Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (31 page)

"Hardly." Her tone was dry, but she didn't look at me. Then the tone changed into wistful admiration. "Oh, Tiger, isn't it beautiful?"

To her, undoubtedly; Del was raised on uplands, downlands, heights and sharp-carved canyons. She had suckled on wind and rain.

But not me. Not me. I looked out into nothingness and saw only an emptiness filled with clouds.

The world had ended. What lay before us was a canyon cut out of rock, but filled

to choking on clouds. I could see little but the layers, cluttering up the other

side as well as the distant bottom.

Beautiful. Maybe. But I wanted a little sun.

"How in hoolies do we get down from here?"

"Follow him down, Tiger. The songmaster's waiting for us."

So he was. Against the clouds, against the rain, he was nearly invisible. He flicked a hand and was gone, but I heard the thread of a whistle.

"Followsong, again?"

"You're catching on, Southron."

I went after the little man, wary of the hidden canyon. It would be incredibly

easy to miss a step simply because clouds blurred the edge, creeping insidiously

across the ground to merge earth and sky with themselves. They clung to trunks

and earth, filling the spaces in between and lingering in the treetops.

"Gods," Del whispered behind me, "I'd forgotten how beautiful."

"He's gone again, bascha."

"That's what the followsong's for."

"I don't like it, Del."

"You don't like anything."

Hoolies. There was no sense in talking to her. She was sandsick, or maybe cloudsick; her loyalties had changed.

I kept walking, leading the stud, not looking at the cloudbank. It rolled and wisped and caressed, reaching out to touch my face. It made me want to shudder,

but I didn't do it in front of Del.

Not that she could have seen; the clouds were like a shroud.

Even I'll admit it, the Canteada's followsong was incredibly compelling. I marched along, resolutely avoiding the edge of the canyon, and felt myself locked in place. As if I knew the way as well as I knew myself, which struck me

as odd; who really knows himself? At any rate, I was caught. Which probably was

just as well; when the ground suddenly sloped downward without warning, I didn't

panic. I didn't even hesitate. I just kept on walking.

"Magic, huh, Del?" The ground continued to drop.

"He's taking us into the canyon."

"Is this the way you came out?"

"Yes. Only then there were no clouds; I could see the way easily."

I glanced back over my shoulder. Del was mostly blocked by the stud, who ambled

between us, but I could see her walking steadfastly through the shreds. It looked like fog to me.

She smiled. Damp hair swung forward, slapping against her shoulders. She was as

wet as I, but obviously less bothered. Her gait was smooth and unforced, conspicuously free of tension. She even hummed a little, echoing the lilting tune. Her face was alight with contentment.

Hoolies. I'm going to lose her.

Twenty-six

I could see next to nothing except my boots and maybe a foot in front of them.

Everything else was fog or clouds or some other conjured stuff.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered. "Here I am in a place I have no business being, following a little spit-colored man with blue fingernails who sings to show us the way." I let that sink in a minute. It didn't make any more sense aloud than it did in my mind. "Hoolies, I must be sandsick."

As if on cue, the clouds lifted entirely and we were done with climbing down, having reached the bottom at last.

I stopped so short the stud walked into me and banged his nose against my shoulder. But I didn't pay any attention, I didn't even move--except to turn my

head--as Del caught up and slipped by me.

"What is this place?" I asked, though it was mostly of myself.

"The home of the Canteada."

She had stopped not far from me, turning to watch my astonishment. She was smiling, if only a little, pleased to see my reaction.

Well, it was an honest one. Now that the clouds had lifted I could see the canyon clearly, and what I saw was amazing.

The walls were very sheer, jutting straight up from the canyon floor. The stone

was mostly gray, flecked with chips of black and white, but richer colors cascaded from top to bottom. The walls were sharply cut and pocked by massive natural shelves, as canyons often are, each hollowed shelf packed with moss and

grass and dirt. But this canyon differed. Each shelf spilled a fall of flowers

and vines, all tangled against the stone. Reds and blues and purples, dappled canary and copper and lime.

