Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 (34 page)

She digested that a moment. "Is this all part of the sandcasting the old hustapha did?"

"Partly." I left it at that.

"What else?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"I might."

"No, you wouldn't."

"How do you know?"

"I just--know."

"Like you 'just know' we should go to Julah."

I scowled. "You don't have to."

Del gritted teeth. "That's not the point. I'm here, am I not? I just want to know what we may be facing. Is that so bad? Is it not appropriate? I am a sword-dancer, after all--"

"Del, just let it go. I can't give you the answers you want. All I can say is we're supposed to go to Julah."

"And where after that?"

"How in hoolies should I know?"

"Ah," Del murmured.

Which contented neither of us, but was the best I could do.

Dark, ragged rock, all chewed and twisted and jagged, glittering with ice. Cold air bathed bare flesh; fogged a rune-scribed jivatma; flowed through the narrow throat into the mouth beyond and wisped away into warmer breath. Not the dragon near Ysaa-den, but an older, smaller place, all twisted and curdled and fissured: dark hollowness rimed with frost--

"Tiger?"

I twitched in the saddle. "What?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'm just thinking. Isn't that allowed?"

She arched a single blackened brow. "Forgive me my intrusion. But it is nearing sunset, and I thought perhaps we should stop for the night."

I waved a hand. "Fine."

Del scrutinized me. "You've been awfully quiet the last few hours."

"I said I was thinking."

She sighed, aimed the mare in a diagonal line toward a cluster of tigerclaw brush, said nothing more.

Disgruntled by my own snappishness and Del's questions, I followed. Dropped off the stud and began to undo buckles and thongs.

Stopped. Stared blankly at my hands: wide-palmed, scar-pocked hands, showing the wear and tear of slavery as well as sword-dancer calluses. But as I stared the scars faded, the palms grew narrow, the flesh a darker brown. Even the fingers were changed: longer and narrower, with a sinewy elegance.

"Tiger?"

I glanced up. I knew it was Del, but I couldn't see her. I saw the land instead: a lush, green-swathed land, undulant with hills.

--I will unmake what you have made, to show you that I can--

"Tiger." Del snagged the mare's reins into tigerclaw brush and took a step toward me.

"Are you all right?"

--I will destroy its lush fertility and render it into hoolies, just to prove I CAN--

Del's hand was on my arm. "Ti--"

--I will change the grass to sand--

I twitched at her touch, then shuddered. Stepped away, shaking my head, and rubbed at the place she had touched me. My hands were my own again, with no trace of what I'd seen.

No trace of what I'd heard.

Del's blue eyes, in a dark face, were avidly compelling. "Where do we go?" she asked.

"Where is Shaka Obre?"

Without thought, I pointed.

She turned. Stared. Glanced back at me, measuring my mood. "You're sure?"

"Yes--no." I frowned. Slowly lowered my hand. "When you asked, I knew. But now--" I shook my head to shed disorientation. "It's gone. I have no idea what I meant."

"You pointed that way, toward the mountains beyond Julah."

I shrugged. "I don't know, bascha. It's gone."

She chewed at a lip. "Perhaps..." She let it go, then sighed. "Perhaps you should ask Chosa Dei."

"Chosa Dei has had entirely too much to say of late, thank you. I'd just as soon keep it that way."

"But he would know. He is the one who imprisoned Shaka Obre." Her expression altered.

"Is that how you know we must go to Julah? Because of him?"

Unsettled, I hunched shoulders. "Some things I just--sense."

Pensively, she nodded. "There is that part of him in you--"

I turned back to the stud, undoing buckles again. "For the moment, he's being quiet."

"Is he?"

"He isn't trying to unmake me, if that's what you mean. I'd know about that." I pulled down pouches and saddle, stepping away from the sweat-drenched stud to set things damp-side up to dry in the sun. "I promise: I'll let you know."

"Do," Del said pointedly, and turned back to her mare.

I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, then thrust myself up and ran two stumbling steps before I stopped, swearing, and scrubbed sweat from my face. As expected, Del was awake also. Waiting.

I turned back, blew out a deep breath of disgust and self-contempt, walked back to the blankets. Stood aimlessly in the sand, feeling its coolness between my toes. Saw the gleam of Del's jivatma: three feet of naked steel.

I waved a hand. "No."

