"She said something about a sword."
"Jivatma," I clarified. "A Northern sword. Blooding-blade. Named blade." I smiled when I saw his frown of incomprehension. "Northern ritual. Mostly, it's just a sword."
"You have a sword. Why go looking for this Northern one?"
"Something I need to do." "Like find the bones in the Punja?"
"Something like that." I smoothed a hand down the stud's neck. "Kind of hard to explain. There are swords—and there are swords. If you own one long enough—if you form a partnership, odd as it may sound—it becomes more than just a weapon or a means of making a living."
"Singlestroke."
"Ah, the infamous blade of the Sandtiger!" I dropped the melodramatic tone. "A good sword. Kept me out of serious trouble many times."
"But you don't carry it any more."
So, he didn't know everything about the legend. "Singlestroke was broken a number of years ago."
His head came up. "So you want the Northern blade in its place?"
I remembered Samiel's begetting at Staal-Ysta, the days and nights I spent in Kem's smithy. "It too is a good sword. A special sword." I shrugged. "It's hard to explain."
"Much about you is hard to explain."
"I'm a complicated guy, Neesha." True dark had fallen; there was nothing more to be read in expressions, which couldn't be seen. Only in voices.
"Del told me some stories when we were with the Vashni."
Finished with the horses, we fell in together as we drifted back toward the fire. "It's been an interesting life."
"And a dangerous one."
"I warned you about that."
"Yes." He sounded pensive.
"Thinking the horse farm sounds a bit better?"
His head came up sharply. "No."
"Then what's bothering you?"
He did not answer immediately. When he did, his tone was stiff. "You have your secrets. I have mine."
By then we were at the fire. Del sat next to it, drinking from a bota and gnawing on dried cumfa. She did not look at Neesha. She looked at me as if her eyes were knives. Seems we were all being complicated tonight.
And it hurt.
Ignoring the thought, I squatted beside the fire. "First thing tomorrow morning I'd like to head out for the chimney. You two can wait here if you'd rather—it's not that far—or come along and wait for me there at the formation."
Del stopped chewing. "Why would we not come?"
I hooked my head in Neesha's general direction. "You and he appear to have some things to discuss."
Their eyes met. Locked. Del seemed to wait. Nayyib's jaw and raised brows suggested she had something to say.
"Fine." I pulled my pouches over, dug through until I found my share of burlap-wrapped cumfa. "The kid said it best, I guess—we all have our secrets. I don't know if each of you has a different one, or if you share the same one. What I do know is I'm left out of it. Which is probably for the best; I'm really not in the mood to deal with childish nonsense."
Del's brow creased, but she didn't reply. Nayyib sat down and pointedly turned his attention to the contents of his saddlepouches.
My jaws worked to soften the preserved meat. It's almost impossible to talk with a mouth full of cumfa, so I didn't even try. We all just ground our jaws and thought thoughts none of us wished to share.
I've got to admit it: I've spent more companionable nights in the desert. But it didn't interfere when I decided to go to bed.
Del and Nayyib, not talking, were still sitting by the fire as I unrolled my bedding in the lean-to and crawled into it.
I sighed, turned over, tried to go to sleep. It took me a while, but I got there.
I awakened in the middle of the night, heart pounding against my chest. A residue of fear still sizzled through my body. A dream . . .
Not one like the others. Nothing like the others. This was a normal dream in all respects, except for its content.
I've always dreamed vividly. Maybe it was because of the magic in my bones, incipient dream-walking, bone-reading, or some such thing. Sometimes the dreams were fragments, sometimes connected scenes that told some kind of story. Often they entertained me; usually they confused me, in that I could see no cause for them.
I saw no cause for this one, either.
I lay wide awake beneath a blanket, staring up at the haphazard roof of the lean-to. Del and Nayyib were deeply asleep. I let my breathing still, my heartbeat slow, and considered what I'd dreamed.
Me, in the desert. Older, but not old. I wore dhoti and sandals, held a sword in my hand. All around me were people I knew: Del, Alric, Fouad, Abbu, also Nayyib, and my shodo; even people from the Salset, including Sula and the old shukar who had made my life a misery. My grandmother. A younger woman whose features were obscured, but whom I knew was my mother. And any number of other people I'd known in my life.
One by one they turned their backs on me and walked away. I was left alone in the desert with only my sword.
Remembering it helped. Tension eased. Fear abated. I banished the images, relaxed against my bedding, and let myself drift back into sleep.
THIRTY-THREE
INthe morning the air remained chilly, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. Del and Nayyib both seemed out of sorts. Feeling left out but not sorry for it, I went about my morning routine. Eventually I had the stud fed, watered, saddled, and packed, and I led him over to the lean-to. Del and the kid were still repacking bedrolls. I suspected there had been a verbal exchange held too quietly for me to hear; they seemed tense with one another, and they were behind on preparations.
"All right, children, how long are you going to carry on with this?"
My tone and implication annoyed Del, who'd heard it before. It always annoyed Del. She gathered up her belongings and stalked past me on her way to the white gelding. It left Nayyib with compressed mouth, set jaw, and sharp physical movements at odds with his normal economical grace.
So I came right out and asked it. "Does this have anything to do with Del?"
He didn't look at me. "Yes."
"And you?"
He stood up, hooking saddle pouches over one shoulder. Paused long enough to look me in the eyes. "Ask her." And marched himself across the flat to his horse.
Oh, hoolies. And other various imprecations.
* * *
We wound our way along the wagon ruts, going deeper into the low, boulder-clad mountains. I led, Del followed, and Nayyib brought up the rear. We were strung out, allowing the horses to pick the best footing, since the boulders began to impinge on the tracks. Some things looked familiar, some did not; but it was years since Del and I had been here, and we'd certainly been in a hurry to leave once the chimney collapsed. Other than a slight delay as I was declared a messiah by Mehmet, part of a Deep Desert nomadic tribe dedicated to worshiping the jhihadi, nothing had prevented us from leaving. Del had purposely broken her jivatma after drawing Chosa Dei out of my body, freeing him to fight it out with his brother sorcerer, Shaka Obre. We hadn't been certain how violent that fight would be since both had been refined to essences of power, not physical bodies, so we'd departed the area as soon as we could.
More memories came back. I recalled Umir's incredible feathered and beaded robe, which he'd put on Del when she was his prisoner. The whirlwind in the chimney had been been so powerful that it stripped all the ornamentation from the white samite fabric. We had picked feathers out of our hair for days.
I tried to stretch my senses, to get a feel for my own jivatma, buried in the ruins of the rock formation somewhere ahead. Nothing answered. There was no compulsion to continue as there had been to find my mother's bones; perhaps she trusted to me to complete the task without resorting to walking my dreams. I wasn't aware of anything except heat, the smell of stone and dust, the stillness of the air, the unceasing brilliance of the sun, and the sound of horses chipping rocks as the walked.