Sword-Singer Read online

  I looked around. I could still hear the lilting tone that kept the hounds away. “Don’t they ever get tired of singing?”

  “Do you get tired of breathing?”

  “There’s a difference, bascha. I have to breathe.”

  “As much as they have to sing.” I felt cool fingers slide through mine. “When I was little, my mother used to sing me to sleep. And then Jamail, when he was born; probably my brothers before me. And my father would hum when he honed the swords.” She sighed, looking at the lights that danced in walls. “I can’t remember the first time I heard about the Cantéada. I just seemed always to know, like everyone else. But the story goes that before the gods made the Cantéada, there was no music in the world. And people were sad, not knowing what they lacked, but knowing they weren’t whole.” Her fingers tightened slightly. “And so the gods made the Cantéada, and the Cantéada made music.”

  I let it sink in; there’d been no singing in my family, because I’d had no family. Only a bed with the goats. “Nice story,” I said finally, “if a little hard to believe.”

  “Let’s walk.” Del tugged on my fingers. “Do you remember all those patterns on the walls of the song-master’s cave? All those lines and knots?”

  “I remember.” We walked in candleglow. It was cool but not cold, although without my Northern wools and leathers I might feel differently. I was beginning to appreciate them.

  “Well, those knots are notes. The line patterns are the flow of the song. Together it makes music.”

  I grunted. “Seems awfully complicated.”

  “It can be. But you don’t have to read it, unless you mean to sing or play what’s been sung or played before. You can just make it up as you go, or put it away in your head for singing another time.” She smiled a little. “It’s one of the things an ishtoya is required to learn.”

  “Along with languages, mathematics and geography.”

  “Yes. And, of course, the dance.”

  Ah, yes, the dance. The thing we both lived for. “I think I prefer it less complicated. No song required.”

  Her fingers stiffened a little. “But in the North it is required.”

  I lifted one shoulder. “Fine for you, bascha. But I don’t have to worry about it; all I have to do is dance.”

  “But listen to it, Tiger…listen to the song.…”

  I listened to the song. Heard the rise and fall of the melody, the mingling of many voices. Or whatever the Cantéada used to make their music.

  “Nice enough,” I said grudgingly, “if a little monotonous after a while.”

  “It’s a wardsong, Tiger…shaped to keep out hounds, not entertain human ears.”

  I grunted. “It would take something to entertain my ears.”

  Del sighed. We walked side by side, fingers laced, but only slackly, insisting on nothing. Neither of us is much for pronounced displays of affection, mostly because it’s a very private thing. But also because I think both of us are reluctant to use the silent language of bedmates, for fear of giving away too much. Of ourselves as well as to others.

  “Do you ever just get tired?”

  Her tone was odd. I glanced at her curiously. “Tired?—well, yes…just like anyone else.”

  “No. I mean tired. Tired of who you are…tired of what you do.”

  I didn’t answer at once. We continued walking, going nowhere in particular, just meandering through the canyon’s candleglow. Ahead, the stud whickered; we were near the songmaster’s cave.

  Finally, I answered. “I think they’re one and the same.”

  Del glanced at me sharply.

  I shrugged, made uncomfortable by the turn of the conversation. “I mean—sword-dancing is what I do, but it’s also what I am.” I spread my free hand. “Sword-dancing is more than a job. It’s also a way of life.”

  “Not for everyone,” she said. “Not for Alric, with his wife and two little girls.” She paused, smiling. “Maybe three by now, or even a little boy; Lena was overdue.”

  I hadn’t thought of Alric in months. The big Northerner had proved helpful to us both down South, although at first I’d distrusted him. He was a sword-dancer, Northern-trained, but didn’t claim Del’s skill or rank. Nor did he have a jivatma, using a Southron blade instead.

  I shook my head. “It’s not the sort of life a man should have if he keeps a woman.”

  Del smiled. “I suppose you’d rather stay at home while she tends you, the cookfire and babies…or maybe you’d rather be in bed trying to make those babies.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “It’s better than celibacy.” I cast her a meaningful glance. “Well, then? What about you? Fair is fair, bascha…what happens a year or two from now? Do you start making babies?”

