Jennifer Roberson: Sword Born

To see nothing wrong in robbing a man of his past, his freedom, so his future would be built on the architecture of magic, and madness.

The shudder wracked me. I bent, cradled hands against me. Felt the heat running down my face to drip upon the stone. To trickle into my mouth.

I straightened slowly. Licked my lip and tasted blood. Tangible blood.

I welcomed the pain. And I gave myself leave to go, to become a man. Again.

Sword-dancer. Sandtiger. Again. Still.

In the winch-house I weighted the net and sent it plunging downward. When it reached the bottom, I tied the winch-drum into place and took hold of the rope that spilled over the lip of stone.

I had leaped from a spire. I could surely climb down a rope.

At the bottom I released the rope. Walked four paces. Saw the world reverse before me: everything light was dark, everything dark became light. Black was white, white was black. With nothing in between.

I knelt down, shut my eyes, prayed for the fit to pass.

When I could stand again, walk again, I sought and found seven of ten claws. Gathered them up. Tied them into the hem of my robe. And walked through the Stone Forest to the edge of the island.

At the ocean I looked for boats, for ships, and found none. That they came to ioSkandi, I knew; Sahdri had said there was trade of a sort. But none was present now.

Wind beat on the waves. Weary, I knelt upon the shore, let sea spray cool my burning face. Gripped the claws through linen, counting seven of ten.

I sat down then in the sand. Waves lapped, soaked me. I didn’t care. I took the claws from the hem, pulled thread from the fabric, and began to string a necklet.

When I was done, when the necklet was knotted around my throat, I sat in sand, soaked by wave and wind, and gripped the curving claws. Pain flared anew in the stumps of the missing fingers. It set me to sweating.

Abdomen. Cheek. Claws. Bit by bit, I would fit the pieces of me back together again.

Magic or no.

Madness or no.

Discipline.

Sahdri and the others made of it a religion, a new and alien zealotry I could not embrace. So I embraced what I already knew, renewed in myself that zealotry: the rituals and rites of Alimat. Lost myself in the patterns of the dance, the techniques of the sword. Stepped into the circle of the mind, and won.

Discipline.

I took seawrack, driftwood, a tattered piece of linen, and after four days of desperation, futility, and multitudinous curses, vows, and promises made to nonexistent gods, I finally conjured a ship.

Discipline.

A half-day and blinding headache later it sailed me into the caldera, where I saw no blue-sailed ships. No redheaded women captains. No fair-haired Northern baschas.

They believed I was dead. All of them.

Except the one who had set the trap.

I left behind seawrack, driftwood, and tattered linen. The basin-men, the molah-men, spying the shaven, tattooed head, the rings in ears and brow, fell away from me without offering their services even at exorbitant prices. Instead they shouted, called out curses, made ward-signs against magic, madness, and the ikepra.

Discipline.

I climbed the treacherous track to the top of the cliff, where basin-men, molah-men, women, wives, children, and merchants made ward-signs against the ikepra.

The ikepra, who by now was exhausted enough to want nothing better than to tumble into bedding and sleep for two tendays, ignored it all and walked.

In truth, the ikepra did more wobbling than walking, but the end result was the same: I reached Akritara. By sundown.

Simonides came out of the house to tell the ikepra to leave. Then blanched white as he truly saw the ikepra. "Alive!"

I wasted no time. "Where’s Del?"

He swallowed, closed his eyes, stared at me again. Said, in Skandic, "Praise all the gods of the sky!"

"Where’s Del?"

He set a trembling hand to the wall, as if he might fall without the support. "Gone. Both of them. They sailed."

I had expected it. Had prepared for it. But the despair was profound.

The ikepra showed none of it. Only cold control. "When?"

Simonides took his hand from the wall and gathered himself. "A threeday ago."

"At whose behest?"

His face was strained. "Mine."

He meant the metri’s. "I was dead, so why extend the guest-right to unnecessary people?"

"There was no place…" He attempted to regain self-control, began again. "There was no place here for the renegada woman."

"Del?"

"She said — she said this was not her home. Nor yours." His expression was anguished. "She would not stay in the place that had killed you."

"Well," I said, "that’s settled for the moment. Time I saw the metri."

"Wait!" His hand extended to stop me, fell away limply. "She is unwell. The shock…"

I offered neither diplomacy nor compassion. "Too bad."

His eyes sought my face, examined the ring-pierced brows, the tattooed patterns on my skull. Had the grace to comprehend some small measure of the shock I had been subjected to.

"Of course," he murmured, turning to escort me into her presence.

The metri stood in the center of an arch-roofed room, surrounded by pools of rich fabric — tunics — draped over the bed, the chair, the chest, puddled on the floor; a scattering of jewelry glinting of gold and glass in the lamplight; a handful of old flowers, dulled by years into brittle, pale, dusty semblances of what once had been bright and lively, and fresh.

As I came into the room she looked up from the flowers. Saw me. And the blooms were crumbled into dust and ash by the spasming of her fingers closing into trembling fists.

Even her lips were white. " Alive. "

"Despite every effort to insure otherwise," I said, "and somewhat more and certainly less than I was"— I held out my hands, palms up —"but incontestably alive. "

She was transfixed by my hands, by the evidence of mutilation. The stumps had healed, but were pink-and-purple against the tanned flesh. I have big hands, wide palms, long fingers; anyone, looking at my hands, would see at once something was missing.

Her pupils swelled to black as she stared into my face.

"A man born to the sword," I said, "is somewhat hampered by an — injury — such as this." I watched the flinching in her eyes. "Is this what you intended?"

She exhaled it. "I?"

In some distant, detached way, I appreciated the delicacy of her tone, the reaction honed to just the right degree of shock and denial. "Your boy," I said, "was feeling threatened. Your boy was truly afraid you might name me in his place. Your boy was on the verge of stepping outside your control. So you removed a piece from the board. A piece that had served a very important, if temporary, function, and was now viewed as unnecessary. Possibly even dangerous to the overall intent of the game." I paused. "Could you not have told him the truth from the beginning?"

The metri said, "He would not have played his part properly."

"Ah." I nodded. "And when will you teach him the rules?"

"There are none. Only an object: to win."

"Whose body was it that came in so handy?"

The tilt of her head shifted minutely. " I believed it was yours."

I laughed sharply, a brief blurt of sound. And in pure, unaccented, formal Skandic, the kind spoken only among the Eleven Families, I told her she was a liar.

The Stessa metri began to tremble.

"What did you think would happen?" I asked. "Did you think I would merge, thus removing all possibility I might return to complicate your life? Did you think I would forget everything I knew of my life before I was put atop the spire? Did you think I would be unchanged, and therefore not even due a momentary memory of my presence in your world?" I shook my head slowly. "I am as I always was. A sword-dancer. The Sandtiger. But with a little extra thrown into the pot. A pinch more seasoning than I had before."