Sword Singer-Sword Dancer 2 (8 page)

caught up to me that day, and you've been with me ever since."

"And I suppose you're sorry."

She slanted me an eloquent sidelong glance, examining me at great length.

"Have

you ever given me reason to be sorry?"

I scratched ferociously at an itching armpit and tried to recapture a belch.

"Not me, bascha. You need me."

Del did not answer, which I took to be answer enough. The woman can be tricky,

but not incomprehensible.

"Here," she said. "The inn."

"Watch the step," I warned.

Del said nothing. She just went inside and let the curtain slap me in the face.

Again.

Later, much later, I snapped out of sleep into wakefulness, fully alert, as Del

slipped out of bed. Sword-dancers who desire to stay alive in the midst of enemies learn very quickly how to snatch sleep whenever possible; how also to wake with alacrity, with nothing lost in the transition.

I thought, at first, she meant to relieve herself in the nightpot left for that

purpose. But instead she retrieved her sword from the floor next to mine, unsheathed it, took two steps to the middle of the room. And there she knelt down, naked, with pale hair atumble around her breasts and the sword blade pressed between them.

There was no lamp, but the crescent moon slanted dim illumination through lath-slatted windows. The woman knelt on the floor, wrapped in shadows and silver moonlight. And I heard her begin to sing.

It was such a little song. Barely more than a whisper of sound, threaded through

with a hiss of withheld volume. She meant not to waken me, then, although Del knew my sleeping habits, now, as well as her own.

I have a tin ear. To me, music is little more than noise; loud, soft, pitched high or low. I have heard her sing before, preparing to enter the circle, but it

had meant nothing to me. Just--noise. Some personal petition to her gods or to

her sword. Lifesong, deathsong; one and the same, to me. Little more than a Northern idiosyncracy. Theron had done it also.

But still Del sang, and the sword came alive in her hands.

At first, I did not believe it. Moonlight is often fickle; clouds, I thought, moving across the crescent to alter the intensity of its light. But if anything,

the moon paid homage to the sword. Its light was clearly diluted by the luminance of the blade.

It started at the tip. First, the merest speck of light. A spark, steadfast and

unflagging, welling like a drop of blood on a thorn-pricked fingertip. It pulsed, as if it lived, as if it breathed. And then it crept ever upward, finger

by finger, bead by bead, slowly, like a necklet of Punja crystals. Frowning, I

watched one become some become many, until the double-edged blade was ablaze with light, sparks joining to form a whole.

Pulsing. Bright--brighter--brilliant... then dimming nearly to absence, until it

renewed itself.

Del sang on, and the blade burst into flame.

"Hoolies, Del--" I was upright, awkward in my haste, meaning to knock the sword

from her hands and succeeding only in nearly falling flat on my face. Tangled in

bedclothes (and fuddled by too much aqivi), I staggered; in the flames, her face

was stark.

I fully expected to see her hair catch fire, but it did not. Neither did the flames touch her flesh. They clung to the blade, infatuated with double edges,

flirting coyly with the runes. And then died, snuffed out, as her song wavered;

her eyes were fixed on the runes.

I reached out, but something in her face kept me from touching the sword. I knew

I could, with impunity, because knowing the jivatma's name allowed me some degree of familiarity: an ability to touch a portion of the power that Del knew

in full measure. Once, in ignorance, before I had known the name, I grasped the

silvered hilt with its everchanging shapes and lost layers of skin off my palm.

I had been ice-marked for weeks. Now, the brand was gone but not the feelings it

had engendered.

Because of them, and Del's eyes, I forbore to touch the sword.

The last of the sparks winked out. The pulsing was vanquished by moonlight.

The

sword was a sword again, with nothing of magic divulged.

I drew in a breath and wet my lips. "I've never seen it do that before."

"I took care to make sure you did not." The blade, quiescent, was obscured by the twin falls of pale hair, hanging over her shoulders.

