Sword Sworn-Sword Dancer 6 (48 page)

"It wasn't in a crack or crevice."

"Then," he agreed, sounding irritated. "It may be now."

Well, that was true. I subsided again into silence, wishing I could pace. Wishing I could leave.

Then I heard a choked-off expletive make its way through the slot.

"What? What happened?"

"Is your sword broken?"

"No. It's whole. Why? Did you find a broken sword?" Hoolies, he'd found Del's broken
jivatma.

"Don't touch it!"

"I didn't intend to!" he called back. "But when you're barefoot and you stumble over it, it's hard not

to."

"Why are you barefoot?"

"I took my sandals off."

"What for?"

"So I could feel the sand with my feet."

"You
stepped
on the sword?"

No answer.

"Nayyib?"

Nothing.

"Neesha?"

His voice sounded muffled. I couldn't understand.

"What are you doing?" I called.

Now he sounded cross. "Taking off my dhoti."

Was he bringing Del's
jivatma
out? Was that what Del had asked him to tell me, that he bring

Boreal out if we found her?

"Neesha?"

"Here." His voice sounded closer, but pinched off. "Here, take the sword . . ." The hilt appeared

through the slot.

Not Del's. Mine.

Samiel.

Mine.

I closed one hand around the hilt. Felt the familiar warmth, the welcome of Northern named-blade to

wielder.

Mine.
Mine.

Samiel.

Something deep in my soul surged up. I had forgotten what it felt like to hold a keyed jivatma bound

to me. I couldn't restrain the fatuous smile that split my face.

Mine.

I heard grunts and mutters. Nayyib, dressed again, was working his way back through the slot. I saw

a hand and arm reaching, a sandaled foot sliding through; heard the hiss of indrawn breath.

In a moment he was free, pressing a hand against his abdomen. "There went a few more layers."

"Let's get out of here." I turned, stepped back into the darkness of the tunnel.

"Wait," Nayyib said. "Tiger—wait."

I didn't want to wait. "I don't want to wait."

"Please."

"It's dark in here."

"That's why I want you to wait. It might be easier."

The pleasure in finding the sword spilled away. For a moment I had been able to forget.
"What

might be easier?"

"To tell you."

I said nothing. I couldn't. There was only pain and acknowledgment. An understanding that had

everything to do with practicality and none whatsoever with the feelings of the heart.

Oh, bascha
.

But I could be alone. I'd been alone all of my life, until she had come.

And now she wanted to go.

"Del said I shouldn't put it off any any longer. That if I didn't tell you, she would."

Suddenly I was grateful we were in darkness. I didn't want him to see my face; didn't want to see

his.

More silence.

Then, "I don't know how to say it."

I wasn't about to be patient as he tried to find the right words to tell me what I didn't want to hear.

"I'm done in here." I turned, took a step.

"Tiger,
wait
—"

I swung back, filled to bursting with dread and anger. "Spit it out!" I bellowed. "Get it over with! Tell

me what you've come to say!"

"All right!" he bellowed back. "You're my father!"

THIRTY-FIVE

No.

No.

Of course not!

Of course not.

Not possible.

He had come to tell me something else entirely. Something to do with Del.

Hadn't he?

Not possible.

"It's true," he said, when I did not respond.

Because I couldn't. I could not make a sound. I wasn't even certain I was breathing. I had prepared

myself to hear something entirely different. This was . . . this was wholly alien, like an unknown language

that sounds familiar but you can't make out the words.

"It's true," he repeated.

I was numb all over. The hairs stirred on the back of my neck. It took everything I had to force

halting words past a throat tight with shock. "You said your father has a horse farm."

"He does. That is, the man who raised me does. He married my mother when I was a boy. He is my

father in all ways—except blood and bone. He raised me.
You
made me."

My chest constricted. I felt the banging of my heart against ribcage. I didn't know how much of that

had to do with his words and how much with my hatred of small, enclosed places. Breath rasped noisily

through my throat.

"It's true," Nayyib said.

Couldn't be.

Wasn't.

Couldn't be.

My voice came out sounding very hoarse. "I don't have any children."

"That you
know
of. Del said."

Del had said a great deal.

My bones felt oddly hollow. "Why should I believe you?"

He released a long, resigned breath, as if I had finally said something he'd anticipated. "You were

seventeen. Newly freed from the Salset. You wanted to be a sword-dancer. You stopped at a tiny

village on the way to Alimat and spent the night with the headman's daughter."

I went on the offensive. "Not to brag, but I've spent the night with a lot of women over the years."

"She was, you told her, your first as a free man. And you intended to take a name—a
true
name—

to mark that freedom."

"So? A lot of women know my name."

"You told her Sula had named you, when you lay sick from the sandtiger poison."

Only Del knew that. And Sula, who was dead.

Seventeen then, barely. Forty now.

Twenty-three years.

Del was twenty-three. So was Nayyib. He'd said so; she had. Not a kid, she'd said. Not a boy.

I had said I was old enough to be her father. And thus his.

"And you told Del this?"

"Del and I talked about many things when she was ill."

My voice sounded rusty. "There's one way to find out if this is the truth."

Startlement edged his voice. "You still don't believe me?"

I wanted to ask, Why should I? "Go out into the light."

"But—"

"Go out into the light."

Nayyib went out into the light. I followed him. Both of us blinked against the sun. Samiel, forgotten in

my hand, flashed blindingly brilliant.

The kid eyed the sword. He marked the runes edging the blood channel, the satiny steel. Then he

looked at me. Lifted his head with a slight aggressive tilt. Anger was in his eyes.

I stared right into them. "Is there a mark on you? A birthing mark?"

A muscle leaped in his jaw.

"Show me."

