Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (30 page)

all horse blood on your clothing."

Well, no, but I hadn't really taken the time to inspect it. I was stiff and sore

and maybe a bit ragged around the edges, but I was well enough.

"I'll say it again; it's you," I told her. "If they could speak, I'd ask them."

Del said nothing, watching as the hounds spilled out to encircle us. They kept

their distance, giving us plenty of room, yet I had the feeling that if we moved, they'd go right along with us. Once again, they worked us, like a dog set

on Southron goats.

"It doesn't make any sense," she said. "The voca would never rescind my year of

response."

"Who?"

"Voca. Those who gather in judgment."

"Theron came after you."

"Theron applied to collect the blood-debt. By voca law, he was required to give

me the choice between entering the circle or going home to accept the judgment

of my peers and teachers." Her face was stark. "As you know, he chose to dance

against me. He lost, because of you. It means no other may challenge me, until

the year is up."

"We're awfully close, bascha. With all the delays we've had, it's only a matter

of weeks."

"Yes, Tiger. I know. But they would never have sent the beasts. It isn't the voca's way." Her expression was grim. "They would send men, Tiger, and maybe women. All carefully trained sword-dancers."

"Then why do these hounds want you?"

"Maybe it isn't me."

I frowned. "I know it's not me, Del."

"Not you, not me." She lifted the sword a little. "Maybe they want this."

I shook my head. "What would a pack of hounds want with a sword, Del? They can't

exactly use it."

"They've been herding us from the beginning."

"Well, yes--"

"They've never really attacked us, mostly driving us toward the north."

"Well, yes, it does seem--"

"She didn't hold them, Tiger. When I sang. They seemed to relish the power, instead of fearing it."

I thought it over. They had. "Still, Del, I wonder--"

"They're escorting us to someone. Someone who wants this sword."

I sighed. "Seems a bit farfetched to me, Del. Why send a pack of nightmare hounds when a man--or men--could do as well, if not better? After all, hounds don't have hands to carry a sword."

"They don't need hands. They've got us."

I glanced out through the drizzle. Gray on gray, perfectly still, in a perfect

perimeter. Staring at Del and her sword. "It just doesn't make sense, bascha."

"Evil rarely does."

I glanced at her sharply. "What do you mean, 'evil'?"

"It depends on your definition," she said, "but evil is usually bad."

The stud still stood and stared, watching the beasts rigidly. Hot breath warmed

my shoulder. "Then you're saying there is a sorcerer--"

"Or loki," she said calmly. "Loki require power. And power lives in this sword."

I recalled how she'd yelled at me not to use my borrowed sword in the loki ring.

Could they have siphoned off whatever power remained and used it for themselves?

And now they required more.

"Loki," I said in disgust.

"A sword is a sword," Del said. "A jivatma is more than a sword. If I key her fully, her power can be used against us."

"Well, then, let's not go keying her, shall we?"

Del smiled a little, wryly. "How many do you think we can kill before they kill

us?"

"You just said they don't mean to kill us."

"Probably not, if we cooperate. But I don't intend to go with them."

There comes a time when talk is exhausted and earns you nothing. There comes a

time when action is the only answer, regardless of the odds. Del and I had known

for some time that it would come to this; we'd put it off because no one wants

to admit his powerlessness over something that can kill him. It's a way of cheating death.

But it all runs out eventually, and what you want is blood.

I gave the stud his freedom as well as a pat on the neck. "Well, then, bascha--looks like we have a fight on our hands."

Del sucked in a deep breath. "Let's take it to them, Tiger."

Oddly lighthearted, I grinned. "Is there any other way?"

Twenty-five

Trouble was, we never got to take it to anybody. Because even as we moved, ready

to commit carnage, something stopped the hounds. Something stopped us.

A sound. A high-pitched, whistling sound that dipped and rose, floated, wound its way around trees, slid down trunks to splash against the ground, spreading

out to entrap our feet.

The stud, wandering off, stopped. Shook his head violently, flopping ears.

