Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (30 page)

A

few of us remember.

Nabir, who had, out of his own sense of courtesy, remained in the circle and left the two experienced sword-dancers to their conversation, now came closer.

He had, after all, met the bared steel of Del's blade. I figured he had as much

right to ask me about it as Abbu.

"Did you and Del spar with steel? With your own blades?"

Abbu frowned. "Of course."

"Then you saw her jivatma."

"Saw. Didn't touch." His smile was twisted. "Something about her--forbade it."

I glanced sidelong at Nabir. His eyes were fixed on the hilt glinting brightly

in the sunlight. The blade itself was hidden in rune-warded sheath.

Sighing, I walked the rest of the distance and dropped the wooden practice blade

beside the puddle of silk and gauze. Scooped up the harness, beckoned Nabir closer, slid Northern steel out into Southron moonlight. Shed harness and sheath, then displayed the sword in its entirety, resting blade in left hand while the other balanced the hilt at the quillons.

Sunlight poured across runes like water. The pristine brilliance was blinding.

Except for one thing.

"What's the matter with it?" Nabir asked. "Why is the tip all charred?"

Charred. I hadn't put it like that. But it was true: the blade looked like about

five inches of it had been thrust into a conflagration.

Well, in a way it had. Only the fire had been Chosa Dei.

"It's like hers," Abbu said intently. Then nodded slowly. "So, it's true.

There

is magic in Northern swords."

"Only some of them. Del's, yes; trust me. But this one--well, this one isn't quite sure what it wants to be yet. Trust me on that, too."

"May I?" Abbu put out a hand.

I grinned. "He wouldn't like it."

Abbu frowned. "He who? Who wouldn't like it?"

"Him. The sword."

Abbu glared. "Are you telling me your sword has feelings?"

"Sort of." I pulled the hilt away as Abbu's hand threatened imminent capture.

"Unh-unh--I didn't give you permission." Quickly I bent, scooped up the harness,

resheathed the sword. Tucked it into the crook of my left arm. "Take my word for

it, Abbu--you don't want to know."

He was red-faced. Pale brown eyes turned black as pupils dilated. "You offend me

with this idiocy--"

"No offense intended," I countered swiftly. "Believe me, Abbu, you don't want to

know."

"I know too much," he snapped. "I know you went to the North and got the sense

frozen out of your head, along with the guts removed from your belly." He flicked a disdainful glance at my still-naked midriff with its sword-born scar.

"And I have better things to do than stand here listening to your babble."

"So don't," I suggested mildly, which didn't please him any more.

Abbu said something beneath his breath in Desert, which I understood--and spoke--as well as he, then turned on his heel and marched away, black underrobe

flapping.

I sighed. "Ah, well, no harm done. We're no less fond of each other than we were

before."

Nabir's expression was unreadable as I reached down to gather up wooden blade,

boots, underrobe, and belt. He waited until I was finished tucking things here

and there.

"Is it true?" he asked.

"Is what true?"

"That." He nodded toward my sword. "Is it alive?"

I didn't laugh, because it would offend his dignity. And I tried very hard not

to smile. "There's a wizard in here," I said solemnly.

After a long moment, he nodded. "I thought there might be."

I opened my mouth. Shut it. Swallowed the hoot of laughter trying very hard to

escape. Not because there wasn't a wizard in my sword, but because of Nabir's reaction.

Finally I managed an inoffensive smile as I turned away from the circle. Away from Nabir, "Don't believe everything you hear."

"I don't have to," he said. "I saw it."

It stopped me dead in my tracks. Slowly I turned back. "Saw it?"

Nabir nodded. "You were making Abbu Bensir think you lied. You knew he would disbelieve you. And he did. He went away thinking you a fool, or sandsick...

a

man who says his sword is alive." He shrugged. "I heard the words, too--but I saw what you did." His youthful mouth twisted. "Or what you didn't do."

Now he had me intrigued. "What didn't I do?"

Nabir's tone was calm. "Let him touch the sword."

I passed it off with a shrug. "I just don't like others touching my sword."

"May I?"

"No--and for the same reason."

