Sword Maker-Sword Dancer 3 (3 page)

Can the cat hear it, too?

Hoolies, it sees me now. Sees the sword. Knows what I want. Turns from the stud--poor stud--to me . .

Oh, hoolies, here it comes--lift the sword, you fool... do something, sword-dancer--

But I don't want this sword. And this isn't a real circle--

Real enough, Punja-mite. Are you ready for the cat?

Am I ready for the sword?

It has happened before, the slowing. The near stoppage of motion in everything I

look at, as if it waits for me. It happened now, as before, though this time the

slowing was nearly a true halt, clean and pure, leaving me time and room to work, to pick and choose my method; to give the best death to the cat before he

gave it to me.

It has happened to me before. But never quite like this.

I smelled blood, musk, extremity, as well as morbid fear. Felt nerves twinge in

my belly as the half-healed wound contracted. I wondered, swiftly and uneasily,

what the sword was doing. But as I heard the stud's screaming, fear bled away.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the cat looked up from the stud. There was blood in his mouth, blood in his claws, as well as gobbets of horsehair.

In my head, I heard a song. A small, private song, hinting at powerful things.

Beneath the cat, the stud was thrashing, legs flailing. I heard his grunts of extremity.

And the sword sang me a promise: the stud would be released if I gave it the power it needed.

Except I ought to be able to take the cat without using any magic. The sword was, after all, a sword, and effective enough on its own.

But the stud squealed and thrashed, and in my head I heard the song. A soft, subtle song. Yet too powerful to ignore.

I didn't exactly give in to it. I just ignored it. I was too worried about the

stud to waste any more time on the noise rolling around in my head. And so, impatiently, I let go of it altogether.

Not for long. Just long enough to think about something else. To stop suppressing it. To rescue my poor horse.

And so, all unwittingly, I let it have its moment. I let it have its lifetime in

the shadow of an instant.

Noise rushed in even as I rushed the cat. No, not noise: music. Something far more eloquent than anything so commonplace as noise. More powerful than sound.

And abruptly I recalled what I had heard on the overlook by the lakeshore, kneeling with the sword. When the music of the Canteada had crowded into my skull.

How they could sing, the Canteada. A race born of dreams, given substance by belief. Who had, Del told me once, given music to the world.

Just as they'd given me some for the moment of the Naming.

For the stud, I thought, it's worth it. The risk is worth the taking for all the

times he's saved my skin.

Only the thought, for a moment. And a moment was all that was needed.

The cat flowed aside. The stud lurched up, staggered, ran.

The mouth curled back and opened to display impressive fangs. But slowly, oh so

slowly; didn't he know I sang his death?

White cat with gray-irised eyes, and dappled, silver-splotched coat. The pelt would be worth a fortune; I'd take it once he was dead.

--the sword was alive in my hands--

"What's mine is mine," I told him, so he would understand.

The sword was alive.

The cat peeled back lips and screamed.

The sword invited him in. Come closer, it said. Come closer.

It made it all so easy.

The leap was effortlessly smooth. Smiling, I watched it, admiring his grace.

Watched the hind legs coil up to rake; saw the front paws reach out, claws unsheathed; saw the mouth stretch open, the gleam of ivory fangs. Laughing aloud

in anticipation, I let him think he'd win.

Then took him in the back of his throat and drove the blade through the base of

his skull.

Elation. Elation. And a powerful satisfaction.

Not mine. Not mine; someone else's. Something else's--wasn't it? It wasn't me,

was it?

Something inside me laughed. Something inside me stirred, like awareness awakening.

Oh, hoolies, what is it?

I smelled burning flesh. Thought it was the cat's. Realized it was my own.

I shouted something. Something appropriate. Something explicit. To release shock

and rage and pain.

Wrenched my hands from the hilt as the metal burned white-hot.

Oh, hoolies, Del, you never warned me about this.

I staggered back, hands crossed at the wrists, mouthing obscenities. Tripped, fell, rolled, sprawled flat on my back, afraid to block with my hands.

Hoolies,

but they hurt!

