I grinned into moonlight.
I’m coming, bascha.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Wearing Nihko’s dreadfully red tunic and baggy trousers — and a necklet of seven sandtiger claws newly strung on leather — I hiked through waves, wet sand, dry sand, and vegetation. My head itched abominably, but I had hair again. About half the length of an eyelash.
And here I’d been complaining about needing to cut it only a matter of weeks before.
The metri’s ship lay anchored behind me. The lookout had spotted a blue-sailed ship two hours before and the captain laid in a course to follow it. Prima Rhannet’s vessel now was anchored on the other side of the island, near the only fresh water available; as I did not want to risk the metri’s ship being taken by renegadas — not because it was hers, but because we needed it — I requested the captain to stay clear. And anyway, this was for me to do.
Although I had an idea what Del was trying to do.
I grinned. Shook my head. "Never work, bascha. You and the stud have worked too hard at cultivating a mutual dislike."
Of course when I finally broke through the vegetation and found them near the spring, the stud was standing with his head shoved against Del’s shoulder, rubbing hard, resembling for all the world a very large, brown dog. Del was attempting to stop him from rubbing, apparently in a vain effort to hug that big jug-head.
Silly bascha.
Prima Rhannet and her first mate stood very near Del.
All of them had their backs to me, except the stud. Who stopped rubbing against Del’s shoulder when he noticed me, stuck his head high in the air, and snorted his alarm. Loudly, and with typically emphatic dampness.
Too bad he hadn’t done that the first time Prima and her blue-headed companion mate showed up. The warning might have been useful.
"So," I called, "I guess they didn’t see fit to merge you after all."
Nihko spun, even as Prima and Del. The stud snorted again, this time in disgust, and wandered off, as he was wont to do; everyone else just stood there. Gaping.
I didn’t look at Del. My first hard glance as she turned had surmised she was fine, if white and wobbly with shock. But there was time for a proper reunion later. Now that I knew she was safe, and she knew I was alive — at least, I think she knew it was me — other business came first.
I looked at Prima and Nihko. "Surprise."
The captain’s hand was plastered to her left breast where, if she had a heart, it lay beneath flesh and bone. Pounding hard enough, I hoped, fit to burst her chest.
In Skandic, Nihko told her, "There is nothing he can do to us."
In Skandic, I retorted, "Care to wager on that?"
He had the grace to color. His eyes flickered a moment, then stilled again into implacability.
"What I would like to do," I told him, "is forget all about this magic and beat you to a pulp. But maybe later." I held up my hands. "For now it’ll have to wait."
I heard Del’s blurt of shocked anguish. Wanted to say something, to console her, but my attention was on Nihkolara Andros.
"Did you think," I began, "that I couldn’t follow the same road you did? That I would not repudiate the magic, the madness, and leave Sahdri and the others atop their rocks? Oh —" I paused with deliberate drama. "— and by the way, Sahdri’s dead. He had a sore throat. Little matter of a spear stuck into it."
Nihko blanched to a sickly grayish pallor.
"Was he the one?" I asked with acid solicitude. "The one who found you at the foot of the spire, after you had leaped? The one who lifted you up, nourished you, led you across the threshold?" Pointedly I added, "The one who named you ikepra?"
"And you." His grin was a ghastly echo of what I had seen before. "Ikepra."
"But I’ve been that," I told him. "In the South, we call it borjuni. In the circle, we call it elaii-ali-ma, for an oath-bound man cast out of the circle forever." I shook my head, affecting pity. "Did you really believe a man such as that would shrink from adding one more bad name to his collection?"
"But you," he said with a brittle honesty so edged it cut, "are yet a man."
I opened my mouth to answer yes, I was, because I had seen fit not to sleep with the daughter of the Palomedi metri while I also slept with the Palomidi metri — and then I understood.
Sahdri and his brothers had cut only fingers from me.
"Stop." It was Prima Rhannet, very white of face. "Stop."
I looked at her, saw the fear in her. For Nihko.
"He did not do it," she said. "It was not Nihko’s plan."
"Nor yours," I told her.
It startled her that I believed her. "The metri," she declared firmly. "The metrioi of the Eleven are capable of anything."
"No, not the metri. Not even Herakleio, though I don’t doubt he wished for it."
Del spoke for the first time. Her tone was ice and steel. "Who is left?"
For a moment I looked over her head into the sky beyond, unable to meet her eyes. Then I did, swallowing painfully. "Simonides."
