Julah was the typical desert town of flat-roofed, squared-off adobe buildings, deep-cut windows, tattered canvas awnings, and narrow, dusty streets. But there was water here in plenty, so Julah thrived. Opting to cool off before taking the risk of meeting other sword-dancers, we stopped at a well on the outskirts of town, discounting to winch up buckets. We filled the horse troughs, permitted our mounts to drink, then quenched our own thirst and refilled botas. It was early enough in the season that the heat wasn’t unbearable; but then, we hadn’t reached the Punja yet. There was only one season in the Punja: hot.
Del dampened the hem of her burnous and wiped dust from her face. "Tonight I get the bath." Then, "How many sword-dancers are likely to be here?"
I backhanded water from my chin, realizing I needed to shave before we hit the Punja. "Oh, a few."
"Then we shouldn’t stay longer than is necessary."
"We’ll head out first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, except for a visit to Fouad’s cantina, we’ll keep our heads down."
"Walking into Fouad’s, where at any time there may be half a dozen sword-dancers drinking his spirits, strikes me as keeping our heads up."
"Maybe. But we knew we’d face this coming back here."
Del said nothing. She had not argued when I said I wanted to return home — we had established that Skandi, for all my parents had come from the island, did not qualify — but she had quietly pointed out that to do so was sheer folly for a man sentenced to death by the very honor codes he’d repudiated. But the mere fact that she hadn’t argued struck me as significant; I suspected Del was recalling that she was exiled from her own homeland and understood how much I needed to go back to mine. Unlike Del, I wasn’t truly exiled. I wasn’t under pain of death if I went back South. Oh, men would try to kill me, but that had nothing to do with exile. Just with broken oaths.
At my behest, we waited until sundown before entering Fouad’s cantina. We had in the meantime secured lodging in an only slightly disreputable inn with a tiny stable out behind in an alley and had eaten at a street vendor’s stall. The odors and flavors of spiced, if tough, mutton, sizzling peppers, and pungent goat cheese had immediately snatched me back to the days before we left for Skandi. I’m not sure Del appreciated that so much, having a more delicate palate — or so she claimed — but it felt like home to me. Then I led Del to Fouad’s cantina, which was only fitfully lighted by smoking tallow candles on each small knife- and sword-hacked wooden table. I selected one back in the farthest corner from the door, a windowless nook veiled with smoke from a dying torch stuck in an iron wall sconce, dripping tallow. As we found stools to perch our rumps upon, I leaned forward and blew out our candle. Dimness descended.
"Oh, good," Del commented, brushing bread crumbs off the table. "Makes it so easy to see whom I’m to stick my sword into."
"We’re not going to stick swords into anyone, bascha."
"Not even Fouad?" Del really seemed focused on the fact that my friend had betrayed us.
"Not immediately," I told her. "Maybe for the after-dinner entertainment."
Fouad, proprietor of my favorite cantina, was a small, neat, quick man of ready smile and welcome. Though he had wine-girls aplenty — Silk was working our corner, though clearly she hadn’t yet recognized me — he enjoyed greeting newcomers personally. He approached the table calling out a robust greeting in Southron and offering us the best his cantina had to offer.
In bad light, wreathed in smoke, shorn of most of my hair, with double silver rings hanging in my ears and a tracery of blue tattooing along my hairline, I was no doubt a stranger to him at first glance, as I’d hoped. But Del, as always, was Del, and no man alive, having seen her even once, forgot what or who she was.
Or whom she traveled with.
Fouad stopped dead in his rush to greet new custom. He stared. He very nearly gaped.
He had, helpfully, placed himself within my reach. I rose, kicking back my stool, and leaned close, slapping one big hand down upon his shoulder in a friendly fashion. "Fouad!" I shut the hand, gripping him so firmly a wince of pain replaced his shocked expression. "Join us, won’t you? It’s been a long time." I shoved him toward the empty stool and pushed him down upon it. "There’s much to catch up on, don’t you think?"
