The air grew warmer. On the horizon, stretching before me, sheet lightning crackled. The air stank with it. Hair rose on my body. The back of my neck prickled. Flesh jerked, then stilled; breathing was harder yet.
The breeze became a wind. It came to visit me, bringing gritty, unwelcome company and throwing it in my face. It hissed as it flung itself against runescribed blade. As it scraped against my flesh, finding creases and folds and scars, leaving sand to mark its passing. Stripping hair away from my face so the scouring was surer.
I spat. Squinted. Gripped the sword harder still. No longer did it leak liquefied steel through rigid, cramping fingers. What I held now was whole.
“—hear me, Chosa? Mine—”
Wind blew flames out. Carried smoke away.
“Mine,” I mouthed again.
Wind died quietly. Sand settled itself. The world was the world again, and I still myself within it.
A thought occurred: Was I? Myself?
What was I?
What in hoolies had I just done?
Summoned—and fought—Chosa Dei.
A chill rippled flesh. I knew why, and what I had done. I didn’t question the need. Didn’t question that it was real.
Just questioned who had done it: Me? Me? Me?
A handful of months before I’d have laughed at the possibility. Laughed at the idea, that a man could do such a thing. Would have scoured myself with self-contempt, for allowing the thought to occur.
Knowing to think of such things, such victories of the spirit, opens the door to anguish and pain.
With the Salset, I hadn’t dared.
But with Chosa Dei, I did. Not only dared, but did.
Was I stronger because of the magic? The Northern sword? Or just more willing to take risks with things I didn’t understand?
Inside me, the voice was cruel: You’re a fool, chula. You are what you’ve made yourself—what you can make yourself, using whatever tools lie at hand. If you turn your back on magic, you turn your back on yourself.
I swore. Laughed softly. Called myself names. Put my mind to the task at hand: dealing with what had happened.
Spasmodic breathing slowed. I swallowed and wished I hadn’t; grit and harsh breath had scoured my throat. A shudder ran through my body as tension melted away, leaving in its place a twitching, itching body well-caked with dust and powder.
The stink of magic was gone. What rode the air now was the tang of human effort expended.
When at last I could move, I unlocked aching hands. The sword fell away. As it landed, something cracked.
For a moment I could not move. I could only kneel, too stiff to shift my weight, until at last muscles loosened and I climbed awkwardly to my feet. All around me more cracking, and a shower of silvery powder.
Hoolies, but I itched. Sand, grit, and powder clung to sweat-damp skin like a shroud, burrowing into joints and flesh-creases to mimic Punja-mites. I shook myself head to toe, freeing myself from one layer of debris, and heard the tiny chiming.
I glanced down. Like oracle bones, thrown, tiny bits of glass were strewn across my feet. Stretching in all directions was a near-perfect circle, slick and flat and glossy.
Somehow, I had made glass. Conjured of sand, birthed in fire, I’d created a circle of glass.
Glass which broke, I might add, if I even so much as twitched.
And me without my sandals.
I thought of asking how and why, but didn’t waste my breath. There wouldn’t be an answer.
The sword was whole. The leakage I’d sworn was real was nothing more than illusion. Samiel lay silently in a puddle of shattered glass, birthing fractures in all directions that sparkled and glinted in starglow. I bent and picked him up.
Then turned, and saw Del.
She stood at the perimeter of the glass circle, Boreal unsheathed in her hands. The sword was a slash of star-lighted steel diagonally bisecting her chest. She had shed the white burnous. She wore only the Northern tunic of soft, creamy leather, which bared all of smooth, lithe arms and most of magnificent legs; bared also determination. It sang throughout her body in tensed, defined muscles and the watchful tilt of her head. In the hard readiness of her eyes.
But also something else. Something that shocked me.
Del was afraid.
She is a woman who kills, but not out of whim. Not out of irritation, or a perverse desire to harm. She kills when she must, when circumstances push her to it; if she is a woman who, by her strength of will and dedication, puts herself into those circumstances in the name of murdered kin, it does not make the accomplishment less valid, nor the ability less dangerous. She has honed her skills, her talent, her mind, shaping the woman into a weapon. She knows how, and when, to kill. She even knows why.
