Sword Born-Sword Dancer 5 (7 page)

I drew in a careful breath. "So will a man."

"Then do it," she suggested. "Do what is necessary."

I turned sharply to walk away from her, thinking it necessary as well as advisable--and nearly walked right into the first mate, whom I had not known was anywhere nearby.

Which didn't please me in the least.

Behind me, as I stopped short, I heard the woman laugh softly, saying something in a language I didn't understand. In morning light, the rings piercing the man's eyebrows glinted. He answered her in the same language, but did not take his eyes off my face even as she departed.

I didn't doubt for a moment that had I tried for the woman's weapons at any time, he'd have killed me instantly. That was the point of surrounding yourself with men such as this.

"What are you?" he asked.

Not who. What. Interesting--

And then my belly cramped. Hoolies, but I was getting tired of this. Maybe Del was right. Maybe I had been stung by something in the reef. "I'm a messiah," I answered curtly, in no mood for verbal or physical games.

Teeth gleamed as his lips drew back in a genuine smile. "I thought so."

Of course, at the moment I didn't feel particularly messiahish. After Del's comment about me magicking weapons out of thin air, which of course I couldn't do, I hadn't been precisely cheerful. And now this blue-headed man was playing the same sort of game.

With much less right.

He said something then. I didn't understand it; it sounded like the same language he and the captain shared. He watched me closely as he spoke, searching my eyes and face. I couldn't very well prepare to show or not show any kind of response, as I had no idea what he was saying. I just looked back, waiting.

He switched again to accented Southron. "Where were you bound, when we took you?"

"Skandi." I saw no harm in honesty.

Something glinted in his eyes. "ioSkandi."

"Skandi." I shrugged. "That's all I know. Never been there before."

Ring-weighted brows rose consideringly. "Never?"

"Southroner," I answered. "Deep desert. Punja. Bred and born."

"No."

"Yes."

"Skandic." He sounded certain.

"Maybe," I said clearly, curious now as well as irritated. "Depending on what you intend to do with us, we may never find out--"

Without warning he clamped a hand over my right wrist. I felt the strong fingers close like wire, shutting off the blood.

I moved then, used strength and leverage, was free with one quick twist. He did not appear surprised; in fact, he smiled. And nodded, "lo."

No help for it but to ask it straight out. "What is this about?"

He looked from me to the deck. He squatted then, put out a hand, fingered the blood left by my reef-cut feet. Rose again, rubbing his thumb against the fingers. Then he turned the hand toward me and displayed it palm-out, blood-smeared fingers spread, "lo."

"You sick son of a--"

"You are sick," he interrupted. "Look at your arm."

Part of me wanted not to. But part of me decided to play the game his way until I understood it better, or at least knew if there were any rules. So I looked at my arm.

Around the wrist, where he'd shut his hand, the skin was blotched with a fast-rising, virulent rash. Even as I watched, astonished, clusters of small pustules formed, broke.

Wept.

"When you weary of emptying your belly," he said, "come to me."

I opened my mouth to reply, then turned and staggered to the rail. Where I promptly emptied my belly.

FIVE

DEL CAME looking for me, found me: perched again upon the rope coiled back at the stern. She stopped, arching eyebrows. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Any progress?"

"Progress at what?"

"With the captain."

"Oh. No. I mean--" With infinite care I examined a scrape across one kneecap. "--I'm not rushing it."

After a moment of silent perusal she squatted down so she could look into my face.

"What's the matter?"

I hitched a shoulder. "She's not exactly what I expected."

"No--I mean, what's the matter with you?"

I eyed her warily. "What do you mean, what's the matter with me?"

"You've been ill again. I can tell. You get this greenish tinge around your mouth, and your nose turns red."

I fingered the nose, frowning, then sighed and gave up. "I'm sick of being sick. This is ridiculous!"

Her mouth twitched. "And no aqivi to blame it on, either."

I peered at her hesitantly. "Do I feel hot to you?"

She felt my forehead, slipping hands beneath flopping hair. "No. Cold." She moved out of the squat, sat down next to me on the rope. "I still say something stung you."

