Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (49 page)

I thanked him, left him, went down to the lake in darkness to wash the blade free of blood.

And there Delilah found me.

"So," she said, "it's done."

Still I knelt by the water. "No. Not all of it. I have no intention of blooding

it. All I want is a sword."

"It's far more than that."

I dried the steel carefully with the cloth Kem had given me for my hand.

"Only

if I let it."

"Tiger--" Del knelt beside me, clenching hands against wool-clad knees. "You must understand what you've done... what manner of responsibility you've accepted. I know you don't intend to ever name this blade, or make it into a true jivatma, but you may have no choice. You may be forced--and the results could be disastrous."

I shook my head. "I'm going to use this sword in the circle here to prove my worthiness to be named kaidin. And then I will go home." I didn't look at her,

tending carefully to the drying. "South, Del, where I intend to sell this--or trade it--and get me a Southron sword."

After a taut moment of shock, Del shook her head. "The sword will never allow it."

"Oh, hoolies, Del--are you sandsick? This is a sword, not a person! Not something that dictates my life!" I turned on my heel, still kneeling, and looked at her in frustration and exasperation. "It's a piece of steel, no more."

My protests made no dent in her wall of superstitions. "You should know it's unlikely you will reach the South without having blooded this blade. And if that's so, you may have no choice in the instrument of its naming--Tiger, don't

you see? We are taught to choose an enemy carefully, because the blade, once blooded, assumes the characteristics and attributes of that enemy."

"Then how in hoolies does everyone manage to blood their swords in the proper enemies?" I demanded. "What happens if they kill the wrong person? What if they

kill an unskilled laborer? Wouldn't it weaken the sword?" I shook my head.

"All

this superstitious nonsense... what keeps an enemy, knowing about these magical

swords, from sending out a halfwit to throw himself on the sword, thereby rendering it nearly useless?"

Del's jaw was tight. "When a newly-made kaidin goes out on his blooding journey,

a sponsor goes with him. If there is killing to be done, he takes care of it.

Until the new sword is blooded."

Well, it did make sense. And took all the angry bluster right out of me. I rose,

stroked the cloth across the blade once again, felt the fabric separate neatly

against the edge. Like silk. Like water. Like flesh.

"Of course, you didn't need a sponsor. You'd already blooded your sword." I looked at her. "And you keyed it as well; how else would you get his power?

How

else would you gain his skills?"

White-faced, Del thrust herself up from the ground.

"Listen to me, Tiger... if you go out there tomorrow and kill a squirrel, that

is a true blooding, and your sword will take on whatever habits that squirrel possesses. Do you see?" Her expression was earnest and intent. "What kind of a

legend would the Sandtiger be if he took a squirrel into his sword?"

I don't know why it struck me so funny, but it did. I started laughing, and I couldn't stop. It echoed out over the water.

Del spat out a concise comment in uplander, probably something to do with disrespect, noise and idiocy, but by then I didn't care. I just laughed, nodded,

turned back toward the lodges.

"You thrice-cursed son of a Salset goat!" she cried. "Can't you see I'm trying

to help you?"

I swung back and stood very still. All the laughter was banished. "If that were

true," I told her, "you'd come with me now. Tonight. You'd leave this place behind."

Her posture was awkwardly tense, lacking characteristic grace. "I have given you

my reasons again and again. It is your choice to disagree. But it is my choice

to make. No one can make it for me, unless he wears my boots. And you decidedly

don't; maybe you never will."

It was, I knew, a jab at my profound lack of interest in fatherhood. Well, I'd

give it to her; I wasn't wearing her boots.

"You know," I said lightly, "I wonder if anyone has asked Kalle what she thinks

of this."

The moonlight was harsh on the marks of tension graven into Del's face.

"Kalle

is five years old."

I shrugged. "I remember when I was five. Very clearly; what about you?"

Del didn't answer. Del swung around and departed.

I looked after her into the darkness. "Ask her sometime," I said.