One of Del’s strengths is a remarkable control: the ability to do what needs to be done without expending anything more, in strength, breath, and state of mind, than the moment absolutely requires.
Fear destroys that control. In anyone, that is frightening. In Del, it is lethal.
I did not lift Samiel. I did not so much as blink.
Del waited. Lids lowered minutely as she glanced quickly at the tip of the blade, measuring discoloration; then back at me, weighing me, until at last the assessment was done.
Almost imperceptibly, the posture relaxed. But not the awareness of what had taken place, or what I had accomplished in my “discussion” with Chosa Dei.
I decided now was not the time to resort to irony. “Sulhaya,” I said quietly, using her own tongue. “It’s what I’d have wanted, too, had I lost the fight to Chosa.”
Still Del waited. Measuring and weighing, if at a quieter intensity. Clearly, the initial danger had passed; she weighed me differently, now.
Eventually, she smiled. “Your accent is atrocious.”
Relief was overwhelming; I did not want to deal with Del’s fears just yet, because they magnified my own. “Yes, well… you don’t say thanks very often, so how am I to know?”
Lips twitched. She took down the sword, easing the tilt of the blade. “Are you all right?”
Now I could be the me I knew better. “Stiff. Sore. A little shaky.” I shrugged. “More in need of a bath than ever before.…” I raked a hand across my belly. “Hoolies, this stuff itches—”
Del squatted, picked up a sliver, inspected it. In starlight, it glittered like ice. “Interesting,” she murmured.
All of ten feet separated us. Del knelt in sand. Before me gleamed a fractured sheet of glinting, magicked glass. “Do me a favor,” I said. “Go get me my sandals?”
In the desert, at night, it is cool, belying the heat of the day. I lay on spread blankets, wrapped in underrobe and burnous, and tried to go to sleep. We had, at best, three hours before the sun climbed into the sky. Only a fool would waste them.
I shifted minutely, trying not to wake Del, who is a light sleeper, but also trying to settle myself yet again. For a moment the position felt just fine—then the impulse renewed itself, as it had so many times, and I scratched abraded flesh.
A finger poked my spine. “Sit up,” she said. Then, “Sit up. Do you think I intend to lie here all night while you scratch yourself raw?”
She sounded uncommonly like many mothers I had heard chastising children. Which made me feel worse. “I can’t help it. All the dust and grit and glass powder is driving me sandsick.”
The finger poked again. “Then sit up, and I’ll tend to it.”
I rolled and levered myself up on one elbow as Del knelt beside me. “What are you doing?”
She motioned impatiently as she dug a cloth from the pouches and reached for a bota. “Strip out of everything. We should have done this sooner.”
“I can’t bathe, Del… we can’t waste the water.”
“To me, the choice is simple: we wash off as much of the powder as we can, here and now, or spend the rest of the night awake, with you scratching and complaining.”
“I haven’t said a word.”
“You say more than most without even opening your mouth.” Del pressed folded cloth against the lip of the bota and squeezed. “Strip down, Tiger. You’ll thank me when I’m done.”
Since once Del has her mind set on a thing there’s no arguing with her, I did as ordered and shed everything but the dhoti. A glance at arms and legs, lighted by stars, displayed the powdering of glass and sand adhering to skin and hair.
Del clucked her tongue. “Look at you. You’ve scratched so much you’ve got raw patches. And stripes—”
“Never mind,” I growled. “Just do what you want to do.”
Unexpectedly, Del laughed. “Quite an invitation…” But she let the comment die and set to work on legs and arms, taking great care with the creases at the backs of knees and elbows. She was right: I was raw. Abraded flesh stung.
So did my pride. “I could do this myself.”
“What? You? Do you mean you don’t like having a woman kneeling at your feet, tending you carefully?” Del grinned briefly, arching eloquent brows. “Not the Sandtiger I met all those months ago in that filthy, stinking cantina.”