He was trembling. Very unlike Fouad. But then, so was betrayal.
I yanked over another stool and sat down upon it. "So, what’s the news? Any word out of Sabra?"
Fouad flicked a white-rimmed glance at Del, then looked back to me again. The robustness had spilled from his voice. "They say she’s likely dead."
I raised a brow. " ’They say’? They’re not sure?"
"She disappeared." His thin tone was a complex admixture of emotions. "Some say a sandstorm got her, or a beast, or the Vashni. But Abbu Bensir said differently."
I grinned. "Abbu would. He’s always one to tell a good tale. So, what did Abbu say about Sabra?"
"That you killed her."
"He did not." That from Del, who was never one to let a good story get in the way of the facts. "Sabra died of her own folly."
In truth, Sabra had died because she laid hands on a jivatma which was, at the time, utterly perverted by magic, full of a sorcerer wanting very badly to get out. Which he had managed. Unfortunately, the vessel he chose for freedom — Sabra — was far too weak to contain him. But I suppose "folly" fairly well summed it up.
"And just when was good old Abbu here last?" I asked idly.
Fouad had stopped trembling. Color returned to his face. We had always been friends, and I supposed he was recalling that. But wariness remained. And guilt. "Weeks ago," he said. "He’s north of here now, I hear."
Well. At least I wouldn’t have to grapple with Abbu Bensir immediately. "Aqivi?"
"Water for me," Del said.
It gave him something to do. Rather than calling Silk over, Fouad sprang up.
"This time," I said quietly, "leave out the drug."
His face spasmed. "I will drink first of each, if you like."
I was prepared to wave it away, knowing my point was made, but Del was less forgiving. "Do so," she said, in a tone that lowered the temperature of the room markedly. "And you will remain at this table. Let it be brought."
After a moment, Fouad bowed to her with one hand pressed over his heart and quietly bade Silk, lingering nearby and trying to catch my attention now that she had recognized me — Silk had always been one of my favorites and, she said, I one of hers — to bring water, aqivi, bread and cheese. Then he sank down on the stool. He looked older than he had when we first entered the cantina.
I waited.
He drew in a deep, sharp breath, then let it out in a rush of helpless sound. "She would have killed me had I not done her bidding."
"Of course she would have," I agreed.
"I begged her not to make me do it."
"Of course you did."
"I prayed —"
"Enough," Del snapped. She glanced at me. "Do you intend to kill him, or shall I?"
Bloodthirsty Northern bascha. I smiled, and let Fouad start sweating again. When the water and aqivi arrived — and Silk was shooed away — he poured cups of each and tasted both. Del rather pointedly turned her cup so her mouth would not touch the rim where his had touched. Me, I just picked up the aqivi and knocked back a slug.
Long practice kept me from choking. Long abstinence — from aqivi, anyway — burned a line of fire from throat, through gullet, into belly. But being the infamous Sandtiger, I did not indicate this. I merely took another big slug.
Del’s brows pulled together briefly, but she blanked her face almost at once.
"So." I grinned companionably at Fouad. "At Sabra’s behest, in fear for your life, you drugged our wine. I, innocent as a woolly little lamb, wandered off looking for someone and walked into a trap you helped set. Del, meanwhile — also drugged — was handed over to Umir the Ruthless to become a part of his collection." Umir the Ruthless had tastes that did not in
cline to women but to unusual objects. He was ruthless not because he was particularly murderous personally, but because he’d do anything to get what he wanted. Even if he hired others to murder for him. "Del apparently feels what you did is worthy of execution. But I’m a more generous soul. What do you suggest I do about this?"
Fouad’s tone was a carefully weighed mixture of resignation, suggestion, and hope. "Forget it?"
I nearly choked on a mouthful of aqivi. Far less amused, Del stared him down.
Fouad, suddenly smaller on his stool, sighed deeply. "No, I suppose not."
"We could have been killed," Del said.
