Sword Born

THIRTY-THREE

Sound. The wind, rustling vegetation. Lifting sand and dirt. The scratch of grit, rolling. The tickle of air in the hairs on arms, and legs, and head. I could hear it. Hear the hairs rising.

Could feel it.

Feel.

In a single spasmodic inhalation my lungs filled, expanded my chest; I was afraid to let it go again, lest it never be repeated.

My head was filled with light.

Breath whooshed out again. Came back, like a dog, when I called it.

I breathed.

Sound. The clink of stone on stone, the dig of hoof into soil, the whuffing snort of an animal.

And a person, walking.

Eyelids cracked. Daylight filled my eyes; I lay on my back. I saw the animal: molah. Saw the shape: male. Black against the sun.

The molah was stopped. The man tied its lead-rope to a scrubby tree, then came to me. Knelt down beside me. Inspected me, though he put no hands upon me.

"For forty years," he said, "you have been dead. Only now are you born. Only now are you whole."

Forty?

Had I so many years?

No one had known. No one had told me. All of it a guess.

Forty.

"Only now are you whole," he repeated.

I realized then he was speaking Skandic.

And that I understood it.

His smile was ironic. "I know," he said. "But now you comprehend what a newborn baby encounters. So much of a new world. So much to overwhelm it."

I opened my eyes fully. Saw the shaven, tattooed head; green eyes in sun-bronzed skin; the glint of rings in his brows.

"Dead," I said.

"You were," he agreed.

"You."

"Ah." The ironic smile deepened. "No."

"Saw it."

"You saw a body. It was dark, you were in some distress — and the magic was in your body, once they took this from your necklet." A finger indicated the healed cut where the ring had once resided; had been sliced out. "A body," he said. "Nothing more. A dead man, and convenient: your height, your weight, your coloring; we are all of us similar."

"You?"

"Me they pulled from the molah; I was in no position to argue."

No. He had been drugged to insensibility by his captain.

"Why?" I asked. "Why present a body?"

"Because of your woman," he answered.

Del?

"If she believed you lived, she would search for you. They wish her gone."

"Who?"

And how many?

"Sahdri, lest she come looking. The metri, lest she become what Herakleio desires. Prima, because — because she hopes in grief Del might turn to her."

"Who did this?"

"Any one of them."

"You."

"No."

Certainty. "Del will come."

"But she believes you are dead. Your body was found."

"Not mine."

"They believe it is yours."

"They?"

"The metri. Herakleio. Prima."

Disbelief was manifest. "Prima?"

He did not smile. "She believes you are dead. She is meant to believe it, as are the others."

"But she knows you’re alive."

"No."

"No?"

"I disappeared."

"How convenient."

"They assume I am dead. They know you are."

"Not Del."

"And Del."

"No."

"They are priests," he said gently, "and mages. Do you believe a body would be found that did not resemble yours even in certain details?" For the first time he touched me. It was brief, impersonal, without intent beyond indication. "Here." The travesty of an abdomen reshaped by Del’s jivatma. "And here." The claw marks graven deeply into my cheek. "Not much skull left, nor face, but enough for the scars."

"I don’t believe it. Neither will anyone else." Certainly not Del. "Even a smashed body bears specific blemishes."

"They are mages," he said with infinite precision. "This is not beyond them. They simply lifted the scars from you and set them into another man’s flesh."

It robbed me of breath. "Lifted — ?"

"No scars," he said, "beyond those they left you. A dead man bears them. And so you are dead."

I wanted desperately to move, to lift a hand to my cheek, but the body betrayed me.

"Dead," he repeated. "To everyone who knew you."

"You know me."

Nihko smiled sadly. "But I am a priest, and I am a mage, and I am a madman."

"Ikepra."

"Not any more."

"How?"

"Payment," he said, "for this."

"For — ?"

"This."

"This?"

"The first steps," he said, "following birth. You have ten years. Possibly twelve. You are a candle now, burning brighter and hotter than any other. You will consume yourself with the heat of your spirit, with the power in your bones. You have no time to crawl, but must be made to walk."

I lay sprawled against the ground, unable to move. "Am I — whole?"

"Better than whole," he answered. "Now you are complete."

I knew what I was. "Sword-dancer."

Nihko said, "Not any more."

"I danced atop the spire."

"You had no sword."

"I am the sword."

"No."

"You can’t take that from me."

"I will not. They will."

"No one can."

"You are a child," he said kindly. "The magic is wild. These are men who have learned its nature and how to control it. Trust me in this: you will do as they say, become what they decree."

"You didn’t."

"And they would kill me for it."

"You’re alive."

"Payment," he said. "For this."

I laughed then; was shocked that I could. "I’m dead. Really dead. This is not real. You’re dead, and I’m dead, and this is not real."

"Well," he said philosophically, "I said much the same myself."

"And did you leap off a spire?"

