Not this time, you bitch.
I smashed the blade down with a forearm, stepped into her, tossed her over the edge, caught the sword as it flew from her grasp.
About damn time I had one of these suckers in my hands again.
TWENTY-FOUR
They came for me, of course, the members of Prima’s crew. But I was ready for them. I waited at the head of the plank where it was lashed to the ship. It was steadier here, not so vulnerable to the motion of the ocean or the weight of men upon the wood. I’d chosen my ground, and now I stood it.
It felt gloriously invigorating to hold a sword in my hands again. "Come on," I invited, laughing for the sheer joy of empowerment and the promise of engagement. "Come ahead."
They did.
Maybe some day they’ll write about it, how a lone man took on seven others. The advantage, it might be argued, was theirs; they knew the ship, knew one another, understood better the mechanics of planks between ships and docks. But they were none of them sword-dancers, none of them trained by the shodo of Alimat, none of them born to the sword.
I hope they do write about it, because from inside the engagement I couldn’t see what happened. I knew only that I took them on one at a time, trapping guards, smashing blades, cutting into flesh that wandered too near my sword. It was Prima Rhannet’s blade and thus the balance, for me, was decidedly off, but that’s purely technical; the weapon was more than adequate to the purpose, to my needs of the moment.
By the time I’d disarmed three of them, the others drew back to reconsider options.
I laughed at them, still poised at the brink. "Come on!" I exulted, inexpressibly relieved to be rid of the prickle of apprehension engendered by our presence at Akritara, and focus strictly on the physical fight. I’d needed this. "I’m one man, right? I can’t swim, this isn’t my sword, I’m not really in proper condition — what’s stopping you? Come ahead!"
It was enough to lure one of them in. Three of his crewmates bled upon the deck, though none of them would die of it. Within a matter of moments he had joined them, nursing a wounded wrist. His sword, like the others, had been slung by my own over the rail into the water.
"It’s only me." I was grinning like a sandsick fool. "Of course, this is what I do for a living… in fact, what I’ve been doing for a living for nearly twenty years. Probably I’m a little better at it than you. Maybe. You think?" I gestured expansively. "Why not find out? Three against one? Surely that’s enough to take me. Isn’t it?" I waggled fingers, inviting them closer. "You’re all strong men… you’re enough, aren’t you? Dreaded renegadas, cutting throats with the best — or worst — of ’em. What’s to stop you? What’s to keep you from taking me?" Another came in, came close. "There, now, that’s better!"
The remaining two fanned out, approached obliquely from the sides. I had hoped to entice them to rush me. Three against one can be a little tricky, but I did have the advantage. They could undoubtedly sail a ship far better than I, but there are not many, if any, better with a sword.
We danced. Oh, it wasn’t a proper dance; there was no circle, no ritual, no comprehension of the beauty of the patterns, the movements, but the intent was the same: to defeat the opponent. In this case they had one and I had three, but the desired end was identical.
They came on. I took them one at a time, cutting, nicking, piercing, slashing, driving each of them back. They stumbled over themselves, one another, over their brethren already sprawled on the deck, discovering that a man born to the sword understands it implicitly, how it demands to be employed. A sword is not just a weapon, not just a means of killing a man, but has a soul and needs of its own. It isn’t made to be looked at, nor to be used by incompetents. A sword is dead in the hands of an inferior wielder, it will hurt him as often as it will aid. But it comes alive in the hands of a man who understands it, who shares its desires.
I felt the plank thump and tremble beneath my feet. I’d expected it for a while; Nihko and his captain had had more than enough time to pull themselves from the water. So I completed my chore with alacrity, adding three more bleeding men to the pile upon the deck even as I disposed of their swords, and spun, poised and ready. Prima Rhannet stopped short, lurched backward out of range. She stood there, furious, two long paces away.
"He will kill her," she promised.
