Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (20 page)

"Everyone in Ysaa-den offered, Tiger; you're a hero. They will give you anything

you ask, if they can." Del sat back on her heels. "Am I to suppose you want their two copper pennies, now?"

She wore blue in place of filthy white, a cool soft blue that heightened the color of her eyes. Pale lashes, pale hair, paler skin; she was, no doubt, feeling every bit as tired and battered as me. But somehow she didn't look it.

"No," I answered testily. "All I want is to be rid of this sword, so I can live

in peace. Or, more immediately, a warm bed and a bota of aqivi; since this is the North, I'll take amnit."

"You'll get your amnit. You'll even get your bed. As to the warmth of it, that

will depend on how many women you put in it."

I grunted. I was so full of bruises, bites, scrapes, scratches and claw scores I

doubted I could provide much pleasure for a bedpartner. Especially since what I

most wanted to do was sleep.

"The meal first," Del reminded, as my eyes drooped closed. "It's a celebration."

"Can't they celebrate without me?"

"No. Then they would have no one for whom to sing their song of salvation and gratitude."

I grunted again. "There's you."

"But I didn't kill Chosa Dei."

"You killed half the hounds."

"Who once were villagers." Del's tone was serious. "I think we need not tell that part of the story. Let them think the hounds simply killed their kinfolk,

instead of being remade into beasts who killed more people, including kin and friends." She stroked hair from her eyes. "It would be a kindness."

It would also be a lie, but one I understood. "Give me the tunics, then, so we

can go get some food. My belly's screaming at me."

Del handed me first the undertunic of soft-combed undyed wool; then, as I dragged it on, she presented the green overtunic. It rattled with intricate beadwork: bronze, copper, and amber.

"This is too much," I muttered. "He's giving away his best."

"A measure of his respect and gratitude." Del's tone, as it can be, was bland.

Frustrated, I glared at her. "I would have come anyway. It had nothing to do with Ysaa-den or their troubles; it had to do with the hounds. If they'd gone somewhere else, I'd have gone somewhere else."

"But they didn't, and neither did you." Del got up slowly, suppressing a wince

of discomfort. She wore her sword as usual, hanging in harness across her back.

"They're waiting for us, Tiger. We're the guests of honor."

I frowned, rising carefully. Little by little I was losing my links with the South. First Singlestroke, broken fighting Theron. Then my Southron silks and gauzes, traded for Northern leather and fur. And lastly my harness, discarded in

Chosa Dei's mountain. Bit by bit by bit, scattered along the way.

I gathered up my jivatma, lacking sheath as well as harness, and followed Del out of the lodge. There was nothing, nothing about her even remotely Southron.

Northern bascha to the bone, no matter where she was. I was being altered, while

Del remained the same.

Time to go home, I said.

But I said it to myself.

Hot food, fiery amnit, and warm wishes all conspired to make it extremely difficult for me to stay awake during the celebratory meal. The evening air was

growing chilly, but in addition to new wool clothing I also wore two pelts. I sat like a furry lump on yet a third pelt, managing to keep my eyes open a slit

as Halvar regaled--in uplander--the village with my exploits.

Well, our exploits; Del was not left out.

"Stay awake," she hissed, sitting on the pelt next to mine.

"I'm trying. Hoolies, bascha--what do you expect? Aren't you tired after everything we did?"

"No," she answered cruelly. "I'm too young for it."

I chose to ignore that, since I knew very well she was lying. Maybe she wasn't

yet sleepy, but certainly she was sore. It showed in all her movements. It showed when she sat very still. "How much longer do we have to sit out here?"

"Until the celebration is finished." Del watched Halvar, half-following his words even as she spoke to me. "We've eaten, and now Halvar's retelling the story. Once that's done, they'll all sing a song of deliverance. Then everyone

will sit around retelling the story, marveling at the accomplishment, and drink

to your health." She paused, observing me. "But since, from the look of you, I

doubt you can manage that, you'll probably be able to slip away."

I nodded, stifling a yawn. It took all the strength I had.