“Give me that.” I bent, snatched the damp cloth away, began to swab my ribs. “We all change, bascha. None of us stays the same. It’s the way life works.”
She stood before me now, one hand resting on the taut-muscled border between narrow waist and curving hip. The starlight was kind to her; but then, it’s hard to be cruel when the bones and flesh are so good. “Admit it,” she suggested. “You’re a better man now than you were when I met you.”
I scrubbed at gritty flesh. “And is that supposed to mean you’re taking credit for the improvement?”
A slow, languorous shrug of a single sinewy shoulder. Her answer was implicit: had I not met her, I’d not be the kind of man she believed me to be now.
Whatever man that was; who knows what a woman thinks?
The glint in her eyes faded. Her expression now was pensive. She put out a hand and gently traced the knurled scar cut so deeply along my ribs. The ruined flesh was still livid, requiring more time before purple would alter to pink, and later to silvery-white.
Where she touched, flesh quivered. Tension tightened my belly, and deeper. Del looked at me.
“What do you expect?” I growled. “I’ve never made a secret of what you do for me.”
Del’s mouth flattened. “Do for? Or do to?” She pulled her hand away from the scar. “I would have done it, Tiger. The killing. Had it been necessary.”
“Which one?” I countered. “The one on Staal-Ysta? Or the one earlier tonight?”
“Either. Both.” Briefly, her face convulsed. “You don’t know what it was like that time… that time I touched your sword, and felt Chosa’s power. Felt the violence of his need.” Del, uncharacteristically, shuddered. “Given the chance, he will take me, with a sword made of steel. Or a sword made of flesh.”
She had been raped by Ajani, and very nearly, later, by demons known as loki. Such violence takes its toll. I could see it in her eyes; most, craving her body, wouldn’t even bother to look.
I inhaled deeply, oddly light-headed. “So you really would have killed me earlier, thinking I was Chosa.”
Del’s face was taut. White. Stark. “There may come a time when you are.”
Oddly, it didn’t hurt. I’d acknowledged it myself, on the sand with Chosa Dei.
I gave her back the cloth. “And there may come a time when you have to.”
Seven
“Hunh,” I commented; I thought it was enough.
“Look at it,” Del urged. “Do you see what you did?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? I didn’t really mean to; and anyway, I don’t know that it’s worth getting into an uproar over. I mean, what can you do with it?”
“Very rich men put it in windows.”
“That?”
“It’s glass, Tiger.”
“I know what it is.” I scowled at the shattered circle. Dead center was a downward spiraling funnel of pale sand, hemmed by a swollen rim resembling the lip of a bowl. Radiating outward, stretching in all directions, was a complex network of hairline cracks. A brittle, perfect circle, but hazardous to a sword-dancer foolish enough to go barefoot. (Not me; I’d repaired my sandal.) “But every window I’ve ever seen—” (which weren’t very many: one) “—had regular sheets of glass. Thick glass, maybe, hard to see through—but not little bits and pieces no bigger than my thumb.”
“You broke it up last night,” she pointed out. “You did a lot of things last night, not the least of which was making the glass in the first place.”
I shifted weight irritably, still stiff from the night before. “With the magic I summoned.”
“With something, Tiger—I don’t think it was your good looks.” Del smiled sweetly.
I eyed her in annoyance. “Are we not happy this morning?”
“Happy?” Pale brows arched. “Happy enough; what more is there to be with assassins on our trail?”
I glanced northerly. “Speaking of which, we really ought to be moving.”
“Don’t you want a keepsake?”
“Of that? No. Why would I? It’s just glass, bascha!”
Del shrugged almost defensively. “In the sunrise, it’s very pretty. All the creams and pinks and silvers. Almost like thousands of jewels.”
I grunted, turning. “Come on, Delilah. No sense in burning daylight.”
She glared after me as I shuffled through sand and soil toward the waiting stud. “You have no imagination at all.”
I gathered hanging reins. “Last time I looked, neither did you.”