He stood very still before me, clad in only a dhoti and sandals. Stubble was turning into beard, just

as my own was. I saw nothing of me in his face, nor anything of the woman he claimed was his mother.

But it had been twenty'three years. It was true I had slept with many over the years, and most of them I

couldn't remember.

That woman, I did. Sula had been my first, followed by others in the Salset; I was a slave; I did what

I was told. But only one woman had been my first as a free man. A headman's daughter in a tiny village

on my way to Alimat.

"Show me."

Abruptly he hooked thumbs into the top of his dhoti and jerked it down, displaying his lower

abdomen, the thin line of dark hair vertically bisecting paler flesh. And the small, purplish mark the

Stessoi called keraka, the god's caress. I'd seen it on Herakleio; Del had seen it on me.

I nodded once.

Nayyib pulled his dhoti back up. The anger simmered.

He wanted something. Acknowledgment. Confirmation. But I was empty of all emotions save

overpowering disbelief, despite the presence of the keraka. Nothing in my life had ever prepared me for

this. I had never even
imagined
it.

He stood waiting, every fiber in his body tensed with increasing anger. I had not responded to his

announcement, had given him no clue to what I was thinking.

Inane, incongruous laughter bubbled up. I blurted the first thing that came into my head. "What did

you expect?" I asked. "That I would fall at your feet and praise the gods?"

His eyes flickered. Those liquid, melting, honey-brown eyes, set beneath mobile eyebrows. "I don't

know what I expected."

"Oh, I think maybe you do."

He met the challenge. "All right. I dared to hope, once or twice, that you might be pleased."

I was completely, tactlessly honest with him. "I'm not certain that's possible at this particular

moment."

It shocked him. Shook him. Then he put on a mask, hiding his feelings. "Now what?"

"Now you go back to Mehmet's little village."

"What about you?"

"Oh, I'm going to go sit in the dark for a while and think about things."

He opened his mouth. Then shut it. No doubt there were all manner of things he wish to say, of

questions he wished to ask, but he had the sense to realize now was not after all the best of times to say

or ask any of them.

He turned to go.

Went.

I walked unsteadily back into darkness, gripping my
jivatma.

When I came down from what remained of Beit al'Shahar, Del was waiting. She sat beside the

stream on the far side, watching idly as I made my way across the stepping stones. By the time I got

there, arms outstretched for balance, she was standing.

She smiled, lifting her voice over the rushing of the water. "You look as if someone hit you over the

head with a cantina stool."

Since she had seen me be the victim of that very occurence, she knew what she was talking about.

"Someone did."

She looked more closely. "Are you all right?"

"For someone who's been hit over the head with a cantina stool." I was still trying to reconcile

emotions. "I just can't make my brain understand it. It heard the words, even understands them, but

refuses to acknowledge that they apply to me. I mean, I know he told me the truth—"

"Do you?"

I looked at her. "Yes."

"Do you?"

I released a long breath. "Yes."

"But you didn't feel inclined to fall at his feet and praise the gods."

I winced. "He told you."

"I believe he got hit with the same cantina stool."

"Hoolies, Del, I didn't mean it to come out like that. But he wanted me to say I was pleased, and

how could I? I'm too confused to be pleased!"

"Are you displeased?"

"No! I'm too confused to be anything." I stared at her pleadingly. "Don't you understand? It's not

something I ever contemplated. Not once."

Her chin lifted. "Nor ever wanted?"

I flung out a hand. "Look at what happened to me! I was born as my mother lay dying in the middle

of the Punja. I survived only because the Salset came along—and they made me a slave! Salset slaves

don't have children. They may sire some, or bear some, but they aren't allowed to keep them. Then for

twenty-three years I've been a sword-dancer, never sticking anywhere. It's no kind of life for a woman

—" I saw the flicker in her eyes but didn't retreat. "—who wants to have her man nearby, and a family. I

can't be that kind of a man for that kind of a woman. So I never thought about it, until that foolish foreign

kid with the axes went around telling everyone he was mine, knowing full well he wasn't."

"Neesha isn't that foolish foreign kid. He is your son."

"I know. I know." I shook my head. "I just can't think, bascha. There's too much in my head. I need

time to work through all of it."

"Why? You don't have to raise him. He's a
grown man. All you have to do is acknowledge him."

That stung. "I didn't say he wasn't my son!"

"But you told him you weren't pleased."

"Because I wasn't! I wasn't anything. Hoolies, I was lucky I could find the words to say anything at

all."

Del smiled faintly. "The Sandtiger—speechless. Truly a miracle."

I had to make her understand. "There is nothing, nothing in this world that could have stunned me

more than what that kid told me. I don't know how else I could have reacted under the circumstances. I

did the best I could. Maybe it wasn't enough, maybe it wasn't what he wanted, but it was all I had in me

right then." I shook my head, still lacking words. "I've never claimed to be a perfect man, and I sure as

hoolies wouldn't claim to be a perfect father. Especially when I didn't know I was a father at all."

I must have made some headway; her tone was kinder. "I did warn him not to have expectations."

"Well, I think he did!"

"Hopes, perhaps. How could he not? He has known since childhood you were his father. He's heard

all the stories of the legendary Sandtiger. He has wanted to find you for all of those years. But he was

afraid."

"Afraid?"

"That you would disbelieve."

"I did
not
tell him I disbelieved him."

"Nor did you welcome him." She put up a hand to halt more protestations. "It took him a very long

time to find the courage to search for you. And even more to look into your eyes and tell you."

"He didn't 'tell' me. He yelled it at me."

"Sometimes yelling at you is the only way to get anything through your head. But that's not the point."

Her eyes were sad. "He swore me to secrecy. I was not to say anything to you at all. It was his task."

"But you did threaten to tell me if he didn't get to it today."

Del nodded. "Because I knew what you were thinking."