Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (33 page)

if you carry that guilt and grief forever, it'll make you into a monster.

It'll

strip you of humanity. You'll become Ajani's triumph."

Del's smile returned. "But I won't," she said in amusement. "I won't carry it forever. Only until I kill him. Until Ajani's dead."

In silence, not daring to speak, I stroked back a strand of pale hair.

Thinking

to myself: Oh, my poor Delilah... you have so much to learn.

Twenty-eight

I heard Garrod before I saw him because his braid beads rattled as he approached. I turned from Del, frowned a little, saw his expression matched mine.

"Your horse is upset," Garrod said.

I scratched stubble. "He told you that, I suppose."

"Not in so many words, no." Garrod was unamused, distracted by something else.

"But he is bothered by something here."

Del shook her head. "Tiger's stud is always bothered. It's part of his--" she paused, "--charm."

Garrod shrugged. "I can't say what he's like the rest of the time, but something

has made him uneasy for now. He wants to leave this place."

"Oh, I see." I nodded sagely. "What I don't understand is, if he tells you this

much, why doesn't he tell you why?"

The horse-speaker sighed. "It would be easier if you respected my profession as

much as I respect yours."

"Horse stealing is not necessarily the sort of profession anyone respects," I retorted.

"I'm not a--"

"Are you not?" Del interrupted. "No, perhaps not--you only accept the horses other people steal."

Garrod answered her in a dialect I didn't know at all. But whatever he said went

home, because I saw Del's color go bad again. She answered sharply, and her fingers twitched as if she meant to draw her sword.

"Now, wait--" I began, and then suddenly the others were among us.

Adara's green eyes glinted. "Are they going to fight?"

"No," I told her flatly.

"Are you going to fight?"

"None of us is going to fight, and I thought I told all of you to wait in the cave while Del and I talk to the Canteada."

Cipriana shrugged ingenuously. "We heard you arguing."

Massou's blue eyes were wide beneath a shock of ragged blond hair. "We had to come out," he said.

Del's patience quite clearly was at an end. "This is private," she snapped.

"This is private, and requires none of your attention. Has no one taught you manners? Has no one taught you respect?"

Massou's fingers plucked at her arm. "Are you going to invite the horse-speaker

into a circle?"

Bloodthirsty little brat. "No," I said, "she's not. But even if she were, it's

none of your concern."

Massou glared at me. "I was asking her."

Rude little brat, too. "I think it would be best--"

In the distance, the stud nickered uneasily.

"See?" Garrod asked.

Massou gazed at Del. "I think you should fight him."

"I don't." Her tone was very clipped. "I think we should recall where we are.

I

think we should mend our manners. I think--" She broke it off. "It doesn't matter what I think." Abruptly, she turned and left.

"Angry," Adara said.

Cipriana nodded. "Lately, Del is always angry. Angry deep inside."

"And frightened," agreed Massou. "I can feel her fear."

It was, I thought, an altogether unnecessary conversation, and quickly going nowhere. "What Del is, is tired of playing herd dog to your flock of sheep,"

I

told them bluntly. "We have business of our own, serious business, and you've slowed us down. We're running out of time; Del has that to think of."

"What about us?" Massou demanded. "Are you just going to leave us here?"

"No." I gritted it out between my teeth. "I wouldn't do that to the Canteada."

Garrod laughed softly, said something in uplander, then bent down and entered the tunnel. Leaving us to our argument.

I tried to step around them all, but Cipriana was in the way. "Are you going after her?"

"Cip--"

"Are you?" She moved closer. "Do you always trail after her like a dog who's been abused, but comes back begging for more?" Closer yet. "You shouldn't.

You

shouldn't. You don't need her, Tiger. You don't need a woman like that; a woman

hard and harsh and unfeeling, who'd just as soon stick you with her sword as give you a kind word. You don't need--"

"What I need is some time to myself," I told her, setting her firmly out of the

way. "What I need is a little peace of mind, so I have a chance to think."

