Sword Sworn

NINETEEN

Del and I were dinner guests of the Vashni chieftain. Apparently he’d decided I was indeed the jhihadi and wanted to pay honor. We were escorted to his big hyort, given platters full of chunks of various kinds of meat — including sandtiger, I didn’t doubt — wild onions and herbs for seasoning, tubers, and bread baked from nut flour. Not to mention plenty of the fiery Vashni liquor. I drank sparingly, still felt the effects, and did my best not to make a fool of myself. Del was permitted to drink water as a nod to her recovery, and I caught her watching me out of the corner of her eye. Apparently she expected me to fall face-first into the modest fire in the center of the chieftain’s hyort. I was tempted to remind her I hadn’t gotten sick from it the last time, but decided the jhihadi wouldn’t do such a thing before a Vashni chieftain.

Later, maybe.

Afterward we were allowed to wander away from the encampment without interference or company. Clearly we were not prisoners. Or else they simply knew we wouldn’t get far without mounts, and the horses were closely guarded. But since I wasn’t trying to escape, it didn’t matter. I simply walked with Del a short distance, and sat down upon a boulder even as she did the same.

I stretched braced legs out, crossing them at ankles. Studied her face sidelong. "Tired, bascha?"

She hitched a shoulder inconclusively.

I gazed out at the deepening dusk. Vashni fires set a subdued glow over the village that would become more obvious as darkness fell. A faint breeze teased at Del’s hair. I rubbed at my own, feeling added length. Maybe the tattoos along my hairline were finally hidden.

I glanced at her, noting the gauntness of her features. "You know we can’t go anywhere tomorrow."

She sighed, kicking a stone away with a sandaled foot. "I know. Not together. But you could."

I didn’t even have to think about it. "I just spent two hard days tracking you down. I’m not going anywhere without you."

Del looked at me, clearly wanting to say something. Debated it. But held her silence.

"A few more days," I told her. "We’re safe here. It’s probably the best place we could be, without worrying about who might come looking for us." I wanted to say she needed more time. Knew better than to do it.

Her mouth was set in a grim, unhappy line. "I have been here too long already."

I shrugged, maintaining an excessively casual tone of voice. "You’ll stay here as long as you need to."

"But Nayyib…" She let it trail off. A frown set lines between her eyes. "I wish you would go."

I was beginning to get exasperated with all this focus on Nayyib. "We don’t know that Umir has him. I mean, how can you be sure the kid actually went looking for me?"

"He said he would."

"We don’t know anything about him, bascha."

Del looked at me again, comprehending the implication. "He isn’t a liar."

"Maybe not, but it doesn’t change anything. You can’t go anywhere until you’re completely recovered, and I’m not going anywhere until then."

Del’s left hand touched her right forearm, raising the hem of her burnous sleeve. Gently she fingered the scars I knew were there.

I tried again. "If Umir has him, he’ll hold onto him until we’re found. He won’t harm him. Not as long as he thinks the kid is worth something."

"And if he doesn’t?"

"Well, that was the chance Nayyib took. It’s the chance we all take, riding into a situation we don’t fully understand. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. If he’s done it, he’ll learn from it."

"Or die."

"Maybe." I shrugged. "Like I said, that’s always a chance."

Del nodded. Her head was bowed, expression pensive.

She is a woman who pays her debts, and obviously she felt she owed Nayyib one. I didn’t dispute it; he’d cared for her until she could travel and then brought her to safety. I owed him, too, for that. But I wasn’t about to immediately go chasing off after a kid I didn’t really know now that I’d found Del again; nor was I thrilled by the idea of taking myself back to Umir’s domain quite so fast. It was possible some of the sword-dancers who’d witnessed my victory over Musa would decline to track me further, but I was certain some would. Not only for the honor of killing me, but Umir undoubtedly would pay generously to get his book back.

A book that apparently knew all about me.

I slid off the boulder and stood up, reaching for her. "Let’s go back to the hyort. You need to rest."

Her head snapped up. "I’m tired of resting!"

"Come on, Del." I closed a hand on her wrist, tugged gently. "A few more days, that’s all."

She stood. "Will you spar with me tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? Well, maybe the day after."

"Tomorrow."

"You’re not ready for that."

"Neither were you. I did it anyway."

Nothing would be gained by arguing with her. I didn’t say yes, didn’t say no. Just pulled her to me, slid an arm around her shoulders, and guided her back toward the hyorts.

"Most men," Del said abruptly, "detest weakness, sickness in woman. They ignore it, trying to convince themselves she’s fine. Or tell the woman there is nothing wrong, so they don’t need to trouble themselves with thinking about it. With the responsibility."

I glanced at her, wondering where the complaint came from.

"Most men want nothing at all to do with a sick woman. Some of them even leave. Forever."

I grunted. "As I said, I just spent two days looking for you. Even knowing you were sick. Hoolies, the last time I saw you there was a chance you might not even live. Did I leave then?"

