Of course, before he died he also said he’d come back, one way or another. Apparently, if Jamail—in his Oracle guise—was correct, it didn’t necessarily mean Iskandar himself would be back, but someone assuming his role.
I had no plans to assume anyone’s role, thank you very much.
Without warning, consciousness flickered. Memories bubbled haphazardly to the surface of my awareness: alien, eerie, sideways memories painting pictures of a land as yet lush and green and fertile. I recognized it with effort, blotting out my own far different version: Chosa’s recollections of the South before the disagreement with his brother.
Thanks to Chosa, I “recalled” very well Shaka Obre declaring he would find a way to restore it—he would find someone to restore it—no matter what Chosa did.
And it was possible he had, in Iskandar the jhihadi. No one knew much about him, except the city was named after him, and his own horse kicked him in the head—which is enough to get most messiahs remembered, irrespective of holiness. So Iskandar the man might not have been a man, not as we reckon men.
After all, no one really knows how magic works, where it comes from, or how it can be controlled. Not entirely. Not absolutely. They just borrow pieces of it, and hope they do it right.
Which meant, odd as it sounds, Iskandar might have been a construct, an aspect of Shaka’s magic, meant to restore the South by changing the sand to grass.
Construct. A man Made for something, as Chosa Dei Made things. It seemed entirely possible Shaka Obre could Make things, too, even men—
I stood up abruptly, shaken to the marrow. A whole new possibility unfolded itself before me. And I didn’t like it one bit.
“No,” I declared.
The hustapha sat on his cushion, grit glittering on his brow.
“No,” I repeated, with every bit of determination in my Chosa-remade body.
The old man shrugged, renouncing his intention to tell me anything.
Or was it he didn’t know?
Breath came faster. “I’m a man,” I said urgently. “A man man, not a construct. Not a conjured thing—”
Mehmet came around the wagon and stopped, staring at me in mild surprise, which altered quickly enough as he took in the tableau. His expression reproached me for taxing the old man.
“What is a jhihadi?” I asked Mehmet intently. “Messiah?—or magicked man conjured by a wizard for reasons of his own?”
He was scandalized. “The jhihadi is the most holy of all!”
“Not ‘the’ jhihadi—a jhihadi,” I clarified in something approaching desperation. It hurt to breathe through the constriction of chest and throat. “Do you know where one comes from?”
Mehmet shrugged. “Does it matter? A past is not necessary—only the present and future. What he does is important, not what he is.”
I swallowed painfully. Then turned on my heel and strode rapidly away from them both.
Away from the possibility—no, the impossibility—I didn’t want to acknowledge.
I broke one of the most important rules a sword-dancer can ever have beaten into his brain—and body—by tongue-lashing, wooden practice swords, and real blades.
That is: not to be so distracted by your thoughts, no matter how chaotic, that you neglect to take note of your surroundings.
Especially if those surroundings decide for some unknown reason to become hostile.
Which my surroundings did.
To my pronounced—and painful—regret.
I never even made it out of the bazaar into the sidestreets, alleys, and passageways. Not completely, at any rate; I got about halfway, just on the verge of trading open space for the confinement of warrenlike streets, when a whole army of men converged upon me.
Well, maybe not an army. It just felt like one.
Maybe half.
Usually, when you get ambushed in a city, it’s by one or two—or three or four—opportunistic thieves who want your money. If they’re that open about everything, they arrive one by one like gathering wolves, trying to intimidate by numbers and attitude. It works with a lot of people. But with a man trained as a sword-dancer, such tactics serve only to give him the time to unsheathe his blade. And once there’s a weapon in the hands of a trained, skilled sword-dancer, there’s not a whole hoolies of a lot the attackers can do. Because usually one of them loses a hand, an arm—maybe even a head, if he insists—and the others generally decide they have something better to do.
Usually. But these friendly folk were not thieves. At least, I don’t think they were. They didn’t use thieflike tactics. They just descended, en masse, swarming over me all at once. I wound up smack on my back in the middle of the street, spitting sand, dung, blood, and cursing.
