Sword Bound

Chapter 39

BUMPS ROSE ON MY FLESH. Hair stood up. I felt cold, so cold. I shivered from head to toe.

“Yes,” Wahzir said, before I could deny it from disbelief. “It’s quite true. I’ve seen Sula. She’s approximately two years old, has hair not quite as blond as Del’s, blue eyes, and she frequently announces her name to anyone within earshot.”

My lips felt stiff. I couldn’t speak properly. “How did Umir find her?”

His expression was apologetic. “I don’t have that answer. I’m sorry, Sandtiger. All I was given to know was that Umir wished to use your daughter to force your hand. Then I knitted together the rumors I’d heard about you being a mage. Though I’m not sure anyone believed it.”

He knew her name, Sula’s. That he knew mine, knew Del’s, meant nothing. But Sula’s. The Sandtiger had a daughter. People in Julah knew. It was no secret. But neither was it something that came up in conversation except with people Del and I knew well. We didn’t hide it. I could think of no reason why anyone would ride out of Julah all the way to Umir with such knowledge.

Del and Sula. Two hostages.

One would have been enough.

Gods. Sula.

I rose to my knees and turned to Del, who was insensible to all. I bent down over her, putting my head against hers. “I’ll make her safe,” I told her. “I promise. I’ll do whatever he wants. She’ll be safe. And we’ll all go back home together.”

“Sandtiger.”

I kissed Del’s brow. “I promise.”

“Sandtiger.”

On my knees, I turned.

Wahzir held out the Book of Udre-Natha. “Here. You can do it right now, right here, and all will be over.”

I stared at the book. My eyes burned, but were dry.

“It will be over,” the mage-healer repeated. “All you have to do is give Umir what he wants.”

I collapsed back against the bedframe. I was empty, so empty.

“You closed it. You can open it.” He stepped forward, bent, pushed the book into my hands. I’d forgotten how heavy it was. “Open it.”

It crossed my mind briefly that Wahzir was being very aggressive about me opening the book. It bore thinking about. But I had no focus to do so.

The Book of Udre-Natha. I stared at the cover. I touched it. Ran fingertips across the unadorned leather. Touched the hinges, the hasp, the latch. It looked like any other book. But this one would never open for anyone but me.

The me I’d once been, but wasn’t anymore. I had made sure of that when I poured my magic into Samiel and broke the blade.

A great grief rose up as I met Wahzir’s eyes. “I can’t.”

“He’ll let you go,” Wahzir insisted. “All three of you. He just wants the book.”

“I can’t.”

“Sandtiger—”

“I can’t. I gave all the magic away.”

Wahzir sank down, eyes wide with shock. “You gave—?”

“I gave it away. I couldn’t face having only ten years left to me. Not when my life was so full.”

His face was pale. “You gave it away?”

I tossed the book aside. No pages fluttered. The cover didn’t get caught on anything. The book was locked. No harm was done.

“I gave it away.”

Wahzir stared at me. The pupils in his eyes grew and grew. Lips peeled back. He displayed gritted teeth. “You gave away what I would kill to have!” He leaped to his feet. “Do you understand? All that magic!” He swept up the book I had tossed aside. He hugged it to his chest. “Gods! Gods! All that is in here, and I can’t open it. You can’t open it!” He dropped to his knees, rocking, keening, as if he’d lost a child.

I looked back at Del, who had just lost a child. The other one, the living one, was now at risk. What could I tell my bascha? That both children were dead?

Wahzir sobbed on his knees.

“You’re a mage-healer,” I said. “This book is nothing to you.”

He lifted his head jerkily, meeting my eyes “This book is everything to me!”

I felt numb. Sluggish. That my thoughts were too dull, too jumbled, to put anything together. The puzzle pieces.

But slowly, they came.

“You want the book for you. Not for Umir. You knew he had it. You allowed yourself to be taken, to become part of his collection so you could reach the book. But you couldn’t open it. So now—there’s me. Umir wants me to open it. You need me to open it.”

He stared at me, then put out a shaking hand and pointed behind me toward the alcove. “If you tell Umir, I will kill her. All I must do is nothing. Nothing, and she’ll die.”

Another puzzle piece. “You’re not worth anything, are you? Not to Umir, if he knew. You’ve lost your magic.”

Rage suffused his features. “And you gave yours away!”