I looked beyond her, as she intended. Nihkolara stood on the dock at the end of the plank. His left hand rested on the back of Del’s neck. Pretty much as I’d expected; I’d known I could take the crew — well, believed I could — but was not foolish enough to assume victory would be all-encompassing. Not when Del was at risk. But it takes small things as well as large to win, outside the circle as much as within.
Del’s clothing, soaked and dripping, was wrapped closely around her body, more like shroud than tunic. Fair hair, now unbraided, was slicked severely back from her face, baring the bones of her skull, the bitter acknowledgment that she was surety of my behavior once again. I thought of what his touch had done to me: set a weeping rash around my wrist, burned the flesh of my throat, stopped the heart in my chest. Thought of what else — and to whom — that touch might do.
I grounded the swordtip in the wood of the plank. "All I wanted," I told Prima truthfully, "was an explanation."
Sopping hair, stripped of coils and curls and darkened to the color of old blood, streamed over her shoulders. The thin fabric of her clothing, plastered against flesh, underscored how lush her compact body was. "About what?"
"loSkandi, ioSkandic," I said. "What it is, what it means — and why the touch of his hand upon a person can do things to him." Or to her.
Prima’s lips peeled back from her teeth. With great disdain, she said, "Have you never heard of magic?"
I arched brows. "Your implication being that Nihko has it."
"Nihko is it," she hissed between clamped jaws.
"I thought Nihko is — or was — a priest."
"loSkandic," she said. "Priests. Mages."
"Both?"
Prima Rhannet laughed. "He’ll pray for you," she promised, "even as he kills you."
"How economical. Priest and mage for the price of one." Smiling, I tossed the blade aside before she could demand its return; steel flashed on its way to the water. As expected, the action enraged her. "Now, captain. Suppose you and I discuss how it is we can all of us get new swords."
Back aboard a ship I’d hoped never to see again, let alone revisit, Prima and her first mate were coldly angry that I had accomplished so much in so little time, even if they’d regained the upper hand eventually. I’d cost them the pride and self-confidence of their crew, which had survived the encounter even if the decks were now stained with their blood; had cost them every blade they had on board; and had proven the only way they could truly defeat me was to use coercion or magic. Not a pleasant realization or prospect for people who believed they were naturally superior at everything.
I leaned against the rail, arms folded, more relaxed than I’d been in weeks. There are people in the world who want to win at any cost, who will use any means to win. But Prima Rhannet and Nihkolara were not so ruthless as they might prefer me to believe. She’d said more than once they only killed people if there were no other way. Now I knew, and they knew, and they knew I knew that they knew I was not so easily dealt with as they’d believed — and that unless they truly did mean to kill me they’d better not dismiss me quite so easily.
Prima scowled at me as she paced the deck. She was damp, but drying, and her wiry hair, wind-tossed, had begun to curl again.
"So," I said cheerfully, "what comes next?"
She stopped pacing. "You go back to Akritara."
"Won’t you even consider giving us passage elsewhere?"
"I will not."
"Why not?"
"Business," she said coolly, "with the metri."
"Still?"
"Still."
I swore briefly, which amused Prima and her first mate.
; "Back," the captain said, "to Akritara."
I feigned shock. "May we do that? After all, we walked all the way down here —"
Nihkolara made a sound of disgust. "And after what you were told about soiling, and cleansing —"
"And having no coin, I attempted to barter with that ring you’ve got in your hand," I continued with blithe disregard for his comment. "But no one would permit us to go near them, let alone take us down on molah-back, or wash our feet at the bottom."
Nihko inhaled a long, hissing breath of intense displeasure.
"Fool," his captain said coldly. "You may have ruined everything."
"How is that, exactly?" I inquired. "Just what is it you and the priest-mage are after?"
"Swords," she said sharply. "Thanks to you."