Lying on my sheathed sword, I might add.
Hoolies, how embarrassing.
Once I was there, arms and legs spread-eagled, they were actually rather restrained. A few kicks, a couple of snatches, pinches, rabbit punches; no more.
Until someone quietly reminded them I was neither predictable nor to be trusted, and that if they lost me, none of them would survive. That he would have them killed, if I didn’t do it myself.
Which did a good job of convincing them they ought not to waste any more time, and then someone whacked me in the side of the head with something very hard.
I woke up in the dimness, swearing, aware my kidneys were killing me. And my head, but that was nothing new. The kidneys, though; that’s pretty coldblooded. Also effective: a man doesn’t feel much like struggling when every move tells him it’ll hurt like hoolies, and make him piss blood the next couple of days.
Inside. A room of some kind. It was dry, musty, and dusty, stinking of rats and insects and stale urine. I seemed to be near a wall or some sort of partition, because I sensed a blockage behind me. I lay on my right hip and shoulder, bundled up like a rug merchant’s wares. From behind me came a dim, nacreous glow. Sickly yellow-green. It illuminated very little, but I caught a glimpse of something—or someone—across the room, hidden in deeper shadows.
I stopped swearing when I realized I wasn’t alone, and when I discovered it was rather difficult to make any sound at all, because something very taut and painful was looped around my throat. Wrists were tied behind me, and a length of something—wire? rope?—ran from them to the binding around my ankles. An excessively short length; my legs were bent up so that heels nearly touched buttocks. It was highly uncomfortable.
Which didn’t make me very confident about the situation.
“Sandtiger.”
So much for wondering if they—or he—knew who I was. On one hand, it made me feel like this had been done for a reason. On the other, it made me feel like I was in more trouble than just a random, if violent, robbery.
Especially since I heard the few coppers in my pouch rattle as I shifted, testing bonds.
“Sandtiger.”
I stilled. The back of my neck itched, and forearms. My belly felt queasy.
“Do me a favor?” I asked. “Give us a little more light, so I can see what party I’ve been invited to.”
Nothing. And then the voice asking, with a trace of mild amusement, if I was sure I wanted light. “Because if you see me, will you not then have to be killed?”
A cultured, authoritative voice; the kind that appears ineffective, until you demand proof of strength. The slight accent was of the Border country, with a twist of something else. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
I expelled a breathy, cynical grunt. “Hoolies, you’ll kill me regardless—if that’s what this is all about. If it isn’t, you don’t really care one way or another.” I worked my wrists a little, found no give at all. If anything, the binding tightened.
Silence. And then light.
I swore in spite of the loop around my throat.
“Precisely,” he agreed. “Now, shall we discuss once more what kind of payment you would like for the Northern woman?”
I told him what he could do w
ith himself.
“I intend to,” he said mildly. “I’m quite depraved, you know. It’s part of my reputation. Umir the Ruthless, they call me.”
I gritted teeth. “Is that why you want Del?”
“Is that her name?”
I swore again. This time at myself.
“No.” The light came from a crude clay lamp set into a window sill. He stood in front of it, which threw him mostly into silhouette and limited its effectiveness, but the pale glow from behind me balanced the illumination and allowed me to see the characteristic dark Southron face with high-arched nose, sharp cheekbones, thin lips and deep sockets, but the eyes in them were an unusual pale gray. Borderer, I decided, in view of the accent. Rings and studded belt glinted. “I want—Del—for the very reasons I gave you before: I collect differences.”
“What in hoolies is that supposed to mean?”
He gestured. “Some people collect gemstones, golden ornaments, horses, women, men, rugs, silks…” Again the smooth gesture illustrative of the obvious. “I collect many different things. I collect things that interest me by their very differentness.”
“So you want her.”