  Del’s smile faded. Her expression turned pensive. “You said a man shouldn’t be a sword-dancer if he has a woman. Perhaps you’re right; it would be difficult for the woman to know how much her man risks each time he steps into the circle.” She sighed, stroking back pale hair. “And so I ask myself: What sort of parent would I be? What sort of mother would I be if I risked myself in the circle?”

  “But you have a choice,” I told her. “You don’t have to be a sword-dancer…once you start having babies, there’ll be other things to do. The children will keep you busy.”

  Del’s mouth hooked down. “And there it is, Tiger…a man does what he wants, even after siring children. A woman must be a mother.”

  I frowned, puzzled. “Isn’t it what you’d want?”

  Del looked straight at me. “Not every woman wants children.”

  “But it seems a natural thing—”

  “Does it?” Her tone was inflexible. “Is that why your mother left you in the desert?”

  Something pinched deep in my belly. I felt a little sick.

  Del’s fingers tightened. “Maybe she had no choice. Maybe she was ill. Maybe you were ill, and she thought you’d already died. Maybe—”

  “Maybe not,” I said dully. “Maybe it’s like you said: she simply didn’t want me.”

  Del stopped walking abruptly and raised my hand to her lips. “I want you,” she said.

  Twenty-nine

  It was the stud who warned us, although we weren’t paying much attention, being rather engrossed in something other than listening to horses. And then, suddenly, they were here, and we were no longer alone.

  Adara’s hand was on my shoulder, pulling me away even as Massou slipped between Del and I. “So long—”she said. “So long—”

  “Now, wait just a—”

  Cipriana grasped my right arm. “You don’t know how it is. You don’t know how it is.”

  I heard Del say something to Massou in a questioning tone, although the words themselves were lost beneath Adara and Cipriana. Massou didn’t answer. He just hung on to both her wrists.

  “What in hoolies—?” I tried to twist free of them, found I couldn’t. Found they weren’t about to let me.

  “So long—” Adara whispered.

  “Me first,” her daughter said.

  “Power,” Adara hissed. “Power in flesh, power in steel—”

  “Get off—” But they weren’t about to.

  “Tiger!” It was Del, sounding uncommonly afraid. “Oh, Tiger—loki—”

  No. It couldn’t be possible. Loki? Adara and Cipriana? Especially Massou; it was impossible.

  But it wasn’t. And I knew it; it all came together.

  “Hoolies—”

  I tried ripping away, shouting at Del to do the same. I couldn’t see much, being engulfed by two determined loki masquerading as women, and poor light to boot. All I knew was they were both incredibly strong, both incredibly forceful, and if I wasn’t careful they’d have me spread-eagled on the ground before I could say my name.

  “Del—?” I wrenched my head around, trying to see her. Saw Massou pushing her back, pushing her back, until she smacked against the wall so hard her head rapped rock. I heard the scrape of her sword hilt. And then I saw Mass
ou, who was no longer Massou.

  “Tiger—Tiger—”

  Hoolies, I’ve never heard her sound so frightened. I tried again to wrench free, but Adara and Cipriana were too much for me. I felt hands digging into belly, into abdomen; lower, between my thighs.

  Adara: “—power in flesh—”

  Cipriana: “—power in steel—”

  Hoolies, they were undoing the tie-string of my trews!

  Del began to scream.

  I thought: If I can get my sword free— But knew I couldn’t. I was flat on my back on my sheath; the sword was lost to me.

  Cipriana bent down, tongued my cheek, traced out the scars. Something rattled against my teeth: the necklet of lumpy stones.

  And then I recognized it. Reddish, irregular stones strung on a thin leather thong. She had shown it to me once before, no doubt flaunting it in challenge, and I hadn’t recognized it. Now I did. Now I knew it was the necklet Del had made for her mother years before, thrown into the circle of stones as an offering to the loki in hopes it would be enough.

  Obviously, it hadn’t.

  They weren’t women. Not exactly. More. Demons in women’s bodies, using a woman’s wiles and a demon’s strength. One was more than enough. Two would be my death.

