Sword Dancer - Sword Sworn Part 43

I didn't know. Before Del, I'd kept myself to wine-girls and other women who wanted nothing more than a night or two together. I'd never sworn myself to any kind of bond. Del and I were not oath-bound, not vowed to one another save by what lived in our spirits. But I knew that could change. That it had, for others.

Hoolies, it was too complex to think about right now, after most of a day spent on horseback.

I dismounted over by scraggly trees r.i.m.m.i.n.g the edge of the flat-topped bluff and set about unloading and tying out the stud. The gra.s.s grazed down earlier by our horses had recovered somewhat, which suggested no one had been here since I'd come looking for Del. She and the kid found separate places for their mounts and began to unload as well. When the stud had cooled, I'd water and grain him; for now he was content to nose and lip at gra.s.s. I humped my tack and pouches over to the lean-to and dropped them outside.

"Wood," I announced tersely. "I'll be back."

"I'll go, too, when I'm done here," Nayyib offered.

"Not necessary." I stalked off, aware both were staring at me in startled bafflement.

Well, fine, so I'm p.r.o.ne to occasional bouts of jealousy. I'm human.

Maybe that proved I wasn't the jhihadi. Did messiahs get jealous? For that matter, did messiahs sleep with women?

Feeling somewhat better, I began looking in earnest for appropriate deadfall.

I made two trips to gather firewood. Nayyib made one; he piled it next to the fire ring, then lingered to talk with Del. From some distance away, it seemed an odd conversation. The kid stood with his head lowered, shoulders poised stiffly. Not deferential exactly but not precisely happy, either. Del stood very close to him, and her body language suggested she was doing most of the talking.

It was interesting to see them together from a distance. Nayyib was an inch taller than Del, and certainly broader and thicker of limb, but, though larger in general than most Southroners, he was not truly a significantly big man. Still, he was young yet; I didn't truly fill out until halfway through my twenties, though I had my height. Del is no delicate flower, but a tall, strong woman who moves unenc.u.mbered by the perceived requirements of femininity. They matched well together, Nayyib and Delilah.

His head came up sharply. Posture stiffened even more. He said something to Del, something definitive, because her posture abruptly tensed. Then he turned and walked away, looking for all the world like a house cat offended by the taint of splashed water.

Del watched him go-perhaps he was after more wood-then shook her head slightly. She knelt, began building a fire.

All in all, it did not put me in mind of a lovers' quarrel. Or a woman withstanding the blandishments of a man who wanted her. In fact, I couldn't put a name to it at all, save to say that he wasn't pleased by what she had told him, and she was no more pleased by his response.

But how much of that was wishful thinking?

I went over with my second supply of wood, piled it by the fire, and looked at her questioningly. "Something wrong?"

Del denied it crossly, then ducked into the lean-to to begin arranging her bedding.

Which left me even more confused than before. Wood delivered, I went off to check on the horses and to water and grain them. When Nayyib came back, he dumped his wood on the pile and came over to tend to his bay, though I had things under control.

The day was dying quickly, the way it does in the desert, but I could still see the stubbled planes of his face and the hollows of his eyes. He was unhappy about something. It struck me as odd, since Neesha seemed a mostly equable sort.

In view of my own sharp temper earlier, I didn't think it would help to inquire if he had a problem. So I lingered as I tended the stud and Del's gelding, and eventually he sighed, let the tension go, and spoke.

"Why is it we're going to this chimney place?"

"Beit al'Shahar. It's a rock formation."

"But what's there?"

"Something I left behind." I collected emptied canvas buckets and set them out of reach, so inquisitive equine teeth wouldn't chew them to bits. "Del and I were out this way about a year ago, give or take."

"She said something about a sword."

"Jivatma," I clarified. "A Northern sword. Blooding-blade. Named blade." I smiled when I saw his frown of incomprehension. "Northern ritual. Mostly, it's just a sword."

"You have a sword. Why go looking for this Northern one?"

"Something I need to do." "Like find the bones in the Punja?"

"Something like that." I smoothed a hand down the stud's neck. "Kind of hard to explain.

There are swords-and there are swords. If you own one long enough-if you form a partners.h.i.+p, odd as it may sound-it becomes more than just a weapon or a means of making a living."

"Singlestroke."

