow, cupping chin in hand. "Short of changing the sand to grass, there is nothing you can do to convince anyone of the truth: that you are the jhihadi. If indeed that is the truth." She sat back, sighing, picking dyed hair out of her eyes. "Will we always be running away?"

"Not always." I shrugged. "You accomplished your goal, Ajani's dead, and now you have another future. I still have to accomplish my goal, and then I'll decide mine."

"The 'threefold future,' " she quoted.

Uneasily, I stirred on my stool. "Let's worry about that later. Right now I just want to eat a little, drink a lot, and sleep in a decent bed." I glanced up idly as a man halted by the table, standing behind Del. I was accustomed to them staring at her, poking companions with eloquent elbows, or stopping to get a closer look. But this man stared at me.

He said something. Don't ask me what; it was incomprehensible. Clearly it wasn't any kind of Southron; just as clearly neither was he. He was too big, too broad, too light-eyed, with hair a russet-brown shade close to mine. I shrugged my ignorance of his tongue as Del turned to look up at the man. Her idle scrutiny sharpened.

He stopped speaking, seeing my blank expression. Frowning faintly, he switched to heavily accented Southron. "Forgive me," he said briefly. "I mistook you for Skandic." He spread eloquent hands, smiling inoffensive apology, then took himself out of the door.

"Whoever he is," I murmured, lifting my cup again.

Del, pensive, stared after the man. Then the pensiveness faded as she turned back to me. "Do you know him?"

"No. Or Skandic either, whoever he is."

Del sipped aqivi. "I thought he looked a little like you,"

"Who? Him?" I glanced at the doorway, empty of foreigner. "I don't think so."

Del shrugged. "A little. The same height, the same kind of bone, the same kind of coloring. ..."

I stared again at the doorway, sluggish interest rising. "You really think he looked like me?"

"Maybe it's just that he doesn't look Southron." She smiled faintly. "Or maybe it's just that I have grown accustomed to looking at you."

I grunted. Then chewed at a lip, considering. I glanced yet again at the doorway.

Del smiled, seeing my indecision as well as the temptation. She lifted her pewter cup.

"Go ask," she suggested. "Go find him and ask. You don't know. I do not suggest he is kin, but if you resemble this Skandic, this man might know something of the people you came from."

I tensed to rise, relaxed. "No. I don't think so."

She regarded me over the cup. "You don't know anything about your history," she said quietly. "Sula's dead. You may never have another chance. And he does look like you. As much as Alric looks like me."

Something pinched my belly. There was merit in what she proposed, but--"This is silly."

Del shrugged. "Better to ask than to wonder."

I chewed my lip again, undecided.

"Go," she said firmly. "I'll wait here for our things."

"This is stupid," I muttered, pushing back the stool. But I went out of Fouad's cantina wondering if Del could be right.

Wondering if, in my heart, I wanted her to be.

Thirty-seven

I paused outside the cantina, peering in either direction. The twisty street was crowded, keeping its own secrets. I hesitated, muttered an epithet, started to turn back. Then I saw the horseboys squatting against the building, waiting for the next customer.

I pulled a copper out of my pouch. Four boys arrived instantly. "Big man," I said. "A lot like me. He came out a moment ago."

One boy pointed immediately: to the right. Three other faces fell. I flipped the boy the copper with a quick word of thanks and went after the big foreigner Del thought looked like me.

I felt--odd. I had spent most of my life despairing of ever knowing anything about myself except for what I had won in the circle, or stolen from the dreams I'd dreamed as a child, chula to the Salset. But two or three weeks before there had been a chance, a slight chance, that I could learn the truth. That chance had died with Sula, who said she didn't know. I had castigated myself for even hoping, charging myself with the task of setting such hopes aside.

But hopes die hard, even in adulthood.

Now there was another chance. It was almost nonexistent, but worth a question or two.

Julah was the first domain and city of any size beyond the Southron Mountains if you came up from the ocean-sea; it was not impossible that the stranger who looked like me could be from a neighboring land, coming inland from the seaport city, Haziz.

Yet I wondered. There were enough Borderers, mostly halfbloods, who resembled me.

Cross big-boned, fair-haired Northerners with smaller, darker Southroners, and people like me result.

Still.

"Stupid," I muttered, making my way through the throng. "You'll never find him in the city, and even if you do, chances are he can't tell you anything. Just because he mistook you for someone else ..."

Hope flared, then died, tempered by caution and contempt.

"Stupid," I repeated. And stumbled into a one-eyed man standing guard over a basket of melons.

I apologized for my clumsiness, patted him once on the arm, then turned to continue my search. And realized, as I turned, my limbs felt sluggish and cold.

I stopped. Sweated. Shivered. Blinked as vision blurred.

Chosa?

No. He didn't work this way. Chosa was not so subtle. Besides, I'd grown accustomed to anticipating his attempts to exert more power. This was not one of them.

Then what--?

Hoolies, the aqivi--which both of us had drunk.

I swore, swung around, staggered three steps and fell to one knee as numb legs failed.