I looked up at the sky. Cloud/fog still blocked the sun, but had lifted out of

the canyon, clogging higher ground. I couldn't see the top, where I had nearly

walked off the edge of the world.

"Nice coverage," I remarked. "No wonder no one believes they really exist; they

hide themselves down here."

"They have reason," Del said. "If they didn't, men would try to steal their magic, or make them use it for selfish reasons."

The canyon itself was fairly small. It was a trap-canyon much as the other had

been, although larger, and as pocked with hollows and holes, including the flower-box shelves.

I glanced back up the path we'd come down. Was glad I hadn't seen it, buffered

by fog and cloud. It was a narrow, switch-backed trail not much wider than a horse.

The followsong had stopped. The songmaster, or whatever he was, had disappeared.

But I was still aware of a quiet humming, a thread of a sound that was unobtrusive but still evident, like the buzz of bees on a summer day, though considerably more melodic.

"What's that noise?" I asked.

"Wardsong," Del told me. "Keeping the hounds at bay."

Someone shouted my name. I turned, frowning, and saw Cipriana popping free of a

hole in the canyon wall like a stopper from a bottle. The hole also disgorged Massou, Adara and, eventually, Garrod.

Cipriana ran right up to me, making indications she wanted to hug me; I sort of

slid out of it by pretending the stud was fractious and turned her enthusiasm aside. Del stood there smiling, half-amused, half-resigned, and didn't move to

help, being disposed merely to watch.

Luckily, the stud picked that moment to be fractious, so my make-believe wasn't

make-believe anymore, and I had to tend him closely to keep him under control.

Massou said something nasty, rubbing the place on his shoulder where the stud had bitten him.

"Then stay back," I told him, half-distracted by the stud but also annoyed by the boy's continuing bad humor. "It's sort of obvious he doesn't like you; you

may as well just accept that fact and leave him alone. Egging him on won't help."

Garrod stood behind Adara's left shoulder, pale braids hanging to his waist.

His

fair-skinned face was pinched as he watched me with the stud, and I recalled he

had lost all of his mounts. I couldn't really blame him for resenting me for keeping mine.

The stud bared teeth, raised a threatening hind hoof, pinned tipped ears flat back. Brown eyes rolled; he was glaring at Adara.

I sighed, thumbing the lip away from my ear. "Look--let me get him settled and

then we can talk. We have to decide what we're going to do."

"Go north," Cipriana said promptly. "Aren't you taking us to Kisiri?"

I shot a quick glance at Del. She masked her face as the girl spoke, but I saw

the tension in her mouth. More delay, I knew, would not be tolerated.

"Like I said, let me get him settled. Is there a place I can put him?"

Massou shrugged. "The Canteada don't have horses."

"Well, then, I'll just stake him out. There's plenty of grazing here." I knew better than to ask Massou to find a good spot; the stud, provoked, would probably try to bite again.

"Let me." It was Garrod, moving out from behind Adara. "He's upset, and you are

adding to the problem."

"Am I really? I think I know my own horse."

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no." Garrod put out a hand.

I considered it. Wondered if Garrod was the type of man who, having lost something, wanted others to lose it as well. He had ridden with Ajani, he might

be a vengeful man.

"Tell you what," I said lightly, "let's both go."

Del pointed across the canyon to the hole. "We'll be there,"

I nodded, turning to lead the stud away. Garrod followed, watching the stud move

with an attentive eye. I heard him click tongue against teeth in dismay as he saw the tears and teethmarks in hocks and flanks, the wounds on shoulders and belly.

"Hard-used," he muttered.

"No choice," I told him flatly. "If I'd stopped, they would have had him."

"As they had my horses." His tone hardened. "Except for the one she killed."

I stopped, unlooped the stake and picket rope, bent to push the stake into the

ground. Stepped on it to anchor it. "She did it to try and save our lives," I said evenly, examining my weary horse. "And it did slow them. Maybe just enough

to let Del get up the wall... but I guess you'd prefer that she had died."