Inwardly I winced. Well, yes, I had left; but that hadn’t been my fault.

"You are not what you were," Del said after a moment. "Not as you were when we first met in that cantina."

I had a vivid memory of that cantina, and that meeting. "Well, no."

"You were a Southron pig."

"So you’ve told me. Many times."

"Tiger —" She stopped walking. Stared up into my face as I turned to her. "You are not what you were."

I had the feeling that wasn’t what she meant to say. But nothing more crowded her lips, even as I waited. Finally I cradled her head in my hands, bent close, said, "Neither are you," and kissed her gently on the forehead.

For a moment she leaned into me, clearly exhausted. I considered scooping her up and carrying her to the hyort, but that would play havoc with Del’s dignity. She already felt uncomfortable enough about being tired and sick, judging by her comments; I knew better than to abet that belief. I prodded her onward with a hand placed in the center of her spine, and walked with her to the hyort.

There a warrior waited, standing quietly before the doorflap. He looked at me. "Oziri will see you."

It was the first mention I’d heard of the man we’d met a couple of weeks before. I exchanged a baffled glance with Del, who seemed to know no more than I did, then saw her brief nod of acceptance. She ducked into the hyort and dropped the doorflap.

I accompanied the warrior to another hyort some distance away, the entrance lighted by stave torches. There I was left, with no word spoken to the hyort’s inhabitant. I paused a moment, aware of the call of nightbirds, the flickering of campfires, the low’pitched murmuring of conversations throughout the village. It was incredibly peaceful here. I turned my face up to the stars. The night skies were ablaze.

A hand pulled the doorflap aside. "Come in," Oziri said. "You have hidden long enough."

The Vashni ignored my startled demand for an explanation. He gestured me to a place on a woven rug covered by skins, fur side up, and took his own seat across from me. A small fire burned between us, dying from flames to coals. Herbs had been strewn across it; pungency stung my eyes. I squinted at him through the thin wisp of smoke. At the best of times, Vashni stank of grease, but all I could smell now was burning herbs.

Seated, I looked at Oziri. No one had mentioned him, and I hadn’t asked, but here he was, and here I was. He wasn’t chieftain or bodyguard, but obviously he was something more than warrior. A quick glance around the interior of the hyort showed me herbs hanging upside down, dried gourds, painted sticks, small clay pots stoppered with wax, a parade of tiny pottery bowls arranged in front of Oziri’s crossed legs. I began to get a sick feeling in the pit of my belly. Vashni were unrelated to the Salset, the desert nomads I’d grown up among, but the accoutrements, despite differences, were eerily similar.

I looked at Oziri suspiciously. "You’re a shukar."

Oziri smiled.

I drew in a breath, hoping I was wrong. "Among the Salset, the shukar doesn’t hunt."

"Among the Vashni, he does. We are not a lazy people. Priests work also."

I wanted to wave away the thread of smoke drifting toward me but knew it would be rude. And I’d been trained from birth to respect, even fear, shukars. It had been years since I’d seen the old man who’d made my life a living hoolies, but I couldn’t suppress a familiar apprehension.

I reminded myself I was a grown man now, no longer a helpless chula. The old shukar was dead. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You said I was hidden. Hidden from what?"

"Stillness," Oziri said simply.

I waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, I asked him what he meant.

"You are never still," Oziri replied. "Even if your body is quiet, your thoughts are not. They are tangled and sticky, like a broken spider web. Until you learn to be still, you will not find the answer."

"Answer to what?"

"Your dreams."

Apprehension increased. "What do you know about my dreams?"

Oziri took a pinch of something from one of the bowls and tossed it onto the fire with an eloquent gesture. Flames blazed briefly, then died away. Yet another scent threatened my lungs. It was all I could do not to cough.

"You must learn to be still," he told me.

"I’m kind of a busy man," I said. "You know — me being the jhihadi. There’s much to think about. It’s hard to find time to be still."

Another gesture, another pinch of herbs drifted onto the coals. Smoke rose. The back of my throat felt numb. This time I couldn’t suppress a cough. I wanted very much to open the door-flap, or retreat outdoors altogether, but I had a feeling that among the Vashni, rudeness might be a death sentence.

Oziri smiled, handed me a bota.

I unstoppered it, smelled the sharp tang of Vashni liquor. Just what I needed. But I drank it to wash away the taste of the herbs, nodded my thanks, handed it back. Oziri drank as well, then set it aside.

"What —" I cleared my throat, swallowed down the tingle of another cough. "What exactly are the herbs for?"

"Stillness."

"So I can understand my dreams." I couldn’t help it; I scowled at him. "What is it with you priests? Why do all of you speak so thrice-cursed obscurely? Can’t you ever just say anything straight out? Don’t you get sick of all this melodramatic babbling?"

"Of course," Oziri said, nodding, "but people tend not to listen to plain words. Stories, they hear. They remember. The way a warrior learns — and remembers — a lesson by experiencing pain."