I sighed, aware that too much aqivi had dulled my senses. The first startled response had faded, leaving me tasting the sourness of reaction and sensing the

first twinges of a headache. "What in hoolies were you doing?"

"Asking advice." Del rose, took the sheath I retrieved for her, slid Boreal home. "I am--twisted."

"Twisted?" I raised brows. Her limbs were straight as ever.

She frowned, shrugging one shoulder. "Twisted... bound up... divided--" She stopped, sensing her words altered intended meaning. Though she speaks Southron

well, if curiously accented, there are times our decidedly diverse heritage makes communication difficult, if not downright impossible.

"Mixed-up," I translated. "Confused."

"Confused," she echoed. "Yes." She put the sheathed sword back on the floor next

to mine, so close to the bed, then climbed onto the cot and dragged the bedclothes around her shoulders. "What am I to do?"

It is not often Del offers me the chance to even suggest what she might do.

But

an outright question underscored the magnitude of the confusion she now admitted.

I sat down on the edge of the cot. "Has this anything to do with the man you killed tonight?" I looked at the moon. "Last night?"

Del sighed. Her expression was pensive. "Nothing and everything, and all at once."

"He was one of the raiders--"

"Oh, yes. I recall him. I recall them all." She shook her head in negligent dismissal. "At first I thought not, because I could not believe it... but I could not forget their faces if I wished to... too often I see them in my sleep."

"Yes, well, even dogs dream."

A poor attempt at offhanded empathy; she didn't even smile. "I don't wish, Tiger. I wish never to forget them, until the blood-debt is collected."

"Even then, you may not forget them."

One slender arm departed the protection of the bedclothes. She smoothed folds rucked up over knees doubled beneath her chin. After a moment, in an oddly vulnerable appeal, she touched my shoulder, found an old scar, traced it.

Over

and over.

"It felt good to kill him," she said.

Her tone belied the words. "But not good enough."

The fingers halted a moment, then resumed their idle movement. "I am sworn."

"I know. To many things, bascha... and that is why you're twisted." I caught her

hand and stilled it. "What did you ask the sword?"

"Which risk I should assume."

I frowned. "What risk?"

Del hooked her hair behind her left ear. "If I put myself on Ajani's trail, the

searching may take weeks. Months. Even years." Her mouth twisted. "Longer than

the time I have left before my sentence is levied."

"And yet if you go North to face the judgment of your peers and teachers, you may lose Ajani's trail." I nodded. "Not an easy choice."

"Oh, it is. Too easy." She took her hand away and reached both up behind her neck. Unclasped something. Held it out into the moonlight. A string of lumpy amber, red-brown in the slanted light. "I made this," she said quietly. "Ten years ago, I made this, as a birth-gift for my mother."

I recalled how she had taken something from the neck of the Southroner she had

killed. How she had knotted it up in one fist without saying a word about it.

"Risk," I said quietly. "Hunt Ajani--yesterday, today, tomorrow--while others are hunting you."

Her hand shut away the necklet. "I owe my an-kaidin so much."

"And so you asked him his advice." I heard her song again, in the confines of my

head; saw again the flaming sword. "What did he say, bascha?"

"Nothing," Delilah whispered at last, and a tear ran down her cheek.

We have been companions. Swordmates. Bedmates. But in many things we are strangers to one another, afraid to trespass where emotions may not be wanted.

Having been locked so long in service to oneself, each of us, it is difficult to

turn the key and unlock ourselves, saying the things we desire to say, to share

the things that should be shared. And so the Northern woman and the Southron man, born of violence, shaped by an angry determination to overcome those who had beaten us, had learned to say nothing of fears, knowing the admission might

make those fears come true.

Del crying was enough to clear my head of aqivi befuddlement for good. And to know myself plunged into a divisive confusion; did I offer comfort? Or did I retreat to give her the privacy she demanded from me so often?

Hoolies, how did other men deal with this?

Well... women had cried in front of me before. But they were Southron women, with completely different outlooks and intentions. I had learned to take tears

as a warning sign of an involvement no longer beneficial to my lifestyle.