Then

pinned them back flat and curled his upper lip, displaying impressive teeth.

The hounds, gray on gray, melted back into the trees, rumps dropped low, leathery ears pinned, manes bristling. Beasts they might be, and conjured by sorcery, but they responded like whipped dogs, running for a bolt hole.

Del and I weren't much better off, until the sound altered. No more the whistle

designed to pierce fragile ears, but a flirtatious, fluting song, wreathing branches and clinging, running and humming amid cracks in the craggy cliff face,

echoing out of the canyon. And then even that died, leaving us in silence.

Del sighed. "Canteada."

"What?"

"Canteada," she repeated. "I think you're about to meet one."

"One of these music people?"

"You heard him, didn't you?"

I frowned. "You mean it was music that sent the hounds away?"

"Music. Magic. One and the same with the Canteada." Del put away her sword, smiling. "Look, Tiger. Do you see him?"

I looked. No, I didn't; I saw no one.

And then I did, and stared. "Hoolies, Del! What is that?"

"That is a he," she said. "Canteada, and songmaster. Tanzeer, you might call him; he's the authority in the clan."

He. It, more likely; he was like nothing I'd ever seen. Not even in my dreams.

He was smaller than Massou, yet something spoke of greater age. Coming out of rain it was difficult to see him because his coloring was similar. Pale, translucent flesh, oddly opalescent. And he was ugly. He was ugly. There was no

other word for it.

But he made me forget it when he spoke, because when he spoke he sang.

*Came you here to kill?*

All I could do was stare.

*Came you here to kill?*

He was looking at me, not at Del. Slowly I shook my head, not knowing what else

to do.

A delicate, blue-nailed finger lifted gently toward my sword. * Steelsong kills.*

A polite way of calling me a liar. "Del--"

"Your sword is naked," she told me quietly. "Sheathe it; he might accept your denial. Right now he won't."

I sheathed. "What is that thing?" I whispered. "Not human. Not animal."

"Canteada," she said softly. "As children we are taught they brought music to the world. But I never thought I'd ever see one, until this morning. I wasn't even sure they were real."

I looked at the little man. He reached my waist, barely, barrel-chested with spindly limbs, and long, eloquent fingers. He wore only a leather kilt. His eyes

were palest purple, a bit like Theron's blade. The pupils were weirdly catlike.

*Steelsong kills* he repeated.

Del drew in a deep breath. "Steelsong kills," she agreed. "But so do beasts like

those."

The Canteada tilted his head. *Sendsong halts! Steelsong no longer needed. *

I frowned. "What's he saying?"

Del smiled a little. "Don't you wish now you understood music better? He's saying we don't need our swords anymore. The hounds have been sent away."

"How do we know that?"

"Canteada never lie."

"Oh, right. You yourself just told me you thought they lived only in stories.

Now you expect me to believe this little man is some magical creature who sings

instead of talks, and won't ever lie to us?"

"He has no reason to lie."

"Hunh."

*Arguesong discordant.*

Del promptly laughed.

I sighed. Looked at the Canteada. Such a strange little man, with his prominent

jaw and mobile mouth, and a throat that swelled when he talked, very much like a

frog's.

"We'd prefer not to kill them," I said politely, "so long as they don't kill us.

If, as you say, your song has sent the hounds away, will it be for good?"

Birdlike, he tilted his head again. His ears, too, were overlarge, vaguely pointed, with the slightest suggestion of mobility. His hair, thin and silver-gray, rose from a peak at the top of his forehead and ran in a crest down

the back of his neck, feathering out on either side. It was more like down than

hair, I thought. And, like hackles, the crest could rise, speaking a language of

its own.

*Distance diminishes*Diminishment obscures*

"What?"

Del sighed. "I think he means if we get too far, the song diminishes and the spell stops working." She frowned. "Can't you understand anything?"

"I know he's singing, bascha--I can hear a few of the words--but noise is noise

to me." I paused. "What do you hear, Del?"

She smiled with a startling serenity. "Everything. All the tones, all the inflections, all the subtleties. It's clearer even than our speech, because it

expresses the emotions."