  Or whatever was left over when they were done with me.

  Del still screamed. Massou, who wasn’t Massou, had forced her to the ground. I writhed, twisted, rolled; saw only snatches, because the women were too strong. Del, like me, was on her back, spitting and kicking and clawing and screaming, but clearly losing the battle. Massou, who wasn’t Massou, was dragging her legs apart.

  But he’s a boy, I said inwardly, even though he was not. There was no boy left, only a thing flowing out of mouth and nose and ears. Something much bigger than a boy. Bigger even than me.

  There was nothing left to fight. Del’s enemy had changed, but was using a man’s tactics. The ones a conqueror always uses to subdue a proud woman.

  Hoolies, not again—

  I tried spitting: Cipriana laughed. I tried biting: Adara smiled. I tried kicking and clawing, too, but nothing had any effect.

  Del was sobbing now.

  Adara’s hand was where it shouldn’t be. Cipriana licked my face, thrusting her tongue into my mouth. I felt the pinching in my belly and the acrid tang of bile climbing into the back of my throat.

  Hoolies, not like this—

  No. Not like this. Because something was happening.

  A sound. A thin thread of a sound. Not a sword, not a knife, but a needle, thrust into an ear. I felt nothing, but something was there. Something inside my head, piercing into my brain.

  Vision flickered. I smelled something foul. Tasted it, too, though I had swallowed nothing. My hearing wavered, then intensified, even as the shrill sound did.

  And then I knew what it was.

  Gods bless the Cantéada.

  Hands fell away from me. Bodies retreated, driven back by the song, and so did the demons, trapped in human, alien flesh.

  I sat up. Adara, Cipriana and Massou stood stock still, hands clapped over their ears. Their faces were formed of pain.

  “Del.” I crawled to her, put a hand on her, felt her flesh contract. She lay face down in the dirt. “Del—”

  And then, awkwardly, she was up. Up and scrambling away, scraping on buttocks and hands, thrusting herself away. She scrabbled across the dirt until she backed herself up against the stone wall, and there she sat, all jammed up against the stone as if she wanted to crawl inside it.

  “Del,” I said. “Bascha—” But I broke it off because clearly she wasn’t listening.

  Hoolies, but it is a frightening thing to look into the face of madness.

  Oh, bascha, not you.

  Behind me, the loki stood trapped while the Cantéada sang.

  Oh, bascha, look at me, not at them.

  She had driven fingers into the stone. She keeps her nails filed short, but one by one I saw them break, snapping against the rock.

  I knew better than to touch her.

  Behind me, the loki whimpered.

  “Delilah.” I said it quietly, with as much command as I could muster.

  She looked at me. Blankly, but at me, which was a distinct improvement.

  “Delilah,” I said again.

  Lips moved. Bitten, bloodied lips, already swelling. Shaping something I couldn’t hear.

  Very gently, a third time: “Delilah.”

  She stared back at me. She saw me. Sense came back into eyes, looseness to her limbs, purpose to her movements.

  Del was Del again, but now she was angry.

  Dirt coated her face. I saw spittle on her chin, and blood. Hair straggled into her eyes, stuck itself in sweat and tears and blood. She shook so hard she could barely stand, yet she did, and managed to draw the sword.

  Given time, even in her condition, she would have killed the bodies, the shells that housed the loki. But she was not given time because the Cantéada took it. They took it, remade it, gave it back, in a song of surpassing strength.

  It completely swallowed the thread of Del’s wailing chant, the warchant, the deathsong, the sound that promised an ending. Swallowed it, chewed it, spat it out upon the ground. Seeing it, Del broke off, beginning to tremble again.

  I wanted to touch her but didn’t, knowing she wasn’t ready. Knowing the woman before me was not the Del I knew, but Delilah, the girl Ajani had nearly destroyed on the threshold of her life. She had crossed that threshold eventually, but it was warped, planed of hatred and vengeance. She might have died—women did—but didn’t, being Del, who gave no man a victory he hadn’t fairly earned. Ajani hadn’t earned it. He’d only stolen it briefly, and then she had won it back.

