Sword Sworn

THIRTY-THREE

In the morning the air remained chilly, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. Del and Nayyib both seemed out of sorts. Feeling left out but not sorry for it, I went about my morning routine. Eventually I had the stud fed, watered, saddled, and packed, and I led him over to the lean-to. Del and the kid were still repacking bedrolls. I suspected there had been a verbal exchange held too quietly for me to hear; they seemed tense with one another, and they were behind on preparations.

"All right, children, how long are you going to carry on with this?"

My tone and implication annoyed Del, who’d heard it before. It always annoyed Del. She gathered up her belongings and stalked past me on her way to the white gelding. It left Nayyib with compressed mouth, set jaw, and sharp physical movements at odds with his normal economical grace.

So I came right out and asked it. "Does this have anything to do with Del?"

He didn’t look at me. "Yes."

"And you?"

He stood up, hooking saddle pouches over one shoulder. Paused long enough to look me in the eyes. "Ask her." And marched himself across the flat to his horse.

Oh, hoolies. And other various imprecations.

We wound our way along the wagon ruts, going deeper into the low, boulder-clad mountains. I led, Del followed, and Nayyib brought up the rear. We were strung out, allowing the horses to pick the best footing, since the boulders began to impinge on the tracks. Some things looked familiar, some did not; but it was years since Del and I had been here, and we’d certainly been in a hurry to leave once the chimney collapsed. Other than a slight delay as I was declared a messiah by Mehmet, part of a Deep Desert nomadic tribe dedicated to worshiping the jhihadi, nothing had prevented us from leaving. Del had purposely broken her jivatma after drawing Chosa Dei out of my body, freeing him to fight it out with his brother sorcerer, Shaka Obre. We hadn’t been certain how violent that fight would be since both had been refined to essences of power, not physical bodies, so we’d departed the area as soon as we could.

More memories came back. I recalled Umir’s incredible feathered and beaded robe, which he’d put on Del when she was his prisoner. The whirlwind in the chimney had been been so powerful that it stripped all the ornamentation from the white samite fabric. We had picked feathers out of our hair for days.

I tried to stretch my senses, to get a feel for my own jivatma, buried in the ruins of the rock formation somewhere ahead. Nothing answered. There was no compulsion to continue as there had been to find my mother’s bones; perhaps she trusted to me to complete the task without resorting to walking my dreams. I wasn’t aware of anything except heat, the smell of stone and dust, the stillness of the air, the unceasing brilliance of the sun, and the sound of horses chipping rocks as the walked.

The wagon ruts were more difficult to follow as they passed over ribbons of stone extruding from the earth. Someone not intentionally looking for them might miss them altogether. But it struck me as odd that anyone would travel out here. There was no known road from Julah heading this way, the area skirted Vashni territory, and there was no known destination. Or if there were, it was a Vashni place; they had named the chimney decades be-

fore. In fact, I recalled being told they’d brought Del’s brother to Beit al’Shahar, and when’he’d returned he could speak again despite missing a tongue. Some kind of holy place, maybe. Except Vashni didn’t use wagons, so the tracks didn’t belong to them.We rode on a little farther, and then the trail made a wide sweeping turn to the left around an elbow of mountain flank. The stud abruptly pricked up his ears, head lifting. I reined in. He stood at attention, almost vibrating with focus. He nickered deep in his throat, then let it burst free as a high, piercing whinny.

In the distance, echoing oddly, a horse answered him.

Del, halted behind me, voiced it. "There is someone ahead."

"A horse, at least," I agreed. "Possibly two, or maybe a team of four; the wagon ruts got here somehow."

"Who would be out here?" Del asked. "There’s nothing."

I shook my head. "It’s a bit more than a day’s ride from here to Julah on horseback; it would take longer with a wagon and team. Someone built that lean-to as a stop-over, a place to spend the night."

Nayyib brought his horse in closer. "So you’re saying someone did settle out here."

"It’s a guess," I said. "But we can find out." I brushed heels to the stud’s sides and went on, more attentive now than I had been.

The trail took us down and around another tight turn, then leveled out. We were hemmed in by mountain walls. Then those walls fell away as if bowing us into a palace. And palace it was; I pulled up abruptly. Del fell in beside me, while Nayyib ended up on her far side.

"But — it wasn’t like this…" Del said, astonished.

"Nothing like this," I agreed. Something had happened. Something that had riven the mountains apart, shaping out of existing stone and soil a long, narrow canyon. It wasn’t terribly deep, nor was it huge. A compact slot cut between mountains and rock formations, opening up into a flat valley floor.

"Water," Nayyib said, pointing.