"Ah. Well, then, speaking of swords —"
Prima cut me off. "The metri has sent to say she will hire me to supply a sword to you, and to her." The direction of her eyes flicked to Del. "But this will cost the metri far more, now, than before, because she must make good our losses — due to your folly — and you will then owe her even more of your time." Her blazing smile was unexpected and maliciously sweet. "Is that what you hoped for?"
Cheerfulness dissipated. I glared.
It pleased her; her mood shifted to crisp competence tinged with victory. "You will be escorted back to Akritara, where the metri will be told of your behavior. Punishment lies within her purview —"
"Wait," I interrupted sharply. "Punishment is not part of the plan."
"What is the plan?" Prima asked with poisonous clarity. "Have you one? Or are you hoping merely to take advantage of a dying old woman who so desperately wants a proper heir?"
"You’re the ones who took advantage of us!" I shot back.
"Yes," the captain agreed with elaborate precision. "We are pirates. That is what we do."
When I could not immediately come up with a properly devastating retort, Prima turned away. To Nihko, she said, "Is he soiled beyond redemption?"
He looked at Del briefly, then at me. For a long time. "No," he said finally. "But it will prove costly to have him cleansed appropriately so he may walk among the Houses again. The metri will not be pleased."
"Will the priests do it?"
He shrugged. "She is the Stessa metri, and they will accept her petition —"
"And coin?" I inquired sweetly.
"— with the proper rituals invoked and completed." Nihko’s gaze flicked to me. "Provided he does no more damage to her Name and House than has already been done."
"Look," I said, "I’m getting pretty tired of —" And was slammed to my knees, though no one touched me.
"Enough," Nihkolara hissed, so stiff he trembled with it. "If you will not hold your silence when it serves us, I will seal your mouth permanently."
My knees, mashed against hard wood, were most unhappy. But I didn’t have the time or inclination to listen to their complaints. I cleared my throat experimentally, making sure nothing had been permanently sealed quite yet. "You can do that, huh?"
"What I can do," he said, "you cannot begin to comprehend."
"That’s encouraging."
He flipped something at me. Wary now of what he next planned, I ducked, squeezing my eyes closed. Whatever it was struck my forehead, bounced off, rolled briefly against the deck. I opened my eyes and saw it then, clearly: the discarded brow ring, glinting in sunlight.
"Priests in general have a facility for mercy," Nihko observed coolly. "But be wary of mine."
"You know," I said conversationally, "I’m right here with you, and I don’t feel sick at all."
"That may be remedied," he suggested. "Shall I have you spew your guts here and now?"
"Magic," Del said intently, and put up a hand to forestall question or comment. "Magic, Tiger. It has always affected you."
I arched brows. "Magic affects a lot of people. That’s sort of the point."
"No. I mean how it affects you, much of it. You have said many times it makes you feel odd, as if your bones itch." She paused delicately. "And we know how it affects your belly."
I scowled at her briefly, then shrugged. "I notice it, one way or another."
"It means nothing," Nihko said lightly.
Del looked at him. "No?"
"Magic simply is," he declared. "Some people are sensitive to its existence."
"How is that?" I asked.
"The way some are made ill by certain foods," he explained matter-of-factly. "Or those poor souls who cannot ride the ocean without emptying their bellies."
"Or keep cats," Prima Rhannet contributed with an ingenuous glance at Del; her expression suggested a subtext I decided not to pursue.
"It’s different with Tiger," Del said. "Magic puts him seriously out of sorts. As if it argues with him."
Nihko shook his head. "There is no significance in that."
"Indeed," the captain said, "no more than in a man claiming a woman is out of sorts once a month because she is a woman."
I knew better than to get into that. "And I’m supposed to believe you?"
"I am a priest-mage," Nihkolara said with devastating modesty. "I have a measure of experience with such things."
"And we have a measure of experience with you," I pointed out. "Why should we believe anything you say?"
"Because of the alternative," Prima replied.
"What, you’ll kill us?"
"No," she said seriously, "because in Skandi, being a priest-mage means you are mad —"
I gaped inelegantly. "What — ?"