But this was Del. This was a woman who demanded equality, requiring and desiring

no particular favors or consideration because of her sex.

At least she didn't sob. Neither did she hastily wipe away the tears as another

woman might--and had; a woman apparently afraid I might discover that somehow,

beneath all the mess, she had become another person entirely, and not worthy of

my interest.

Del just--cried. Silently. Without fuss. She simply sat and let the tears run down her face.

Oh, hoolies... why me?

Well, there was one thing...

She stirred as I touched her, showing her the best way I knew how that, regardless of her circumstances--and tears--I still wanted her. But, apparently,

it wasn't what she wanted.

"Not now," she said crossly, shifting away.

"I just thought--"

"I know what you thought." Her face was wet, but no more tears wound their way

down her cheeks. Instead, she scowled at me. That expression I understood well

enough. "That isn't always the answer, Tiger... though it may be hard for you--or any other man--to understand."

I'll give her this much, she knows how and where to hit. And my pride, as always, smarted. My sense of helplessness increased in direct proportion to the

sudden shrinkage of desire.

"Hoolies, Del, what do you want from me? I try to help you out--"

"Help me? Help yourself, you mean." She got up, ripping the thin blanket from the bed to wind around her body; paced to the lath-slatted window and glared out.

I was left with no blanket and very little patience. I plumped the single lumpy

pillow across my lap, glad of some coverage, and did my own share of glaring.

"What in hoolies is a man supposed to do, Del? Guess? Especially with you.

You're so prickly, I never know when you plan to stick me."

"I never plan it," she said. "It just happens. You ask for it, sometimes."

"Like now?" I nodded. "Fine. Next time I'll leave you alone."

She sighed heavily. "Sometimes a woman just wants to be held."

"And sometimes a man is more than willing just to hold," I threw back, "but you've got to give him some sort of clue."

She said nothing.

"Especially you," I pointed out. "I never know if I'm in bed with the sword-dancer or the woman. Good as you are in the circle, Del, you're more male

than female. I know it has to be that way, and I know why. But in bed I want you, not the an-ishtoya."

She closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them she was dry-eyed, but curiously wounded. "You've had more of me than any other man," she said softly, "except for Ajani."

I could not look away. After a moment I rose, tossed aside the pillow, crossed

the room to the woman. Remembered that the self-possessed an-ishtoya, the deadly

Northern sword-dancer, had had her girlhood stolen from her.

And so I held her, only held her, and it was enough for us both.

Six

Sand gave way to dirt, scrub grass to thick-meshed turf, creosote to spearlike

trees and spreading shrubs I couldn't name. Even the smell altered; I sniffed,

disliking it, tasting it on my tongue, and realized it came from the trees. A pungent, clinging odor, not so different from huva weed, though lacking the same

results.

The land itself changed also. The scattered hills of Harquhal merged here to form a family, touching hands and heads and shoulders. And promising more to come; in the distance I could see mountains rearing skyward out of the earth.

We beat our way northward, following the Traders' Road out of Harquhal. With each stride the stud took me farther away from the South, farther from what I knew, thrusting me into a foreign land like a sword through a man's belly. I didn't much like the picture, but I didn't say so to Del.

Well, I doubt she would have paid much attention anyway. She was locked up in silence, unusually quiet even for her. And yet I sensed expectancy, an anticipation that had nothing to do with fear or trepidation, or the discomfort

I was feeling. Del was locked away, but not because she retreated. Because what

she felt was intensely private: Delilah was coming home.

I knew it at once, though she herself said nothing. It was a change in posture.

A subtle straightening of backbone, a squaring of the shoulders, a lifting of the chin. And a slow, glorious smile that set her face alight.

It was a remarkable transformation, but it only made me surly.

Del stopped her speckledy gelding by a small stone cairn. She swung a leg over

and slid off, burnous tangling briefly on the stirrup. She jerked it free absently and walked away from the horse, ignoring him as he tried to follow.