  Del stared at Massou, Cipriana, Adara. At the loki in human form, who had somehow replaced human mind with loki guile, human desires with loki needs. At the woman, the girl, the boy, who had, somewhere on the journey, lost the battle to three loki I had unknowingly freed.

  Doors and cracks and chimneys glowed, painted with firelight. Beyond the loki, in the darkness, I saw shadows moving. Small, pale shadows, singing the binding song.

  They came from everywhere, the Cantéada. Out of and down the walls, carrying candles, creeping forward to form a circle. Even behind Del and me, coming forward, moving us inward, to be clustered within the circle.

  The loki made sounds of distress.

  It was cold. In darkness blushed with candleflame, I saw my breath plume forth. But the shiver that racked my body came from within, not without.

  The loki in human form were more than merely human. I saw madness in their faces, and desperation, and despair. Bound by the song, all they could do was suffer. As much, maybe, as the human hosts had suffered.

  The circle closed. There was flame and song and faces, uncanny, inhuman faces. Feathery crests stood up from brow to neck, rippling, tinged with firelight, speaking a language all its own. I’d seen only the songmaster. Now I saw the others. Now I heard them sing.

  I am not a man much touched by music, being deaf to its intricacies. I’ve said it before: it’s noise, no matter the intent. But this time, this time, it was far more than noise. Far more than song. The sound I heard was power.

  Legs gave out; I sat. Even as others sat; as Del collapsed beside me, loose-limbed, rubbery, dropping the sword beside her, awkward in the sudden loss of muscular control. The loki also; I saw them, one by one, turned into lumps of flesh like clay, waiting to be formed. Waiting to be shaped.

  I opened my mouth to speak. To say something to Del; to ask her what it meant, what they would do, what they wanted of us. She was Northern; surely she knew. But I asked nothing because I couldn’t. Because the song had become my world.

  Flame melted, ran together, made the circle whole. I saw light, only light, and then even that was too much to bear. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I ran away from it.

  Trouble was, it came with me. Just like the song.

  *B
irthsong?* someone asked.

  Birthsong. Birthsong? Blankly, I stared into the light.

  A pause. *Birthname?*

  Birthname. The meaning was different. Shaped to make sense to me.

  I frowned. Thought about it. Realized I had no answer.

  A mother or father names a child. I’d known neither one. Which meant I had no birthname.

  Barely, I shook my head.

  The song changed a little. *Birthname,* it insisted.

  The songmaster? I wondered. Again, I shook my head.

  The song grew insistent. It was unbearable. I felt pressure inside my skull.

  And then, suddenly, a cessation of discomfort. I felt a trace of surprise that had nothing to do with me.

  *Callname?* it asked gently.

  That one I could answer. “Sandtiger,” I said.

  The song lingered in my head. Searched for truth or falsehood. Found the answer, then told me to withdraw.

  Withdraw. I frowned. Stared into flame. Then knew I was meant to walk through it.

  I stood up. Drew in a breath. Walked slowly out of the circle.

  I sagged against the canyon wall, conscious only of exhaustion in mind and body. No longer did I doubt what Del had said about the magic in their music. It had gone into my soul, and now I understood it.

  I turned. Beyond the light sat Del, staring, as I had, into the ring of flame. The light was stark on her face, and harsh, limning lines of exhaustion and tension. I saw blood and bruises and dirt, and an endurance almost destroyed. Del was close to breaking.

  I wanted to go to her. I wanted to go back into the circle and touch her and lead her out through the flame, through the song, through the circle of Cantéada. But I knew better. This time, I knew better than to ignore the existence of power.

  Now it was Del’s turn.

  *Birthname?* the songmaster asked.

  She stared into the flame.

  More gently, it was repeated.

  “Del,” the sword-dancer answered.

  *Birthname,* he insisted.

  “Delilah,” the woman whispered.

  I waited until she was free of the circle, blinded by light and tears, and then I took her hand, led her forth, brought her to stand with me. Saying nothing, asking nothing, merely being there. Hoping it was enough.