Pulled myself up and staggered again, tripping over a cat as it ran between a dozing danjac's legs. The danjac woke up as I fell against its ribs, grabbing handfuls of scraggly mane to hold myself upright.

A female. She shifted, turned her head, spat a glob of pungent cud. It landed on my thigh, but by then I didn't care. By then I wanted my sword, Chosa Dei or no.

I slapped weakly at the danjac's mouth as she bared teeth in my direction, trying to unsheath the jivatma with a hand nearly dead on the end of my arm. I staggered as the danjac turned her hip out from under me, but caught my balance spread-legged as the sword at last came free.

"Bascha--" I mumbled. "Hoolies, Del--it's a trap--"

Eyes. They stared, shocked and fearful and wary: a man in obvious straits swayed off-balance in the street, holding a black-charred blade with perilous control. I didn't really blame them. Sword-dancer or no, at the moment I was a danger to anyone who came near. Even if I didn't mean it.

"--bascha--" But even my mouth was numb.

Vision wheeled. The street fell out from under me; hip and elbow dug dirt. I managed, as I landed, to thrust the sword to arm's length, so I wouldn't cut myself.

Up. Blade chimed dully as I dragged it along the ground, thrusting myself to unsteady knees. Everyone hugged the walls, or went in and shut their doors.

Except for the men with swords, all swathed in dark burnouses rippling as they walked out of shadows into sunlight.

So. Now I would know.

To my knowledge, I have never employed a sword in any method save the one for which it was intended.

But now I did. I dug the tip into the ground, leaned my weight upon it, levered myself to my feet.

The men stopped approaching.

I smiled. Laughed a little. Heaved the sword upright into position and balanced very delicately with feet spread too far apart. If someone spat, I'd fall down. But a reputation comes in handy.

That, and Samiel.

The danjac was still beside me, whuffling discontent. Then a dark-clad, quick-moving body slipped beneath the belly, came up from under it with a knife; smoothly and efficiently sliced into the softer flesh of the underside of my forearm.

I dropped the sword, of course. Which was exactly what he intended.

And then he dropped me with a hook of agile ankle around one of my wobbly ones.

I landed painfully, flat on my back, banging a lolling head against hard-packed dirt. I bit my lip, swallowed blood; felt more flowing out of my arm.

But only for a moment. Everything went numb.

He gestured to the others. They came, putting away their swords. One man moved closer, then leaned forward to inspect me. I saw, through fading vision, the notched Southron nose. Heard, in thundering ears, the familiar broken voice.

"Why is it," Abbu began, "that every time I see you, you're wallowing in the dirt?"

Weakly, I spat blood. "So much for your oaths."

Dark brows rose. "But I have honored my oath. With Sabra as my witness."

Sabra. I looked. No woman. Only men, in Southron silks and turbans.

And then I saw her. The small, quick body which had slid beneath a danjac to cut the sword from me. The one I'd thought was a man.

She stripped the sandshield from the lower half of her face, letting the cloth hang free to dangle from the turban. I saw the small, dark face, infinitely Southron; the black, expressive eyes, infinitely elated; the dusky flush of her cheeks and the parted curve of a lovely mouth. Infinitely aroused.

Sabra knelt. She was tiny, slender, sloe-eyed: an exquisite Southron beauty. Mutely she reached for my wounded arm, closing fingers around the flesh. Blood still flowed freely, staining her palm. She let go of my arm, stared intently at her bloodied hand, then looked into my eyes.

Her voice was very soft. "I gave the woman to Umir."

I twitched once. It was all I could manage. "Hoolies take you," I croaked, "and your broken-nosed bed-partner, too."

The bloodied hand flashed out and caught me full across the face, leaving sticky residue.

Vision winked.

Went out.

--a fissure in the ground ... a cracked opening that splits the ground apart, all blackened and curled awry like a mouth opened to scream. Inside, something glitters, ablaze like Punja crystals, only it isn't Punja crystals, but something else instead. Something white and bright and cold--

Deep inside me, Chosa rustled.

The mountains are familiar, tumbled ruins of sorcerous warfare; brother pitched against brother in a waste of strength and power. Shaka Obre means to protect, but Chosa Dei is determined to destroy whatever he can.

The warfare escalates until even the land protests, rising up to defy them both. Flesh falls away, but it isn't flesh of man; the flesh is the flesh of the land. Grasslands peel away, leaving bare rock and wasted earth.

Inside me, Chosa laughed.

"I can unmake it all, merely to make it again--"

The mountains tremble, and fall, forming new chains of peaks and hillocks.

Chosa raises his arms. The words he chants are strange, unknown even to Shaka.

Meadows become a desert. A necklace of freshwater lakes becomes an ocean of sand.

Shaka Obre screams, to see his creation destroyed.

His brother merely laughs. "I TOLD you I could do it!"

"Then I'll hurt YOU!" Shaka shouts.

Deep inside the mountains, the last bastion of Shaka's making is warded against permanent summer, and the unyielding eye of the sun.

"I'll show YOU!" Shaka mutters.

But by then it is too late. Chosa has made a prison.