Garrod's tone was bitter. "She accuses me of murder. Of killing families."

"You rode with Ajani."

"I sold horses to Ajani! Who is to say that's wrong? I am trying to make a living."

"So is Del," I said. "What's left of her life, that is."

Garrod watched me in strained silence as I bent, lifted a foreleg, used my knife

to carefully cut away mud, inspected hoof and shoe. Braid beads rattled; he was

shredding bits of hair.

"She says Ajani killed her kin."

"He did. He and his men."

"I was not there."

"But you do know Ajani," I set the hoof down, moved to the other foreleg.

"I have traded with him, yes. I don't kill people."

"But you provide horses to those who do." I cleaned the hoof, pried a stone loose. "And do you also buy from Ajani the horses he steals from families?"

Garrod was conspicuously silent.

I lowered the hoof, straightened, looked at him across the stud's back. "I think

she is well within her rights to distrust and dislike you. You and men like you

make Ajani's trade possible."

"And you?" he accused. "Are you better, either one of you? Hiring out your swords to whomever has money to buy you?" He spat at the ground. "How many men

have you killed in the circle? How many men have given up their lives to you in

the ritual of the dance? Does it make it pretty? Does it make it right? Does it

make you feel powerful?" Pale eyes were angry, hard and cold as ice. "I have killed men in my life, men who have sought to cheat me or steal from me or have

forced me into a fight. I am not Ajani; I don't kill or steal families. But neither am I you; I don't step into a circle and hold myself above the rights of

other men, justified by a jivatma.'"

I had not for some time thought about my life. It was what I was and did: sword-dancer for hire. If you think about what you do and question why you do it, it gets in the way of things. It makes you wonder why you bother to live at

all. And that's deadly in my profession.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry about your horses, but provoking me won't bring them

back."

His face was tight. "I'm a horse-speaker; it matters. But that's not why I say

this now. I say this now because I am accused of doing things I have never done,

nor have a wish to do. I am not a murderer."

"She has reason," I repeated.

"To her way of thinking, no doubt; it's easy to justify. But I think she is warped. I think she is twisted and warped and misshapen, all bound up by a need

for revenge that eats at her soul like a canker."

"Just because you two don't get along--"

He shook his head so violently the braids flopped against his chest. "I'm speaking of other things. I'm a horse-speaker: I know things of the emotions.

Things of men's and women's emotions, which are not so different from horses, when reduced to needs such as the one driving her." He paused, took a steadying

breath, put out a hand and touched the stud. "I dismiss none of Ajani's actions;

he is a ruthless, cold-hearted bastard. But she should look at her own actions.

Is she so very different?"

I felt a flicker of anger. "If you'd survived the sort of hoolies she did--if you'd lived through what she did--"

"--undoubtedly I would be warped as well." Garrod nodded. "But she did survive;

she lived through Ajani's raid. Why let him triumph now by shaping her into a woman who has no kindness, no mercy; a blade without a name?"

I frowned. "What?"

"Blade without a name," he repeated. "A thing of Staal-Ysta." His mouth twisted

a little. "Ask her," he said. "Ask her if she's a blade without a name. Ask her

if her song has an ending."

I shook my head. "You're not making any sense."

"No? Ask her. Ask her what I have said. And tell her--" He paused. "Tell her even an upland horse-speaker has heard of Staal-Ysta, and the honor codes of the

voca."

I sighed. "Garrod--"

He cut me off with a shake of his head. "No more of this, sword-dancer. Go and

see your woman. Let me tend your horse. It is something I can do."

Eventually, I let him, and went to see my woman.

No, not mine; I went to see Delilah.

Twenty-seven

In the South, I'm used to ducking down to enter low doors because I'm taller than most Southroners. In the North, where men are routinely as tall as I am, I

don't have to do it as much. This time, though, I did. I nearly had to crawl.

The canyon walls, I discovered, were honeycombed with holes. The largest ones were at the very bottom, half-buried in the ground to form an arched opening.