But nothing answered me.

I walked back alone to Telek's lodge, having introduced myself to my sword.

There was nothing of ritual or magic about it, being little more than some time

spent learning the steel. I'd found it ridiculously easy to do so, almost too easy; the sword was clearly mine. And clearly, it knew it, too.

My harness was in the lodge, in the compartment I shared with Del. I intended to

go in, sheathe it, then go to sleep. But voices distracted me. I paused before

the door, heard men talking quietly in the trees directly to the right of the wooden lodge.

It wasn't my business. I might have ignored it. But the voices belonged to Telek

and Stigand, and my name was in their mouths.

Silently I moved into the trees, hiding myself in shadow. I couldn't see them,

but I didn't need to; all I wanted was to hear them.

Telek's tone was strained. "--wins the dance, he'll go. And he'll take Del with

him. It's easiest this way."

Stigand was obdurate. There was nothing old about the way he sounded. "He killed

Theron. Dishonor enough, don't you think? Shall we allow him to heap more on us?"

"But a dance to the death serves nothing. If he loses, our cause is lost, because he can't take her with him, and she stays."

Stigand made a sound of derision. "Are you a fool? Are you blind? If he loses,

he dies... Theron's death is therefore avenged, and the an-ishtoya loses her bargaining stone. There is nothing left with which to buy her year. The voca will exile her immediately." The tone was thick with satisfaction. "It's already

been decided, Telek, as of this morning. The dance will be to the death."

So, Theron's death did rankle. There would be no simple exhibition in the circle, no clearcut pitting of Southron against Northern to see if I was worthy

of elevation. No, nothing so simple as that. It was to be vengeance after all,

and a chance to send Del away in dishonor, a blade without a name.

And a mother without a child.

I gripped the newborn sword. I felt its warmth, its strength; felt the promise

of power unkeyed, untapped, straining to break free. Wild magic, indeed; it needed harnessing. Demanded a proper song.

And suddenly I was frightened, because I knew what I could do. It would be the

ultimate victory. The ultimate revenge.

Del had done it once. Why not do it again? He was not my an-kaidin, but most distinctly an enemy. If not precisely honored.

Something deep inside told me it was an ironic sort of justice.

I smiled down at the sword. Thinking: Telek will be shocked.

And so will the old man.

Forty-three

I basin-bathed in icy water, then put on the clothing borrowed, ironically, from

Telek: blue-black tunic and trews, silver-tipped fur gaiters, silver-bossed bracers and belt. All I left off was cloak and brooches, putting them aside for

later. After the dance was won.

I buckled on my harness with its weight of Northern steel. Before, with Singlestroke, I'd worn the straps and sheath without even thinking, because it

was second nature. Then, once I'd been left with broken steel, I'd carried Theron's dead jivatma because I needed a sword, chafing at the need.

But now the weight was different. Much less, because, oddly, it felt a part of

me. And much more, because I knew the truth of the sword; that--blooded, keyed,

invoked--it could prove--would prove--the most devastating weapon a man could hope to own.

Or hope not to own.

Skepticism is healthy. It keeps you from growing vulnerable to words of manipulation. Disbelief, in its place, is also occasionally healthy, because the

proper amount keeps you honest. But when I put my hands on the twisted-silk hilt

and felt the growing impatience in the sword, the power and strength and life suppressed only by my denial, I knew there was no more room for disbelief.

It's difficult admitting you're wrong. Even more difficult admitting it when you

have scoffed and otherwise ridiculed the truth with blind, unremitting determination, so blithely confident of your own infallibility. But then one day--or one night--the truth is put into your hands, and you realize those stories and songs and legends told by Northern strangers are truths after all,

and that no one has lied to you.

Not even the Northern bascha, who has lied about so many things for so many different reasons.

No. Not so many. Two.

One: fear of execution; facing such a verdict from such men as Staal-Ysta's unpredictable--and bloodthirsty--voca, I too would have used whatever was at hand--even, I thought, Del.