Nihko’s face was serene. "We all of us leap," he said. "It is how we know."

"Know what?"

"That the magic has manifested."

"To me," I said, "leaping off a spire suggests madness has manifested!"

"Yes," he agreed. "Any man may do so, and die of it. But those of us who survive are something more than simply mad."

"Magic," I said in disgust.

"Mages," he clarified. "Men who are made of it, and who learn how to wield it."

I stirred for the first time. The body — did not cooperate.

"Be still," Nihko said. "The body has used itself up."

"Used up — ?"

"It was a circle," Nihko said, "for you. But in truth it is what each man makes of it. He learns himself up there, learns what and who he is. He must recognize it, acknowledge it, comprehend it, and employ it. Rely upon it. Use it up."

"Then if it’s used up —"

"Gone," he said. "Extinguished."

"Then I am dead."

"The man you were. The slave. The messiah. The sword-dancer."

"No."

"You surrendered it in the circle. You left the circle. You flung yourself out of it."

"Elaii-ali-ma," I whispered.

"You are not what you were. You are what you will be. You are not who you were. You are who you shall be."

"Sword-dancer."

"Mage."

I laughed; it tore my throat. "Would you have me be a priest? Me?"

"You gave yourself to the gods."

"They aren’t my gods."

"You gave yourself to gods, be they mine or yours."

"Semantics," I muttered.

"You survived," Nihko said. "You are what you are."

"Mad?"

"Indisputably."

"I don’t feel mad."

"You don’t feel anything. Yet. Come morning, you will."

"And what will I be in the morning?"

Nihko said, "Mage. And aware of it."

I shut my eyes. I did not echo him. I named myself inside where no one else could see.

"Mage," he repeated.

Sword-dancer, I said.

In, or out of the circle.

In the morning I wasn’t a mage. I was merely a man sick unto death. Fever burned my bones, wasted my flesh, turned my eyes to soup in their sockets. Lips cracked and bled. A layer of skin sloughed off. My belly, bowels, and bladder expelled what was left; after uncounted days atop the spire without nourishment, little enough was left. I was weak and wracked, joints ablaze. What moisture remained spilled out of my eyes. My tongue swelled and filled my mouth, then cracked and bled like the lips. I drank blood, until Nihko gave me water.

He bandaged my eyes, because I could not close them.

He splinted fingers and toes, because I could not open them.

He restrained the skull that risked itself in frenzy against the ground.

He did what was necessary to bring me across the threshold, and when that much was accomplished he did even more.

He made me rise.

I stood upright again for the first time in days. Felt the earth beneath bare feet, felt the wind in my hair. Saw — everything.

Nihko heard the ragged gasp that was expelled from my mouth. "Clarity," he said.

It was too bright. Everything, too bright. Too rich. Too brilliant. I thought it might well blind me. My skin burned from the sun. Ached over the bones. Everything hurt. Everything was too much. I quivered like a child, trying to sort out things I could not comprehend. Things I had comprehended for most of my life, such as taste, touch, odor, sound, light.

All of it: too much.

"What do you hear?" he asked.

It thrummed inside my head. The whisper was a shout. I recoiled. "Too much," I said, then hissed. Then winced.

"All the senses," he said, "Everything is more."

More was too much. I stood for the first time in days and was blinded by the world, deafened by the world, filled with the scent of the world, tasted all of its courses, felt it impinge so much upon me that the flesh ached from it.

Everything was more.

I sought escape inside. But more existed there. I beat against the cage that was my own skull, attempted to withdraw, escape. And knew defeat.

"You cannot," Nihko told me. "It is you, now."

I barely spoke. "What is?"

"Everything."

I stood there and trembled, while the man’s hand steadied me.

And then I knelt. Sought solace in the soil. Its scent was overwhelming. "I can’t," I mouthed.

"You can."

"I can’t."

"You will."

I bent, pressed my hands into the earth. Put my brow upon it, so that the sun beat on my spine. It made its way through flesh into muscle, into viscera. Into my very soul. It illuminated me, betrayed my frailties.

"You can," Nihko told me.

The world was too large. And everything in it too bright, too loud, too much.

To the earth, I said, "I want…"

Nihko waited.

"I want," I said with difficulty, "to go back."

"You are dead."

"I’m alive." I rolled back onto my haunches then, rose to my feet. Confronted him. "I’m too alive to be dead. I feel it in me. Taste it in me. I can hear my blood!"

"Yes."

I clamped palms across my eyes. "I want to go back. To be what I was."

"You are what you were."

My hands fell away so I could see his face. "You said I wasn’t!"

"You were unborn," he explained. "For forty years, the vessel was shaped as it was shaped. The magic was dormant. But it began to rouse two or three years ago. The seeds of it were in you. As you approached the threshold, the seeds began to sprout. Atop that spire, you celebrated your birth forty years before. And the magic manifested."