"Maybe so." I sat with both arms hooked over my thighs. The right wrist no longer wept fluids. The pustules were gone. The only trace of what had existed was a faint ring of reddened flesh, but it was fading rapidly. "Do you know what io means?"

Del shook her head.

I elaborated. "He said ioSkandi."

"Who did?"

"The blue-head. First mate."

She shook her head again. "We know Skandi is a place, and Skandic might indicate a person from Skandi, but io?" She shrugged. "Maybe a city in Skandi?"

I sighed, absently rubbing a wrist that felt and looked perfectly normal. "Could be. That makes as much sense as anything, I suppose." I slanted her a glance. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Any progress on your end?"

She smiled. "I'm not rushing it."

I grinned briefly, but it died. Quickly. I stared steadily at the deck. This next part was going to be hard. "Del."

She closed her eyes against the wind. "Hmmm?"

"They took no coin, no jewels, no cargo, no ship. Only you, and me, and the captain."

Now I inspected a cracked toenail. "They may intend to sell us."

Her eyes snapped opened. After a moment of tense silence, she said carefully, "That would make sense." And as I went rigid from head to toe, she put a hand upon my knee. "I know, Tiger."

"Del--" I bit into the pierced cheek, bringing fresh blood. "I can't do it again."

The hand tightened. "I know."

"We have to find a way off this ship. Before--" I shut my eyes, squeezed them, then opened them. "Before."

"We will."

I pushed myself to my feet then, took two long strides to the rail and gripped it. Sea spray dampened my face as wind stripped back my hair. It was harder than I'd thought.

"Are you sick again?"

I spat blood, then spoke steadily, without excess emotion. "I will drown myself before I let anyone sell me into slavery again."

"Oh, Tiger--" A half-hearted, desultory protest.

I swung to confront her, startling her with my vehemence. "And you had better not pull me out of the water. Promise me that."

Del stared at me, weighing words, tone, expression--and began to believe. The color drained until she was white-faced, horrified, sitting stiffly upon the rope. "I can't make such a--"

"Promise me."

She shook her head decisively. "There will be a way ... we will find a way, make a way--"

"No," I said bitterly. "Not again."

"Tiger--"

"First the Salset for sixteen or seventeen years, then Aladar and the mines. I can't do it again. I can't."

She attempted reason now, still not certain, but taking nothing for granted. "You freed yourself of the Salset. And you got free of the mines. There are opportunities that--"

"Enough." I cut her off curtly. "Don't ask it, don't wish it, don't expect it, Del. I can't."

Abruptly she thrust herself from the rope and stood there rigidly, trembling. She sought to speak, could not. Then turned to walk away with none of her usual grace.

"Del--"

She spun, furious. "Don't!"

I gestured futility. "I have to do--"

"No, you don't. You don't have to do any such thing."

I clamped my jaws shut. "I can't--"

"I can't do it! Do that? I can't! I can't!"

"Del--"

"No." In the coldest tone I had ever heard from her. "Are you so selfish, that you can ask this of me? Are you so blind, so arrogant?"

My voice rose. "Arrogant--!"

"What are you, to ask this of me? To expect me to watch you drown?"

"I didn't mean you had to watch--"

We were both shouting now. "You are a fool!" she cried, and then added something in uplander so vicious I knew better than to request a translation.

"It's not the first time," I reminded her sharply. "When Chosa Dei was in me, you agreed to kill me. This time I'm only asking you not to rescue me."

"And I couldn't do it!" she snapped. "Do you recall I had my jivatma at your throat?"

I did. Clearly.

"Do you recall how I promised then to make certain Chosa Dei would not be set free?"

I did.

"Do you recall how he very nearly took you as his own, as his body, so that he would have the means to destroy the land?"

Oh, yes. I recalled.

"I knew then I couldn't do it," Del said. "I knew it. I promised you then--and I couldn't do it."

"Del--"

"I will make no more such promises, Tiger. No more. Never." Tears stood in her eyes.

Outrage, most likely. And maybe something else. "The only promise I shall make you is that I will die for you."

