Sword Dancer - Sword Sworn Part 51

I was aghast. "What's wrong with her?" - . '

"There's nothing wrong with her."

"She's all red and wrinkled! And she has no hair!"

Del's smile bloomed. "The red will fade, the wrinkles will go, and the hair will grow. But she does have some hair, Tiger. It's baby fuzz. See?"

To please Del, I said that yes, I could see the wisps of something that approximated hair.

But if that's all she was going to have the rest of her life, I wouldn't have to worry about what men might think.

"Hold her, Tiger. She's yours, too."

I recoiled. "I'd drop her!"

"You won't drop her. Have you ever dropped a sword?"

I refused. "You can hold her. I'll just look at her."

"I'm very tired," Del said. "I'm very weak. I need you to hold her."

I c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "You aren't any better at lying now than you were before she was born."

Del was aggrieved. "I am tired, Tiger."

She was. Some of the animation in her face had faded. "Are you all right? I mean, will you be all right?"

"I will be fine just as soon as you hold your daughter."

I scowled. She always did drive a hard bargain. "All right. What do I do?" "Just take her in your arms and cradle her. Put her head in the crook of your elbow."

"What if she cries?"

"Just hold her."

"What if she's hungry?"

"Then give her back to me."

I leaned forward, grasped the lump, lifted. Discovered she weighed nearly nothing.

Del's tone was appalled. "Don't just clutch her in midair, Tiger! Hold her against your chest."

Apparently I got it sorted out, because Del quit giving me advice. She lay there smiling at us both.

I ventured, "Does she have any arms and legs, or is she just a lump with a head attached?"

Del sighed. "I should have known you wouldn't appreciate the moment."

I grinned. "It's not a moment, bascha. It's a baby."

She reached out a hand and stroked the wrappings. "I thought maybe we could call her Sula."

It shocked me. I could think of nothing to say.

"That woman gave you your freedom," Del said. "As much as there was to be found in the Salset. Not enough, I know-but more than you might have had otherwise."

After a moment, when I had my emotions under control, I nodded. "Take her," I said.

"Bascha-take her."

She heard the tone in my voice. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Nothing, bascha." I leaned forward, steadied the little bundle as she was taken from me, then bent down and kissed Del's forehead. "Rest. I'll come back later."

I waited until she had settled the baby beside her. As her eyes drifted closed, I left the room.

Alric saw my face as I came out of the house. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"You look-odd."

"I'm fine."

"Then why are you in harness?"

"There's something I need to do."

"Tiger-something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," I repeated. "There's just something I need to do." I paused. "Alone."

Alric was troubled. He and Lena were sitting outside the house on the wooden bench I'd built. The chickens Mehmet had given us darted around the dooryard, and the half-grown gray tabby cat was chasing an insect. We had, in six months, acc.u.mulated all the trappings of a regular family: a house, chickens, mouser, two goats.

And now a daughter.

"I have to, Alric. I'll be back later."

He nodded and let me go.

I met up with Neesha and Ahriman at the pa.s.sageway into the upper canyon. Ahriman was a short, compact Southroner with black hair and eyes. He was several years younger than Neesha and rather shy in my presence. Which made it difficult to get him to actually attack me in the schooling circle. He did better with Neesha, whom he did not hold in awe. "How's Del?" Neesha asked at once.

"She's fine. So's the baby."

"She had it?"

"Her. She had 'her.' " I nodded. "A little while ago."

Neesha was studying me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Tiger-"

I stopped him with a raised hand. "Nothing is wrong. Go on up and see Del and the baby-she's your half-sister, after all. I'll be back."

Neesha didn't look any less concerned than Alric. But I had no time for them.

No time for much of anything.

The climb up to the broken chimney was easier now than when I'd made it six months before. Not only did I know where I was going, but I was utterly focused on my goal. When I reached the tunnel, I didn't think twice about the darkness. I ducked my head, went inside, followed it back to the slot near the boulders blocking the rest of the pa.s.sageway. There I took off the harness, dropped it to the dirt floor, and pulled the stopper from the little pot I'd collected on the way out of the house. I smeared grease on my abdomen and spine, tossed the empty pot away, unsheathed the jivatma. I left the harness where it lay.

It wasn't easy getting through the slot. Neesha had been right about leaving layers of skin on the rock. But the grease served me well, and at last I sc.r.a.ped myself into the chimney.

The chamber was small, about one-quarter the size of the original circle. Sunlight worked its way down through cracks, illuminating the area, but the chimney wasn't a chimney anymore.

Mostly it was a pile of rocks and sections of ribbed wall. But the floor was still the pale Punja sand Del and I had discovered before.

I glanced around. Found what I expected: Del's jivatma. Boreal lay in two pieces. I didn't touch them. I set down my sword and bent to unlace my sandals. When that was done, I stripped out of my dhoti. I collected my sword, moved to the center of what remained of the chimney chamber, and sat down cross-legged with the jivatma across my thighs.