I smelled burning flesh. Not my own, the cat's.

Well, that's something, at least. Except he's too dead to feel it.

I lay on my back, still swearing, letting the stream of obscenities take precedence over pain. Anything was welcome, so long as it blocked the fire.

Finally I ran out of breath, if not out of pain, and opened my eyes to look at

my hands. It was easy to see them; they were stuck up in the air on the end of

painfully rigid arms, elbows planted in the ground.

Hands. Not charred remains. Hands. With a thumb and four fingers on each.

Sweat dried on my body. Pain sloughed away. I breathed again normally and decided to stop swearing; there seemed no point in it, now.

Still on my back, I wiggled fingers carefully. Gritted teeth, squinting--and was

immensely relieved to discover the flesh remained whole and the bones decently

clad. No blisters. No weeping underskin, only normal, everyday hands, though the

scars and enlarged knuckles remained. My hands, then, not some magical replacements.

I felt better. Sat up slowly, wincing at the protest in my abdomen, and wiggled

fingers and thumbs yet again, just to be sure. No pain. No stiffness. Normal flexibility, as if nothing had ever happened.

Scowling, I peered at the sword. "What in hoolies are you?"

In my mind was a word: jivatma. Oh, hoolies, bascha... what do I do now? What I

did was get up. Everything appeared to be in working order, if a trifle stiff.

Through wool I massaged the sore scar below my short ribs, then forgot it immediately; the cat was worth more attention. The cat--and the sword.

I went over to both. I'd stuck the cat pretty good: through his open mouth and

on through the back of his skull. He lay sprawled on his side, but the hilt, thrust into dirt, propped up his head so it was level with the ground.

Two sockets stared up at me. The eyes in them had melted.

For longer than I care to remember, I couldn't look away. Couldn't even move.

All I could do was stare, remembering the heat of the hilt. I'd begun to believe

it imagined; now I knew better.

Swords don't melt eyes. Nor do they singe whiskers or char lips into a rictus.

Swords slice, thrust, cut open; on occasion they will hack, if the swordsman has

no skill. But never do they melt things.

Something inside me whispered: Maybe jivatmas do.

I looked again at my hands. Still whole. Grimy and callused, but whole.

Only the cat had burned.

Well, parts of him. The parts the sword had touched.

Empty eyesockets were black. I realized there was no blood; the sword had swallowed it all.

Oh, hoolies, bascha, I've done what I swore I wouldn't.

In the distance, beasts bayed. Like a pack of hounds they belled. As they had for Boreal whenever Del had keyed.

And in answer, the stud snorted.

Stud--

I left the cat and the sword and went at once to the stud. He hadn't gone far,

just far enough to put distance between himself and the cat, and now he waited

quietly, sweat running down flanks and shoulders.

Sweat mixed with blood.

"Oh, hoolies," I said aloud, "he got you good didn't he?"

The stud nosed me as I came up to him. Grimly : peeled ragged dark mane off his

withers--down South we crop manes short; up North, they leave them long--and saw

the cat had dug in pretty deep across brown withers, though the saddle had helped protect the stud a little. I found teeth and claw marks, carving gouges

in his hide. There were more claw marks low on the stud's right shoulder from the cat's hind legs, and few others here and there. All in all, the stud was lucky; the cat had been distracted, by me or the sword I've seen half-grown sandtigers, in the Punja, take down larger horses much as this cat had done.

But

they finished the job more quickly by tearing open the jugular.

Then again, I--or the sword--hadn't given the cat the chance to finish the job

properly.

Something like fear pinched deep in my belly. But I ignored it with effort, purposefully turning my attention to the stud. "Well, old man," I consoled him,

"looks like we'll make a pair. You match my cheek, now--maybe I should name you

Snowcat. To go with the Sandtiger."

The stud snorted messily.

"Maybe not," I agreed.

The death-stink of the cat--and the smell of burned flesh--made the stud uneasy,

so I tied him to the nearest tree and unsaddled him there, taking weight off his

sore hide. I knew I'd do no more riding for a day or two, so I set up camp.