There hadn’t been before. Now, bubbling up from a pile of tumbled boulders and fallen mountain, was a natural spring. It flowed outward into the canyon, finding its way through scattered rocks, then carved a fairly substantial streambed through the canyon floor.

I looked left, following the line of fallen hillside. And found the chimney.

Beit al’Shahar.

It had collapsed, breaking apart into sections. You could still see the suggestion of the columnar formation here and there, but it no longer existed as a true chimney. Del and I had not left it that way. Something more had happened.

Something powerful enough to open the way for an underground spring.

I tapped the stud back into motion and rode on. We passed the tumbled pile of slab-sided rock sections that gave birth to the stream, still following wagon ruts. Here we traded stony ground for soil, the first sparse scatterings of grass. Ahead, vegetation sprang up along the stream’s meandering sides: reeds, shrubbery, thick mossy growths. Grass increased. The canyon widened. Thin, infant trees stood no higher than my knees.Oasis. Sheltered by canyon walls, with access to water, it was cooler here, shaded, with grazing and fertile soil.

"It was nothing like this," Del murmured.

Nayyib raised his voice. "Someone’s farming here."

Indeed, someone was. The spring fed narrow, manmade ditches dug to water patches of fields and gardens, set apart from one another by low walls built of stones no doubt hacked out of the soil. We left behind wilderness and entered a private paradise.

"There," Nayyib said.

There, indeed. A scattering of flimsy pens held sheep and goats. A small pole corral contained a handful of horses. They had already smelled our mounts; now that we were in sight, all came trotting over to the fence rails to offer interested greetings. The stud stuck his head high in the air and commenced snorts of elaborate superiority, stiffened tail swishing viciously.

Behind me, Del’s gelding pealed out a whinny.

"Look," she called. "They’ve built houses against the walls."

Low, squared, small houses built of adobe brick, surfaces hand-smoothed, with poles laid side-by-side and lashed together for roofs, chinked with mud to keep the rain and wind out. Un-painted, the dwellings were the color of the clay mud from which they were built: rich tan with an undertone of red. They blended into the canyon walls.

Faces appeared in wide-silled windows. Then the bodies took residence in the open doorways. Wagon ruts continued along the stream, fronting the dooryards of mudbrick homes standing cheek-by-jowl. Chickens had free run of the place, pecking in the dirt around the houses, pens, and corral.

"Sandtiger! Sandtiger!" A man emerged from one of the little houses. He came pelting down the ruts, brown burnous flapping, turban bouncing on his head.

"Mehmet!" Del exclaimed.

I grinned. "And his aketni."

"Sandtiger! May the sun shine on your head!" Mehmet arrived, dark eyes alight. At once he dropped to his knees, bowed his head, slapped the earth with the flat of his hand, then drew a smudged stripe across his Desert-dark forehead.

"Oh, stop that," I said. "You know how I hate it."

He sat back on his heels, enthusiasm undimmed. "Jhihadi," he breathed. And then he sprang up and began shouting in a dialect spilling so quickly from his mouth that I could only catch a third of what he said.

"Jhihadi?" Nayyib asked dubiously.

I arched supercilious brows. "Didn’t you know? I’ve been declared a messiah. I’m even worshiped by —" I paused. "— however many people remain in Mehmet’s aketni."

"Aketni?"

"His little tribe. An offshoot of his original tribe. Apparently not everyone wants to worship me."

"And the Vashni," Del put in. "Remember?"

Nayyib’s expression was odd. "This is a joke."

I sighed. "No, actually, it’s not. Though it certainly feels like one to me."

"You’re a messiah?"

"I’m not a messiah. They just think I’m a messiah."

"My brother said you were," Del remarked.

Nayyib was totally lost. "Your brother said Tiger was a messiah?"

"It’s complicated," I explained.

"A messiah?" he repeated.

I made a dismissive gesture. "Don’t worry, it’s not true."

"You’re a legendary sword-dancer, the grandson of a wealthy Skandic matriarch, a mage — and a messiah?"

"A man of many parts," Del told him. "That’s what the prophecy says."

I knew she was taking great joy in this, despite her bland expression. I shot her a quelling look. "Look, I have no control over what people say or think. Or that my grandmother is wealthy and powerful, or that I’m stuck with whatever this magic is inside me. What I know is that I’m a sword-dancer. That’s good enough for me."

Neesha’s expression was indescribable. Del took pity on him.

"We rescued them," she explained. "They’d been led into nowhere by unscrupulous guides, robbed, and left to die. Tiger and I found them, helped them."

Neesha’s brows rode high on his forehead. "So they declared Tiger a messiah?"

"Not exactly." Del seemed to realize no explanation could sound reasonable. "But they worship the jhihadi, and they think Tiger fits."