I was skeptical. "And this is the man--the thing--that rescued you this morning?"

"When we climbed out of the tunnel, he was waiting."

The threat of death drew him, and some of the others. Canteada despise death."

"Don't they die?"

"I should have said, Canteada despise murder. No matter what the victim."

I sighed and went over to catch the stud's dangling reins. "I'm not too fond of

it myself, particularly when I'm the target. Well, what do we do now? Will he take us to the others?"

"I think it's what he came to do."

"So what are we waiting for?"

Del sighed. "Maybe a little courtesy."

"Courtesy has its place," I agreed, "but right now so does promptness. I'd sort

of like to gather together our little clan, take stock of things, then get the

hoolies out of here before we lose more time." I stopped. "So should you, Del.

It's your skin the voci want, not mine."

"Voci," she corrected.

"Voci, loki, whatever. Let's just get moving, bascha."

The Canteada, listening, seemed to understand before Del said a word. He turned,

leaped up a tree, flung himself through branches. From tree to tree he sped, agile as a monkey. In his wake floated a fragile, fluting whistle.

"Followsong," Del explained. "Well? You were the one in a hurry."

I clicked to the stud and walked.

The rain worsened before it got better. Del and I were both soaked to the skin.

Rivulets ran down my back, tickled buttocks, squelched inside my boots. Hair was

plastered against my head, spilling droplets whenever I moved. I was wet and cold and miserable, like a cat caught in a downpour.

Well, so I was; cat and caught.

I blew out an impatient breath. It plumed in the air much as the stud's did, wreathing his nostrils in transient steam. Dark brown ordinarily, he was nearly

blackened by the rain. Wet tail slapped at hocks and stuck, briefly, before freed again by the motion of his walking.

"Hoolies, I hate the wet. What I'd give for a little sun and warmth...."

Del didn't smile. "What would you give?"

"What?" I frowned, not following. "Oh. Hoolies, I don't know. It was only a manner of speech."

"If you really want the sun, they can probably get it for you."

"Who can?" I followed her gesture. "Him? You're saying that little man can control the weather?"

"I think the Canteada can do anything."

"They're men, Del... or something thereabouts. Just because he can scare away beasts doesn't mean he can actually change the weather."

"Of course not." She was strangely solemn. "No more than I can with my jivatma."

So much for a fair fight. "I don't understand your sword anymore than the Canteada, bascha, but I'm not certain even their magic can change the weather."

I peered up at thick dark clouds caught on the cliff to our left, rolling up to

spill over its edge like bolts of crumpled, pearlescent silk. "If they could control it, wouldn't they? Why live in rain and cold?"

"To maintain the balance," she answered, ducking a hanging limb. "Here in the North, we believe there is a balance struck between heat and cold, good and bad,

men and women. Opposites all, but important to one another. Without one, the other would fail."

"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I think men would be better off without women."

Her mouth twisted a little. "For a while, probably. Of course, men don't live forever. Too stubborn. Too violent." Her expression was innocent. "Once you'd killed one another off, what would be left? A world without men or women."

"He's stopping," I said suddenly.

Del glanced around, then nodded. "We're very near their canyon. This way, Tiger."

The trees were very thick, branches so tangled I couldn't tell one from another.

Trunks were striped from rain, gathering in crotches and broken knots until it

spilled over edges. Mud and leaves balled on the soles of my boots. I followed

in silence, still leading the stud, and hoped the homes of the Canteada were big

enough to house me.

We came, quite unexpectedly, face to face with the edge of the world. Out of trees into nothingness; the ground was no more than a sword blade, and I balanced on its edge, close to falling, until Del caught my arm and pulled me back.

"I forgot," she said.

"Forgot what?" I cried, stumbling back. "Forgot the world stopped just as I walked off the edge?"

Del signed. "It wasn't that bad, Tiger."

"Hoolies, woman--if I didn't know better I'd say you were trying to get me killed." I paused. "Maybe I don't know better; were you?"