Sword Born

THIRTY-FOUR

Sense returned with a rash. Ropes cut into me, rubbed wounds into newly sensitive flesh; I felt everything as if it were hot as wire. The pounding of my heart filled my skull, reverberated in my chest. I heard the hiss of blood running back and forth in its vessels, as if my skin were too thin.

I flailed, felt ropes give; realized it was net. I was cradled, captured. Bundled up within the ropes fashioned into nets. And I was suspended.

From a spire.

I flailed again, spasming. Felt the net, harsh as wire. Felt the sway of the rope used to haul me up.

I depended from the spire. Depended on the spire.

Movement. I was being hauled up, winched up; I heard the creak of wood, the rubbing of the rope. Was this how Sahdri had taken me up the other spire?

There had been no rope. And nothing to which rope might be attached. There had only been stone. And spire. And me.

This was different.

I was meat in a net, hauled up. If my flesh wasn’t eaten, my spirit would be.

Sahdri. Who had known the moment he saw me. Saw the brow ring hooked in my necklet.

I snatched at necklet. Found it. Caught it. Closed my hand upon it. Ten curving claws, strung upon a thong. I had cut them from the paws. Pierced them. Strung them. Wore them as a badge: see what I have become? I am the boy that killed the sandtiger; that saved the children; that saved the tribe; that freed himself.

Twenty-four years I had worn the necklet.

I knew that, now. I was forty years old. Nihko had told me. The magic had manifested. Sixteen when I killed the sandtiger; sixteen when I conjured it. And thirty-seven when I met Del.

Not thirty-six. Not thirty-eight.

I had a name. An age. One I gave myself. The other was given to me.

Sandtiger.

Sandtiger.

They would not take it from me.

"There is no magic," I said aloud, "and I am no mage."

Wood creaked. Rope rubbed as it was wound.

"There are no gods," I said, "and I am no priest."

Sandtiger.

Sword-dancer.

No less.

No more.

This spire was taller than the one I had roused upon, danced atop, leaped from. This spire was wider, thicker, shaped of twists and columns and shelves and pockets and caves cut into the stone by wind, by rain. Trapped in my net I stared at the stone. Saw through the stone. Saw deep into its heart where the minerals lay, wound within and around the bones.

I blinked. The stone was stone again.

Wood creaked. Rope rubbed.

Higher by the moment.

I swung in the net. Spun in the net. Saw the sky encompass stone, stone overtake sky. I shut my eyes: saw it. Opened them: the same.

I lifted a hand. Studied it. Saw no blemishes. Saw only flesh that had existed for forty years. Not young. Not old. Somewhere in the middle, were I to survive to be as old again as I was now.

I turned the hand. The palm was lined, callused. It was a hand, not a construct. Rebirth had renewed the flesh, but not leached away the time.

The flesh of a sudden went white. Stark white, like snow. I blinked. In shock, I watched flesh thin to transparency. Saw the vessels pulsing beneath, the blood running in them; the sinew, the meat, the bone.

"Gods," I blurted, and clamped my eyes closed.

When I opened them, the hand was a hand again. Whole. Normal. The bones were decently clad in human flesh once more.

My own.

I touched my face. Felt the cheek that had borne the scars for so long. Rubbed fingers across it. Stubble had sprouted; I was not so much a child newly born that I couldn’t grow a beard. I needed to shave. I needed a haircut. I needed to eat, to drink, to empty bladder and bowels — though nothing was in them — so I knew I lived again as a man is meant to live.

And I needed Del. To know I lived again as a man is meant to live.

Gods, bascha. I want you.

No scars met seeking ringers. I dug them in, scraped fingers across the stubble. No marks of the sandtiger.

I sealed my eyes with lids. Clamped a hand around the necklet. Let the claws bite into palm.

Bleed, I said. Bleed.

There was no blood.

Nihko had said I could manifest such wounds as a man might, were he given to injury.

Bleed, I said, and shut my hand the tighter.

When two mage-priests hooked me into the winch-house, undid the net, pulled me free of rope, I at last unclamped my hand and displayed the palm to Sahdri, who waited.

"Bleeding," I said.

His eyes were dark. They were not rimmed with light.

It had been a trick that night. "Then you must have wanted it so."

"I’m a man," I said. "I bleed. I can die."

"Is that what you wish?"