After a moment, she put it away. And waited.

I squatted. Picked up a chunk of smokerock. Flipped it into darkness and excavated for more. "Cold," I said finally. "Cold--and closed in."

"Is it Chosa's memories?"

"And mine. They're all tangled, layered one on top of another. I saw Aladar's mine. And Dragon Mountain. And some place I don't know, but I know that I should know it."

"Chosa," she murmured grimly.

I shivered, moved to sit on the blanket, drew the burnous over bare legs. "You know what happened to me. You saw. When Aladar threw me in the mine."

"I know."

I tasted bitterness. "It doesn't go away."

"Someday it will."

"It was bad enough when we were with the Canteada, in their canyon caves ..." I shivered. "Dragon Mountain wasn't much better, but at least Chosa made me think about something else. Once he had you, I didn't think of it at all. I just knew I had to kill him."

Her hand settled on my right leg, smoothing burnous and flesh. "What was it tonight?"

"A cold, small place. Funnels and tunnels and pockets ..." I frowned. "And I was in it."

"Well, perhaps it was just a dream. A nightmare."

"I don't dream anymore."

It startled her. "What?"

"I don't dream anymore. I haven't for a few weeks."

"What do you mean? Everyone dreams. You did before."

I shrugged. "It's not the same. What I see are memories now, not dreams. Over and over again. Shaka and Chosa, but Chosa's always blurred. As if--" I broke it of with the flop of a hand.

"As if you and he are one?"

I grimaced. "Not quite. Chosa's still Chosa, and I'm still me. But the memories are tangled. I see mine, and I see his--and sometimes I can't tell the difference."

Del's hand tightened on my leg. "It will end. It will be over. We will find Shaka and discharge the sword as well as your memories."

"Maybe," I said grimly. "But if we purge me of Chosa, how much of me goes, too?"

Thirty-six

Beyond reared the mountains: raisin-black, dusty indigo, tumbled croppings of dark smokerock. Before them clustered Julah, a crude, ragged encampment of lopsided hovels--

No.

Julah?

Julah was a city, a full-fledged domain city, rich from mines and slave-trade.

I blinked. Frowned. Rubbed eyes. Glowered at the city again, as the Chosa-memory and mine traded places. This time it was a city.

Del's tone was grim. "I hoped never to come here again."

"No more than I," I agreed, recalling our subterfuge. Del, chained like a slave, with a collar around her neck, walking behind the stud.

It had been the only way. I took her to a known slaver, saying I wanted to breed her, and that I needed a Northern male; he, in turn, had sent me to the tanzeer's agent, who had agreed she deserved a proper partner. It had been designed to flush out her brother, stolen five years before and sold on the slaveblock; in the end, it had gone wrong, putting her in Aladar's hands and me in Aladar's mine.

We'd both of us escaped. But Del had killed the tanzeer, and now his daughter ruled in his place with vengeance on her mind.

Julah was a warren of close-built dwellings toppling one against the other, if you looked from certain angles. Narrow streets were choked with stalls, wares, livestock, refuse, turning passages into bazaars. The Merchant's Market proper was in the middle of the city, but bargains were best had in shaded corners tucked away from the heat of the day, and the rituals of the Market. Julah smelled of wealth, but stank of the means to gain it.

The city was the largest slave market in the South, thanks to dead Aladar, whose mines ate living people and vomited bodies.

I'd nearly been one of them.

We rode through the variegation of midday, blocks of shadow and sunlight falling in angled, sharp-edged slants across adobe dwellings huddling one against another, laddering packed dirt streets. Awnings drooped over windows and doors, all deep-cut against the glare; one could tell how prosperous the family by the condition of awnings and paint. Bright, fresh-sewn awnings and clean pale-painted adobe boasted a successful family. Those of lesser luck trusted to the sun not to rot through fabric too quickly. And if the luck was truly poor, there were no awnings at all.

We wound our way through the outskirts into the crowded inner city, regimented by thick block buildings and the narrow streets cutting skeins in all directions. Dark-eyed children ran everywhere, chattering and shrieking, ducking beneath the stud's head, and the mare's; goats and fowl and cats and dogs added to the racket.

"What do we do?" Del asked over the noise.

"What we always do. Find a cantina with rooms, rent one, have a drink or two while sitting in the shade." I smiled. "I'd also suggest a bath, but it would wash out your Borderer blood."

