Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 (27 page)

"What—" I cleared my throat, swallowed down the tingle of another cough. "What exactly are the

herbs for?"

"Stillness."

"So I can understand my dreams." I couldn't help it; I scowled at him. "What
is
it with you priests?

Why do all of you speak so thrice-cursed obscurely? Can't you ever just say anything straight out? Don't

you get sick of all this melodramatic babbling?"

"Of course," Oziri said, nodding, "but people tend not to listen to plain words. Stories, they hear.

They remember. The way a warrior learns—and remembers—a lesson by experiencing pain."

It was true I recalled sword-dancing lessons more clearly when coupled with a thump on the head or

a thwack on the shin. I'd just never thought of it in terms of priests before. "So, how is you know about

my dreams?"

"It is not a difficult guess." Oziri's expression was ironic. "Everyone dreams."

"But why do
my
dreams matter?"

His dark brows rose slightly. "You're the jhihadi."

I gazed at him. "You don't really believe it, do you?"

"I do."

"Because the Oracle said so?"

"Because the Oracle said so when he had no tongue."

"But—there must have been some kind of logical explanation for that."

"He had no tongue," Oziri said plainly. "He could make sounds but no words. I examined his empty

mouth, the mutilation. Yet when we brought him down from Beit al'Shahar, he could speak as clearly as

you or I. He told us about the jhihadi. He told us a man would change the sand to grass." His smile was

faint. "Have you not shown us how?"

He meant the water-filled line in the dirt, with greenery stuck in the end of it. I'd done it twice before

various Vashni. "It's just an idea," I explained lamely. "Anyone could have come up with it. You take

water from where it is, and put it where's it not. Things grow." I shrugged. "Nothing magical about that.

You
could have come up with it."

"But I am just a humble priest," Oziri said with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"And I'm just a sword-dancer," I told him. "At least, I was. There is some objection to me using the

term, now."

"Among other things." Oziri took up another pinch of herb, tossed it onto the coals with a wave of

supple fingers. "The jhihadi is a man of many parts. But he is not a god, and thus he is not omniscient.

Therefore he must be taught."

Be taught what? I opened my mouth to tell him I didn't understand. Couldn't. Because no more was I

seated across the fire from Oziri but had somehow come to be lying flat on my back, staring up at the

smoke hole. The
closed
smoke hole. No wonder it was so thick inside the hyort.

Oziri's voice. "A man must learn to be still if he is to understand." Understand what?

But I didn't ask it. Couldn't. My eyes closed abruptly. What little control of my body I retained

drained away. I was conscious of the furs beneath me, the scent of herbs, the taste of liquor in my mouth.

It would be a simple matter for the Vashni to kill me. But he merely put something into one lax hand,

closed the fingers over it, and bade me hold it.

Hard. Rough. Not heavy. Not large. It fit easily into the palm of my hand.

"Be still," Oziri said, "so you may hear it." Hear what? "Truth," the Vashni said.

I came back to myself with a jolt. For a minute I just lay there on the rug, staring up at the hyort's

smoke hole, until I felt the hand insinuating itself behind my head and lifting it up. A bota was at my

mouth.

"Drink," Del said. "Oziri said you would need to." Del.
Del.
I wasn't in Oziri's hyort anymore. I sat

bolt upright, saw the hyort we now shared revolve around me, cursed weakly, and slumped back down.

I took a swallow because she insisted, discovered I was incredibly thirsty, and proceeded to suck most

of the water out of the skin. Then I lay there on my back and hugged the flaccid bota against my chest,

scowling up at the stars visible through the smoke hole as I tried to put my world back together.

"What happened?" Del asked.

I closed my eyes. Felt the residual burning from the herbs and smoke. "I have no idea."

"Don't you remember?"

"Only that Oziri kept dumping herbs onto the fire. I thought I was going to choke." I looked at her.

"They brought me back here?"

Del nodded. "A while ago."

I worked myself up onto elbows, then upright. This time the hyort did not spin so rapidly. "Did Oziri

say what they did?"