Halvar said something to Del, glanced past her to me--Del had wound up beside the headman to translate--and repeated to me whatever it was he'd said to Del,

just to be polite. I caught one word out of twenty: song.

I nodded. "Sing, then. I'm listening."

Del slanted me a disapproving glance, then spoke briefly to Halvar. In response

the headman grinned, turned to the gathered villagers all wrapped in warmest furs, and announced something. Yet again I saw musical instruments brought out.

I sat there with a polite smile pasted onto my face and tried to look interested

as Ysaa-den launched into song. My own bout with singing in order to defeat Chosa Dei had not resulted in improved comprehension or appreciation; it all sounded like noise to me, though admittedly with a pattern. I suppose it was even pretty, if you like that kind of thing.

Del apparently did. She sat all wrapped in white fur with her eyes fixed on distances, losing herself in the music. I wondered if it took her back to her childhood, when her kinfolk had gathered to sing. And I wondered, suddenly, if

she had ever sung to anything or anyone other than her sword.

At the end of the song Halvar turned yet again to us and said something. This time Del looked surprised.

"What?" I asked, rousing.

"He's bringing the holy man out to throw oracle bones."

"So, the old man likes to gamble."

Del waved a hand. "No, no--to really throw the bones, as they were meant to be

thrown. Before people began using them for wagering."

I wanted to say something more, but the old holy man had appeared. He stopped before us, bowed to us both, then sat down on the spotted pelt Halvar carefully

spread. He was a very old man, as holy men often are, having stuffed so much ritual into a single life. With the Salset there'd been the shukar, sort of a holy man/magician; I wondered if Northern customs were the same.

The old man--white-haired, blue-eyed and palsied--seemed to be waiting for something. And then one of the younger men brought a low tripod and set it carefully before him. Onto the triple prongs was placed a platter of polished gold. Its rim, curving upward gently, was worked in Northern runes.

I blinked. "I thought you said Ysaa-den had only two copper pennies."

"In coin," Del agreed. "That's an oracle stand and platter. Each village has one... unless it's stolen, or traded away." She shrugged. "Some of the old ways

die when the need to survive is greater."

The old man took a leather pouch from beneath his furs and carefully untied the

drawstring. He poured the contents into one palm: a handful of polished stones.

They were opaque but oddly translucent; pale, pearlescent white showing green and red and blue as the old man spread them in his hand. One was fiery black, but alive with so many colors I couldn't name them all.

I frowned. "Those aren't really bones. Those are stones. Oracle bones are bones."

"Bones of the earth," Del said. "They've been carefully carved and polished."

I grunted. "Maybe so, but they're not the sort of oracle bones I'm used to."

"These work," she agreed.

I opened my mouth to protest--yet another story--but didn't say anything.

Even

though I didn't believe in foretelling, I knew perfectly well what Del would throw in my face if I said anything rude about the old man and his stones.

She'd

mention Chosa Dei, whom even she thought was a story until he'd nearly killed her.

So I didn't give her the chance.

The old man threw his stones onto the golden platter. They rattled and slid, as

expected, falling into random patterns. Only to the man who uses them to foretell, the patterns are never random. That much even I knew.

He threw seven times before he spoke. And then he said a single word.

This time Del frowned.

"Jhihadi," the old man repeated.

Del glanced at Halvar, ignoring me entirely. "I don't understand."

Halvar shook his head, mystified as Del.

"Jhihadi," the old man said, and swept the stones into his hand.

A great silence lay over the gathering. No doubt everyone had expected profound

words of wisdom, or a promise of good health. Instead, the holy man of Ysaa-den

had given them a word none of them knew.

"Jhihadi," I said quietly, "is a Southron word."

"Southron?" Del frowned. "Why? What has a Southron word to do with us?"

"Actually, it's Desert, not pure Southron... and it might have something to do

with the fact that I am, after all, Southron." I smiled benignly. "Although, knowing the word, I doubt it indicates me personally." I grinned at her, then shrugged. "He must mean something else, or someone else; he is old, after all,

and those are just pretty stones."

