Sword Born

Certainty. 'Del will come.'

'But she believes you are dead. Your body was found.'

'Not mine.'

'They believe it is yours.'

'They?'

'The metri. Herakleio. Prima.'

Disbelief was manifest. 'Prima? '

He did not smile. 'She believes you are dead. She is meant to believe it, as are the others.'

'But she knows you're alive.'

'No.'

'No? '

'I disappeared.'

'How convenient.'

'They assume I am dead. They know you are.'

'Not Del.'

'And Del.'

'No.'

'They are priests,' he said gently, 'and mages. Do you believe a body would be found that did not resemble yours even in certain details?' For the first time he touched me. It was brief, impersonal, without intent beyond indication. 'Here.' The travesty of an abdomen reshaped by Del's jivatma. 'And here.' The claw marks graven deeply into my cheek. 'Not much skull left, nor face, but enough for the scars.'

'I don't believe it. Neither will anyone else.' Certainly not Del. 'Even a smashed body bears specific blemishes.'

'They are mages,' he said with infinite precision. 'This is not beyond them. They simply lifted the scars from you and set them into another man's flesh.'

It robbed me of breath. 'Lifted-?'

'No scars,' he said, 'beyond those they left you. A dead man bears them. And so you are dead.'

I wanted desperately to move, to lift a hand to my cheek, but the body betrayed me.

'Dead,' he repeated. 'To everyone who knew you.'

'You know me.'

Nihko smiled sadly. 'But I am a priest, and I am a mage, and I am a madman.'

'Ikepra.'

'Not any more.'

'How? '

'Payment,' he said, 'for this.'

'For-?'

'This.'

'This?'

'The first steps,' he said, 'following birth. You have ten years. Possibly twelve. You are a candle now, burning brighter and hotter than any other. You will consume yourself with the heat of your spirit, with the power in your bones. You have no time to crawl, but must be made to walk.'

I lay sprawled against the ground, unable to move. 'Am I-whole?'

'Better than whole,' he answered. 'Now you are complete. '

I knew what I was. 'Sword-dancer.'

Nihko said, 'Not any more.'

'I danced atop the spire.'

'You had no sword.'

'I am the sword.'

'No.'

'You can't take that from me.'

'I will not. They will.'

'No one can.'

'You are a child,' he said kindly. 'The magic is wild. These are men who have learned its nature and how to control it. Trust me in this: you will do as they say, become what they decree.'

'You didn't.'

'And they would kill me for it.'

'You're alive.'

'Payment,' he said. 'For this.'

I laughed then; was shocked that I could. 'I'm dead. Really dead. This is not real. You're dead, and I'm dead, and this is not real.'

'Well,' he said philosophically, 'I said much the same myself.'

'And did you leap off a spire?'

Nihko's face was serene. 'We all of us leap,' he said. 'It is how we know.'

'Know what?'

'That the magic has manifested.'

'To me,' I said, 'leaping off a spire suggests madness has manifested!'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'Any man may do so, and die of it. But those of us who survive are something more than simply mad.'

'Magic,' I said in disgust.

'Mages,' he clarified. 'Men who are made of it, and who learn how to wield it.'

I stirred for the first time. The body-did not cooperate.

'Be still,' Nihko said. 'The body has used itself up.'

'Used up –? '

'It was a circle,' Nihko said, 'for you. But in truth it is what each man makes of it. He learns himself up there, learns what and who he is. He must recognize it, acknowledge it, comprehend it, and employ it. Rely upon it. Use it up.'

'Then if it's used up-'

'Gone,' he said. 'Extinguished.'

'Then I am dead.'

'The man you were. The slave. The messiah. The sword-dancer.'

'No.'

'You surrendered it in the circle. You left the circle. You flung yourself out of it.'

'Elaii-ali-ma, ' I whispered.

'You are not what you were. You are what you will be. You are not who you were. You are who you shall be.'

'Sword-dancer.'

'Mage.'

I laughed; it tore my throat. 'Would you have me be a priest? Me?'

'You gave yourself to the gods.'

'They aren't my gods.'

'You gave yourself to gods, be they mine or yours.'

'Semantics,' I muttered.

'You survived,' Nihko said. 'You are what you are.'

'Mad?'

'Indisputably.'

'I don't feel mad.'

'You don't feel anything. Yet. Come morning, you will.'

'And what will I be in the morning?'

Nihko said, 'Mage. And aware of it.'