Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (6 page)

"Trying to peel back some of your layers so I can get a look at your wound."

"Leave it," she said, "leave it. It is healing without your help. Do you think

they would have let me go if I was in danger of dying?"

"Yes," I answered bluntly. "Telek and Stigand? And all the rest of the voca!

Stupid question, bascha... I'm surprised they didn't kick you out before this.

I'm surprised they didn't kick you out the day I left."

"To do that would have dishonored Staal-Ysta," she said faintly. "I was the chosen champion--"

"--who was meant to die in the circle, dancing with me," I finished. "Telek and

Stigand threw you to the sandtigers, bascha--no joke intended--and they had no

intention of you surviving the dance. Your death would have satisfied the honor

of Staal-Ysta, and my victory bought me out of the year you pledged me to. In the South we call it two goat kids for a single breeding... it's what the voca

wanted. You dead and me gone. As it is, we're both gone."

"And Kalle stays behind." Her tone was bitter as she twisted away from me and sat up very straight, easing the layers of rucked up wool binding her sore ribs.

"So, they got what they wanted. I have lost a daughter, who was perhaps not meant to be mine... but there is still her father. And Ajani I will kill."

"Which means we're back where we started." I drew in a deep breath, caught it sharply on a twinge, let it out slowly again. "What I started to say earlier--"

"I did not come for your advice." Del pushed herself up awkwardly, straightened

with infinite care, walked very slowly toward the roan.

The abruptness of it stunned me. "What?"

She caught the gelding's reins, led him to a tree safely distant from the stud,

tied him. "I did not come for advice. Only for your dancing."

So cool and clipped. So much like the old Del, with no time for other's feelings. Full circle, I thought. Back where it all started.

But not quite, bascha. I'm not the same man. Because--or in spite--of you, I'm

not the same man.

Five

I sat on my bedding by the fire cairn, scratching sandtiger scars, drinking amnit, thinking. Thinking; what in hoolies happens now?

So, she wanted to ride with me. For a while. To dance with me in the circle, until she was fit enough to challenge Ajani. Which meant she'd intended all along to leave me, once she found me. Once she was fit again.

Which meant she was using me.

Well, we all use one another. One way or another.

But Del was using me.

Again.

Without, apparently, considering my own feelings. Or else she had considered them, and thought I'd be happier without her. Once she was ready to leave.

Or else she was merely concocting a wild tale to cover up the real reason she'd

tracked me down, which had less to do with Ajani and more to do with me.

No. Not Del. She's nothing if not determined.

Nothing if not obsessed.

Which meant Ajani was still the most important issue, and I was merely a means

to make her fit enough to kill him.

Which came back to me being used.

Again.

A little part of me suggested it didn't matter, that having Del around was enough compensation. Because, of course, she would share my bed again, and that

ought to be enough to make any man overlook certain things.

Maybe, once, it would've been. But not anymore. I could overlook nothing.

Because a bigger part of me didn't like being reduced to a means. I deserved better.

And a still larger part reminded me with exquisite clarity that Del hadn't thought twice about offering me as bait to the voca on Staal-Ysta to buy a year

off her exile.

Well, she might have thought twice. But she'd still offered easily enough without even consulting me.

And it rankled. Oh, it rankled.

I sat on my bedding by the cairn, scratching, drinking, staring. Waiting for Delilah.

She puttered with her gelding, unsaddling him, wiping him down, talking softly,

settling him for the night. Wasting time? Stalling? Maybe. But probably not; Del

knows what she does and why, and spends no time on what-might-have-beens after

the fact.

I watched her: white wraith in the cairnglow, white specter against black trees;

so white-on-white, Delilah: tunic, trews, hair, except for flashing silver.

Bosses on belt and bracers. Two heavy cloak brooches weighting each wool-swathed

shoulder.

And the twisted sword hilt, slashed across her back.

Hoolies, what do I do?

Hoolies, what don't I do?

Having no answer for either, I sat by the cairn and sucked amnit, waiting for Delilah.

