Sword-Maker Read online

  NOTES WAVERED, THEN DIED AWAY …

  I bent and scooped up the sword.

  In my hands, it burned.

  “Hoolies—” Flesh fused itself to steel. “Let go!” I shouted. “You thrice-cursed son of a goat—let go of my hands!”

  Steel clung, caressed, absorbed. I thought again of melted eyes in a blade-riven skull.

  “Hoolies take you!” I yelled. “What do you want, my soul?”

  Or was it trying to give one?

  —on my knees, now—

  —hoolies, oh, hoolies—stuck to a sword … oh, hoolies, stuck to a sword—

  —and for how long?

  DAW titles by Jennifer Roberson

  THE SWORD-DANCER SAGA

  SWORD-DANCER

  SWORD-SINGER

  SWORD-MAKER

  SWORD-BREAKER

  SWORD-BORN

  SWORD-SWORN

  SWORD-BOUND

  CHRONICLES OF THE CHEYSULI

  Omnibus Editions

  SHAPECHANGER’S SONG

  LEGACY OF THE WOLF

  CHILDREN OF THE LION

  THE LION THRONE

  THE GOLDEN KEY

  (with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott)

  ANTHOLOGIES

  (as editor)

  RETURN TO AVALON

  HIGHWAYMEN: ROBBERS AND ROGUES

  KARAVANS

  KARAVANS

  DEEPWOOD

  THE WILD ROAD

  SWORD-MAKER

  JENNIFER ROBERSON

  DAW BOOKS, INC.

  DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

  SHEILA E. GILBERT

  PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 1989 by Jennifer Roberson O’Green

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-64742-4

  Cover art by Corey Wolfe.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 794.

  This book is dedicated to Donald A. Wollheim

  The scanning, uploading and distribution via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Printing, October 1989

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  Acknowledgment

  As any author with spouse or significant other can attest, no book is written completely independent of that person. There are things that person does: answers the phone, brings in the mail (telling you if there’s a royalty check), goes out for more milk, gets the cat off the computer, tells the barking dog to be quiet, plus myriad other tasks. These things are all important; concentration is occasionally a very delicate thing. But this person also contributes a great deal to the actual creation of a book. He reads, rereads, re-rereads. Tells you what works, and what doesn’t. Drives you completely bonkers. But he also improves the book.

  Mark O’Green had much to do with Sword-Maker. Without him, it wouldn’t exist. For this, and other things, I give him my gratitude.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Part II

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part III

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Prologue

  She is not a woman for idle conversation, having little patience for small talk, and even less for excuses and explanations. Including those dealing with life and death; mine, or her own. And yet I resorted to both: excuses, explanations. Somehow, I had to.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I declared. “It wasn’t. Did I have any choice? Did you leave me any choice?” I snorted in derision. “No, of course not—not you … you leave no choice or chance to anyone, least of all me … you just stare me down across the circle and dare me to take you, to cut you, to chop you down with my blade, because it’s the only thing that will make you admit you’re just as human as anyone else, and just as vulnerable. Just as fragile as anyone, man or woman, made of flesh and blood … and you bleed, Del … just like anyone else—just like me—you bleed.”

  She said nothing. Fair hair shone white in firelight, but blue eyes were nothing more than blackened pockets in a shadow-clad face lacking definition or expression. The beauty remained, but changed. Altered by tension, obsession, pain.

  Behind me, tied to a tree, the stud snorted, stomped, pawed a thin layer of slush away from winter-brown turf. Pawing again and again, stripping away even the turf until what he dug was a hole.

  Horses can’t talk, not like humans; they do what they can with ears, teeth, hooves. What he told me now was he didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to sleep. Didn’t want to spend the night tied to a bare-branched tree, chilled to the bone by a Northern wind that wouldn’t—quite—quit. What he wanted was to leave. To go on. To head south toward his desert homeland where it is never, ever cold.

  “Not my fault,” I repeated firmly. “Hoolies, bascha, you and that storm-born sword of yours … what did you expect me to do? I’m a sword-dancer. Put me in a circle with a sword in my hands, and I dance. For pay, for show, for honor—for all those things most men are afraid to name, for fear of showing too much … well, I’m not afraid, Del—all I know is you left me no choice but to cut you, coming at me like that with that magicked sword of yours—what did you expect? I did what I had to. What was needed, for both of us, if for different reasons.” I scratched angrily at the scars in my right cheek: four deep-scored claw marks, now white with age, cutting through the beard. “I tried like hoolies to make you quit, to make you leave that thrice-cursed island before it came to something we’d both regret, but you left me no choice. You stepped into that circle all on your own, Del … and you paid the price. You found out just how good the Sandtiger is after all, didn’t you?”

  No answer. Of course not; she still thought she was better. But I had proven which of us was superior in the most eloquent fashion of all.

