have her. The chula pleased her.
Son. Brother. Lover. Husband. He had been all of those things to her.
And now he would be a man. Now he would be free.
He had only to kill the beast.
I woke up with a start. Dimness pervaded; the only illumination was the sunlight through the slotted holes cut out of stone into sky. I flung myself to my feet and stumbled to the stone, hung my hands into the slots, peered out upon the world.
Sky met my eyes.
None of it a dream.
All of it: real.
I turned then, slumped against the stone. In the wall opposite was a low wooden door, painted blue.
Blue as Nihko's head. Blue as Sahdri's head. Blue as the sails of Prima Rhannet's ship.
Prima. The metri. Herakleio.
Del.
All of whom thought me dead. Had seen the body bearing my scars: the handiwork of Del's jivatma; the visible reminders that the beast conjured of dreams had been real enough to mark me. To nearly kill me.
Sula had saved me. When the sandtiger's poison took hold, she made certain the chula would live.
As the chula made certain the beast would die.
Its death had bought my freedom.
What beast need I kill to buy my freedom now?
I shut my hand upon the claws strung around my throat, and squeezed. Until the tips pierced. Until the blood ran.
When Sahdri came for me, flanked by his acolytes, I showed him my palm.
'Ah,' he said, and gestured the two to take me. Natha and Erastu.
I shook myself free of their hands. 'No.'
His tattooed brow creased. 'What language is that?'
I bared teeth at him, as I had seen the sandtiger do. 'The language of 'No.' '
The brow creased more deeply. Rings glinted in slotted sunlight. 'What language is that?'
'Don't you speak it?' I asked. 'Don't you understand? I can understand you.'
'Tongues,' he said, sounding startled, even as Natha and Erastu murmured to one another. 'Well, it will undoubtedly be helpful. You can read the books for us.'
I stared. 'Books?' This time in words he knew: Skandic. That I had not known the day before.
He gestured. 'We speak many languages. But not all. There are books we cannot translate.' His eyes were hungry. 'What language did you speak a moment ago?'
'I don't know,' I answered, because I didn't. I merely spoke. What came out, came out. I understood it all. 'What do you want with books?'
'We trade for them,' he said. 'We are priests, not fools. Mages, not simpletons. We were born on Skandi and raised in the ways of trade. We value books, and we trade for them.' Dark eyes glowed. 'You can read them to us, those we cannot decipher.'
I laughed at him. 'I can't decipher anything. I never learned to read.'
He, as were his acolytes, was astonished. 'Never?'
'Maps,' I conceded. Any man in the South who wishes to survive learns to read a map.
'But you have the gift of tongues,' Sahdri said. 'It has manifested. Undoubtedly you can read.' He paused. 'Now.'
A new thought. It stunned me.
Rings glinted as the flesh of his face altered into a smile of immense compassion. 'Did you believe it would be terrible, our magic? That all of it should be painful?'
With difficulty I said, 'I saw the bones of your skull break open. I saw what lay beneath.'
'Control,' Sahdri soothed. 'A matter of control. The gift is beautiful. The power is-transcendent.'
'I don't want it.' The truth.
Ring-weighted brows arched delicately. 'Surely once in your life you wished for magic. For a power that would give you the aid you required. Everyone does.'
Testily-because he was so cursed right-I asked, 'And does everyone get what they wish for?'
'Only some of us.' He gestured. Natha and Erastu laid hands upon me. 'There is much for you to learn. We had best begin now.'
I struggled, but could not move the hands. 'Just what is it I'm supposed to be learning?'
'Who you were. Who you are.' He stepped aside so the young men might escort me out of the chamber he'd called the hermitage. 'Did the ikepra not tell you?'
'He told me he's not ikepra anymore.'
'Ah. But he is ikepra. He will always be ikepra. He turned his back on the gods.'
'Maybe,' I said tightly, 'he didn't want to merge.'
'Then he will only die. Alone. Quite mad.' He shook his head; rings glinted. 'All men must die, but only we are permitted to merge. It is the only way we know ourselves worthy, and welcomed among the gods.'
'That was his payment,' I said. 'Freedom. Wasn't it? For bringing me to you.'
Sahdri offered no answer.
'He's free now, isn't he? No longer subject to your beliefs, your rules.'
The priest-mage's tone was severe. 'He does not believe in the necessity.'
'Neither do I!'
'Most of us do not,' he agreed, 'when first we come here. But disbelief passes-'
'It didn't for Nihko.'
'-and most of us learn to serve properly, until we merge.'
Abruptly I recoiled, even restrained by strong hands. My lips drew back into a rictus. 'You stink of it,' I said. 'It fills me up.'
Sahdri studied me intently. 'What do you smell?'
'Magic. ' The word was hurled from my mouth. 'It's-alive.'
'Yes,' he agreed. 'It lives. It grows. It dies.'
'Dies?'
He reconsidered. 'Wanes. Waxes anew. But we none of us may predict it. The magic is wild. It manifests differently in every man. We are made over into mages, but until the moment arrives we cannot say what we are, or what we may do.'
'At all?'
His expression was kind. He glanced at the acolytes. 'Natha, do you know what each moment holds?'
'I know nothing beyond the moment,' the man answered.
'Erastu, do you know what faces you the next day?'
'Never,' Erastu said. 'Each day is born anew, and unknown.'
I shook my head. 'No one knows what each moment or day holds.'
'This is the same.'
'But magic gives you power!'
'Magic is power,' he corrected gently. 'But it is wholly unpredictable.'
'Nihko can change flesh. Nihko can halt a heart.'
'As can I,' Sahdri said. 'It takes some of us that way. It may take you that way.'
'You don't know?'
'I know what I may do today, this moment,' he answered. 'But not what I may be able to do tomorrow.'
' 'It grows,' ' I quoted.
'As the infant grows,' the priest-mage said gently. 'On the day the child is born, no one knows what may come of it. Not its mother, who bore it. Not its father, who sired it. Certainly not the child. It simply lives every hour, every day, every year, and becomes. '
'You're saying I'm one thing now, this moment, here before you-but may be something else