Nabir's dark eyes were steady. "Student to shodo, I respectfully request--"

"No," I said again, knowing I was trapped. "We're not really student and shodo,

so the forms don't apply."

His young features were almost harsh. There are tribes in the South very feral

in nature, and it shows in the flesh. Bastard-born, maybe, but Nabir had more than a splash of Punja-bred fierceness. It altered him significantly.

"If the forms do not apply," he said quietly, "I have no desire to dance with you."

"No?"

"No. And you need me to dance with you." Nabir smiled in beguiling innocence.

"You aren't helping me, Sandtiger. You're helping yourself. You are slow and stiff and awkward from that wound, and you're afraid you won't get your fitness

back so you can dance against men like Abbu Bensir. And if you can't--"

"All right," I said, "all right. Yes, I'm out of condition. I'm slow and stiff

and awkward, and I hurt like hoolies. But I earned the pain, Nabir... I earned

the slowness, the stiffness, the clumsiness. Yours may be inbred."

It wasn't nice. But he'd cut too close to the bone in shedding his awe of me.

"So," he said softly, "you put the dull blade against the newborn whetstone and

fashion an edge again."

"Does it matter?" I asked. "You'll be better for it yourself."

Nabir nodded. "Yes. But you might have asked me."

I sighed wearily. "I might have. But you'll learn when you get to my age that pride can make you do and say strange things."

"You are the Sandtiger." He said it with an eloquent simplicity that made me ashamed.

"I was a slave," I said flatly. "You heard the word when Abbu said it: chula.

And I was very nearly your age before I gained my freedom. Believe me, Nabir, all those years of the past don't make for an easy future, even when you're free."

"No," he agreed, very softly.

I sighed heavily and scrubbed at my forehead beneath still-damp, itchy hair.

"Look," I said, "I can't tell you his name. So you can't touch him. I'm sorry,

Nabir--but like I told Abbu, you're better off not knowing."

"That is the answer, then? His name?"

"Part of it," I agreed. "The rest is better left unexplained." I started to turn

away. "Are you coming? I'm for a jug of aqivi."

Solemnly, he came. And then, "Am I really slow and stiff and clumsy?"

I considered lying. Discarded the idea; he was worth the truth. "Yes. But that

will change." I grinned. "A few more circles with me, and you'll be the Sandtiger's heir-apparent."

Nabir smile was slow, but warm. "Not so bad a thing."

"Only sometimes." I slapped him on his back. "How was the little cantina girl?"

Nabir forebore to answer. Which meant either he liked the girl too much to say,

or he hadn't had the courage.

Ah, well, give it time... young manhood can be awkward.

Nine

Across our wooden blades, Nabir's face was stiff. "She won't marry me."

As interruptions go, it was terrific. I straightened out of my crouched stance

and lowered my sword, frowning. "Who won't--" I blinked. "The little cantina girl?"

Nabir, nodding, lowered his own blade-shaped piece of wood. His eyes were very

fierce.

It was, I thought, an interesting time to bring it up. We were in the middle of

a sparring session, having progressed from the practice circle after two days.

"Why do you want her to?" I asked.

Nabir drew himself up. Sweat ran down his temples. "Because I love her."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Thought over how best to discuss the situation with the boy, whose prickly tribal pride--bastard-born or not--sometimes required diplomacy. Not that he could have harmed me, if it went so far; but I

had no desire to hurt his feelings.

I scrubbed a forearm across my brow, smearing hair out of my eyes. "Don't take

offense, Nabir--but is she your first girl?" .

His entire body went stiff. "No," he declared. "Of course not; I have been a man

for many years."

I waited patiently. Eventually his gaze shifted.

"Yes." The word was muffled.

So. Now I understood.

"Water break," I suggested.

He followed me out of the circle, took the bota as I slapped it into his hands,

sucked down several swallows as I folded myself onto my gauze and silks, nestling buttocks into sand. I set aside the wooden blade and hooked elbows around crooked-up knees.

"So," I said lightly, "you slept with the girl. And you liked it. You like it very much."

