Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (12 page)

them if I have to... right now, I need to rest this horse."

"All I meant--"

"Later." I said it more sharply than I'd intended, too tied up with the stud to

moderate my tone. I felt her stiffen against my back, but couldn't spare the time to placate bruised feelings. "Easy, old man... go easy... give it a rest,

now, all right? Easy, now--easy... let's keep all four legs in one piece--I think we'll need them later."

He slowed, blowing hard. In the poor moonlight I saw sweat on neck and shoulders. Grimly I shook my head; he was too good a horse to burn out in futile

flights.

Del dropped off as the pace was eased. I walked the stud out, circled back, saw

her standing in moonglow. Boreal was in her hands.

"You going to cut me, or the stud?"

"Neither," she said, "for the moment." Her face was grim. "What I was trying to

tell you was to stop... there is something I must do."

I snorted inelegantly. "Fight invisible beings?"

"Not yet," she said coolly. "First I will try other methods."

I circled the stud around her. "Do what you want, bascha--I've got a horse to tend."

"I don't need you for this." Pointedly. "The ritual requires things you cannot

offer, being a Southroner ignorant of such things, and wholly unblooded, lacking

even a sword of your own." Moonlight glinted off her rune-worked blade.

"Forgive

my bluntness, Tiger, but you are not a man who would find much favor with the gods. They prefer believers, not skeptics."

"I'm skeptical for a reason." I stopped the stud, slid off, undid buckles and stripped him clean of everything save bridle. I checked legs and hooves. "As I

have said before, religion is a crutch. It's used by people who don't know how

to take responsibility for their own lives, and abused by those who have a perverse need to enforce their wills upon the weak." I braced myself as the stud

pressed his head against my shoulder and began to rub violently, soaking through

my burnous to dampen bare skin. "Hoolies, Del--don't you think I did my own share of talking to the gods when I was a slave with the Salset? You think I didn't ask for my freedom?"

"And you got it, Tiger."

"Because I made it happen myself, not through any appeal to capricious gods."

She sighed, shrugged, shook her head. "For now, this must wait. But I promise you, whatever you may have known in the South is different in the North. You will face power you have never dreamed of, even in the depths of aqivi fog. I promise, Tiger, that here you will see unbelievable things. Things that may even

prove fatal."

"Uh-huh. Like these loki-creatures."

Del shook her head. "Have you forgotten what nearly happened to you? How the loki sought to take you?"

"I've forgotten nothing," I threw back. "I don't know what exactly happened back

there, Del, but I do know it had nothing to do with creatures. What I sensed was

sorcery."

She sighed. "Tend your horse, Tiger. I will tend our futures."

I soothed and settled the stud as he steamed in the coolness of the night.

Under

a blanket I walked him out, around and around, doing my best to avoid the playful head threatening to knock me down. He was tired, but not exhausted; too

often he sought out the little ways of making my life miserable.

Del walked away from us, climbed a swell of turf-cloaked hill to pause at the jagged crest. Boreal was a slash of silver in her hands, throwing back the moonglow. And then, as I circled with the stud plodding along behind me, I saw

her slowly sheathe the upright sword in the flesh of the earth, and kneel.

Softly, Del began to sing.

I had heard it before in the room in Harquhal. I had seen it before, as well; slowly, bead by bead, droplet by droplet, the blade began to bleed luminescence,

flooding the hilltop with a salmon-silver glow.

It ran up the sword, not down. Filled the runes, jumped along double edges, reached up to caress hilt and cross-pieces. Twisted, writhed, pulsed, changed shape against the shadows.

I drew in a breath that jumped in my chest. I thought again of the circle of stones, called a loki ring, where grass had come alive and tried to swallow a man. The memory made me shudder, which in turn made me angry; abruptly irritable, I shook it off. Northern sorcery, I knew, no more. Not power of itself, undirected and free. What I'd felt required a man to use it, or a woman,

in order to make it work. Power required a source, and someone to control it.