"No!" Fouad exclaimed. "Assurances were made…" As if realizing how ludicrously lame that sounded, he trailed off into silence. "Well," he said finally, "they were. I’m only a lowly cantina keeper, not a sword-dancer to parse between what is threat and what is honesty."
"You’ve parsed enough in the past," I reminded him. Fouad had always been an excellent source of information and interpretation.
He debated whether to acknowledge flattery or avoid it altogether. He shrank further inside his yellow robe.
"So," I said, "you really didn’t think they’d kill us —"
"And they didn’t!" Fouad, having discovered a salient point, sat upright on the stool again. "Are you not here? Are you not sitting before me, eating my bread and cheese, drinking my liquor?"
"Water," Del clarified, displaying her cup. "But yes, I will give you all of that: we are indeed alive and sitting before you. Eating and drinking. Whether you intended it or no."
"I didn’t want you dead! Either of you!" He looked from Del to me, and back again. "Why would I? I have nothing to gain from your deaths. I wanted merely to prevent mine."
"What did she pay you?" I asked.
"Nothing!"
Del was clearly skeptical. "Nothing?"
"She permitted me to keep my life," Fouad explained. "I am somewhat attached to my life and considered it payment enough, under the circumstances. Though undoubtedly others might not agree." He eyed me, clearly expecting a reaction. Then a frown pinched his brows together. "You look — different."
"A full life will do that to you," I replied gravely. "Especially if you’re sold off to a murderous female tanzeer intent on punishing you for killing her father, despite the fact that said father deserved to be slowly roasted to death over a nice bed of coals." As Aladar had been the one to throw me into his mines and nearly cost me my sanity, I felt justified in my stance.
Color deepened in Fouad’s face. He stared hard at the surface of the table. "I am not proud of it."
"Oh, that does change matters," Del said with delicate irony.
"You would do the same!" he cried; and then abruptly recalled to whom he spoke. Two sword-dancers, who defended the lives of others — and their own — without recourse to such cowardly acts as drugging customers’ wine. His breath came fast. "What do you want, then? To kill me?" He paused. "Really?"
I smiled sweetly. "Two-thirds of this place."
Del cut me a sharp glance, not being privy to my plan. Fouad missed it, being entirely taken up with the magnitude of my revenge.
I lifted a forefinger before he could sputter out a protest. "You might have told Sabra no."
"She’d have had me killed!"
"So could we," I reminded him. "Though at least we’d do you the courtesy of killing you ourselves, instead of hiring a total stranger to do the job." My gesture encompassed the cantina. "Two-thirds, Fouad. One-third for you, one-third for me, one-third for Del."
Del concentrated on drinking more water so as not to give away her bemusement. Such are the dynamics of negotiation. Even if you aren’t truly negotiating but merely informing.
Fouad did not believe. His tone was incredulous. "You want to be a cantina keeper? Here? But — but you’re a sword-dancer!"
"I’d have been a dead man, had Sabra succeeded," I said bluntly. "But I am very much alive, and prepared to leave you that way… should we reach an equitable agreement." I cut him off before he could speak again. "And no, I am not proposing that I play host, or tell you what kind of curtains to put in your windows, or that Del be a wine-girl." I could imagine what she’d say to that image later. "I was thinking we’d be silent partners."
"I do all the work, you take two-thirds of the profits," Fouad said glumly.
"I’m glad you grasp the pertinent details."
"For how long?" he asked.
"How long?"
"For how long do I have to put up with you?"
"What, are you already planning to hire Abbu or some such soul to knock me off?"
Fouad was stunned. "I would never do such a thing!" Whereupon he recalled that while he hadn’t done precisely that, he had indeed contributed to the trap that could very well have have ended in my death.
"Two-thirds," Del said crisply. "Payable four times a year."
I nodded with grave dignity. Fouad screwed up his face.
"And I may just have an idea for those curtains," she added.
I suspect a knife in the gut might have proven less painful to him. But he eventually agreed, with much moroseness of expression.