"Ah, the infamous blade of the Sandtiger!" I dropped the melodramatic tone. "A good sword. Kept me out of serious trouble many times."

"But you don't carry it any more."

So, he didn't know everything about the legend. "Singlestroke was broken a number of years ago."

His head came up. "So you want the Northern blade in its place?"

I remembered Samiel's begetting at Staal-Ysta, the days and nights I spent in Kem's smithy.

"It too is a good sword. A special sword." I shrugged. "It's hard to explain."

"Much about you is hard to explain."

"I'm a complicated guy, Neesha." True dark had fallen; there was nothing more to be read in expressions, which couldn't be seen. Only in voices.

"Del told me some stories when we were with the Vashni."

Finished with the horses, we fell in together as we drifted back toward the fire. "It's been an interesting life."

"And a dangerous one."

"I warned you about that."

"Yes." He sounded pensive.

"Thinking the horse farm sounds a bit better?"

His head came up sharply. "No."

"Then what's bothering you?"

He did not answer immediately. When he did, his tone was stiff. "You have your secrets. I have mine."

By then we were at the fire. Del sat next to it, drinking from a bota and gnawing on dried c.u.mfa. She did not look at Neesha. She looked at me as if her eyes were knives. Seems we were all being complicated tonight.

And it hurt.

Ignoring the thought, I squatted beside the fire. "First thing tomorrow morning I'd like to head out for the chimney. You two can wait here if you'd rather-it's not that far-or come along and wait for me there at the formation."

Del stopped chewing. "Why would we not come?"

I hooked my head in Neesha's general direction. "You and he appear to have some things to discuss."

Their eyes met. Locked. Del seemed to wait. Nayyib's jaw and raised brows suggested she had something to say.

"Fine." I pulled my pouches over, dug through until I found my share of burlap-wrapped c.u.mfa. "The kid said it best, I guess-we all have our secrets. I don't know if each of you has a different one, or if you share the same one. What I do know is I'm left out of it. Which is probably for the best; I'm really not in the mood to deal with childish nonsense."

Del's brow creased, but she didn't reply. Nayyib sat down and pointedly turned his attention to the contents of his saddlepouches.

My jaws worked to soften the preserved meat. It's almost impossible to talk with a mouth full of c.u.mfa, so I didn't even try. We all just ground our jaws and thought thoughts none of us wished to share.

I've got to admit it: I've spent more companionable nights in the desert. But it didn't interfere when I decided to go to bed.

Del and Nayyib, not talking, were still sitting by the fire as I unrolled my bedding in the lean-to and crawled into it.

I sighed, turned over, tried to go to sleep. It took me a while, but I got there.

I awakened in the middle of the night, heart pounding against my chest. A residue of fear still sizzled through my body. A dream . . .

Not one like the others. Nothing like the others. This was a normal dream in all respects, except for its content.

I've always dreamed vividly. Maybe it was because of the magic in my bones, incipient dream-walking, bone-reading, or some such thing. Sometimes the dreams were fragments, sometimes connected scenes that told some kind of story. Often they entertained me; usually they confused me, in that I could see no cause for them. I saw no cause for this one, either.

I lay wide awake beneath a blanket, staring up at the haphazard roof of the lean-to. Del and Nayyib were deeply asleep. I let my breathing still, my heartbeat slow, and considered what I'd dreamed.

Me, in the desert. Older, but not old. I wore dhoti and sandals, held a sword in my hand. All around me were people I knew: Del, Alric, Fouad, Abbu, also Nayyib, and my shodo; even people from the Salset, including Sula and the old shukar who had made my life a misery. My grandmother. A younger woman whose features were obscured, but whom I knew was my mother. And any number of other people I'd known in my life.

One by one they turned their backs on me and walked away. I was left alone in the desert with only my sword.

Remembering it helped. Tension eased. Fear abated. I banished the images, relaxed against my bedding, and let myself drift back into sleep.

THIRTY-THREE.

IN THE MORNING the air remained chilly, but it had nothing to do with the temperature.

Del and Nayyib both seemed out of sorts. Feeling left out but not sorry for it, I went about my morning routine. Eventually I had the stud fed, watered, saddled, and packed, and I led him over to the lean-to. Del and the kid were still repacking bedrolls. I suspected there had been a verbal exchange held too quietly for me to hear; they seemed tense with one another, and they were behind on preparations.