“Me!” Outraged, Del followed.
“Hoolies, woman, all you ever thought about for six whole years of your life was revenging yourself on Ajani. That sort of obsession doesn’t require imagination. What it requires is a lack of it.” I snugged a sandaled foot into the stirrup and pulled myself aboard. “I’m not taking you to task for it, mind—you did what you set out to do. The son of a goat is dead—but now there’s us.”
Del waited for me to kick free of the stirrup so she could put it to use. “Us?”
“Lots of other people with no imagination are coming after us. Do you really think we have time to gather up bits of pretty glass?”
Del gritted her teeth and mounted. “I only meant you might want a keepsake of the magic you worked last night. I’m sorry I said anything.”
I leaned into the right stirrup to counteract her weight, keeping the saddle steady. I waited until she was settled, arranging legs, pouches, and harness, then turned the stud southward. “That’s the trouble with women. Too sentimental.”
“Imaginative,” she muttered. “And a lot of other things.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I shook out the reins and kneed him forward. “Let’s go, old son… we’ve got a ways to travel.”
The “ways to travel” turned out to be farther than anticipated. And in a different direction. But first things first.
Like—swearing.
It was now late midday. Not hot, but hardly cool; not even close to cold. It lingered somewhere in between, except the farther south we rode, the hotter it would become. And anticipation always makes it seem worse, even when it’s not.
For now, it was warm enough. Beneath burnous and underrobe, sweat stippled my flesh. It stung in the scratchy patches of powder-scoured scrapes.
Del brushed a damp upper lip with the edge of her hand. Fair braid hung listlessly, flopping across one shoulder. “It was cooler back home.”
I didn’t bother to answer such an inane, if true, comment; Del generally knows better, but I suppose everyone can have lapses. I could have pointed out that “home” wasn’t home to me, because I, after all, was Southron; then again, “home” wasn’t home to her anymore, either, since she’d been formally exiled from it. Which she knew as well as I, but wasn’t thinking about; probably because she was hot, and the truth hadn’t quite sunk in all the way yet.
I wa
sn’t about to remind her. Instead, what I did was swear. Which probably wasn’t of any more use than Del’s unnecessary comment, but made me feel better.
Briefly.
But only a little.
I stood beside the marker: a mortared pile of nine mottled, gray-green stones chipped to fit snuggly together. The top stone was graven with arrows pointing out directions, and the familiar blessing (or blessed, depending on your botas) sign for water: a crude teardrop shape often corroded by wind and sand and time, but eloquent nonetheless. Cairns such as this one dotted much of the South to indicate water.
In this case, the marker lied.
“Well?” Del asked.
I blew out a noisy breath of weary, dusty disgust. “The Punja’s been here.”
She waited a moment. “Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s filled in the well. See how flat it is here? How settled?” I scraped a sandal across a hard-packed platform of fine, bone-colored sand, dislodging a feathering of dust, but nothing of any substance. “It’s fairly well packed, which means the simoom came through some time back. The sand has had time to form a hardpan… it means there’s no hope of digging deeply enough to reach the water.” I paused. “Even if we had the means.”
“But…” Del gestured. “Ten paces that way there is dirt and grass and vegetation. Could we not dig there?”
“It’s a well, bascha, not an underground stream. A well is a hole in the ground.” I gestured with a stiffened finger. “Straight down, like a sword blade… there’s nothing else, bascha. No chance of water here.”
“Then why is there a well at all?”
“Tanzeers and caravan-serais used to have them dug for the trade routes. There are wells scattered all over, though some of them have dried up. You just have to know where they are.”
She nodded pensively. “But—we are not far enough into the South to reach the Punja. Not yet.” She frowned. “Are we?”
“Ordinarily, I’d say no; the Punja ought to be days ahead of us yet, holding to this line.” I flapped a hand straight ahead. “But that’s why it’s the Punja. It goes where it will, forsaking all the rules.” I shrugged dismissively. “Maps most times aren’t worth much here, unless you know the weather patterns. The boundaries always change.”
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