“She is a remarkably beautiful woman, in a very dangerous, deadly sort of way. Most women—Southron women—are soft, accommodating things, all tears and giggles—depending on their moods, which are innumerable. She is most decidedly not soft. She is hard. She is sharp. She is edged, like steel. Like glass.” His smile was faint in the thick shadows. “So keenly honed she would part the flesh with no man the wiser, and let him bleed to death at her feet, smiling all the while.”
“As she’ll part yours,” I promised. “She’s a sword-dancer, borjuni… a fully trained, jivatma-bonded sword-dancer. Do you have any idea what that means?”
“It means I want her more than ever.” He smiled. “And I’m not a borjuni. I’m a tanzeer.”
“In Quumi?”
He shrugged. “With proper management, Quumi could become profitable again. But it has only lately come into my possession. I have annexed it to my domain.” He pointed northerly. “Harquhal.”
“Harquhal is yours?” I frowned. “Harquhal hasn’t belonged to a tanzeer for years. It’s a border town—a Borderer town. You can’t just walk in there and take it over.”
“It’s when people believe you can’t that you can.” He made a sharp gesture. “But we’re not here to discuss annexations. We’re not here to discuss anything, really—I just thought you might like to know that even as we speak, my men are abducting the woman for me.”
I tried to break the bindings and succeeded only in nearly choking myself into unconsciousness. Shaking with anger, I subsided. “So much for offering to buy her.”
“I pride myself on being a judge of men. When I learned who you were, I knew it was unlikely you would give in. You have something of a reputation, Sandtiger… there is talk that imprisonment in Aladar’s goldmine changed you.” He paused. “And the woman.”
“How?” I spat. “Are you trying to say I’m soft, like the Southron women?”
“To the contrary—although some undoubtedly would argue that; but then, they have no idea what motivates a man.” He smoothed the rich silk-shot fabric of his nubby, slubbed burnous, rings glittering. “Those who understand men—or understand you—say the mine and the woman have made you more focused. More deadly than ever. Before, you cared mostly for self-gratification… now that life and freedom mean so much more to you—now that there is the woman—you are not so lackadaisical.”
“Lackadaisical?” It was about the last word I’d choose to characterize myself.
“Men who are nomads—or once were—drift with the Punja, Sandtiger. Where they go matters little, so long as there is a job, or women, or wine.” He smiled. “You were blessed with unusual size, strength and quickness, and a great natural ability… why should a man so talented waste his strength unnecessarily? No, he merely flicks the insect aside instead of squashing it, because he knows he can… and that if he should choose to squash it, his will be the quickest foot any insect has ever known.”
He stopped speaking. I stared at him, unsettled by his summation. By his ability to judge so easily, and speak with such certainty.
I lay unmoving, cognizant of bindings. “Let her alone.”
“No.” He moved a single step closer. “Do you understand what I have just said? You are a man who cannot be bought. An anomaly, Sandtiger—a different kind of sword-dancer, whose whole lifestyle is to be bought. Slavery of a different sort.”
I bit back anger, putting up a calm front. “So, am I to join your collection, too?”
“No. Sword-dancers are a copper a dozen… admittedly, you might be worth more than that, but not so much that you’re worthy of my collection. No,” he said thoughtfully, “were I to add a sword-dancer, it would be Abbu Bensir.”
I blurted it without thinking. “Abbu!”
“I want the most unique, Sandtiger. That is the point. You are very good—seventh-level, I believe?—but Abbu is… well, Abbu is Abbu. Abbu Bensir.”
I know. I know. It was stupid to feel even remotely jealous, in view of the circumstances. But it grated. It rankled. Because while it’s bad enough to be trussed up and dumped in a stinkhole because you’re inconvenient, being told you’re not worth as much as your chief rival makes it even worse.
I scowled blackly. “Ever heard of Chosa Dei?”
He smiled faintly, brows lifted in amused perplexion. “Chosa Dei is a Southron legend. Of course I have.”
I grunted. “He collected things, too. Mostly magic, though.”
The tanzeer laughed softly. “Then we are very alike, the legend and I. I have acquired a bit of magic lore over the years.”