  Swearing at the cold, I resettled the wool cloak I wore, wrapping it more closely around shoulders. Brown hair uncut for far too long blew into my eyes, stinging, and my mouth. It also caught on my short-cropped beard repeatedly, no matter how many times I stripped it back. Even the hood didn’t help; the wind tore it from my head again and again and again, until I gave up and left it puddled on my shoulders.

  “You and that butcher’s blade,” I muttered.

  Still Del said nothing.

  Wearily I scrubbed at brows, eyes, face. I was tired, too tired; the wound in my abdomen ached unremittingly, reminding me with each twinge I
’d departed Staal-Ysta far sooner than was wise, in view of the sword thrust I’d taken. The healing was only half done, but I’d departed regardless. There was nothing left for me in Staal-Ysta. Nothing at all, and no one.

  Deep in the cairn, flame whipped. Smoke eddied, tangled, shredded on the air. Wind carried it away, bearing word of my presence to the beasts somewhere northeast of me in darkness. The hounds of hoolies, I called them; it fit as well as any other.

  I waited for her to speak, even to accuse, but she made no sound at all. Just sat there looking at me, staring at me, holding the jivatma across wool-trousered thighs. The blade was naked in the darkness, scribed with runes I couldn’t—wasn’t meant to—read, speaking of blood and forbidden power too strong for anyone else to key, or to control, with flesh, will, voice.

  Del could control it. It was part of her personal magic; the trappings of a sword-singer.

  Sword-singer. More than sword-dancer, my own personal trade. Something that made her different. That made her alien.

  Whose name was Boreal.

  “Hoolies,” I muttered aloud in disgust, and raised the leather bota yet again to squirt Northern amnit deep into my throat. I sucked it down, gulp after gulp, pleased by the burning in my belly and the blurring of my senses. And waited for her to say something about drink curing nothing. About how a drinking man is nothing more than a puppet to the bota. About how dangerous it is for a sword-dancer, a man who lives by selling sword and skill, to piss away his edge when he pisses liquor in the morning.

  But Del said none of those things.

  I wiped amnit from my mouth with the back of a hand. Glared at her blearily across the guttering fire. “Not my fault,” I told her. “Do you think I wanted to cut you?” I coughed, spat, drew in breath too deep for the half-healed wound. It brought me up short, sweating, until I could breathe again, so carefully, meticulously measuring in- and exhalations. “Hoolies, bascha—”

  But I broke it off, confused, because she wasn’t there.

  Behind me, the stud dug holes. And he, like me, was alone.

  I released all my breath at once, ignoring the clutch of protest from my ribs. The exhalation was accompanied by a string of oaths as violent as I could make them in an attempt to overcome the uprush of black despair far worse than any I’d ever known.

  I dropped the bota and rose, turning my back on the cairn. Went to the stud, so restless, checking rope and knots. He snorted, rubbed a hard head against me, ignored my grunt of pain, seeking release much as I did. The darkness painted him black; by day he is bay: small, compact, strong, born to the Southron desert.

  “I know,” I said, “I know. We shouldn’t even be here.” He nibbled at a cloak brooch: garnet set in gold. I pushed his head away to keep curious teeth from wandering to my face. “We should go home, old son. Just head south and go home. Forget all about the cold and the wind and the snow. Forget all about those hounds.”

  One day he would forget; horses don’t think like men. They don’t remember much, except what they’ve been taught. Back home again in the South, in the desert called the Punja, he would recall only the grit of sand beneath his hooves and the beating heat of the day. He’d forget the cold and the wind and the snow. He’d forget the hounds. He’d even forget Del.

  Hoolies, I wish I could. Her and the look on her face as I’d thrust home the steel in her flesh.

  I was shaking. Abruptly I turned from the stud and went back to the cairn. Leaned down, caught up the sheath and harness, closed my fist around the hilt. In my hand the cold metal warmed at once, sweet and seductive; gritting teeth, I yanked the blade free of sheath and bared it in firelight, letting flame set steel to glowing. It ran down the blade like water, pausing only briefly to pool in the runes I now knew as well as I knew my name.

  I was shaking. With great care, I took the sword with me to one of the massive piles of broken boulders, found a promising fissure, wedged the blade into it. Tested the seating: good. Then locked both hands around the hilt, meaning to snap it in two. Once and for all, to break it, for what it had done to Del.

  Samiel sang to me. A small, private song.

  He was hungry, still so hungry, with a thirst that knew no bounds. If I broke him, I would kill him. Was I willing to run that risk?

  I tightened my hands on the hilt. Gritted teeth—shut my eyes—

  And slid the blade, ringing, very carefully out of the fissure.

  I turned. Sat. Slumped, leaning against the boulders. Cradling the deadly jivatma; the one I had made my own.

  I rested my temple against the pommel of the twisted-silk hilt. It was cool and soothing, as if it sensed my anguish.