I looked at Del, singing to her sword. And what, I wondered, was the difference?

Here there was a sword set afire by a song, by a woman. There, I had touched a

rock, walked into a circle, had nearly been consumed.

Was there really a difference?

Uneasily, I looked at Del. She was silhouetted against the bladeglow, still singing her soft little song. So easily she keyed the sword and summoned forth

the power.

Power. Just as she had promised.

"Hoolies," I muttered aloud. "What am I doing here?"

The stud whickered, walked on, nudged my right shoulder as I circled him back again.

Del came down from the hill a little later. The stud was dry, quiet, contentedly

foraging at the end of his picket line, seemingly unconcerned that his equine partner was missing. For that matter, maybe he was glad; Del's silly gelding had

continually indicated amorous interest in the stud, who had not returned the favor. All he had returned was an occasional nip or kick; I'd forcibly prevented

anything worse.

I sat hunched on a blanket with a bota of wine, waiting for her to explain the

who, the how, the why.

"How is the stud?"

"Fine. He'll probably be a bit sore in the morning, but nothing much to worry about." I looked up at her. "I didn't lay a fire because I thought we might be

running again."

She sighed and dropped into a squat. "Not yet. Not for now. Maybe later."

"Then we can go back in the morning and pick up the rest of our things."

"No." She shook her head. "Too large a risk, and there will be nothing left anyway. Nothing worth salvaging. The loki are--destructive."

I sighed. "Burning rocks and illusion don't seem to be that much of a threat."

I

shrugged, scratching scars and rattling the string of claws around my neck.

"Not

if you can run fast."

"Illusion?"

"What I felt," I answered. "You know as well as I do none of it was real."

Del snagged the bota from me and drank. "You are a fool," she said pleasantly when she had finished swallowing. "How often did you warn me against the dangers

of the South, saying I should never trust to what I did not know, nor make of myself a target?" Her gaze was level as she tossed the bota back. "I give you warning of similar things here, in the North, my home, and you will not give me--or the dangers--credence." She tilted her head. "Why, I wonder? Because I am

a woman?"

I sprawled back and plopped the bota across my ribs, staring up at the star-pocked heavens. "Why do you always reduce it to gender, Del? I admit that

Southron women aren't accorded the same respect as men--I admit it!--but must we

always lay the blame for everything in this world on what shape our bodies are?

Hoolies, bascha, there are other things to worry about!"

"Then perhaps you will listen to me as I tell you what they are."

I rolled my head and looked at her. She was serious. "Such as burning rocks and

illusion."

"It was not illusion," she said coolly. "What happened, happened. The loki are

powerful and tenacious, working in ways no one may fully understand. Using the

soil and turf against you was merely a facet of their power. A game, Tiger; the

loki enjoy such things."

I nodded sagely, humoring her. "So, you're saying they're real beings, these loki. Not merely a manifestation of some sorcerer's power."

"They are spirits, demons, devils... apply whatever term you like. They are evil, Tiger, and their only goal in life is to drive mortals into death--or insanity... sometimes, the latter precedes the former."

"Why?"

"Why?" I stopped her dead. She stared at me, plainly baffled. "Why?"

"Why?" I shrugged. "Don't they have a reason?"

"Do demons need a reason?"

I spread my hands. "Something I've always wondered about. Here all these stories

abound about evil taking on human form to niggle at mortal people--and yet no one ever seems to know why. These beings just seem to exist for no particular reason... which makes me wonder if they aren't simply little pieces of a storyteller's tale that have somehow escaped the magical words: 'the end.'" I smiled. "You called me a skeptic earlier. Well, I won't deny it. I'm not certain

I believe in your evil demons any more than I believe in your Northern gods."

Del nearly gaped. "Tiger, that was you up there! That was you the loki so nearly

took! How can you be so stupid?"