They none of them believed that answer.
" ’Slaves,’ " I said, quoting him, " ’do what they must to survive. To make a life, and to find the freedom within. But there need not be dishonor in it, if there are ways to find a measure of dignity and integrity.’ "
Dishonor lay in what one thought of himself. Not in what others believed.
I sighed. "He did it for her. Because he saw no other way to be true to his household. I think after sixty-odd years beneath her roof, he really perceived no choice."
"How can you say that?" Del cried. "We believed you were dead! And he let us!"
"But I’m not." I smiled crookedly. "I’m a bit more colorful than I was"— I brushed a hand over my tattooed, stubble-fuzzed skull —"but I’m also not dead. And he was genuinely glad of that. I think he felt there was a chance I’d survive."
Del’s eyes were full of tears. "Your fingers…"
It hurt to see her anguish. Softly I said, "Let it go, bascha."
She did. Because I asked it.
I looked at Prima and her first mate. "Go. We have our own ship. We won’t be needing yours."
Her chin shot up. "And are you giving the orders now?"
"Ask Nihko if I can." I let him see my eyes. "Ask."
Prima, being Prima, remained unconvinced. "Perhaps we should simply steal your ship, like we did before."
"You broke it, you didn’t steal it." I grinned. "And certainly you may try."
Nihko put one big hand on the small woman’s neck and aimed her toward the blue-sailed ship. "Go."
She was outraged. "Nihko —"
"Go."
When she had gone, he inclined his head briefly. "Young," he said, "and strong. You would have killed Sahdri anyway, eventually. The iaka would have been yours."
"I never wanted the First House," I said. "I never wanted Meteiera, Akritara, the vineyards, the ships, the slaves. All I ever wanted was to know who my people were."
"And so you know."
I shook my head. "I’m not of Stessa blood. Skandic, undoubtedly — and ioSkandic, so it seems — but not the metri’s grandson. Her daughter was dead two years before I was born."
"The metri," he said calmly, "lies."
I smiled. "So do we all, ikepra. When it suits us."
The shift of his body was minute. He was prepared. "Shall it be now?"
I arched ring-weighted brows. "You really want to merge that badly?"
"I do not wish to merge at all."
"Then don’t. You have two, possibly three years left. Go and live them." I paused. "Although it might be suggested for the sake of innocents that you find other employment."
Nihko displayed his teeth. "I am what I am, what I have made of myself. It is what I wish to be."
"Ah." I bared mine back at him in a ferocious grin. "Then that makes two of us."
He inclined his head again in brief salute, one ikepra to another, and turned to go.
"Wait
."
He paused, looked back.
"How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you control it? Suppress it?"
He flicked a glance at Del briefly, then met my eyes. "With discipline," he said, "and the aid of the gods."
I laughed harshly. "And does it work?"
Nihko said, "Sometimes."
When he was gone, Del came to me. Took each hand into hers, kissed the palms with infinite care.
"There is not," I said, "that I know of, any medicinal value in that."
"Gods." She wound her arms around my neck, pressed herself against me. "Gods, Tiger — you’re shaking."
"So are you, bascha."
She turned her face into my neck and began to cry.
I was a little damp myself as I carefully locked both arms around her, sealing myself against her.
After a moment, I said, "I hate these clothes."
She laughed, pressed herself harder against me. "Red suits you."
"I kind of thought you might prefer me without them. You know. Out of them."
Her breath was warm against my throat. "You are being terribly unsubtle."
"Subtlety has never been one of my great gifts, bascha. As you have said yourself."
Del slid to her knees. Untied the drawstring of the baggy trousers. Tugged them away. They fell into a heap at my feet.
"So," she said, "is this to be just for you?"
"I wanted you to see I still had all of my working parts." I paused, turning my palms into the light. "Well. Most of them."
And then I bent down, knelt, and took her into my arms.
EPILOGUE
Later, as we lay in warm sand beside the rock-rimmed pool, Del amused herself by tracing the tattoos on my head. At first it tickled. Then I decided it felt rather good.
Idly she asked, "Will you keep your head shaved?"
I grunted drowsily, sprawled belly-down in blissful abandon with eyes closed. "Not likely."
"It isn’t unattractive."
She had said something similar about Nihko, months before. Sternly I said, "It also isn’t me."
Her fingers stroked. "It is now. Unless you think you can take them off, these tattoos."
I thought of Sahdri, lifting the scars from my body. "No," I said, suppressing a shiver. "I think I’ll just let the hair grow back."