Blood ran down my hand. It dripped to the floor of the winch-house. I followed the droplets, saw them strike the stone. Saw them swallowed by the stone. Saw them go down and down through stone until they reached its heart, where they were consumed. Changed to mineral.

Transfixed, I knelt upon the stone and tried to reach through it, to recapture the blood. It was mine.

"You are very young," Sahdri said gently, "and very new. But give me time — give yourselftime — and you will understand what it is to be one of us."

I looked up at him. "I saw through it," I said. "This hand."

He smiled. "It takes some people so." He gestured briefly, indicating two shaven-headed, tattooed men with him. "This is Erastu." The man on the left. "And this is Natha." The man on the right. "They are acolytes here, as you shall become shortly. They shall assist you."

I stood. I ignored Erastu and Natha. I looked into Sahdri’s face. "I can see through you."

And I could. I saw the rings in his flesh melt, saw the flesh of his face peel away, saw the bones of the skull beneath tattooed flesh glisten in a bed of raw meat. Beneath the meat, the bone, I saw the brain. And the light of his madness, pulsing as if it lived.

The shudder took me. Shook me. I fell. Pressed a bleeding palm against the stone; felt blood and substance drawn away, pulled deep.

"Lift him," Sahdri said to his acolytes. "He is far gone, farther than I expected. But he is not to merge yet. There is too much for him to learn; he is as yet soiled with too many things of the earth, and the gods would repudiate him."

Merge. Not me.

Only madmen did such things.

"No," I managed.

"No." Sahdri’s voice was gentle as the hands of Erastu and Natha were placed upon me. "Not yet. I promise you that."

I looked into his face. It was a face again. "I’m not mad."

"Of course you are," he said. "We all of us are mad. How else could we survive? How else would we be worthy?"

"Worthy?"

"To merge." He gestured to the acolytes. "Bring him to the hermitage. We shall leave him food and water and let the sickness settle."

"Sick," I murmured. I could not walk on my own. The body refused. Natha and Erastu held me up. Natha and Erastu carried me.

Sahdri said, comfortingly, "It takes us all this way."

They took me deep into stone, beyond a door. Gave me food. Water. And left me there.

I drank. Ate. Slept.

Dreamed of Del.

And freedom.

The boy crept out of the hyort. It was near dawn; he was expected to tend the goats. But he did not go to the goats. He risked a beating for it — but no, it was no risk; he would be beaten for it. Because if he failed — but no, he would not fail. He had only dreamed of triumph.

He took with him the spear shaped painstakingly out of the remains of a hyort pole. It was too short, the spear, but better than bare hands; and they permitted him nothing else save the crook to tend the goats. A crook for goats was not meant for sandtigers; even he knew that much.

Even he who had conjured the beast.

In the hyort, Sula slept on. Mother. Sister. Lover. Wife. She had made a man of him before the others could, and had kept him so that others would not use him. He was a likely boy, she told him, and others would use him. Given the opportunity. He was fortunate they had not already

begun. But she was a respectable widow, and the husband, alive, had also been respected. The old shukar muttered over his magic and made comments to the others that she was foolish for taking to bed a chula when she might have a man; but Sula, laughing, had said that meant the old shukar wanted her for himself. And would not have her. The chula pleased her.

Son. Brother. Lover. Husband. He had been all of those things to her.

And now he would be a man. Now he would be free.

He had only to kill the beast.

I woke up with a start. Dimness pervaded; the only illumination was the sunlight through the slotted holes cut out of stone into sky. I flung myself to my feet and stumbled to the stone, hung my hands into the slots, peered out upon the world.

Sky met my eyes.

None of it a dream.

All of it: real.

I turned then, slumped against the stone. In the wall opposite was a low wooden door, painted blue.

Blue as Nihko’s head. Blue as Sahdri’s head. Blue as the sails of Prima Rhannet’s ship.

Prima. The metri. Herakleio.

Del.

All of whom thought me dead. Had seen the body bearing my scars: the handiwork of Del’s jivatma; the visible reminders that the beast conjured of dreams had been real enough to mark me. To nearly kill me.

Sula had saved me. When the sandtiger’s poison took hold, she made certain the chula would live.

As the chula made certain the beast would die.

Its death had bought my freedom.

What beast need I kill to buy my freedom now?

I shut my hand upon the claws strung around my throat, and squeezed. Until the tips pierced. Until the blood ran.

When Sahdri came for me, flanked by his acolytes, I showed him my palm.