Eventually, she came. With arms full of gear and bedding, she came at last toward the cairn. Toward me. And at last I could tell her.

"No," I said calmly.

In mid-step, she hesitated. Then halted altogether. "No?" she echoed blankly, clearly confused. Thinking about something else.

"You asked me to dance with you. Well, I can give it to you in Southron, in Desert, in Northern. Even in uplander." Humorlessly, I smiled. "Which 'no' do you want? Which one will you believe?"

Her face was white as ice. Only her eyes were black.

With exquisite care, I set aside my bota. "Did you think I was so well-trained

that I'd lie down and show you my belly so you could feel good again?"

She stood very still, clutching blankets.

I kept my tone even. Perfectly expressionless, so she would know what it was like. "You came fully expecting me to agree. Not to ask, not to request--to tell. 'Dance with me, Sandtiger. Step into the circle.'" Slowly I shook my head.

"I don't disagree with your reasons for wanting Ajani dead. I understand revenge

as well as or better than anyone. But you forfeited your right to expect me to

do anything just for the asking. You forfeited the asking."

Del said nothing at all for a very long moment. The meager light from the cairn

carved lines into her face, but showed me no expression. No expression at all.

I waited. The circle teaches patience, many kinds of patience. But never have I

felt the waiting so intensely. Never have I wanted it to end so badly. And afraid to know the answer, to know how the ending would be.

Her voice was very low. "Do you want me to leave?"

Yes. No. I don't know.

I swallowed painfully. "You were wrong," I told her.

Del clutched bedding.

"Wrong," I repeated softly. "And until you can see it, until you can admit it, I

don't think I can help you. I don't want to help you."

Breath rushed out of her mouth. With it, her answer. Her explanation. Her excuse, for something requiring none because none could be enough. "It was for

Kalle--"

"It was for you."

"It was for kin--"

"It was for you."

A painful desperation: "It was for honor, Tiger--"

"It was for you, Delilah."

The full name made her flinch. The movement made her wince. Her defenses were coming down: against pain, against truth, against me. The latter, I thought, was

what counted. It might yet make her whole.

"Pride," I said, "is powerful. You threw mine away very easily. Will you do the

same with your own?"

Her face was slack with shock. "How did I throw away your pride?"

I was on my feet, oblivious to the pain of a wrenched abdomen. Yanking her out

of the saddle had taken its toll on us both. "Hoolies, Del, have you forgotten

entirely? I was a slave for half my life! Not an innocent young Northern girl playing at swords and knives, well-loved by her kin, but a human beast of burden. A chula. A thing. Something with no name, no identity, no reason for being alive except to serve others. Except to service others--what do you think

I did at night in the hyorts with the women?"

I saw the shock in her face, but it hardly slowed me down. "Do you think it was

always for pleasure? Do you think it was always merely a man using a woman?"

I

shook hair out of my eyes. "Let me tell you, Delilah, it isn't always a woman who gets used... it isn't always a woman who feels dirty and used and without value other than what she offers in bed. It isn't always a woman--"

Oh, hoolies, I hadn't meant to say so much, or so brutally. But I finished it anyway, since it was begging to be said; since it had to be said, if we were ever to recover even a trace of the old relationship. Even that of the circle.

I steadied my voice with effort. "I won my freedom--and my name--through desperation and sheer dumb luck, Del, not to mention pain both physical and emotional... and yet you were willing to throw it all away again just to buy yourself some time. Is that what I was to you? A means to an end? The coin to buy your daughter? A body to barter away? Is that what I was, Delilah?"

She was strung so taut she twitched. And then, jerkily, she bent. Set down bedding and gear. Shuddered once, deeply, then caught the hilt of her sword in

both hands and whipped it out of the sheath.

For a moment, for one incredulous, painful moment, I thought she meant to kill

me. That I'd gone too far, though I'd barely gone far enough.