Umir wanted the book opened, but mostly just to have it so. A locked book in a collection, when what lay beneath the lock was the greatest knowledge a mage could ever have, was not valuable. Particularly when it was such a plain thing to look at. So he wanted what was on the inside. And he threatened my daughter to get it. He was not called Umir the Ruthless for nothing.

“I can’t live this way,” Wahzir said. “I’m empty. Empty. Nothing is in me. I can’t live as an empty man!”

And all I wanted was to be an empty man.

Wahzir trembled. “Umir will kill your daughter when he knows you have no magic. Just to punish you.”

So he would.

“And I’ll kill her mother, just to punish you!”

He and I both heard a rattling in the larger room. A door boomed open. Men came to the alcove: Hamzah. Tariq. Others.

Umir, too, came to the alcove. “Has he opened it?”

Wahzir shook his head.

“Did you tell him of his daughter?”

Wahzir nodded.

“And he still refuses?”

“He can’t open it!” Wahzir cried. “He gave it all away. He gave his power away. He’s an empty man, like me. And the book stays closed!”

Umir looked at me. “Is this true?”

I didn’t bother to look at Wahzir. “He’s lying. The book can be opened.”

“Are you quite certain?” Umir asked. “Wahzir has been of help to me. I have never known him to lie.”

“Three things,” I said, “and I’ll open the book for you.”

Umir remained, as always, icily calm. “Three things?”

“You will harm neither my daughter nor her mother. You’ll let me see Sula. And you must let me go free.”

And Umir smiled. “Do they mean so little to you after all? You’ll use them so you can be free?”

I raised a delaying hand. “Wahzir is correct about one thing. I am what he calls an ‘empty man.’ I have no magic.”

“You see?” Wahzir shouted.

I looked only at Umir. “But I can get it back.”

Even Wahzir fell silent. The only sound in the alcove, in the room, was the chiming of my chains.

“Give me the stud,” I said.

Umir forbore to point out that made four things. “Either you’re lying, and won’t return—”

“In which case you’re no worse off.

“—or you will use the magic against me.”

I shook my head. “Not while you hold Del and my daughter. I’ll open your book. On their lives, I promise. And then we leave here. All three of us. Alive.”

Umir smiled very slowly. “But if you have your magic back, I might wish to keep you. For my collection.”

“But I won’t have any magic if I put it into the book.”

One brow rose. “You can do that?”

“I put it into a sword. I can put it into a book.”

Wahzir’s eyes lighted. I knew what he was thinking. The magic in the book was powerful enough, but augmented by the magic I’d brought home from ioSkandi? He knew what that power was. He knew of the mages atop the spires. He knew I’d had that power.

“Trust me,” I said, “I don’t want the magic. I’ll be happy to let you have it. Why do you think I stuck it in the sword to begin with? The cost is too great. I have too much to live for.” I indicated Del. “Her. My daughter. Me. We leave here alive and unharmed.”

“You will leave now,” Umir said with quiet emphasis. “Waste no time. You have two days.”

I was stunned. “Two days! Are you sandsick? I need more—”

“If you don’t return within two days, I will assume you have no intention to.”

I shook my head vehemently. “I can’t do it in two days. Not across so much of the Punja!”

“Hamzah,” Umir said, “have his horse readied.”

Hamzah inclined his head in acknowledgement and departed the room.

Umir took two steps to me, another past me, and stopped at Del’s bedside. He looked upon her, then turned to face Wahzir. “See that she survives. On your head be it.”

He moved past me. Wahzir followed. I knelt down at the cot and kissed the side of Del’s head just above her ear. “I promise, bascha. Nothing will harm her.”

Hoolies. Two days. I’d counted on more.

“Stand up,” Tariq ordered.

I stood. Turned. Held out my hands. The shackles were removed.

“My daughter,” I said pointedly.

Umir said, “Tariq.”

Tariq indicated the door. I walked out of it.

The stud was waiting as I was led through the front door into the colorful courtyard. Umir did have a taste for beautiful things, beautiful surroundings. And of course he very quietly underscored his wealth by making a fountain the centerpiece. In a desert, water was worth more coin than most could claim. Even other tanzeers.

A stranger held the stud. He was saddled, bridled, ready to go; had full botas on the pommel. He stomped on paving stones noisily, employed a conversational tone in nickers and squeals. Mostly he was swearing.

I turned away from him and looked at Umir’s steward waiting on the entry steps. “Where’s my daughter?”

He indicated a second floor window. And there my daughter was, held in a stranger’s arms. She slept. She did not know I was here.

I have never done a thing so hard as to ride away from Umir’s.

And to my death.