"Del, don't...you don't--"

"I do," she said. "Oh, I understand. I see. I know. And I refuse." She stepped close to me, very close, so that I felt her breath on my face. "In the name of my dead jivatma I swear this much: that I will do everything within my power to defend your life against any threat. Even one made by you." She was trembling with anger and, I thought, fear.

"Don't ask anything more. Don't wish anything less. Expect nothing--but that I will die in your place to keep you from being a fool."

I caught her wrists, gripped them firmly. Opened my mouth to answer, to deny her this oath--and saw we had gathered a crowd of grinning onlookers. I swore, released her, and turned sharply back to the rail.

I stared blindly at the sea as I listened to her go.

Near dawn I awoke. I don't know if it was a sound, or the lack of. But I realized I was alone.

The emptiness was abysmal.

I stretched, twisted, and shook out parts of my anatomy until sweat sheened me. It was dawn, both breezy and cool, but I'd lost myself in the rituals I'd been taught at Alimat, in training to the shodo. He had explained that even a boy of seventeen should never assume his body was fit, and that as he aged fitness would become harder to achieve.

Of course, I didn't believe him. At seventeen (or sixteen, or eighteen; no one knew for certain), after nearly two decades of labor for the Salset, I was more than certain I was fit. After all, I'd survived slavery, had killed a sandtiger for my freedom, had been taken on as a student of Alimat. After I defeated Abbu Bensir, Alimat's best apprentice, I knew my conditioning was superb. Hadn't I nearly killed Abbu?

Well, yes; but accidentally. Killing him wasn't the object. Defeating him was, and that I'd accomplished. Quite unexpectedly.

However, the shodo himself, with unequivocal skill despite his advanced age, soon convinced me that despite the quickness and strength of my young body, and the potential for remarkable power and true talent, I was merely a boy. Not a man. Not a sword-dancer.

It had taken me years to understand the difference. By the time my body was honed the way the rituals of Alimat required, I was nothing like that boy who'd killed the sandtiger--and nearly killed Abbu. I was nothing like the man who moved quickly through the first four levels, followed by three more. I was a child of Alimat: conditioned to codes and rituals and the requirements of the circle.

And now I stood outside of all the circles, self-exiled. But the body remembered. The mind recalled. Reflexes roused, began to seep back despite scrapes and bruises and gouges. I was more than twice the age I'd been when Alimat had accepted me, and I knew intimately the weight of the shodo's wisdom: as a man ages, fitness becomes harder to achieve.

As years in the circle are measured, I was no longer young. I bore scars from all manner of battles and circumstances, owned a knee that complained occasionally, and had noticed of late that my distance vision took a bit longer to focus.

But I was a long way from being old, fat, or slow.

Fortunately for my plan, the captain noticed that.

She leaned her back against the rail, elbows hooked there idly--which, I could not help but notice, enhanced the jut of her impressive breasts. She rode the deck easily, graceful as cat, while wind whipped the red braid across one shoulder like a loop of twisted rope.

Where the sun picked out highlights, strands of hair glowed gold as wire.

She smiled. "Do you know, I believe you might match Nihko."

"Who?"

"Nihko," she answered. "My first mate."

"Oh. Blue-head."

The woman laughed. "Is that what you call him? Well, he has a name for you, too."

"He does, does he?" I bent, flattened palms against the deck. "And what would that be?"

"Something vulgar."

I grunted. "Nothing new."

"I imagine not," she agreed. "And I expect your woman calls you something equally vulgar, now."

I straightened. "What 'my woman' calls me is none of your concern. And you of all people should know better than to describe her that way."

A red brow arched in delicate surprise. "What? Is she your woman no longer, now that you have argued?"

"She isn't 'my woman' ever."

"No?"

"No." I paused. "Not even before we argued."

"Do you not own her?"

I shook out my arms, flexed knees; I was cooling now in the wind, and sweat dried on my flesh. "No one owns her. She isn't a slave."

"But she is bound to you, yes?"

"No."

"Then why would she stay with you?"

I scowled at her. "The reason any woman stays with a man she--admires."

"Admires!"

"Likes," I amended grudgingly.

"Even now, do you think? After you shouted at her?"

I stood at the rail. "She shouted back."