"He called it 'dream-walking,' " Del replied. "I'm not sure what it is, except that Oziri said you

needed to learn it." She shrugged. "He asked me questions about what happened to you on Skandi."

"And you told him?"

"I didn't see why I shouldn't."

Well, Del didn't know the whole of it, either. Some things I couldn't bring myself to talk about, even

with her. I squirted the last of the water into my mouth and tossed the bota aside. "I don't remember

anything. Did he say I actually did whatever it is a dream-walker does?"

"No. Just that he expects to see you again tomorrow."

"What for?"

"I don't know, Tiger. I don't speak priest."

I glared at her. Del smiled back blandly. I closed my eyes again, tried to recall what had happened in

Oziri's hyort. The back of my throat felt gritty. I cleared it, hacked, then began to cough in earnest. Del

dug up another bota and gave it to me. After a few more swallows, the worst of the coughing faded.

"I don't see any sense in trying it again," I said hoarsely, "whatever
it
is."

"They are our hosts. It would be rude to refuse."

"And if he asked to cut off toes to match my fingers, would it be rude to refuse?"

Del, yawning, lay down on her pallet, dragging a thin blanket up over her shoulder. "It's hardly the

same."

"The point is . . ."

After a moment, Del said, "Yes?"

Nothing came out of my mouth.

"Tiger?"

I toppled backward, landing on rugs. I felt the dribble of water across my chest, the weight of bota.

Limbs spasmed.

Then Del was at my side. "Tiger?"

I couldn't speak. Hearing was fading.

Hands cupped the sides of my head. "Tiger!"

But I was gone.

TWENTY

ONCE AGAIN I came back to myself with someone pouring a drink down my throat, but this one

was noxious. I choked, swallowed, choked some more. Then someone dragged me up into a sitting

position, where I sputtered the dregs all over the front of my burnous. Fingers closed painfully on my

jaw, holding my head still I saw eyes peering into my own.

I wanted to ask who of the Vashni had four eyes in place of two, but then they merged, and I

recognized the face. Oziri's. It was his hand clamped on my jaw, squeezing my flesh.

"Le'goo," I mumbled through the obstruction.

He let go. I worked my jaw, running my tongue around the inside of my mouth. No blood, though I

felt teeth scores in flesh. "What was that for?"

Oziri ignored my question and asked one of his own. "What did you see?"

"See where?"

Del interrupted both of us. "Is he going to be all right?"

"What did you see?" Oziri repeated.

"Is
he going to be all right?."

I answered both of them. "Hoolies, I don't know."

"Tiger—" Del began.

"Be silent!" Oziri commanded.

My tongue worked. So did my mouth. So, apparently, did everything. I frowned at him, because I

could.

"Not you," he said more quietly. "Her."

Del's tone was the one you don't ignore, even if you don't know her. "I have a right to ask if he is

well."

I put up a hand. "Stop. Wait. Both of you." I squinted a moment. "I feel all right. I think. What

happened?"

Oziri's expression was solemn. "You dream-walked."

"I thought that was what you wanted me to do in your hyort."

"In my hyort, yes. This is not my hyort."

"I did it here? Now?"

"What did you see?" Oziri asked.

"I didn't see—oh. Wait. Maybe I did." I frowned, trying to dredge it up. "There's something, I think.

A fragment. But—" I clamped my teeth together.

Oziri seemed to read my reluctance. His mouth hooked down in a brief, ironic smile. "This is why

you must train yourself to be still. That way not only do you walk the dream, but you understand it. You

recall it at need and allow it to guide you. Otherwise it's no different from what anyone dreams."

I glanced briefly at Del, who wore an expression of impatient self-restraint—she wasn't happy with

Oziri—then looked at the Vashni. "I'm not sure I
want
it to be any different from what anyone dreams."

"Too late," he said dryly. "You are the jhihadi."

"Can I quit?" I asked hopefully.

He laughed. "But if you are no longer the jhihadi, then you are not a guest of my people. I would

have to kill you."