"Tiger--"

I looked over the daughter's head to the mother. "Isn't it time you took a hand

in this? Your daughter has been running after me like a bitch in heat. You're her mother--do something!"

Adara's ruddy hair still lay tangled on her shoulders. "What am I to do? She is

grown, she is a woman; it's her choice to make."

"Just as you made yours--and Kesar's for him." I nodded. "Well, then, perhaps you should both know that I'm not about to give up sword-dancing just for the sake of a woman. Not for any woman."

Massou's eyes were oddly bright. "Not even for Del?" he asked.

Hoolies, spare me the questions of little boys... and the attentions of sisters

and mothers.

"I'm going to speak to the Canteada," I said firmly. "Stay here. Stay here.

Do

you understand?"

Cipriana folded her arms. "There you go, chasing... but it's all right when you

do it."

"That all depends," I said, "on whether the other person desires your company."

Adara's tone was quiet. "Is that why Del won't share your bed?"

Oh, hoolies--

I turned and stalked away.

Del stood in the shadows with the little Canteada, the one she'd called a songmaster. I marveled all over again at the pale, translucent skin, the feathery cap of down with its eloquently mobile crest, the fragile limbs and heavy chest. His throat, at rest, appeared normal, but when speaking--no, singing--it blew in and out like a frog's.

Her face was very solemn. "They are concerned," she told me. "He says there is

discord here, grave discord, and it's affecting the lifesong."

"The what?"

"Lifesong," she repeated. "The way they conduct their lives."

I sighed wearily. "Song this, song that ..." I saw her face. "All right, Del, no

more jokes. Does he say why there is discord?"

She looked troubled. "We are alien to them, like dissonance in pure melody.

We

kill living beings. It causes disharmony."

I smiled. "One way of putting it. But the only thing we've killed lately are those hounds."

She shook her head, shaking loose hair as well; it had dried in waves.

"Doesn't

matter. To the Canteada, all living things are deserving of honor and respect.

All living things, Tiger. It's why they only eat what they grow, not kill, or what the land provides. It's the lifesong, Tiger... an endless cycle of living

in harmony with the world."

"They never kill?" It seemed impossible to imagine. "They go through their entire lives without killing anything?"

Del nodded. "Canteada have great reverence for life. Any life. Even that of a biting gnat."

"Those hounds aren't exactly gnats--"

"No. And the songmaster understands that, which is why he shaped the wardsong and gave it to others to sing. But he insists that while we remain here, we kill

or injure nothing."

"Not even a gnat."

"Not even a gnat."

"What about a--"

"Nothing at all, Tiger."

I grunted. "What if we were attacked? We'd have to defend ourselves."

Del smiled. "Nothing will harm us here. This is a place of peace."

"Peace, schmeace," I said. "I respect their customs, but I don't believe in all

this wardsong stuff. If any of those hounds come down from the trees, I'll be doing my best to stop them."

"This is also a place of power," she warned. "Don't discount these people."

I was tired. "No. All right. I won't. Now can we get a little rest? Maybe something to eat?"

Del bowed to the little man. "Sulhaya, songmaster. We accept your hospitality."

His throat inflated. *Dreamsong offers rest/Healsong offers renewal.*

I looked at Del. "What?"

"They'll sing you to sleep, Tiger. They'll sing us all to sleep." Del touched my

arm. "Come on, let's go back. We all need food and rest."

We turned even as the little Canteada melted away, but I was brought up short.

I'd expected the canyon to be little more than a pocket of darkness now that the

sun was gone, but I'd reckoned without the efficiency of the people who lived in

it. Every entrance, chimney, crack and airhole was bright with candlelight, which lent the canyon a smoky, muted luminescence. Stone walls glowed like a Southron funeral circle, where sword-dancers with candles gather to give the greatest of the shodos passage to valhail.

I looked around. I could still hear the lilting tone that kept the hounds away.

"Don't they ever get tired of singing?"

"Do you get tired of breathing?"

"There's a difference, bascha. I have to breathe."