It was true I recalled sword-dancing lessons more clearly when coupled with a thump on the head or a thwack on the shin. I’d just never thought of it in terms of priests before. "So, how is you know about my dreams?"

"It is not a difficult guess." Oziri’s expression was ironic. "Everyone dreams."

"But why do my dreams matter?"

His dark brows rose slightly. "You’re the jhihadi."

I gazed at him. "You don’t really believe it, do you?"

"I do."

"Because the Oracle said so?"

"Because the Oracle said so when he had no tongue."

"But — there must have been some kind of logical explanation for that."

"He had no tongue," Oziri said plainly. "He could make sounds but no words. I examined his empty mouth, the mutilation. Yet when we brought him down from Beit al’Shahar, he could speak as clearly as you or I. He told us about the jhihadi. He told us a man would change the sand to grass." His smile was faint. "Have you not shown us how?"

He meant the water-filled line in the dirt, with greenery stuck in the end of it. I’d done it twice before various Vashni. "It’s just an idea," I explained lamely. "Anyone could have come up with it. You take water from where it is, and put it where’s it not. Things grow." I shrugged. "Nothing magical about that. You could have come up with it."

"But I am just a humble priest," Oziri said with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"And I’m just a sword-dancer," I told him. "At least, I was. There is some objection to me using the term, now."

"Among other things." Oziri took up another pinch of herb, tossed it onto the coals with a wave of supple fingers. "The jhihadi is a man of many parts. But he is not a god, and thus he is not omniscient. Therefore he must be taught."

Be taught what? I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t understand. Couldn’t. Because no more was I seated across the fire from Oziri but had somehow come to be lying flat on my back, staring up at the smoke hole. The closed smoke hole. No wonder it was so thick inside the hyort.

Oziri’s voice. "A man must learn to be still if he is to understand." Understand what?

But I didn’t ask it. Couldn’t. My eyes closed abruptly. What little control of my body I retained drained away. I was conscious of the furs beneath me, the scent of herbs, the taste of liquor in my mouth.

It would be a simple matter for the Vashni to kill me. But he merely put something into one lax hand, closed the fingers over it, and bade me hold it.

Hard. Rough. Not heavy. Not large. It fit easily into the palm of my hand.

"Be still," Oziri said, "so you may hear it." Hear what? "Truth," the Vashni said.

I came back to myself with a jolt. For a minute I just lay there on the rug, staring up at the hyort’s smoke hole, until I felt the hand insinuating itself behind my head and lifting it up. A bota was at my mouth.

"Drink," Del said. "Oziri said you would need to." Del. Del. I wasn’t in Oziri’s hyort anymore. I sat bolt upright, saw the hyort we now shared revolve around me, cursed weakly, and slumped back down. I took a swallow because she insisted, discovered I was incredibly thirsty, and proceeded to suck most of the water out of the skin. Then I lay there on my back and hugged the flaccid bota against my chest, scowling up at the stars visible through the smoke hole as I tried to put my world back together.

"What happened?" Del asked.

I closed my eyes. Felt the residual burning from the herbs and smoke. "I have no idea."

"Don’t you remember?"

"Only that Oziri kept dumping herbs onto the fire. I thought I was going to choke." I looked at her. "They brought me back here?"

Del nodded. "A while ago."

I worked myself up onto elbows, then upright. This time the hyort did not spin so rapidly. "Did Oziri say what they did?"

"He called it ’dream-walking,’ " Del replied. "I’m not sure what it is, except that Oziri said you needed to learn it." She shrugged. "He asked me questions about what happened to you on Skandi."

"And you told him?"

"I didn’t see why I shouldn’t."

Well, Del didn’t know the whole of it, either. Some things I couldn’t bring myself to talk about, even with her. I squirted the last of the water into my mouth and tossed the bota aside. "I don’t remember anything. Did he say I actually did whatever it is a dream-walker does?"

"No. Just that he expects to see you again tomorrow."

"What for?"

"I don’t know, Tiger. I don’t speak priest."

I glared at her. Del smiled back blandly. I closed my eyes again, tried to recall what had happened in Oziri’s hyort. The back of my throat felt gritty. I cleared it, hacked, then began to cough in earnest. Del dug up another bota and gave it to me. After a few more swallows, the worst of the coughing faded.

"I don’t see any sense in trying it again," I said hoarsely, "whatever it is."

"They are our hosts. It would be rude to refuse."

"And if he asked to cut off toes to match my fingers, would it be rude to refuse?"

Del, yawning, lay down on her pallet, dragging a thin blanket up over her shoulder. "It’s hardly the same."

"The point is…"

After a moment, Del said, "Yes?"

Nothing came out of my mouth.

"Tiger?"

I toppled backward, landing on rugs. I felt the dribble of water across my chest, the weight of bota. Limbs spasmed.

Then Del was at my side. "Tiger?"

I couldn’t speak. Hearing was fading.

Hands cupped the sides of my head. "Tiger!"

But I was gone.