I remembered unfolding. Unfurling. Within me, and without. The imminence that burst into being as I whelped it on the rock.

"You knew," I said abruptly. "That day on the ship, when you first took us aboard. You knew."

"As you will know it in another. Others will come. And you will serve them as I have served you: lift them up, nourish them, help them across the threshold."

"I want to go back."

"There is no ’back.’ "

"I’m not you, Nihko!"

It echoed against the spire. I recoiled and slapped hands over my ears.

Nihko smiled. "Quietly," he said. "Control is necessary."

"Like yours?" I threw at him; but very quietly.

"My control is negligible," he said with irony. "It is why I deserted my brothers."

"And now you’re back?"

"Am I not here?"

"Helping me," I said bitterly, "across the threshold."

He extended his arm. "Take my hand," he suggested, "and cross."

"Haven’t I already?"

"A step or two."

I laughed at him, though there was no humor in it. "The first step I took off the spire was a killer."

"Yes," he agreed. "For many men, it is."

"Then if they have no magic, why are they up there?"

"They have magic," he answered, "and it manifests. But some vessels are not strong enough. They do not survive the annealing."

"Gods," I said, remembering. Recalling how I begged.

Anneal me.

Nihko smiled. "Precisely."

"No," I blurted. "No, not that…" But to speak of what happened wasn’t possible. It was too new. Too — large. "How did I get up there?"

"Sahdri."

"He took me up there?"

"Took you. Left you."

"How?"

Nihko’s brow rings glinted. "He is a mage, is he not?"

"I want to know how. How exactly?"

His tone was devoid of compassion. "And how exactly did you come down from the spire?"

"How did I — ?"

"Come down," he repeated. "Should you not have broken to pieces here upon the ground?"

I inspected a hand. "Didn’t I?"

"How did you come down?"

"I leaped." I grimaced. "Like a madman."

"Should you not be dead?"

"Aren’t I?"

"Be in no haste," he said grimly. "You have ten years left to you."

"You told me twelve."

"Possibly twelve."

I looked into his eyes. "How many have you?"

"Two," he said. "Possibly."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"How can you tell?"

"I can."

"This is ridiculous," I snapped. "You feed me this nonsense of scars being lifted and put onto another man; of Sahdri using magic to set me atop this rock; of me being born, as if once wasn’t enough; of me surviving this leap that only a madman would make —"

"A madman did."

"— and then you expect me to believe this nonsense?"

"This nonsense will convince you."

"I don’t think so."

"Look at yourself," he commanded. "Look at your flesh."

I scowled. "So?"

"He lifted the scars from you."

I looked at myself. Peered down at my abdomen, where the Northern blade had sculpted flesh and muscle into an architecture I hadn’t been born with.

The flesh was whole. Unblemished.

I clapped a hand to my face. The cheek was whole. Unblemished.

I looked then at my hands, seeking the cuts, the divots, the over-large knuckle where a finger had been broken, the nails themselves left ridged from hard usage. All of me was whole. All of me was new.

I stared hard at Nihko. "You have scars."

"You begin anew," he answered. "What damage you do to yourself from this day forward will be manifested in your flesh — it can even kill you — but you were reborn on the spire. A child comes into the world without blemish."

I knew better. "Not all children!"

He conceded that. "But not all children are ioSkandic."

"And the ones who are?"

"Are mages. Are mad."

I laughed harshly. "You tell me I have power, now; that I’m a mage, now. And also that I’m mad? What advantage is that?"

"None."

"Then?"

"We are transient," he said. "We burn too brightly. We burn ourselves out."

I stabbed a finger at him. "This is not helping."

He grinned toothily at me. "I live to serve."

"Clothes," I said, focusing on nakedness; on what I could understand.

"In the cart."

"Good. Get them."

"Ah. I am to serve."

"You said that’s what you were here for."

"For the moment." But he went to the cart, found a bundle of linen and tossed it at me.

I caught and shook it out. "What is this?"

"Robes," he answered, untying the molah’s lead-rope. "But you need not concern yourself with how they suit you."

Slipping into the linen, I eyed him irritably. "Why not?"

"Because you will not be wearing them for very long."

The hem of the robe ended just above my ankles. "Why not?"

"Because," he said, "Sahdri will have you stripped."

I froze. "Why?"

"Rituals," he said briefly, leading the molah over. Cartwheels grated on stone.

"What rituals?" I asked suspiciously. "No more leaping off of spires!"

"That is done." He gestured. "Get in."

"Little chance of that," I retorted. "There’s only one thing that will convince me I should."

"Yes?"

"That this cart is going to a ship that can take me back to Skandi."

"No," he answered.

"Then I guess I’m going nowhere. Not to Sahdri. Not with you."

Nihko sighed. "Do you believe I cannot make you?"

"If I’m a mage," I said promptly, "you can’t make me do anything."

"But I can," he said, and touched me.

I tumbled into darkness.

And into the cart.