Nabir, still standing, nodded. He clutched the bota tightly.

"Nothing wrong with that." I squinted up at him. "But you don't have to marry her."

"I want to."

"You can't marry every girl you sleep with."

Obviously, it had not occurred to him that other women might enter into it.

He

had discovered the magic in a woman's body--and in his own--and thought it was

supposed to be that way--with this woman--for the rest of his life.

Poor boy.

"She won't have me," he said tightly.

A blessing, undoubtedly. But I asked, since he expected it. "Why not?"

Muscles twitched in his jaw. "Because I am a bastard. Because I have no tribe."

Better yet, because he had little coin and fewer prospects. But I didn't say it.

"Look at it this way, then," I said. "It's her loss, not yours."

"If I could rejoin the tribe--" Abruptly, he altered his sentence. "If I could

prove myself worthy, they would overlook my birth."

"Who would?"

Nabir scowled, handed down the bota. "The elders."

"Which tribe?"

Nabir shook his head. "I shouldn't speak of it. I have said too much."

I didn't really want to spend too much time trying to decipher Nabir's past, or

foretell his possible future. I scratched at sandtiger scars. "Well," I said finally, "it's their loss, too. Meanwhile, we have a lesson to finish."

"If I could be worthy of the tribe, I'd be worthy of her," he persisted. "She said so."

More likely she'd said anything she could think of, just to put him off. It also

might be true; a cantina girl hoping for a better life would fix her dreams on

someone of greater stature, not a bastard-born halfbreed with nothing to offer

but himself. For a girl who sold herself nightly to men of all ilk, Nabir's regard--and his presence in her bed--would not be enough. She'd have to know there was more.

Right now, there wasn't.

I sucked water, replugged the bota. "A sword-dancer really shouldn't think about

marriage, Nabir. It dulls the edge."

"We have no edge at all." He grinned, lifting his blade. "See? Only wooden."

I smiled. "Still after me to use real swords, are you?"

"My shodo told me wood was useful for only so long. That to develop a true understanding of the dance, a true sword is required. Because without the risk,

nothing is learned."

Yes, well... Nabir's shodo had never known my jivatma. "Maybe so," I agreed,

"but right now I prefer wood."

Nabir looked beyond me. "It's her," he said obscurely.

The cantina girl? I turned. No. Del.

She had, at last, traded Northern wool for Southron silks. Rich blue burnous rippled as she walked, hood puddled on her shoulders. Already the sun had bleached her hair a trifle blonder, and her skin was pinker than normal. In time, it would turn creamy gold. The hair would pale almost to white.

Del crossed the sand smoothly, hilt shining behind her left shoulder. Her sessions with Abbu Bensir had removed some of the tension from her body, as if

she understood she was doing something definite toward reaching her goal, since

she needed to be fit to meet Ajani. I was glad to see her moving better, feeling

better, but I wasn't pleased by the source. If she'd been willing to meet me with wooden blades, like Nabir, I could have done the same. Hoolies, I could have done more.

Del stopped beside the circle. "Tiger is the only sword-dancer I know who practices his dancing by sitting on the ground."

Nabir's eyes widened; how could I stand for this?

"Not true," I replied equably. "Nabir can tell you I've thwacked him upside the

head more times than you can count--I'm giving him a breather."

Nabir frowned; it wasn't true. Del, who saw it, smiled crookedly, interpreting

it easily. But she said nothing, looking critically at the wooden blade the boy

held. "Do you ever plan to use steel?"

Nabir opened his mouth.

"No need," I answered for him. "You know as well as I the fundamentals are better taught with wood than with steel."

"He doesn't need the fundamentals... at least, not independent of steel.

There

is no risk with a wooden blade, and nothing is learned without risk."

I glared at her sourly as Nabir snapped his head around to stare at me. "I told

you why," I said. "As long as we're speaking of risk, what about the kind of risk the boy would face if I did use my sword?"

"What of it?" Del returned. "It's as much for you to learn control as for him to

learn technique."

Nabir cleared his throat. "I would like to face steel."

"Then face me." Del slipped the burnous easily and left it lying in a puddle at