Magic lore, not magic itself. I thought the distinction important. “What happens next, tanzeer? Am I to be left here as rat food, or do you have something in mind?”
“What I have in mind is the woman.” He smiled as my muscles instantly knotted against the bindings. “I would not try quite so hard to break free, Sandtiger. That is not rope imprisoning you, but magic.”
I froze. “Magic?”
“Runelore, to be precise.” He shrugged. “I have a grimoire.”
“A grim-what?”
“Gri-moire,” he enunciated. “A collection of magical spells and related enchantments. The Book of Udre-Natha, it is called. The Book of the Swallowed Soul.” The tanzeer smiled. “My soul is quite intact, as yet… but certainly bartered.” He reached inside his burnous and drew out something that glowed dull gray-brown in muted illumination. “This is but a sample, a fragment left over—do you see?” He spoke a single word under his breath, and the thing he held flared into life. It glowed a sickly yellow-green. “There. Runelore. The Book of Udre-Natha is full of such small magics, as well as larger.” He came closer, bending slightly to dangle the length before my eyes. “Do you see the runes? Hundreds of them, all woven together into a single strand of knotted, unbreakable binding, stronger than rope, or wire. That is what imprisons you, Sandtiger. At throat, wrists, ankles.” He gestured. “Skill or no skill, sword or no sword, even you cannot break free of magic.”
Transfixed, I stared at the abbreviated length dangling from his fingers. Dim, pulsing light; runes knotted together to form a bizarre, living rope thick around as a woman’s smallest finger.
He tucked the runes away. “I would not struggle too much,” he warned. “Part of runelore, once set to bind, is to constrain such attempts. If you fight too heartily, the loop around your throat could quite easily strangle you. And I would hate to have that happen.”
“Why?” I asked rustily. “What use am I to you?”
“Not to me. To Sabra.”
Every muscle froze.
“I don’t want you,” he said, “but she does. And since I am not averse to making a profit, I’m pleased to be able to rid myself of you while also earning coin—and Sabra’s gratitude. One never knows when such gratitude can come in handy.”
“She’s a woman,” I said, looking for an edge. “You’ll deal with a woman tanzeer?”
“I’ll deal with anyone I must to secure the things I want.” He shrugged. “I am a pragmatist, Sandtiger… for now, Sabra rules her father’s domain, but that will change. It always does, eventually.” He shook out the folds of his heavy sleeves. “By now they should have the woman—Del?” He nodded. “So I take my leave.” He turned to the lamp, blew it out. The nacreous glow of binding runes cast sickly light upon his stark, shadowed face. “Sabra should arrive from Iskandar in a day or two. Until then, you’ll have to make shift where you can. And if you think to shout for help, recall you are in my domain. I have promised the people I will restore her to her former glory—and I have also told them they are not to meddle in my affairs.”
I lurched, then stiffened as rune-bindings tightened. “Wait—”
He moved to the door and put his hand upon the latch. “I am not a murderer, borjuni, or rapist. I acquire things to admire them. It may please you to know I have no intention of harming the woman.”
It was something. But as he shut the door and latched it, I wondered if he lied.
Lied about everything.
Twenty-eight
No light, save for the ghostly glow of rune-bindings. I lay in pallid darkness, bathed by sickly shadows, and wondered how far I could test the bonds without strangling myself. Umir the Ruthless had been clever; by also running the single length of rune-rope through loops at wrists and ankles, he made certain any sort of testing would tighten the noose snugging my throat.
Hoolies take him.
Then, again, I reflected, he seemed to think his soul was already compromised by his ownership of the Book of Udre-Natha, or whatever the hoolies it was.
I scowled into darkness. By refusing to think about magic most of my adult life, it seemed I’d missed out on a lot of knowledge and forgone conclusions. It seemed the South was riddled with magical items, grim-whatevers, would-be sorcerers, afreets… ah, hoolies, I don’t care what they say, it’s all tricks and nonsense.
Except Umir’s “nonsense” was doing a fine job of keeping me out of action.
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