I recalled the things I'd felt while pinned against the earth. But admitting it

was real--no, I couldn't do it. Call it safety in ignorance if you like, but I

was convinced that so long as I refused to believe in such things as loki, they'd hold no power over me. "I'm not stupid. I'm just not the kind of man overwhelmed by tricks and illusion." I sighed as she shook her head in disbelief. "Did you ever stop and think that just because we can't explain things doesn't mean there isn't an explanation? A reason other than magic or gods or evil?" I patted the bota. "I don't know where wine comes from, bascha,

but there must be an explanation. I don't think wine is magic."

Her tone was peculiar. "Wine is from grapes, Tiger. Didn't you know that?"

I shrugged, unconcerned. "There are many things I don't know, Del. Call me ignorant, stupid, crazy... I just figure there are more important things to think about, like how to stay alive."

"Yes," she agreed. "And it might be just as well, in the face of awakened loki."

She sighed, dropped out of her squat, hugged drawn-up knees. "I swear, Tiger, loki are real. And I swear, they can be dangerous."

"So you threw your mother's necklace into the circle of stones in order to appease them, and then sang through your sword to your gods." I nodded.

"Sounds

fair enough."

"The necklace was of heartwood blood, Tiger... blood that flows from a wounded

tree and, later, hardens. Heartwood possesses power; the man or woman who possesses the stone formed of its blood shares in that power, that protection.

I

gave it to the loki as a bribe. Surely you have done the same with men and women."

I grunted.

"It might be enough," she said, "but maybe not. The loki don't play fair. So I

petitioned the gods to intervene on our behalf, to convince the loki to return

to their circle."

I frowned, diverted, and chewed thoughtfully at my bottom lip. "In the South, a

circle represents power. That's why a sword-dance always takes place in one."

"There is power in a circle; it is the line that knows no ending, only continuance. It is life, Tiger... the cycle personified." She lay back on the ground as I did, crossing ankles casually and threading fingers across her flat

belly. "I have always found it odd that the sword-dance, which brings death to

many, is played out in a circle."

"Because while one dies, the other lives." I shrugged. "I don't know, bascha...

I never thought about it." I rolled over, reached out, caught a wrist. "And I can think of other things that might prove more diverting."

The wrist remained limp in my hand. "Not so close to the loki."

I froze. "What?"

She rolled her head and looked at me earnestly. "Loki are attracted to strong emotions, like flies to rotting meat. Coupling is the strongest emotion of all... it is well known that a man and woman, in congress, draw the loki near.

They invite the loki to take possession of them." She shook her head. "Better to

avoid the risk."

I recalled the urgency I had felt, the need to find release, as if the earth had

been a woman. Loki? No. I thrust it firmly aside; how could manifestations of evil have influences over such an incredibly human drive? "Are you telling me that we can't--"

"Not tonight," she said, "Maybe next week."

"Next week--"

"Loki like to lie with men and woman," Del told me plainly, "for the emotions they can experience through flesh instead of vicariously. Often, they trick you

into it. It is the easiest way to gain control, to gain a human body--"

"I'd like to gain a human body ..." I glared. "Hoolies, Del, you're human and I'm human, and---so far as I can tell--there aren't any loki around. So why don't we just forget about them and think about us."

"I am thinking about us, Tiger." She sounded infinitely patient, as if I were a

child. "I'm thinking about us staying alive--and sane--so that when the time is

right we can enjoy being bedmates again, without concern for loki."

I thrust myself off the ground, hooking the bota beneath one arm. "Hoolies, woman... you're sandsick."

Del levered herself up on one elbow. "Where are you going?"

"To sit with the stud. I think he'll be better company."

"Or the loki will."

"Loki, shmoki," I muttered. "Right now, just about anything would be welcome.

Even an amorous female loki... at least I'd be getting something out of it."

"Maybe the last thing you'd ever get, Tiger."

I hadn't thought she could hear me. "Yes, well... I've always thought it might

be an interesting way to die. If I had to, I mean."

"You'd have to," she called. "That's the way it works with loki."

I sighed. "Great." I stopped, patted the stud, sat down, shoved away a curious