"As much as they have to sing." I felt cool fingers slide through mine. "When I

was little, my mother used to sing me to sleep. And then Jamail, when he was born; probably my brothers before me. And my father would hum when he honed the

swords." She sighed, looking at the lights that danced in walls. "I can't remember the first time I heard about the Canteada. I just seemed always to know, like everyone else. But the story goes that before the gods made the Canteada, there was no music in the world. And people were sad, not knowing what

they lacked, but knowing they weren't whole." Her fingers tightened slightly.

"And so the gods made the Canteada, and the Canteada made music."

I let it sink in; there'd been no singing in my family, because I'd had no family. Only a bed with the goats. "Nice story," I said finally, "if a little hard to believe."

"Let's walk." Del tugged on my fingers. "Do you remember all those patterns on

the walls of the song-master's cave? All those lines and knots?"

"I remember." We walked in candleglow. It was cool but not cold, although without my Northern wools and leathers I might feel differently. I was beginning

to appreciate them.

"Well, those knots are notes. The line patterns are the flow of the song.

Together it makes music,"

I grunted. "Seems awfully complicated."

"It can be. But you don't have to read it, unless you mean to sing or play what's been sung or played before. You can just make it up as you go, or put it

away in your head for singing another time." She smiled a little. "It's one of

the things an ishtoya is required to learn."

"Along with languages, mathematics and geography."

"Yes. And, of course, the dance."

Ah, yes, the dance. The thing we both lived for. "I think I prefer it less complicated. No song required."

Her fingers stiffened a little. "But in the North it is required."

I lifted one shoulder. "Fine for you, bascha. But I don't have to worry about it; all I have to do is dance."

"But listen to it, Tiger... listen to the song...."

I listened to the song. Heard the rise and fall of the melody, the mingling of

many voices. Or whatever the Canteada used to make their music.

"Nice enough," I said grudgingly, "if a little monotonous after a while."

"It's a wardsong, Tiger... shaped to keep out hounds, not entertain human ears."

I grunted. "It would take something to entertain my ears."

Del sighed. We walked side by side, fingers laced, but only slackly, insisting

on nothing. Neither of us is much for pronounced displays of affection, mostly

because it's a very private thing. But also because I think both of us are reluctant to use the silent language of bedmates, for fear of giving away too much. Of ourselves as well as to others.

"Do you ever just get tired?"

Her tone was odd. I glanced at her curiously. "Tired?--well, yes... just like anyone else."

"No. I mean tired. Tired of who you are... tired of what you do."

I didn't answer at once. We continued walking, going nowhere in particular, just

meandering through the canyon's candleglow. Ahead, the stud whickered; we were

near the songmaster's cave.

Finally, I answered. "I think they're one and the same."

Del glanced at me sharply.

I shrugged, made uncomfortable by the turn of the conversation. "I mean--sword-dancing is what I do, but it's also what I am." I spread my free hand. "Sword-dancing is more than a job. It's also a way of life."

"Not for everyone," she said. "Not for Alric, with his wife and two little girls." She paused, smiling. "Maybe three by now, or even a little boy; Lena was

overdue."

I hadn't thought of Alric in months. The big Northerner had proved helpful to us

both down South, although at first I'd distrusted him. He was a sword-dancer, Northern-trained, but didn't claim Del's skill or rank. Nor did he have a jivatma, using a Southron blade instead.

I shook my head. "It's not the sort of life a man should have if he keeps a woman."

Del smiled. "I suppose you'd rather stay at home while she tends you, the cookfire and babies... or maybe you'd rather be in bed trying to make those babies."

"Maybe," I agreed. "It's better than celibacy." I cast her a meaningful glance.

"Well, then? What about you? Fair is fair, bascha... what happens a year or two

from now? Do you start making babies?"

Del's smile faded. Her expression turned pensive. "You said a man shouldn't be a

sword-dancer if he has a woman. Perhaps you're right; it would be difficult for

the woman to know how much her man risks each time he steps into the circle."