Sword Born

"You sick son of a-"

"You are sick," he interrupted. "Look at your arm."

Part of me wanted not to. But part of me decided to play the game his way until I understood it better, or at least knew if there were any rules. So I looked at my arm.

Around the wrist, where he'd shut his hand, the skin was blotched with a fast-rising, virulent rash. Even as I watched, astonished, clusters of small pustules formed, broke. Wept.

"When you weary of emptying your belly," he said, "come to me."

I opened my mouth to reply, then turned and staggered to the rail. Where I promptly emptied my belly.

FIVE

DEL CAME looking for me, found me: perched again upon the rope coiled back at the stern. She stopped, arching eyebrows. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Any progress?"

"Progress at what?"

"With the captain."

"Oh. No. I mean-" With infinite care I examined a scrape across one kneecap. "-I'm not rushing it."

After a moment of silent perusal she squatted down so she could look into my face. "What's the matter?"

I hitched a shoulder. "She's not exactly what I expected."

"No-I mean, what's the matter with you?"

I eyed her warily. "What do you mean, what's the matter with me?"

"You've been ill again. I can tell. You get this greenish tinge around your mouth, and your nose turns red."

I fingered the nose, frowning, then sighed and gave up. "I'm sick of being sick. This is ridiculous!"

Her mouth twitched. "And no aqivi to blame it on, either."

I peered at her hesitantly. "Do I feel hot to you?"

She felt my forehead, slipping hands beneath flopping hair. "No. Cold." She moved out of the squat, sat down next to me on the rope. "I still say something stung you."

"Maybe so." I sat with both arms hooked over my thighs. The right wrist no longer wept fluids. The pustules were gone. The only trace of what had existed was a faint ring of reddened flesh, but it was fading rapidly. "Do you know what io means?"

Del shook her head.

I elaborated. "He said ioSkandi."

"Who did?"

"The blue-head. First mate."

She shook her head again. "We know Skandi is a place, and Skandic might indicate a person from Skandi, but io? " She shrugged. "Maybe a city in Skandi?"

I sighed, absently rubbing a wrist that felt and looked perfectly normal. "Could be. That makes as much sense as anything, I suppose." I slanted her a glance. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Any progress on your end?"

She smiled. "I'm not rushing it."

I grinned briefly, but it died. Quickly. I stared steadily at the deck. This next part was going to be hard. "Del."

She closed her eyes against the wind. "Hmmm?"

"They took no coin, no jewels, no cargo, no ship. Only you, and me, and the captain." Now I inspected a cracked toenail. "They may intend to sell us."

Her eyes snapped opened. After a moment of tense silence, she said carefully, "That would make sense." And as I went rigid from head to toe, she put a hand upon my knee. "I know, Tiger."

"Del-" I bit into the pierced cheek, bringing fresh blood. "I can't do it again."

The hand tightened. "I know."

"We have to find a way off this ship. Before-" I shut my eyes, squeezed them, then opened them. "Before."

"We will."

I pushed myself to my feet then, took two long strides to the rail and gripped it. Sea spray dampened my face as wind stripped back my hair. It was harder than I'd thought.

"Are you sick again?"

I spat blood, then spoke steadily, without excess emotion. "I will drown myself before I let anyone sell me into slavery again."

"Oh, Tiger-" A half-hearted, desultory protest.

I swung to confront her, startling her with my vehemence. "And you had better not pull me out of the water. Promise me that."

Del stared at me, weighing words, tone, expression-and began to believe. The color drained until she was white-faced, horrified, sitting stiffly upon the rope. "I can't make such a-"

"Promise me. "

She shook her head decisively. "There will be a way … we will find a way, make a way-"

"No," I said bitterly. "Not again."

"Tiger-"

"First the Salset for sixteen or seventeen years, then Aladar and the mines. I can't do it again. I can't. "

She attempted reason now, still not certain, but taking nothing for granted. "You freed yourself of the Salset. And you got free of the mines. There are opportunities that-"

"Enough." I cut her off curtly. "Don't ask it, don't wish it, don't expect it, Del. I can't."

Abruptly she thrust herself from the rope and stood there rigidly, trembling. She sought to speak, could not. Then turned to walk away with none of her usual grace.

"Del-"

She spun, furious. "Don't!"

I gestured futility. "I have to do-"

"No, you don't. You don't have to do any such thing."

I clamped my jaws shut. "I can't-"

"I can't do it! Do that? I can't! I can't!"

"Del-"

"No." In the coldest tone I had ever heard from her. "Are you so selfish, that you can ask this of me? Are you so blind, so arrogant?"

My voice rose. "Arrogant-!"

"What are you, to ask this of me? To expect me to watch you drown?"

"I didn't mean you had to watch –"

We were both shouting now. "You are a fool!" she cried, and then added something in uplander so vicious I knew better than to request a translation.

"It's not the first time," I reminded her sharply. "When Chosa Dei was in me, you agreed to kill me. This time I'm only asking you not to rescue me."

"And I couldn't do it!" she snapped. "Do you recall I had my jivatma at your throat?"

I did. Clearly.

"Do you recall how I promised then to make certain Chosa Dei would not be set free?"

I did.

"Do you recall how he very nearly took you as his own, as his body, so that he would have the means to destroy the land?"

Oh, yes. I recalled.

"I knew then I couldn't do it," Del said. "I knew it. I promised you then-and I couldn't do it."

"Del-"

"I will make no more such promises, Tiger. No more. Never." Tears stood in her eyes. Outrage, most likely. And maybe something else. "The only promise I shall make you is that I will die for you."

"Del, don't…you don't-"

"I do," she said. "Oh, I understand. I see. I know. And I refuse." She stepped close to me, very close, so that I felt her breath on my face. "In the name of my dead jivatma I swear this much: that I will do everything within my power to defend your life against any threat. Even one made by you." She was trembling with anger and, I thought, fear. "Don't ask anything more. Don't wish anything less. Expect nothing –but that I will die in your place to keep you from being a fool."

I caught her wrists, gripped them firmly. Opened my mouth to answer, to deny her this oath-and saw we had gathered a crowd of grinning onlookers. I swore, released her, and turned sharply back to the rail.

I stared blindly at the sea as I listened to her go.

Near dawn I awoke. I don't know if it was a sound, or the lack of. But I realized I was alone.

The emptiness was abysmal.

I stretched, twisted, and shook out parts of my anatomy until sweat sheened me. It was dawn, both breezy and cool, but I'd lost myself in the rituals I'd been taught at Alimat, in training to the shodo. He had explained that even a boy of seventeen should never assume his body was fit, and that as he aged fitness would become harder to achieve.