"Why are they here?" Neesha asked.

"Because this is Beit al’Shahar," I answered crossly, knowing the whole thing sounded ludicrous, "and this is where I led them." I paused. "Supposedly."

Mehmet was waving his people out of their little homes. I saw the old women swathed in veils and robes, gray braids dangling from beneath head coverings, but also a few younger men and women and even a handful of children. Mehmet’s aketni had increased in size since we’d last come across the tiny caravan.

Everyone gathered around, falling into a semicircle. All eyes were fastened on me, staring avidly. Mehmet stood in front of them, eyes alight with pride.

"We have done as you wished," he announced.

Since I didn’t know what he was talking about, I prevaricated. "And you’ve done it well, Mehmet."

An outflung hand encompassed stream, ditches, grass, pens, corral, fields and gardens, and the small, square adobe houses huddled against the canyon walls. "We have turned the sand to grass!"

Ah, yes. The infamous prophecy.

And then I realized it was true.

Del, behind me, began to laugh.

Nayyib muttered, "I don’t believe any of this."

Mehmet was exceedingly proud to know the jhihadi personally. After everyone had offered deep obeisances, he sent them all away to begin preparations for an evening feast. In the meantime, he offered us the hospitality of his own "unworthy house." He and his wife would sleep in the front room, while Del and I were gifted with the tiny bedroom.

He tripped a little over what to do with Nayyib, until the kid said he’d be perfectly happy sleeping outside near the water, if that was all right. He even added he was unworthy to be under the same roof as a messiah, which earned him a scowl from me and a snicker from Del.

"When did you get married?" I asked Mehmet. "And where did you find a wife?" The first time we’d met, Mehmet had been the only young male left in his aketni, which was comprised of old women and one old man, who’d later died. There was no one to marry in his own small tribe.

"I found my wife in Julah," he said proudly. "A caravan came through and stayed a few days. I went out to their encampment to welcome them, and I preached the prophecy of the jhihadi. A few of them decided to stay on and serve. Yasmah was one." His joy was infectious. "Now, come — these men will take your horses and make them comfortable."

I decided against protesting the preaching part for the moment. Certainly the sand had been changed to grass, at least right here; when we’d left it was desert, if not the sere harshness of the Punja and its immediate vicinity. But I rather had my own idea about what had caused the change.

Mehmet bowed us into his house, whereupon he presented us to his wife. She was a small, slight, black-eyed woman wrapped in robes and veils, quite shy, unwilling to meet my eyes at all. The gods only knew what Mehmet had been telling her about his jhihadi.

We were served food and drink at the low table surrounded by lumpy cushions rather than stools or benches, while Mehmet explained that they grew most of their own food, raised goats and sheep for wool, milk, and meat, chickens for eggs, and only infrequently went into Julah for additional supplies.

"And no one knows you’re out here?" Del asked. "No one knows this canyon exists, or the water?"

Mehmet shook his head. "No one."

"Someday people will come," I warned. "We came. We found your ruts and followed them here."

Mehmet spread his hands. "Were you not already coming here?"

Well, yes. Come to think of it.

He nodded even though I’d said nothing. "No one has cause to come here, except for the jhihadi."

"I didn’t come here as the jhihadi," I explained. "I have business in the chimney, and then we’ll be on our way."

His eyes widened. "But — are you not staying?"

I felt bad about disappointing him. "No. We’re headed for Alimat, across the Punja."

"But — but we did this for you." He spread his hands. "All of this. You told me, remember? Find water where none exists. We have made a home here."

"You and your people have done very well, Mehmet — but I didn’t mean I wanted to live here. I’m sorry."

He leaped to his feet, gesturing sharply. "Come, then. All of you. Hurry."

The meal apparently was over, even if we weren’t quite done eating it. Mehmet’s little wife collected the dishes from the low table and took them swiftly away even as her husband ushered us out of doors.

Two young children were playing down by the stream; Mehmet called to them to find some of the men and have them bring our horses.

I looked up at the chimney formation, or what remained of it, on the other side of the canyon across the stream. No horse could make it up there through the tumbled rocks and scree. I’d have to go on foot.

The horses were brought. The stud had a wisp of lush grass hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Apparently they’d been enjoying a meal, too.

"Go on, go on," Mehmet insisted. "Get on your horses. Hurry!"

We did as we were told. Our host nodded. "Now, ride into the canyon. You see that elbow of hill up ahead? Go around that. The canyon curves to the right. Follow the stream. You will see."

"See what?" I asked.

"Go, go. Go and see."

"And do what?"

"Go and see."

I gave it up. Until we went and saw whatever it was he wanted us to go and see, we’d make no progress toward actual communication.

"You’re not coming?" Del asked Mehmet.