"— and madness is not tolerated in Skandi." Her gaze was steady; she avoided looking at her first mate. "Such people are too feared to be killed outright, so they are sent away. Just as Nihko was."
"And here I thought he got in trouble over bedding the wrong woman." Nihko was not amused by my amusement at his expense. "Sent away where?" I asked, enjoying his expression.
"loSkandi," the first mate answered with a vast contempt for ignorance.
"loSkandi is a lazaret," Prima Rhannet explained gently to my incomprehension, as if taking pity on a child. "It’s where madmen are sent to live until they cease to do so."
I looked at Nihko. "For someone who’s supposed to be mad or dead, you’re very calm about all of this."
Del spoke before he could answer. "Why?" she asked him intently. "Why didn’t you die?"
Nihkolara said only: "I am ikepra."
"I thought you said that meant you were abomination," I put in sharply. "Profanation."
"Those with power are known to be so because they go mad," he said, "and are sent to ioSkandi. There they survive to purposely rouse the power, if it may be done, so they may control it for the needs of their own salvation; if they cannot, they die of it. Those who survive learn what the true nature of magic is, and how to cohabit with it."
"And?"
"Those who reject it, those who leave ioSkandi and the priest brothers, are abominations."
"Yet you left."
"And thus I am adjudged apostate by my priest-brothers, the mages. As I am adjudged io — mad — by the people of the island."
"And feared even more because you are not in your proper place." Del nodded. "You do not fit. You live outside, without rules, without rituals." She glanced at me briefly, using the Southron word. "Borjuni."
He shrugged. "Ikepra."
But borjuni were simply men without morals. None of them had any magic, any priestly trappings. In Skandi, where eleven specific families were considered gods-descended, what Nihko represented as a member of one of those families — as madman, priest-mage, and ikepra — was far more fearsome than mere Southron bandits.
I understood now the intent of the warding gestures, the whispered comments, the rejection and outright abhorrence of the concept of the brow ring as barter. And yet the solution seemed obvious. "You could leave, you know. Avoid all kinds of unpleasantness."
Nihkolara hitched a shoulder. "And so I do leave. Every time my capta
in’s ship sails."
"But you come back. I meant leave permanently," I clarified. "Only a fool would remain."
"A fool." Nihko smiled. "Or a madman."
I shook my head. "So, you’d have us believe you still have this power, even though you’re exiled from the brotherhood." Even as I was exiled from the oaths and rituals of the sword-dance.
"He has power," Prima said sharply. "You have experienced it. Exile need not strip one of one’s gift."
Any more than being denied the circle stripped me of my gift.
"But he rejected it," I maintained, which was entirely different; I’d never reject my sword-skill. Then I looked piercingly at Nihko. "Or did it reject you?"
Something flared briefly in his eyes, some deep and abiding emotion so complex I could not begin to define the elements that comprised it.
"Tell him," Del commanded the first mate, as if she had acquired the pieces of an invisible puzzle and put them together even as we stood here. "You have used this magic on him more than once, and have provided him the means to control his sensitivity to it when in your presence." She nodded at the brow ring glinting on the deck. "If you are — or were — a priest in service to the gods, whatever gods they may be, it is your duty to inform those who are at risk what it is they risk."
Prima Rhannet inhaled a quiet, but hissing breath. "You see too much."
"Well, I’m blind," I said curtly. "Why not explain it to me?"
Nihkolara did. "The power, once understood, once acknowledged, once invoked, will never reject its vessel. But that vessel may reject it."
"And?"
"Tie a string around your finger as tightly as you may, and leave it so," he said, "without respite. What is the result?"
Del said, "It withers."
Prima said, "It dies."
I looked at Nihko. "And you’re not dead."
"Nor ever will be," he agreed, "until such a time as the gods decree I have lived out my allotment."
"So, if I broke your neck even as we stand here, you wouldn’t die?"
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