"Ah," he said, and gestured the two to take me. Natha and Erastu.

I shook myself free of their hands. "No."

His tattooed brow creased. "What language is that?"

I bared teeth at him, as I had seen the sandtiger do. "The language of ’No.’ "

The brow creased more deeply. Rings glinted in slotted sunlight. "What language is that?"

"Don’t you speak it?" I asked. "Don’t you understand? I can understand you."

"Tongues," he said, sounding startled, even as Natha and Erastu murmured to one another. "Well, it will undoubtedly be helpful. You can read the books for us."

I stared. "Books?" This time in words he knew: Skandic. That I had not known the day before.

He gestured. "We speak many languages. But not all. There are books we cannot translate." His eyes were hungry. "What language did you speak a moment ago?"

"I don’t know," I answered, because I didn’t. I merely spoke. What came out, came out. I understood it all. "What do you want with books?"

"We trade for them," he said. "We are priests, not fools. Mages, not simpletons. We were born on Skandi and raised in the ways of trade. We value books, and we trade for them." Dark eyes glowed. "You can read them to us, those we cannot decipher."

I laughed at him. "I can’t decipher anything. I never learned to read."

He, as were his acolytes, was astonished. "Never?"

"Maps," I conceded. Any man in the South who wishes to survive learns to read a map.

"But you have the gift of tongues," Sahdri said. "It has manifested. Undoubtedly you can read." He paused. "Now."

A new thought. It stunned me.

Rings glinted as the flesh of his face altered into a smile of immense compassion. "Did you believe it would be terrible, our magic? That all of it should be painful?"

With difficulty I said, "I saw the bones of your skull break open. I saw what lay beneath."

"Control," Sahdri soothed. "A matter of control. The gift is beautiful. The power is — transcendent."

"I don’t want it." The truth.

Ring-weighted brows arched delicately. "Surely once in your life you wished for magic. For a power that would give you the aid you required. Everyone does."

Testily — because he was so cursed right — I asked, "And does everyone get what they wish for?"

"Only some of us." He gestured. Natha and Erastu laid hands upon me. "There is much for you to learn. We had best begin now."

I struggled, but could not move the hands. "Just what is it I’m supposed to be learning?"

"Who you were. Who you are." He stepped aside so the young men might escort me out of the chamber he’d called the hermitage. "Did the ikepra not tell you?"

"He told me he’s not ikepra anymore."

"Ah. But he is ikepra. He will always be ikepra. He turned his back on the gods."

"Maybe," I said tightly, "he didn’t want to merge."

"Then he will only die. Alone. Quite mad." He shook his head; rings glinted. "All men must die, but only we are permitted to merge. It is the only way we know ourselves worthy, and welcomed among the gods."

"That was his payment," I said. "Freedom. Wasn’t it? For bringing me to you."

Sahdri offered no answer.

"He’s free now, isn’t he? No longer subject to your beliefs, your rules."

The priest-mage’s tone was severe. "He does not believe in the necessity."

"Neither do I!"

"Most of us do not," he agreed, "when first we come here. But disbelief passes —"

"It didn’t for Nihko."

"— and most of us learn to serve properly, until we merge."

Abruptly I recoiled, even restrained by strong hands. My lips drew back into a rictus. "You stink of it," I said. "It fills me up."

Sahdri studied me intently. "What do you smell?"

"Magic." The word was hurled from my mouth. "It’s — alive."

"Yes," he agreed. "It lives. It grows. It dies."

"Dies?"

He reconsidered. "Wanes. Waxes anew. But we none of us may predict it. The magic is wild. It manifests differently in every man. We are made over into mages, but until the moment arrives we cannot say what we are, or what we may do."

"At all?"

His expression was kind. He glanced at the acolytes. "Natha, do you know what each moment holds?"

"I know nothing beyond the moment," the man answered.

"Erastu, do you know what faces you the next day?"

"Never," Erastu said. "Each day is born anew, and unknown."

I shook my head. "No one knows what each moment or day holds."

"This is the same."

"But magic gives you power!"

"Magic is power," he corrected gently. "But it is wholly unpredictable."

"Nihko can change flesh. Nihko can halt a heart."

"As can I," Sahdri said. "It takes some of us that way. It may take you that way."

"You don’t know?"

"I know what I may do today, this moment," he answered. "But not what I may be able to do tomorrow."

" ’It grows,’ " I quoted.