"All right, children, how long are you going to carry on with this?"

My tone and implication annoyed Del, who'd heard it before. It always annoyed Del. She gathered up her belongings and stalked past me on her way to the white gelding. It left Nayyib with compressed mouth, set jaw, and sharp physical movements at odds with his normal economical grace.

So I came right out and asked it. "Does this have anything to do with Del?"

He didn't look at me. "Yes."

"And you?"

He stood up, hooking saddle pouches over one shoulder. Paused long enough to look me in the eyes. "Ask her." And marched himself across the flat to his horse.

Oh, hoolies. And other various imprecations.

We wound our way along the wagon ruts, going deeper into the low, boulder-clad mountains. I led, Del followed, and Nayyib brought up the rear. We were strung out, allowing the horses to pick the best footing, since the boulders began to impinge on the tracks. Some things looked familiar, some did not; but it was years since Del and I had been here, and we'd certainly been in a hurry to leave once the chimney collapsed. Other than a slight delay as I was declared a messiah by Mehmet, part of a Deep Desert nomadic tribe dedicated to wors.h.i.+ping the jhihadi, nothing had prevented us from leaving. Del had purposely broken her jivatma after drawing Chosa Dei out of my body, freeing him to fight it out with his brother sorcerer, Shaka Obre. We hadn't been certain how violent that fight would be since both had been refined to essences of power, not physical bodies, so we'd departed the area as soon as we could.

More memories came back. I recalled Umir's incredible feathered and beaded robe, which he'd put on Del when she was his prisoner. The whirlwind in the chimney had been been so powerful that it stripped all the ornamentation from the white samite fabric. We had picked feathers out of our hair for days.

I tried to stretch my senses, to get a feel for my own jivatma, buried in the ruins of the rock formation somewhere ahead. Nothing answered. There was no compulsion to continue as there had been to find my mother's bones; perhaps she trusted to me to complete the task without resorting to walking my dreams. I wasn't aware of anything except heat, the smell of stone and dust, the stillness of the air, the unceasing brilliance of the sun, and the sound of horses chipping rocks as the walked.

The wagon ruts were more difficult to follow as they pa.s.sed over ribbons of stone extruding from the earth. Someone not intentionally looking for them might miss them altogether. But it struck me as odd that anyone would travel out here. There was no known road from Julah heading this way, the area skirted Vashni territory, and there was no known destination. Or if there were, it was a Vashni place; they had named the chimney decades be- fore. In fact, I recalled being told they'd brought Del's brother to Beit al'Shahar, and when'he'd returned he could speak again despite missing a tongue. Some kind of holy place, maybe. Except Vashni didn't use wagons, so the tracks didn't belong to them.We rode on a little farther, and then the trail made a wide sweeping turn to the left around an elbow of mountain flank. The stud abruptly p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, head lifting. I reined in. He stood at attention, almost vibrating with focus. He nickered deep in his throat, then let it burst free as a high, piercing whinny.

In the distance, echoing oddly, a horse answered him.

Del, halted behind me, voiced it. "There is someone ahead."

"A horse, at least," I agreed. "Possibly two, or maybe a team of four; the wagon ruts got here somehow."

"Who would be out here?" Del asked. "There's nothing."

I shook my head. "It's a bit more than a day's ride from here to Julah on horseback; it would take longer with a wagon and team. Someone built that lean-to as a stop-over, a place to spend the night."

Nayyib brought his horse in closer. "So you're saying someone did settle out here."

"It's a guess," I said. "But we can find out." I brushed heels to the stud's sides and went on, more attentive now than I had been.

The trail took us down and around another tight turn, then leveled out. We were hemmed in by mountain walls. Then those walls fell away as if bowing us into a palace. And palace it was; I pulled up abruptly. Del fell in beside me, while Nayyib ended up on her far side.

"But-it wasn't like this . . ." Del said, astonished.

"Nothing like this," I agreed. Something had happened. Something that had riven the mountains apart, shaping out of existing stone and soil a long, narrow canyon. It wasn't terribly deep, nor was it huge. A compact slot cut between mountains and rock formations, opening up into a flat valley floor.

"Water," Nayyib said, pointing.