The moment passed. Del cradled Boreal. Vertically, and carefully, pressing blade

between breasts. Briefly, oh so briefly, she closed her eyes, murmured something, then slowly, painfully lowered herself to one knee. Then brought down

the other.

Del knelt before me in the dirt. She bent, placed Boreal flat on the ground, then crossed her arms across her chest, making fists of her hands. In deep obeisance, she bowed, resting forehead against the blade.

She held herself in perfect stillness for a moment of rigid silence, then raised

herself again. Her eyes were black in the cairnglow, empty of all save the knowledge of need. Hers as well as my own.

With frequent checks and taut swallows, she spoke to me in Northern. It was a dialect I didn't know, probably born of Staal-Ysta and precise, required rituals

meant to enhance the mystery of the jivatma. I've never been much impressed with

the trappings of such things, preferring straightforward, unadorned talk, but I

made no move to stop her. Clearly she needed it.

Eventually she stopped. Bowed again. Then straightened to look at me, and repeated it all in Southron so I could understand.

Appalled, I cut her off almost immediately. "That's not necessary."

She waited. Swallowed. Began again.

I spat out an oath. "I said--"

She raised her voice and overrode me.

"Hoolies, Del, do you think this is what I want? Abasement? Atonement? I'm not

asking any such thing, you fool... I just want you to understand what it is you

did. I just want you to realize--" But I broke it off in disgust because she wasn't listening.

She ran down eventually. All the forms were followed, the requirements satisfied. She was a true daughter of Staal-Ysta, no matter what anyone said; no

matter that she was exiled. She completed the ritual.

She bowed over Boreal once again. Then picked up her sword, rose, turned awkwardly from me and walked toward the roan. Stumbling a little. Catching herself with effort. All of her grace was banished, yet none of her dignity.

She had thrown away her pride. Now both of us were even.

Six

She broke through, thrust, cut into me, just above the wide belt. I felt the brief tickle of cold steel separate fabric and flesh, sliding through both with

ease, then catch briefly on a rib, rub by, cut deeper, pricking viscera.

There

was no pain at all, consumed by shock and ice, and then the cold ran through my

bones and ate into every muscle.

Deep in sleep, I twitched.

I lunged backward, running myself off the blade. The wound itself wasn't painful, too numb to interfere, but the storm was inside my body. The blood I bled was ice.

I drew a knee up toward my belly, trying to ward the wound. Trying to turn the

blade that had already pierced my flesh.

"Yield!" she shouted. "Yield!" Shock and residual anger made her tone strident.

I wanted to. But I couldn't. Something was in me, in my sword; something crept

into blood and bones and sinew and the new, bright steel. Something that spoke

of need. That spoke of ways to win. That sang of ways to blood--

I woke up sweating, breathing like a bellows; like the stud run too hard. The fire was reduced to coals with only the moon for light, and it offered little enough. I looked for Del in the darkness. Saw nothing but deeper shadows.

Hoolies, did I dream it? Did I dream the whole thing?

I sat up rigidly and immediately wished I hadn't. Deep inside, I ached. I'd twisted in my sleep and the half-healed wound protested.

My sword was screaming for blood.

Did I dream the whole thing? Or only part of it?

A twig snapped. Movement. Maybe I didn't dream it.

Hoolies, make it real.

I stared into darkness. So hard my eyes burned, trying to define the narrow line

between dream and reality.

"I'll make you," she gasped. "Somehow--" And she was coming at me, at me, breaking through my weakened guard and showing me three feet of deadly jivatma.

"Yield!" she cried again.

My sword was screaming for blood.

Del was gone. That I was certain of, hating it. Hating myself for the wash of fear, of anguish; the uprush of painful guilt. What I'd said to her needed saying. I didn't regret a word of it. But none of what I'd told her was intended

to chase her away.

Only to give her a choice.

Del always makes her own choices, no matter how painful they are. No matter how

demanding. She shirks nothing I am aware of, counting the finished task more important than the doing. For my angry, obsessed Delilah, the end was always more important than how it was accomplished.