He shook his head vigorously. "It’s for you. We kept it that way. Now, go and see."

"Let’s go," I said to Del and Nayyib, and led the way.

As Mehmet instructed, we followed the stream around the designated elbow. Here the canyon narrowed until there was very little good footing on either side of the stream, mostly the steep sides of canyon walls. Huge sections of stone had broken off the walls, falling to the floor where they blocked most of the way. The stream, undaunted, had found a new way through. But I noticed the fallen rocks were all sharply angled and faceted, not yet worn smooth and round by water. Whatever brought them crashing down was but a few years in the past.

The horses picked their way over dribbles of fallen stone. There was no actual trail through here, and clearly none of Mehmet’s people had ever attempted to bring in a wagon. The only tracks I saw belonged to animals.

And then the walls reared back. A passageway lay open, and the stream purled through. Beneath hooves, grass sprang up, thick, lush grass. Rocks in the water were mossy, wearing streamers of vegetation. Canyon walls became crumbled hillsides, cloaked in a tangle of shrubbery and trees.

Old trees. Mature trees. Mehmet’s little canyon was new. This one was not.

The path we made took us out of shadow into sunlight. Out of canyon into valley. Out of paradise into perfection.

We stopped, because we had to. We gazed upon it, marking how the stream cut through the middle of meadow. Here was the true heart of the canyon with high walls surrounding us except for the throat we’d passed through.

Nayyib released a blissfully appreciative sigh. "Good grazing."

Del climbed down off her gelding and knelt on one knee, digging into the soil. She brought up a handful, rolled it through her fingers, then smelled it. "It should be," she agreed. "This is fine, fertile soil." She shook her hand free of damp dirt, then led the gelding by me, intent on something. After a moment Nayyib and I followed.

Del paralleled the stream. All around her lay the meadow, stretching from canyon wall to canyon wall. We were nearly to the far end when she stopped and shielded her eyes against the sun’s glare as she looked up and up, studying the rim of the canyon and the blue sky beyond.

I saw her smile, and then she pointed. "Eagle."

Nayyib and I looked. Sure enough, an eagle spiraled lazily over the canyon.

Del’s smile didn’t fade, but grew. She stood in one spot and turned in a full circle, taking it all in. Her expression was rapturous. "It’s almost like the North, this place. Not exactly, but very close."

I frowned. "In the borderlands, maybe."

"There are high valleys in the mountains very like this. You just never saw any of them." She began unbuckling her harness.

"What are you doing, bascha?"

"I’m going wading."

"Wading?

"Maybe even swimming." She gestured up the way. "There’s a pool, Tiger. See where the stream is partially dammed by rocks? On the other side there’s a natural pool."

I hadn’t paid any attention to it. But she was right. Nayyib rode up a little way, seeing for himself.

I recalled the big tiled bathing pool in the metri’s house, heated by some means I didn’t understand. Del had splashed around quite happily in it. I’d never learned how to swim and thus wasn’t as enamored, though it did feel good, but the pool was shallow enough that I could stand in the middle with water up to my shoulders and not worry about going beneath the surface.

Mehmet had said this place was for us. That he’d kept it for us. His people had settled just inside the mouth of the new canyon. This one had remained untouched. This one, much older, had been untouched forever.

Del, who had tied up the reins so the gelding wouldn’t trip over them, stripped out of harness, sandals, and burnous. She wore only the patched leather tunic a Vashni woman had repaired for her. Long-limbed, fair of skin, she strode to the water’s edge as she unplaited her braid and shook it free. She was magnificence incarnate.

I realized it was the first time in months I’d seen her looking so relaxed. The tension had fled her face, leaving an incandescent joy. Every fiber of her body was reacting to this place.

I smiled, enjoying the sight. Ah, bascha, if you only knew what I see when I look at you.

Then I noticed Nayyib but a couple of paces upstream, staring at her. Del glanced at him and laughed. "Come in, Neesha. Lift the dust from your skin."

She had invited him. Not me.

Pleasure was extinguished. A chill washed through my body. It left me sick, angry, and afraid.

"I’m going back," I told her abruptly. "I’ll leave the stud with Mehmet, hike up to the chimney and try to find the sword."

Del, picking her way carefully into the water, was startled. She halted, bare feet perched on round, slick stones. Sunlight gilded her skin. "Now?"

"I need to do it." And as she made as if to turn back, I waved her away. "No, no — you stay here. I’d rather do this alone." Which wasn’t true, but I couldn’t face taking her away from the canyon. I swung the stud. "I’ll look for you when I’m done."

"And if you can’t find it today?"

"I’ll look again tomorrow morning." I turned my back on them both and headed out the way we’d come in.