"Ah. Well, then, never mind." I sighed. "So, I'm just supposed to remember what I dreamed?"

Oziri nodded. "No more, no less than any memory. Yes."

"And there's a message for me in it?"

"Not this one," he said. "This was merely the test, to see if you have the art. There is more, but I will

explain that later." He gestured briefly. "Recall the walk."

To remember my dream did not seem a particularly dangerous challenge. I recalled portions of my

dreams the day after on a regular basis, though the immediacy faded within a matter of hours, sometimes

minutes. Some stray fragments remained with me for years and occasionally bubbled up into

consciousness for no reason I could fathom, but I'd never purposely tried to recall them. It seemed a

waste of time. But the explanation of dream-walking, which I didn't exactly fully understand, seemed to

require
enforced
recollection.

Oziri spoke of stillness. Sahdri and his fellow priest-mages had spoken of discipline. One seemed

very like the other.

I closed my eyes. Focused away from the hyort, going inside myself. I waited, felt the tumult of my

thoughts and apprehensions —I hate anything that stinks of magic—and purposely suppressed them. In

the circle, I could be still. I had learned to relax my body. Now I relaxed my mind, and found memory.

My eyes opened even as my left hand closed. I raised it. "I saw—death." I uncurled fingers. My

palm was empty. "Here, in my hand. Death."

Oziri nodded. "What else?"

"A man. From Julah. He was searching for something." I frowned. Felt weight in my hand, though it

remained empty. "You killed him."

"Not I."

"Vashni killed him."

"Yes."

"Because he trespassed."

"Yes."

"You kill everyone who trespasses."

No change in inflection. "Yes."

My hand snapped closed on air and flesh. "Bone." I could feel the details of it, the small oblong circle

with slight protruberances. "Backbone."

"Yes," Oziri said.

I opened my hand. Stared into it. "He strayed off the road," I said. "He heard the scream of a coney

being killed and thought he might eat well, if he found it not long after it died. But he found Vashni. A

hunting party. The next scream was his own." My hand was empty, but the memory was full. Fear. Pain.

Ending. I looked at Oziri. "You gave me a piece of his backbone."

Oziri smiled. "Yes."

Del's voice was harsh. "What have you done to him?"

"I? Nothing. This comes of himself. Here." The Vashni put out a hand and tapped my chest. "The

heart knows what he is."

"I'm glad something does," I said dryly. "Now, care to tell
me
what's going on?"

"You remembered the dream-walk. I believed the walk itself would happen in my hyort. We brought

you back here when it became obvious nothing would occur." Oziri shrugged. "I should have expected it.

You don't trust us."

I took a breath. Was frank. "Vashni are not known for their courtesy toward strangers. Just ask the

man whose backbone you gave me."

Oziri was unoffended. "But he was neither the jhihadi nor the Oracle's sister. He was a man, and a

fool, and he paid the price for it."

Del's voice verged delicately on accusation. "You kill everyone who comes into what you perceive

as Vashni territory."

"We do."

"But no one knows the borders of Vashni territory."

"They learn."

"Not if they're killed."

A smile twitched his mouth. "Others learn."

"You kill them even if they trespass by mistake?"

"Yes."

She considered that. Because I knew her mind, I saw the struggle to remain courteous,

nonjudgmental. "It is a harsh penalty."

"It is a harsh land," Oziri replied. "We are a part of it. We reflect it." His gesture encompassed her

body. "You yourself were attacked by a sandtiger. You know how harsh the land is."

I knew it, certainly, having grown up in the desert, but I wasn't aware of another tribe quite so quick

to kill as the Vashni.

Certainly other tribes killed people if they perceived a threat—I'd witnessed the Salset do it—but the

Vashni did it even if no threat were offered.

And yet Del and I, Oracle's sister and jhihadi, were treated honorably. And Nayyib, apparently,

because he served Del and wore the fingerbone necklet.

Oziri watched me think it through. Irony put light into his eyes. But he returned to the topic of

dream-walking. "Here, in this hyort, you can be still. Because you trust the woman."