When a horse is the only thing between you and a long walk--or death--a man learns to value his mount, and the stud's health and safety came first. If it slowed us down, too bad; the hounds, I knew, would wait, and the South wasn't going anywhere. So I picked up the remaining bota of amnit. I didn't dare risk

infection; liquor leaches well enough.

I paused to pat the stud gently, and to check the strength of rope and knot.

"Easy, old man. I won't lie--this'll hurt. Just don't take it out on me."

I aimed carefully and squirted, hitting every stripe and bite I could see.

Ruthless, maybe, but sponging each wound gently would clean out only one, because the stud wouldn't let me near enough to do any more once he'd felt the

bite of the amnit. At least this way I got almost all of them at once.

Squealing, he bunched himself and kicked. A horse--especially a stallion--cutting loose with both hind hooves is a dangerous, deadly creature capable of murder. 'Prudently I moved another pace away, just to be sure, and grinned as he slewed an angry eye around to find me. Once found, he tried a scooping sideways kick with a single hind hoof, hoping to catch me on the sly.

When that one missed, he pawed testily, digging craters in the turf.

"You dig a hole, you stand in it," I told him. "I know you're mad--I'd be, too--but it's better than dying, you know. So just stand there like a quiet old

ladies' mare and think about what you'd be facing if didn't have this stuff."

I

paused, checking the contents. "Good waste of liquor, if you ask me. Might as well drink the rest."

The stud blinked a baleful eye.

I relented. "Tell you what, old son--I'll give you extra grain. That ought to make you feel better."

I dug into one of the pouches and pulled out a fistful of grain, moving within

striking range to offer it. But the stud wasn't hungry. He lipped listlessly at

the grain, spilling most of it between slack lips. He didn't even want sweetgrass, which was beginning to show signs of life now that most of the snow

was going.

Something pinched again inside my belly. "Better not sicken on me," I warned,

"after all that amnit wasted." While thinking instead of the sword.

But the stud made no answer.

It came swift and clear and sharp: If he up and dies on me--

No. I cut it off. No sense in borrowing grief.

The stud shifted restlessly, knocking stone against stone. I didn't want to leave him just yet, so I leaned against his tree and squirted amnit into my throat.

"You've just been out of the South too long, old man... like me. Just like me;

you're a sandtiger drug out of his desert, swallowing snow instead of sand.

Best

get yourself right back home before the cold stiffens all your joints."

Well, it already had stiffened some of mine. In the North, bones age faster.

In

the South, skin does.

Which means, I guess, I'm growing old inside and out.

Gack. What a thought.

I moved off the tree and rubbed a hand down the stud's backbone, smoothing coarse, thick hair. He quivered, expecting amnit; I soothed him with a few words.

Over his rump I stared at the cat with its alien steel tongue.

I recalled the emotions I'd felt. The need to quench the sword; how it had sung

its private song. How I, too easily seduced in my moment of fear for the stud,

had turned my back on self-made wards and let the song commence. Giving the blade its freedom.

For the stud.

Worth it? Maybe. For that moment. For that particular moment.

But what was I to do now? I didn't need it. I didn't want it. Not now. Not ever.

I'd tasted too much of its power. "Leave it," I said aloud. "You can get another

sword."

Well, so I could. Somewhere. Someday. Meanwhile, I needed a weapon. "Leave it,"

I repeated. Hoolies, I wish I could.

Three

A small, soft song. A private, intimate song. Powerful in its promise, weakened

by neglect.

Deep in sleep, I muttered.

A small, sad song; a trace of desire only hinted at, too shy to speak of need.

Memories of both.

The stud, stirring, woke me. I sat up, stared hard into darkness, oriented myself. Got up and went to the stud, who pawed listlessly at turf.

His head drooped, hanging heavily on the end of a slackened neck. He shifted from hoof to hoof. When I touched him, he barely took note.

I was, abruptly, afraid.

Singlestroke and this horse were all I'd ever had. And Singlestroke was gone.

A small, soft, seductive song, promising me companionship such as no one had ever known.