  “I must be getting old,” I muttered. “Old—and tired. What am I now—thirty-four? Thirty-five?” I stuck out a hand and, one by one, folded thumb and fingers absently. “Let’s see … the Salset found me when I was half a day old … kept me for—sixteen years? Seventeen? Hoolies, who can be sure?” I scowled into distance. “Hard to keep track of years when you don’t even have a name.” I chewed my lip, thinking. “Say, sixteen years with the Salset. Easiest. Seven years as an apprentice to my shodo, learning the sword … and thirteen years since then, as a professional sword-dancer.” The shock was cold water. “I could be thirty-six!”

  I peered the length of my body, even slumped as I was. Under all the wool I couldn’t see anything, but I knew what was there. Long, powerful legs, but also aching knees. They hurt when I walked too much, hurt after a sword-dance. Hurt when I rode too long, all thanks to the Northern cold. I didn’t heal as fast as the old days, and I felt the leftover aches longer.

  Was I getting soft around the middle?

  I pressed a stiff hand against my belly.

  Not so you could tell, though the wound had sucked weight and tone. And then there was the wound itself: bad, yes, and enough to put anyone down for a couple of weeks, but I’d been down for nearly a month and still was only half-healed.

  I scratched the bearded cheek riven by scars. Old, now; ancient. Four curving lines graven deeply into flesh. For months in the beginning they’d been livid purple, hideous reminders of the cat who had nearly killed me, but I hadn’t minded at all. Not even when people stared. Certainly not when women fussed, worried about the cause. Because the scars had been the coinage that bought my freedom from the Salset. I’d killed a marauding sandtiger who was eating all the children. No more the nameless chula. A man, now, instead, who named himself the Sandtiger in celebration of his freedom.

  So long ago. Now the scars were white. But the memories were still livid.

  So many years alone, until Del strode into my life and made a mockery of it.

  I scratched the scars again. Bearded. Long-haired. Unkempt. Dressed in wool instead of silk, to ward off Northern wind. So the aches wouldn’t hurt so much.

  The sword, in my hands, warmed against my flesh, eerily seductive. The blade bled light and runes. Also the promise of power; it flowed up from tip to quillons, then took the twisted-silk grip as well. Touched my fingers, oh so gently, lingering at my palm. Soft and sweet as a woman’s touch: as Del’s, even Del’s, who was woman enough to be soft and sweet when the mood suited her, knowing it something other than weakness. An honest woman, Delilah; in bed and in the circle.

  I flung the sword across the cairn into the darkness. Saw the flash of light, the arc; heard the dull ringing thump as it landed on wind-frosted turf.

  “I wish you to hoolies,” I told it. “I want no part of you.”

  And in the dark distances far beyond the blade, one of the beasts bayed.

  Part I

  One

  Only fools make promises. So I guess you can call me a fool.

  At the time, it had seemed like a good idea. The hounds that dogged Del and me to Staal-Ysta, high in Northern mountains, were vicious, magic-made beasts, set upon our trail by an unknown agency. For weeks they merely stayed with us, doing nothing other than playing dogs to sheep, herding us farther north. Once there, they’
d done much more; they attacked a settlement on the lakeshore, killing more than thirty people. Some of them were children.

  Now, I’m no hero. I’m a sword-dancer, a man who sells his sword and services to the highest bidder. Not really a glorious occupation when you think about it; it’s a tough, demanding job not every man is suited for. (Some may think they are. The circle makes the decision.) But it’s a job that often needs doing, and I’m very good at it.

  But it doesn’t make me a hero.

  Men, I figure, are pretty good at taking care of themselves. Women, too, unless they stick their pretty noses into the middle of something that doesn’t concern them; more often than not it doesn’t, and they do. But children, on the other hand, don’t deserve cruelty. What they deserve is time, so they can grow up enough to make their own decisions about whether to live or die. The hounds had stolen that time from too many settlement children.

  I owed nothing to Staal-Ysta, Place of Swords, which had, thanks to Del, tried to steal a year of my life in the guise of honorable service. I owed nothing to the settlement on the lakeshore, except thanks for tending the stud. But no one owed me anything, either, and some had died for me.

  Besides, my time on the island was done. I was more than ready to leave, even with a wound only halfway healed.

  No one protested. They were as willing to see me go as I was to depart. They even gave me gifts: clothing, a little jewelry, money. The only problem was I still needed a sword.

  To a Northerner, trained in Staal-Ysta, a jivatma—a blooding-blade—is a sacred thing. A sword, but one forged of old magic and monstrous strength of will. There are rituals in the Making, and countless appeals to gods; being Southron, and apostate, I revered none of them. And yet it didn’t seem to matter that I held none of the rituals sacred, or disbelieved (mostly) in Northern magic. The swordsmith had fashioned a blade for me, invoking the rituals, and Samiel was mine.

  But he didn’t—quite—live. Not as the others lived. Not as Del’s Boreal.

  To a Northerner, he was only half-born, because I hadn’t properly keyed him, hadn’t sung to forge the control I needed in order to wield the power promised by the blessing, by the rituals so closely followed. But then, clean, well-made steel is deadly enough on its own. I thought Northern magic redundant.