Which he delighted in demonstrating.
After I dragged myself out of the dirt for the fourth time, I noted a subtle change in the stud's posture. The tail no longer swished hard enough to lash eyeballs out of a skull. Ears no longer pinned back swiveled freely in all directions. He swung his head to peer at me quizzically through dangling forelock, examined me (maybe looking for blood?), then shook very hard from head to toe as if to say he was done with his morning warmup, and nosed again at the dirt in idle unconcern.
I slapped dust out of silks. Pulled the tunic into such order as was possible when seams are torn. Made certain the drawstring of my baggy Skandic trousers was still knotted. Managed to stand up straight and stride across to the stud. He stood quietly enough. I mounted, settled myself in the saddle, walked him out enough to know he was done with the battle.
Applause, whistles, and cheering rang out. Coin changed hands as wagers were paid off. But I knew better than to count it a victory, no matter what the crowd believed. The stud had merely gotten bored.
I dismounted and walked back over to Del with said stud in tow, supressing a limp. Her expression was sublimely noncom-mital.
In a pinched voice, I said, "Remember how just the other day I said I felt younger?"
Del raised brows.
"Add about two hundred years to the total."
One of the horse-boys came up, offering to strip down the stud and walk him. It was a warm day and all the excitement and exertion had resulted in sweat and lather. He needed cooling. I needed cooling. I wanted water, ale, and a bath. In that particular order.
Oh, and a new spine.
But of course under the eyes of the audience, many of whom had wandered in from the street when they heard the commotion, I stood straight and tall, saluted them, and strolled casually toward the alleyway leading to the street, pausing only to ask Del if she were coming, since she showed no signs of it.
"And stop laughing," I admonished.
"I'm not laughing. I'm smiling."
"You're laughing inside."
"My insides are mine," she observed, "to do with as I please."
"Are you coming?"
"I'll stay here and buy a horse, I think. And tack for both mounts. I'll meet you back at the inn."
I opened my mouth to oppose Del's foray into shopping without my presence, then thought better of it. She was a woman, and it was the South, but Del had proved many times over that only the rare man got the better of her.
That rare man being me, of course.
I gathered up harness and sword and took myself off to the inn. And ale. And a hot bath.
THREE
FLESH has turned to leather beneath the merciless sun. Eye sockets are scoured clean. Teeth shine in an ivory rictus. Wind, sand, and time have stripped away the clothing. She wears bone, now, little more, scrubbed to match the Punja's crystalline pallor. Modesty lies in rills of sand blown in drifts across her torso —
I woke up with a start as Del came into the room, creaking the door. Completely disoriented from the dream fragment, I stared at her blankly, slowly piecing back awareness, the recognition that I was still in the half-cask I'd ordered brought up and filled with hot water. That the water had cooled. That there was a real possibility I might never move again.
Del's expression was quizzical as she shut the door. Her arms were full of bundles. "I can think of more comfortable places to sleep—and positions to sleep in."
With care I pulled myself upright, spine scraping against rough wood. In an hour or so I might manage to stand. Scowling, asked if she'd spent every last coin we claimed.
Del was piling bundles on the bed. "Supplies," she replied crisply. "I assume we're leaving tomorrow, yes?"
I rearranged stiff legs with effort and hauled myself dripping out of the cask, swearing under my breath. "Yes."
Del tossed me the length of thin fabric doubling as a towel, examined my expression and movements, then frowned. "Your hands are hurting."
"Yes." I wrapped the cloth around my waist.
"Tiger-"
"Leave it, Del. I just banged them around on the stud, that's all." I bent, carefully grasped the jar of ale I'd set on the floor beside the cask, and upended the remaining contents into my mouth.
She clearly wanted to say more, but did not. Instead she turned back to the bed and began sorting through bundles. "Food," she announced, "suitable for travel. New botas; we can fill them in the morning. Medicaments. Blankets for bedding. A griddle. Flint and steel." There was more, but she left off anounc-ing everything.
"What about a mount for you, and tack?"
"Arranged. We can collect the stud and my horse first thing tomorrow morning."
"Do we have any money left?"
"Not much," she admitted. "Refitting is costly."
I could not get the memory of the dream fragment out of my mind. I turned away from Del and dropped the towel, rooting around in my belongings for fresh dhoti and burnous. I was done with Skandic clothing. I was in the South again. Home.
Where the dead woman was.
Del held out a small leathern flask. "Liniment," she said. "One of the horse-breakers gave it to me. He said it would help."
I tied the thongs on my dhoti. "I think the stud got the better end of the deal. I'm not sure he needs any help."
"He didn't mean it for the stud."
Ah. Trust a horse-breaker to know. And Delilah.
Sighing, I surrendered pride and annoyance and limped to the bed. "Be gentle, bascha. The old man is sore."
"It will be worse tomorrow."
I closed my eyes as she began to work aromatic liquid into my shoulders. "Thank you for that helpful reminder."
"There's a bota of aqivi in the supplies. For the road."
My eyes flew open. "You packed aqivi?" "Only for medicinal purposes, of course." I smiled and let my eyes drift shut again. Del herself was the best medicine a man could know.
She lifts an arm. Beckons. Demands my attention. When I give it, understanding, acceding to that demand, I see that the fragile bones of her hands have begun to fall away. A thumb and three fingers remain. The fourth, the smallest, is missing.
The jaw opens then. A feathering of sand pours between dentition. Shadowed sockets beseech me.
"Come home," she says.
"I am home," I say. "I have come home."
But it is not, apparently, what the woman wants. The hand ceases its gesture. The bones drop away, collapsing into fragments. Are scattered on the sand.
"Take up the sword," her voice says, before the wind subborns it as well.
I opened my eyes. Square-cut window invited moonlight. Illumination formed a tangible bar of light slicing diagonally across the bed. Del's hair glowed with the sheen of pearls. Her breathing was even, uninterrupted; though neither of us slept deeply in strange places, we had grown accustomed to one another's movements and departures.
Were the dreams my heritage from Meteiera? Would I spend my life viewing the remains of a dead woman in my sleep? Was I doomed to hear her voice issuing nightly from a broken mouth?
Or was there something I was to do, some task to undertake that I didn't yet understand?
I was too restless, too disturbed to sleep. Carefully I peeled back the threadbare blanket, warding tender stumps from rough cloth, and slipped from the bed, trying not to permit the ropes to creak. Trying not to groan about the stiffness of my body. The liniment had helped, but time and movement were the only true cures.
I halted three steps away from the bed, brought up short by a sense of—something. Something in the room. Something in the darkness. Something in the moonlight.