Maybe.

Maybe?

Hoolies, I don't know.

And two: fear of losing Kalle; fear which was, perhaps, misplaced, since she'd

voluntarily 'lost' Kalle long ago, but maybe not, because the very existence of

the child now promised endless possibilities.

The possibilities that now drove Telek to dance to the death with me; that, and

his father's desire for vengeance.

My hands lingered on harness straps, fingertips caressing the supple leather.

Telek came quietly to stand beside me.

"It's time," he said softly.

I turned. Looked directly into his eyes. They gave nothing away. I hoped mine didn't, either.

"Tiger." At the end of the post-lined corridor, by the door, waited Del.

Black-clad, braid-wrapped Delilah, wearing a deadly jivatma.

Deadlier than mine, since the soul--the pure power--in my sword was as yet untapped by blood and song.

But for how long?

It is intoxicating: power. In and of itself, but also the knowledge that it lies

so closely to hand.

All it requires is death, blood, a song.

Hoolies, I want to go home. Back where I belong; where I understand how things

work, things without much magic other than simple tricks and sleight of hand; back where swords are swords, clean and bright and deadly, with no recourse to

such power as Boreal, who summons, at Del's whim, all the terrible, awesome strength of a Northern banshee-storm.

I'm a Southroner. What do I want with banshee-storms?

What do I want with this dance?

A chance to go home again. A chance to be warm again.

And now a new and frightening desire: A chance to blood my sword. I walked out

with Del. It seemed a fitting thing.

Stigand himself drew the circle in the turf, cutting through winter-brown grass

to hard dark soil beneath. It was in the very center of the oblong field where

Del had faced the voca before, surrounded by the lodges, where all the others had gathered to watch: men, women, children; some warriors, some not, but all witnesses. Just as they gathered now.

The old man finished. Nodded. Gestured for me to put my sword in the very center

of the circle.

I stripped out of harness and unsheathed the new-made sword. In morning light it

was momentarily bright white, unblemished, free of runes that marked it named and blooded. But the blinding light faded. There was no color to it other than

that of newborn steel.

Shortly, there would be blood. And, maybe, runes?

I discarded the harness. Walked silently to the center, put down the unnamed sword, turned and walked away. To stand just outside the circle.

Stigand nodded briefly, then pitched his voice to carry. "We have before us the

Sandtiger, Southron sword-dancer, who has been pledged to live in Staal-Ysta a

year. But he contests this pledge, claiming he knew nothing of it and therefore

is not bound by it. His claim has some merit." The faded eyes looked at me, showing me nothing but neutrality. "The an-ishtoya, known as Del, pledged the Sandtiger in order to delay for one year her permanent exile for the murder of

her an-kaidin. In good faith, the voca accepted that pledge. But now the validity is called into question and must be settled in the circle."

I looked at Telek, standing with the other members of the voca. His sword peeped

over his shoulder.

Stigand went on. "It's the decision of the voca that a champion shall be named

to dance against the Sandtiger. It's the decision of the voca that this dance shall decide the following: that should the Sandtiger win, he will be elevated

to the rank of kaidin and may leave at any time. But should the champion win, the Sandtiger agrees to abide by the original decision and remain here for one

year."

At this moment, Telek expected me to be very calm, too relaxed, not anticipating

the truth. Undoubtedly he intended to come at me instantly, hoping to catch me

off-guard, so he could kill me easily.

No, I don't think so.

Stigand droned on again. "This champion shall represent the best we have to offer: strong, proud, determined, dedicated to upholding the honor and customs

of Staal-Ysta even against a sword-dancer as devastating as the Sandtiger."

That was for my benefit; I didn't bother to smile.

"This champion shall, if need be, die in ritual combat to uphold the honor of our ancestors and the gods."

Telek's smile was wry as he listened to the pompous statement. I wondered idly:

Are gods impressed with such?

"This champion shall present herself before us: the an-ishtoya known as Del."