"As the infant grows," the priest-mage said gently. "On the day the child is born, no one knows what may come of it. Not its mother, who bore it. Not its father, who sired it. Certainly not the child. It simply lives every hour, every day, every year, and becomes."

"You’re saying I’m one thing now, this moment, here before you — -but may be something else tomorrow?"

"Or even before moonrise."

"And I’ll never know?"

"Not from one moment to the next."

"That’s madness!" I cried. "How can a man be one thing one moment, and something else the next? How can he survive? How can he live his life?"

"Here," Sahdri said, "where such things belong to the gods. Where what he is this moment, this instant, here and now, need not reflect on his next, or shape it. Where a day is not a day, a night is not a night, and a man lives his life to merge with the gods."

"I don’t want to merge with anyone!"

"But you will," he told me. "You have leaped from the spire once, with no one there to suggest it, to force it, to shape your mind into the desire. Do you really think there will fail to come another day when you wish to leap again?"

"Nihko has no desire to leap."

"He will leap," the priest-mage said. "One day it will come upon him, and he will leap. As it will come to Natha and Erastu."

They inclined tattooed heads in silent assent. Rings in their flesh glinted.

"Then why does it matter?" I asked. "Why does it matter where a man lives?"

The dark eyes were steady. "A man such as we may love his child one moment, and kill it the next. It is better such a man lives here, where he may serve the gods as he learns to control his power. Where he may harm no one."

It was inconceivable. "I don’t believe that. What about Nihko? Why did you let him go if you believe he will harm someone?"

"He keeps himself aboard ship. He sets no foot upon the earth of Skandi. He may harm himself, or his captain, or his crewmates — but mostly he harms the people he robs." His tone made it an insult: "He is a renegada."

"You’re saying anyone with this magic is capable of doing anything, even something he finds abhorrent?"

Unexpectedly, tears welled in Sahdri’s eyes. "Why do you think we come here?" he asked. "Why do you think we desert our families — our wives, our mothers, our children? Why do you think we never go back?"

I scowled at him. "Except to gather up a lost chick."

"That lost chick," Sahdri said plainly, "may murder the flock. May bring down such calamity as you cannot imagine." His expression was peculiar. "Because if you do imagine it, it will come to be."

"You’re saying you come here willingly, but only after you’ve been driven out by the people on Skandi."

"We do not at first understand what is happening. When the magic manifests. It is others who recognize it. A wife. Perhaps a child." He gestured. "It is unpredictable, as I have said. We know only that symptoms begin occurring with greater frequency as we approach our fortieth year."

"What symptoms?"

He shrugged beneath dark robes. "Any behavior that is not customary. Visions. Acute awareness. A talent that increases for no apparent reason. Or one may imagine such things as no one has imagined before."

Such as turning the sand to grass.

Such as conjuring a living sandtiger out of dreams.

Such as knowing magic was present and so overwhelming as to make the belly rebel.

Sensitivity, Nihko had called it. When the body manifested a reaction to something it registered as too loud, too bright, too rich.

Too powerful.

My voice rasped. "And once here, you make a decision never to go back. To stay forever. Willingly."

"Would you kiss a woman," he asked, "if you knew she would die of it?"

"But —"

"If you knew she would die of it?"

I stared at Sahdri, weighing his convictions. He was serious. Deadly serious.

I would not kiss a woman if I knew she would die of it. Not if I knew. How could I? How could any man?

"Know this," Sahdri said clearly. "We are sane enough to comprehend we are mad. And mad enough to welcome that comprehension —"

"Why?"

"Because it keeps us apart from those we may otherwise harm."

Desperation boiled over. "I’m not a priest! I don’t believe in gods! I’m not of your faith!"

Sahdri said, "Faith is all that preserves us," and gestured to the acolytes.

Too much, all at once. Too bright, too loud, too painful. I ached from awareness. Trembled from comprehension.

Not to know what one might do one moment to the next.

Not to know what one was capable of doing.

Not to know if one could kill for wishing it, in that moment of madness.

Understood fear: Imagination made real.

It ran in my bones, the power. I felt it there. Felt it invading, infesting, infecting.

How much would I remember?

How much would I forget?

How many years did I have before I leaped from the spire?

"You will find peace," Sahdri said. "I promise you that. Only serve the gods as they deserve, and the day will come when you will be at rest."

Erastu and Natha put hands upon me. This time I let them.