In fractured light, I looked at my hands. Two thumbs, three fingers on each. The stubs were no less obvious than before, but I hadn't really noticed them for a while. The training I'd done on the island near Haziz still served me. Since settling in the canyon, I had spent every day working through the forms, keeping myself fit. Sparring matches with Neesha and Alric-I had refused to fight Del once I knew she was pregnant, which irritated her to no end-maintained my speed, strength, and technique. In fact, Alric said I was better than before.

If that were true, it was because something inside me, some facet of the magic, lent me an edge. When I danced, I felt four fingers on the hilt. Not three. My grip was the grip it had been before losing them. And I had no explanation. Only grat.i.tude.

I closed my hands lightly over the sword. Went into my head. Dug into my soul. Peeled the flesh off the bones, shed muscle and viscera, until I found the magic buried so deep inside.

It wasn't a flame, but a coal. It burned steadily, unceasingly, using me as the fuel. It would kill me one day, merely because it existed. Because my mother was of the Stessoi, one of the G.o.ds-descended Eleven Families of Skandi, and those G.o.ds had been capricious enough to set their mark on me even as my mother, and I, lay dying in the Punja near my father's body. Because I was ioSkandic, a mage of Meteiera, meant to leap from the spire to merge with the G.o.ds when the madness overcame me.

In ten years. Twelve.

I had a son. A daughter. I had Delilah.

I wanted to live forever.

Or at least as long as I possibly could as man, not mage, without the interference of a magic I never wanted. Even though I'd used it.

"Find me" she had said, "and take up the sword."

My mother had died giving birth to me. But she had served me nonetheless by setting me on the road to this place. To this moment. To this decision.

No other was possible.

I found the coal inside. Took it up. Blew gently upon it. Felt the heat rise; saw the flame leap. I coddled it. Cradled it. Nursed it into being. Kept it alive. Bade it serve me.

Made it serve me.

Once I had had a sorcerer inside me. And in my jivatma.

It was time to put the mage that was me in the jivatma. The power, if not the man.

For the first time since I'd been reborn atop the spire in Meteiera, I thanked the priest-mages who had altered mind and body. Because in doing so they had given me the key.

Discipline.

"Mother," I said aloud; and discovered how odd it was to use the word as an address. A t.i.tle.

"Mother, you bred me for this. Bred it in me, bequeathing me something else of your people besides height, coloring, even keraka. Magic, magery, is not a gift I desire, or require. I wanted freedom-and won it because of Stessoi magic. I wanted to be a sword-dancer-and became one because of Skandic strength, the heritage of you, my father, and everyone before us. But now comes the time for me to look forward instead of backward. To, as Del would say, make a new song. To do that, I must make a new man. One who wishes to live for the children he has made, children who are of Stessoi flesh and bone even as I am. But also of the North, and of the South. If to do that I must cut away a part of me that you gifted me, so be it. I have made the choice."

There was no answer. I had no bone to fuel the dream-walk. But I had clarity of purpose, and the certainty to fuel that.

It took time. It nearly took me. But I felt the flame of the power become conflagration, feasting on my flesh. I poured it into and through my arms, down into the sword. Into Samiel, whose song I sang in a broken, shaking voice.

Discipline.

And when it was done, when the magic that had, at age sixteen, won me my freedom, resided in the sword, I stood up from the sand. Walked to the chimney wall. Found a crevice. I thrust the jivatma blade into the stone as deeply as I could.

And then I broke it.

I was a sword-dancer. It was all the magic I needed.

I smiled even as I wept. Even as I placed the two halves of the broken jivatma with Del's.

Even as I shakily put on dhoti and sandals and went back through the slot, leaving layers of grease and skin.

In the tunnel, I collected my empty harness. When I walked up the canyon I was thinking about Del. Not about circles, or sword-dancers, or elaii-ali-ma. Not about challenges. Not about dancing. Not about the price for breaking lifelong oaths.

Certainly not about Abbu Bensir. But he was there. And I understood why. On this day of all days, we had finally arrived at the moment we both had known would come: the dance that would define us both.

He stepped out of the doorway of my house as I approached. He wore only a dhoti and held a sword. "You were hard to find," he told me, "but then I heard about Alric and his family heading down here with a kid who'd been seen with you and Del, and I knew."

I said nothing. I waited.

His tone changed. "Sandtiger," he said, "by the rite of elaii-ali-ma I am not required to challenge you or to meet you in the circle. I am required only to kill you. But I have not forgotten the ignorant boy who, all unknowing, taught me a lesson before others at Alimat, even before the shodo. For that, I will offer you the honor of meeting me in the circle."

Very slowly, I unbuckled my harness. Dropped it to the ground. Spread my hands. I had no sword; I could not accept.

Abbu Bensir smiled. "The boy has said he will lend you his."

The boy. My son. Who had once been taught by the man before me.

"Where are they?" I asked.

Abbu stepped out of the doorway into the yard. Neesha came out. And Alric.

The big Northerner said, "Lena's with Del. She's fine."

"Does she know?"