"Are you sure you want me to cut those rings out of your eyebrows?"
"I am."
"It will hurt."
I grunted again.
"Maybe you could leave the ones in your ears."
I opened my eyes, frowned thoughtfully, rolled over onto my back. "Are you saying you like me like this?"
Del, looking down on me, smiled winsomely. "I like you any way I can get you."
I thought about it. "All right," I said finally. "We’ll leave one ring each in my ears —"
"Two."
I scowled. "Two. Just for you." I fixed her with a firm stare. "And that’s all."
She nodded, tracing patterns on my head again. "Such a pretty blue," she said. "Except for here." Her hand stopped just behind my left ear.
"Why? What’s different about there?"
"You have a little smeary bubble here"— she tapped it —"like spilled wine."
I sat bolt upright.
Del blinked at me. "It’s only a birthmark, Tiger. And once your hair grows back out, it will be hidden. I never saw it before."
I swore. Lay back down. Thought about it.
"Tiger-?"
Then I began to laugh.
"Tiger, what is it?"
I hooked an elbow over my eyes to blot out the sun. "Nihko said it."
"Nihko said what?"
"That the metri lies."
"Yes," Del agreed emphatically. "She said you were dead."
I was thinking of other things. Of caresses called keraka, formed of any size or shape. Found anywhere on the body. A Stessa-born body. "Well, I’m not dead."
Not yet.
Her hand moved down my abdomen. Closed. "I can tell."
I tried not to flinch. "Be careful with that."
"I rather think — not."
I thought about the implications of that a moment. "All right." I sat up, hooked an arm around her, pulled her down on top of me.
Afterward, Del asked, "What do you want to do?"
"Go home."
A delicate pause. "Where is home?"
"Where it’s always been. The South."
"But — you said if you ever went back there —"
I interrupted. "I know what I said. I don’t care. It’s home. And it doesn’t matter if there’s a price on my head, or if borjuni and sword-dancers come hunting me —"
Her turn to interrupt. "Abbu Bensir?"
I hitched a shoulder. "Him, too. Let ’em all come."
After a moment she asked, "Why?"
We lay on our sides. I scooped an arm beneath Del and dragged her closer, fitting my body to hers, ankles entwined. I set my lips against cornsilk hair. "Because," I said, "it’s time I built my home of something more than walls of air. I want brick, stone, wood, tile. I want substance. "
"What kind of substance?"
"Alimat."
Del stiffened. "I thought you said Alimat was destroyed years ago in a monstrous sandstorm."
"So it was, most of it. But the bones are there. I’ll rebuild it."
"Will they let you?"
"Who?"
"Abbu. The others."
"That will be settled in the circle. And once I’m done settling things, the students will come."
Astonishment was profound. "Students?"
"I taught Herakleio, didn’t I?"
"Yes, but — you?"
"Why not?"
"You’ve always been so… independent."
"Well, maybe it’s time I accepted responsibility." I pondered that a moment. "Some responsibility."
Del snickered politely. "And how long do you think this will last?"
"Ten years," I said evenly. "Maybe twelve. Fifteen if I’m lucky."
She poked me with an elbow. "Be serious, Tiger. You?"
I wanted to smile, but didn’t. "Trust me, bascha, I have never been more serious in my life."
She closed a hand over one of mine, carefully avoiding the sensitive stump. Her voice was rusty. "Can you?"
"Oh, yes. It will take time — I have to learn new grips, new balance, new techniques and maneuvers; strengthen my wrists and remaining fingers — but yes. I can." I smiled. "It’s called discipline."
"And until then?"
I knew she was thinking of Abbu. "Until then," I whispered into her ear, "you’ll just have to protect me."
The stud, grazing contentedly on a patch of nearby grass, snorted.
I glanced across at him. "She can, you know. She’s better than I am."
This time it was Del’s turn to snort, albeit with more delicacy.
"Well," I conceded, "sometimes. Some days, some moments, some particular movements. Other times, not."
Del laughed softly. "That about sums it up."
"And speaking of particular movements…"
In mock disbelief, she asked, "What — again?"
I grinned. Then the grin fell away. I pulled her very tightly against me, held her there. Set my face into her hair. Told her I loved her.
In uplander, downlander, Northern, Southron, Desert, and every tongue in between. All the tongues of the world.
It took a long time.
But Del did not complain.
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Sword Born ss-5 Page 38
