'Inside,' he said. 'The beauty of the spirit, when it works to serve the gods.'
I looked at the clustered spires, the inverted oubliettes. 'Are there people in all of them?'
'In and on many of them, yes. This is the iaka, the First House, the dwelling of those who must learn what they are, what they are to be. How to control the magic. How to serve the gods.'
'And if one doesn't?'
'One does.'
'Nihko,' I said, denying it.
'Ikepra.'
I signed. 'Fine. Let's say I'm ikepra, too-'
He came up beside me and shut his hand upon my wrist. 'Say nothing of the sort!'
'But I might be,' I said mildly, trying with annoyance to detach my arm, and failing. 'I may make that choice.'
'Do you think you are the only one who has pleaded with the gods?' As if aware of my discomfort, he released my arm. 'Those who go home die of it.'
'Die of what?'
'Of going home.'
I turned to look into his face. 'But Nihko is free. Alive.'
Sahdri's expression was still. 'The ikepra will die. He has two years, perhaps three. But he will not stay on Skandi, and so he does not risk harm to his people.'
Because it mattered, I said, 'Skandi isn't my home. I would go there only so long as it took to collect Del, and leave. What risk is there in that?'
'She believes you are dead.'
I grinned. 'Faced with the flesh, she might be convinced otherwise.'
From stillness, Sahdri turned upon me a face of unfettered desperation. 'You would risk their lives? All the folk of Skandi?'
It burst from me, was torn upon the wind. 'How do you know I would? How can you swear I am a danger to them?'
His expression was anguished. Unevenly he said, 'There has been tragedy of it before.'
I blinked. 'From ioSkandics who went back?'
Sahdri nodded, too overcome to speak.
'What happened?'
He drew in a harsh breath. 'I have told you: the magic is random, the madness unpredictable. When you marry the two…' He gestured futility, helplessness. 'And I have told you why we remain here.'
I stared out across the vista with the wind in my hair, mentally making a map of the spires thrusting from valley floor to the sky. Marking their shapes, their placements. An alien land, alien people. Alien gods.
Desolation was abrupt. 'I want to go home. '
With great compassion Sahdri said, 'We all of us wish to go home. The welfare of our people lies in not doing it.'
Even as I shook my head I felt myself trembling. 'This is not where I belong.'
'You can belong nowhere else. Not now.'
I swung on him. 'I'm not one of you! I wasn't born here, wasn't raised here … I know nothing of Skandi beyond what I have learned since I came. There is nothing of Skandi in me-'
'Your blood,' he said. 'Your bone. You were bred of this place, even if you were not born here. Skandi is in you; how not? How can you believe otherwise? You leaped from the spire, and survived. '
'And I don't even remember why, let alone how!' I shouted it. Heard the echoes amid the spires.
Gently he said, 'You will.'
I turned away again, to stare fixedly at the Stone Forest. 'There is only one life that matters, and I would never harm her.'
'You may believe so. But you are wrong. Others have been wrong before.'
'I would never hurt Del-' And then I stopped short. I had hurt Del. Had nearly killed Del.
'Trust me,' Sahdri said, seeing my expression. 'I entreat you to remain here, and I pray you will be brought to wisdom-'
I shook my head.
'Afterward,' he said earnestly, 'after you understand what you truly are-'
I interrupted. 'Sword-dancer. There is nothing else in the world I am or wish to be.'
He closed his eyes. I marveled again at the trappings of his order: ornate blue patterns tattooed into shaven skull, ring after ring piercing lips and ears, brows and nose. He glittered in the sunlight, features aglow with a haze of silver. He was not an old man, but neither was he young. Lines of character and strength of will shaped his features.
When he opened his eyes again, the darkness was rimmed with fire.
I fell back a step. Stared at him, transfixed by the expression of his face, the transcendent power in his eyes.
'Who are you?' he asked.
I swallowed. 'Sword-dancer.'
'Who are you?'
'Sandtiger.'
'lo,' he said. 'lo. Who are you?'
'Sandtiger. Sword-dancer.'
'lo.'
'No,' I said. 'Not mad. Not io. '
'Kneel.'
'I'm not kneel-' And I did. Without volition. One moment I was standing, but the next I knelt. I could not connect the moments, could find no bridge between them.
Sahdri stood over me and put his hands upon me. Settled them into my hair, captured the skull with his grip.
Tipped the skull up so I had no choice but to look into his face. 'Who are you?'
I opened my mouth to answer: the Sandtiger. But the world was ripped away.
The bird drifted. Below it stretched the endless sands, the Southron desert known as Punja, alive and sentient. It moved by whim of wind, swallowing settlements, caravans, tribes. It left in its wake bones scoured free of flesh, and tumbled. Buried later, unburied later yet. Scattered scraps of bone, eaten of flesh; stripped by sand, by wind; clean of any taint of life.
No meal here; others had feasted before it. The bird flew on, winged shadow fleeing across the sands. And then it came to an oasis, a cluster of trees around a well framed in stone. Men were there, gathering. A circle was drawn in the sand. Blades were placed in the center, while two men stood at the inner rim, facing one another.
A man said 'Dance,' and so they did. Ran, took up swords, began the ritual so pure in its intent, so splendid in execution, that even the death was beautiful.
One man died. The other did not. He was a tall man, a big man, with dark hair bleached to bronze from the sun, skin baked to copper. His strength and quickness were legendary; he had come to be reckoned by many the best. There was another, but he was older. And they had never met to settle it since one bout within a training circle, beneath the eyes of the shodo. This man wondered which of them might win, were they to meet again.
With meticulous care, he cleaned his blade. Accepted the accolades of those who watched. As one they turned their backs on him and walked to their horses, to depart. He expected no more. He had killed one of their own.
One man threw down a leather pouch: it spilled a handful of coin into the sand. The victor did not immediately take it up but tended his sword instead, wiping it clean of blood. Or the leavings of the dance.
Not always to the death, the sword-dance. Infrequently
so; ritual was often enough, and the yielding. But this dance had been declared a death-dance.
He survived. He cleaned his blade, put it back in its scabbard, slid arms into harness straps. He wore only a