Del shrugged. "I have more dye and stain."

The stud sidled over toward the mare, swished a lifted tail, opened his mouth to bite until I reminded him I was in charge and reined him away again. "We forgot to trade the mare in on a gelding in Rusali."

"She's not so bad."

"We'll get rid of her here."

"Or you could get rid of the stud."

That did not deserve an answer. "We can cut through this alley here and head for Fouad's cantina," I suggested, pointing the way. "It's a clean, decent place, well up to your standards--" I grinned. "And Fouad knows me."

Del arched a darkened brow. "In our present circumstances, I'm not certain that's wise."

"Fouad's a friend, bascha, from the old days ... besides, I doubt anyone down here knows about our troubles. Too far from Iskandar."

"They will know, once Sabra returns."

"We're ahead of her."

"For how much longer? She was a day behind us, Nezbet said--"

"Umir said two."

Del shrugged. "Either way, we have little time. We would do better to conduct our business quickly. ..." She slid a sidelong glance at me as we slanted mounts across the road toward the narrow alley I'd indicated. "If you know what business there is to conduct."

"Chosa knows," I said grimly. "He knows all too well."

Del looked uneasy. "I wish we knew what to do. What it will take to discharge the sword."

"And me."

"And you." She guided the mare around a pile of crudely-woven rugs piled in rolls against the wall. "Your sword is Northern-made, using Northern rituals, blessed by Northern gods--I can only hope Shaka Obre understands we mean him no dishonor."

"We don't even know if he's still alive."

She sounded a bit annoyed. "Then you can ask that of Chosa, when you ask him where to go."

I grinned. "A lot of people in this world can tell me where to go. But it isn't to Shaka Obre."

Del's mouth tightened. "Where is this cantina?"

"Right up ahead. See the purple awning?"

Del looked. "It is purple. And the bricks are painted yellow."

"Fouad likes color."

Del's silence was eloquent.

"You just don't appreciate the finer things in life, bascha. Here. Fouad has boys to take mounts--you can hand the mare off."

I reined in, jumped down, waited for the swarm of dark-eyed Southron boys all clamoring for the job of taking the horses to livery. The streets were much too narrow and choked to add anything more, and so Fouad had begun the practice of hiring boys to stable mounts at the end of the block, between two dwellings.

They came, as expected. Brown-skinned, black-haired boys wearing thin tunics and gauze dhotis, with brown, callused bare feet. They all vied for the job, promising better care than the next boy could give.

I chose a likely looking hand, set the reins into it.

"Bring the pouches back," I said. "We'll be taking a room."

"Yes, lord," the boy said. He was nearly identical to all the others.

"He can be testy," I warned.

"Yes, lord."

It was all I could get out of him. I gave him a copper, watched Del abstractedly select a boy for her mare, and grinned when she finally turned toward me, wading through the boys. "Isn't it nice to see helpful, ambitious children?"

Del grunted. "Isn't it?"

"It keeps them out of trouble."

She had tucked the blanketed sword bundle beneath one arm, unwilling to part with Boreal. "Is your friend to be trusted?"

"Fouad knows everyone, and he knows what everyone's done. If he sold out his friends, he'd be dead already." I gestured toward the deep-cut, open doorway. "I'll get us a room. If you want to sleep first, go ahead; I'm going to sit down in the shade for a bit and relax with aqivi and food."

Del shrugged, passing by. "I'm hungry, too."

Indoors, it was cool, cavernous, shady. I sighed, stripped off harness, found the perfect table near the door, and hooked out a chair. "Fouad!" I shouted gustily. "Aqivi, mutton, cheese!"

As expected, Fouad came out of his back room and threw open welcoming arms.

"Sandtiger!" he cried. "They said you were dead!"

Del, pausing, looked meaningfully at me.

I ignored her. "Do I look dead to you?"

The Southroner laughed. "I didn't think it was true. They always say you're dead."

I shrugged, settling back against the wall as Del acquired a stool. "Hazards of the profession. One of these days I suppose it will be true, but not for a long time."

Fouad stopped by the table. He was short, small-boned, friendly, with gray streaking black hair. He wore a vivid yellow burnous and a scarlet underrobe. Dark eyes glittered avidly as he smiled down at Del. "And is this the Northern bascha?"