Дженнифер Роберсон: Sword-Born(English)

It knew. It understood. It acknowledged.

I roused to the rattle of claws, the tautness of leather thong against my throat. I meant to set my hand to the necklet, to preserve it and my throat, but I knelt upon the stone with legs and hands made part of it, encased, and I could do nothing.

A hoarse sound escaped me. Sahdri said, "Be still." And so I was.

He took the necklet from my throat. Leather rotted to dust in his hands, was carried away by wind. All that remained were claws.

One by one he tossed them into the air. Into the skies, and down.

With each he said, "The beast is dead. "

They fell, one by one.

Were gone.

He knelt before me. Set hands into my hair, imprisoned the skull. "The beast is dead. "

Unlocked from stone, I stood as he raised me. I was hollow, empty. A husk.

"Come inside," Sahdri said. "There are rituals to be done, and the gods await."

The bird perched upon the chair. It watched as the hair was shorn, then shaved. The flesh of the skull was paler than the body, for the Southron sun had only tantalized it, never reached it. When that flesh was smooth and clean, men gathered with dye, with needles. The patterns were elaborate, and lovely. Blood and fluid welled, was blotted away. The canvas on which they painted made no sound of complaint, of comment, of question. The pupils had grown small; the eyes saw elsewhere. The house of bone and flesh was quiescent as the spirit turned away from the world and in upon itself, to consider what it was now that the beast was dead.

When the patterns were complete, rings were set into his flesh. The lobe of each ear was pierced three times and silver rings hooked through. Three rings also were put through each eyebrow. Then the man was taken out upon the spire, was shown the wind, the world. He was made to kneel again; was blessed there by the others. Was made to lie facedown upon the stone. The arms were pulled away from his sides and placed outstretched upon the stone, palms down.

He lay in silence, rapt. Seeking the beast perhaps; but the beast was dead.

Shadow winged across the man's back. His head was blue, and bloody.

The bird circled. It watched as the fingers of the hands were spread with deft precision. Saw how the thumbs and first three fingers were sealed into stone; how the small finger on each hand was left as flesh, and free.

Two knives were brought. Two men, Natha and Erastu, priests and mages, knelt beside the man who lay upon the stone.

At Sahdri's brief nod, they cut off the smallest finger of each hand.

At Sahdri's brief nod, they lifted the severed fingers and gave them into his keeping.

He turned to the rim of the world, to the wind, invoked the blessing of the gods, and threw the fingers away.

One by one they fell.

Were gone.

The man upon the stone made no sound until Sahdri knelt beside him, put a hand upon his neck, and let it be known what had been done to him.

The man upon the stone, rousing into awareness, into comprehension, began to cry out curses upon them all.

"Be at peace," Sahdri said kindly. "The beast is dead, and you are now a living celebration of the gods. "

The man upon the stone -shaven, tattooed, flesh pierced and amputated -continued to cry out curses. To scream them at Sahdri, at the brothers, at the gods.

The bird winged higher, to catch and ride the wind.

I roused into fever, into pain. And when the fever was gone, I lived with pain. The stumps were sealed, so there was no blood, but pain remained. As much was of knowledge as of physical offense.

For days I lay upon the floor of the hermitage. I was given food and water; wanted neither. But eventually I drank, though I spurned the food. And when I drank, cup held in shaking hands now lacking a finger each, I tasted blood and bitter gall.

Sahdri said they had killed the beast. The sandtiger. The animal that freed me, that gave me identity and purpose, a name. The animal I was in the stories of the South: the Sandtiger, shodo-trained seventh-level sword-dancer from legendary Alimat; the man who lost no dances; who had, as a boy, defeated Abbu Bensir.

I was all of those things, and none of them. I understood what was done, and why: rob a man of his past, of the ability to live in it, to continue it through present into future, and he has no choice. He becomes something else. Other.

But understanding came fitfully. There were other times it deserted me. Times when I deserted me, left the abused body and went into the stone, plunged my spirit into the blood and bone of it, seeking escape. It was not difficult to do. I detached from the body, and left it.

And while the spirit was housed in stone one day, men came and took up the body.

It walked with them. The flesh of the skull had healed, no longer wept blood and fluid. The scabs of the brow piercings had fallen away, so the rings shone clean and bright; the earlobes were no longer swollen. The hands still trembled, still curled themselves, still pressed themselves high against the chest, crossed as if in ward because the stumps were yet tender, but the flesh there healed as well. The body went with them out onto the spire and saw how they restrained one brother. How he fought to be free; how he cried to be released.

When all of them gathered there upon the spire beneath the vault of heaven, the brother was released. Sobbing his joy, Erastu thrust both arms up into the skies in tribute to the gods, and ran.

And leaped.

And fell.

The priest-mages of the iaka, the First House, of the Stone Forest of Meteiera on ioSkandi, sang blessings unto the gods, begging their acceptance of the newly merged spirit.

The body knelt. Was still. And the others left it there as they left the spire, went back into the dwelling still singing blessings. To gather together and worship. To conduct rites and rituals.

The body, alone atop the world, remained. And when I let the spirit flow back out of the stone and into the flesh, I knelt there alone atop the world.

For the first time I looked at my hands. They were-unbalanced. Out of true, lacking symmetry. Four fingers were three, and no counterbalance to the thumbs.

I had no sword. No broom handle. Not even a stick, here atop the spire. But I had two wrists.

I stretched out my left arm. Placed my right palm against it, from underneath. Both hands trembled; the spirit quailed from anticipated pain. But I closed the thumb and three fingers of my right hand around my wrist.

Imagining a hilt.

Imagining grip, and balance.

Imagining a sword.

Imagining a dance.

"You will forget," Sahdri said.

Startled, I stiffened. Gripped the wrist, and hissed against the pain.

"You will forget."

"I can't."

"The beast is dead."

"No."

"The memory survives, for now. But that, too, will die."

"No."

"You have a very strong will," Sahdri said. "Stronger than I expected. To be stripped of the beast ... to be stripped of the means to be the beast within the circle-"

I snapped my head around to look at him. "You're saying I am the beast?"

"The sandtiger," he said, "And so you were, since the day you conjured and killed it. But it is dead, that beast. And the man who killed it, who became it, will forget what he was. He will be what he is. "

"And what am I?"

"Mage," Sahdri answered.

"What?" I arched eyebrows; felt the alien weight of rings depending from flesh. "Not priest?"

"Not yet. But that will come."

"When I'm willing to 'merge' as Erastu did?"

"Oh, long before. You will understand why it is necessary, and you will accept it. Willingly."

"I will, will I? Willingly?"

"Within a year."

"So certain of me, are you?"

"Certain of the magic. The madness." Sahdri's robes whipped in the wind. "Surely you understand the need for discipline."