"Good," I said. "As for how long, it’s a lifetime arrangement. If I die, Del gets my one-third. If she dies, I get her one-third."
I’d given Fouad an opening. "And if you both die? You are sword-dancers, after all. Sword-dancers die."
I drank down the rest of my aqivi, then scratched idly at the claw marks in my face. "I plan to live forever."
Fouad looked. He saw. His lips parted. "Your finger," he said hoarsely.
I displayed both hands. "Fingers," I enunciated. "As I said, I’ve lived a full life."
He was stunned. "Sabra did that?"
"This? No." I didn’t elaborate, which left him nonplussed.
"But — can you dance?"
I felt Del’s look, but I did not return it. "Try me."
Fouad was perversely fascinated by the missing fingers. I saw him turn it over in his head, applying his knowledge of my past, my reputation, to the present sitting before him and all the implications. He more closely noted the shorn hair, doubled earrings — and whatever else you might see if you looked upon me now.
"I heard —" He paused and cleared his throat. "I heard a rumor that you’d survived Sabra. That you’d declared…"
"Elaii-ali-ma," I supplied, when he faltered. "You’ve been selling drink and women to sword-dancers for years. You know very well what elaii-ali-ma means."
He did. "Forsworn."
"And subject to any punishment a sword-dancer — one who’s still true to his oaths, mind you — cares to give me." I shrugged. "So you might get to keep my one-third of the profits, if it comes to that. One of these days."
"They’ll kill you, Tiger."
"Maybe," I agreed. "Maybe not."
His gaze was on my mutilated hands, which I did not trouble to hide. "This is worse," Fouad said hollowly. "Worse than anything Sabra might have done."
"Possibly. But that does not absolve you of your responsibility." He had the grace to wince. "She intended me to die, Fouad. This way, fingers or no fingers, I have some say in the matter."
Fouad was not convinced. "They’ll kill you."
I gave him my friendliest grin. "Or die trying."
"Why?" Del demanded later in the inn’s tiny room high under the eaves. An equally tiny window — a lopsided square chopped into thick mudbrick — tinted the room a sallow sepia as the sun went down, glinting off the brass buckles of our belongings.
I knew better than to ask to what she referred. "Financial security." I stripped out of my burnous.
Stretched out on the rope-and-wood bed atop its thin pallet and even thinner blanket, she watched as I, dhoti-clad, began to methodically undertake the forms I found beneficial to my strength, flexibility, and endurance. For most of my life I’d de-pended on a natural wellspring of sheer physical strength, power, and speed, with no need to work at keeping any
of them. They simply were. Now I needed more.
"You just didn’t want to kill him."
She sounded so disgusted a brief gust of laughter was expelled as I bent from one side to the other. "Fouad’s a friend."
"A friend who betrayed you."
"At Sabra’s insistence." I felt the joints of my spine stretch and pop. "She was a little hard to turn down when she got a bug up her butt. Hoolies, even I was going to do what she wanted." Die in the circle, facing Abbu Bensir.
"But you had a choice."
I clasped hands behind my head and pushed it forward against resistance. "Sure I did. I forswore all my oaths as a seventh-level sword-dancer. I don’t think cantina keepers have any oaths. Though I suppose there could be some secret society dedicated to all the arcane secrets of selling liquor and hiring wine-girls."
Del had been leaning on one elbow. Now she shoved herself upright. "Speaking of wine-girls, you made reference to me —"
I cut her off before we could take that route. "Certainly not."
"Certainly, yes," she said dryly. "You also mentioned something about Fouad selling wine-girls to sword-dancers."
"Well, I suppose ’rented’ would be a more accurate term."
"And I assume you ’rented’ your share?"
"Nah," I replied off-handedly. "None of them ever charged me."
After a moment of stunned silence, Del said something highly explicit in uplander.
I changed the subject hastily. "Do you really want to kill Fouad?"
"No. But I do want to know why you’ve encumbered us with a two-thirds ownership of a cantina." She paused, considering. "Unless you figure it entitles you to free aqivi."
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