Something in me?
I lifted my face. Closed my eyes. Saliva ran into my mouth. Flesh prickled on my bones. Thumbs and six fingers splayed.
Something was here. Begging for recognition.
It sang in my body. The mantra of the mages.
Discipline.
Nihkolara, blue-headed mage of Meteiera—and apparent relative—had told me denying the magic was impossible. That to do so was to invite the madness, to commit self-murder.
I had no inclination to do either.
They had tried to steal my name, the priest-mages, and my knowledge of self, there atop the stony spires. Very nearly had succeeded. But something in me, something more insistent than burgeoning power, despite its insidious seduction, had given me the strength to throw off the infection. At least, enough that I retained my name, rediscovered knowledge of self.
I am Sandtiger.
I am sword-dancer.
More than enough, for me. I needed nothing more.
Even if I had it.
Sweat filmed my body. Soreness remained, bruises had bloomed. But such petty things as discomfort are bearable when weighed against the greater needs of the world.
Or the dictates of magic.
I took up the new sword. In the midst of the moonlight, with eloquent precision, I began yet again to dance, to hone the flesh that sheathed the bones. And the mind that controlled them.
So that I could control it.
I was, as expected, still stiff in the morning, though the midnight dance had helped. Del and I dressed respectively in tunic and dhoti, donned sandals, gauze burnouses, and buckled on harnesses over the clothing. Once we'd merely split the left shoulder seams to allow sword hilts freedom, but that was when challenges were to dance, not to die. Now we didn't have that luxury. We packed up the balance of our belongings and headed out to the livery to collect and tack out our mounts, grabbing something to eat from a vendor along the way.
The stud, when led out into the stableyard square in the kindling sun of early morning, gifted me with a sublimely serene expression suggesting he was nothing but a big, sleepy pussycat. Though one of the horse-boys offered, I saddled him myself to give my body the chance to get used to movement. I took my time examining the fit of new tack, including bridle, bit, long cotton reins knotted at each end, and of course the saddle. Satisfied, I loaded my share of the supplies, checked the weight distribution, tossed a colorful woven blanket over the new saddle, and turned to see what progress Del was making.
"What is that?" I blurted.
She glanced up from assessing stirrup length. "I think he's reminiscent of you after a particularly drunken cantina fight." She paused. "A little pale, with two black eyes."
A little pale? He was white. And she didn't mean his actual eyes were black, because they weren't, but the two circles painted around them. The actual eyes were blue, and looked even lighter peering out from black patches.
"Why in hoolies did you pick him? "
"Beggars," she declared succinctly, "cannot be choosers."
Well, no. But … "A white, blue-eyed horse in the desert?" Actually, he was a pink-and-white, blue-eyed horse, because he lacked pigmentation. His nostrils and lips were a fine, pale pink.
'That is why I've put grease around his eyes," she explained. It will cut down on the sun's glare reflecting off his face. And I slathered alia paste on his nose and lips."
Del, this is a horse, not a woman painting her face."
Yes," she agreed equably, continuing to tack out the gelding.
Do you know what you're doing?"
"Yes."
Are you sure? We've got the Punja to get through."
'I had a white dog when I was a child," Del remarked casually after a moment. "He had blue eyes and no pigmentation. My father wanted to put him down, but I insisted he be mine. I was told that with the sun reflecting off the snow, he might in time go blind. So I mixed up grease with charcoal, and painted around his eyes. He lived to be an old, old dog. And he never went blind."
"Is that why you bought this horse? Because he reminds you of your dog?"
"I bought him because he was the only gelding." She glanced up. "Would you want to risk another stallion anywhere near yours?"
"There are mares."
"I tried that before. Your horse, as I recall, spent most of his time trying to breed her. Sometimes when I was on her."
I recalled that, too. "There are other liveries in town, I suspect. With other geldings."
"But not with one we can afford. I did look." Del reached up and tied something onto the left side of the gelding's headstall, then ran it beneath his forelock to the other side.
My mouth dropped open. "Tassels? "
"Fringe," she corrected.
"You're putting fringe on a horse?"
"It will help shade his eyes."
First she painted black patches around his eyes, now she hung fringe across his brow. Gold fringe, no less.
I shook my head in disbelief. "Where in hoolies did you find that?"
"I bought it from a wine-girl in one of the cantinas. I don't know what it once was. I was afraid to ask."
"You went into a cantina by yourself?"
"Yes."
"Kind of risky, bascha. Dangerous, even."
"Tiger, I was in a cantina by myself when I met you."
"Well, I said it could be dangerous."
Del slipped a foot into the left stirrup and swung up, settling herself into the blanketed saddle with ease. "Now, do you want to spend all morning arguing about horses, or shall we actually ride them?"
It was ridiculous. We were bound for the Punja and all its merciless miseries, including unceasing sun. Del herself certainly knew the risks; she had once been so sunburned I was afraid she'd never recover. A blue-eyed, white horse lacking pigmentation was a burden we couldn't afford.
But Del was right: neither could we afford something better. I suspected we had only a few coins left from Del's shopping expedition. If we didn't take the gelding, we asked the stud to carry two across the searing Punja, or we'd have to take turns riding and walking, which was slower going yet. Besides, if the gelding dropped dead on us from sunstroke, we could always eat him.
On that cheerful note, I mounted the uncommonly cooperative stud, winced at the creaking of my body, and began the careful process of relaxing complaining muscles fiber by fiber. Eventually my body remembered how it was supposed to sit a horse, and some of the soreness bled away. The stumps of my missing fingers were still a trifle tender, but once the stud hit his pace and settled, it wouldn't take more than index and middle fingers to grasp the soft cotton reins.
Del, mounted atop her white folly, leaned down to hand the horse-boy a few copper coins. Likely our last. I sighed, turned the stud, and aimed him out of the stableyard into the narrow alley between livery and adjoining building. He sucked himself up into stiff condescension as the gelding came up beside him, snorting pointed disdain. Then he caught a glimpse of one sad blue eye peering at him out of a circle of black greasepaint coupled with dangling gold fringe and shied sideways toward the nearest wall.
I planted a heel into his ribs, driving him off the wall before my foot could collide with adobe brick. "Let's not."
The stud took my hint and kept off the wall. Now he turned sideways, head bent back around so he could keep both worried eyes on Del's gelding. Ears stabbed toward the white horse like daggers. The accompanying snort was loud enough to drown out the sound of hooves.
Del began to laugh.
"What?" I asked irritably, trying to point the stud back into a straight line as we exchanged alley for street.
"I think he's afraid of him!"
"A lot of horses are afraid of the stud—"
"No! I mean the stud's afraid of my horse!"