"Why?" she asked suspiciously. "What does 'Jhihadi' mean?"

"Messiah," I said plainly.

Braids whipped as she turned instantly and faced the holy man. She asked him something courteously, but I heard the underlying doubt. The need for an explanation.

Obligingly, the old man threw the stones again. And again they fetched up into

varied patterns, none of which I could read.

He studied them, then nodded. "Jhihadi," he repeated. And then added something

in uplander, ending in yet another Desert word.

"Iskandar?" I said sharply. "What's Iskandar got to do with this?"

Del looked at me blankly. "I don't know what that is."

"An old story," I said dismissively. "Iskandar is a place, named after a man who

was supposedly a messiah. I don't know how much truth there is to the tale--you

know how stories can get all twisted up." We stared frowning at one another, thinking about Chosa Dei. "Anyway, Iskandar was where this supposed messiah met

his death."

Del's eyes were intent. "Was he murdered? Executed?"

I grinned. "Nothing so romantic. His horse kicked him in the head; he died ten

days later. Which is why there are questions about his identity, since a true messiah shouldn't be physically vulnerable." I shrugged. "I don't know much about it, really, since it's not the sort of thing I pay much attention to...

I

just know that on his deathbed he promised to come back. But since that was hundreds of years ago and Iskandar lies in ruins, I have my doubts about this jhihadi the old man's talking about."

Del still frowned, locking brows together. "He says we're going there."

"Iskandar?" I didn't bother to hide my amusement. "Then the old man must be sandsick."

Del chewed her lip. "If Ajani's there--"

"He won't be. I promise, bascha... Iskandar is a ruin; no one goes there. Not even Ajani would, unless he likes to talk with ghosts."

"Then why would the holy man say so?"

After a judicious glance around at the gathered villagers, I couched my words politely. "Shall we just say that sometimes people try to protect pronouncements

by insisting they're true when they're not?"

"He isn't lying," Del declared.

I winced. Here I'd been so careful to speak diplomatically, and now Del was being too blunt.

"No," I agreed. "Did I say he was?"

"You said--"

"I said perhaps he was mistaken. Now, are we done yet? Can we go to bed?"

Del turned back to the holy man and asked something in uplander. Accordingly, he

threw the stones once again. Then told her what he read.

"Well?" I prodded, when she didn't translate for me.

"Oracle," she said. "There is an Oracle."

"Those are oracle bones--"

"No, not bones--oracle. A man is foretelling the coming of the jhihadi."

Del's

expression was blank as she stared at me. "A man who is not a man, but neither

is he a woman." Now she frowned. "I don't understand."

"You're not supposed to, bascha. That's what these people trade on; they make coin off interpretation." I smiled at the holy man, inclined my head respectfully, then did the same to Halvar. "Now can we go to bed?"

Plainly, Del was irritated. "Oh, Tiger, I swear--you have become an old man.

What happened to the days when you would sit up all night swilling amnit or aqivi, trading lies in cantinas?"

"I met you," I retorted. "I joined up with you and got the hoolies beat out of

me more times than I can count." I stood up slowly and rewrapped pelts around my

shoulders. "Is that answer enough for you?"

Del, taken aback, said nothing in return. I went off to bed.

Some time later I sat bolt upright in the darkness. Beside me, the sheathless sword was glowing. It was red as wind-whipped coals; hot as a smithy's forge.

Hot as Chosa Dei's fire in the entrails of the dragon.

"No," I said clearly, and wrapped hands around the grip.

Shock jerked me rigid. Then I began to shake. It wasn't the heat of the sword,

but the power surging through it. Raw, angry power, totally uncontrolled.

"No," I said again, moving onto my knees. Pelts fell away until I knelt half naked, wearing nothing but borrowed trews. I'd learned it was warmer sleeping naked under fur, but while in Ysaa-den I'd altered the habit a little. It seemed

the courteous thing, although only Del shared the lodge.

Power ran through my hands, then crept the length of my arms until elbows and shoulders ached. "Hoolies take you," I gritted. "I already beat you once. I can