'And there's a message for me in it?'
'Not this one,' he said. 'This was merely the test, to see if you have the art. There is more, but I will explain that later.' He gestured briefly. 'Recall the walk.'
To remember my dream did not seem a particularly dangerous challenge. I recalled portions of my dreams the day after on a regular basis, though the immediacy faded within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes. Some stray fragments remained with me for years and occasionally bubbled up into consciousness for no reason I could fathom, but I'd never purposely tried to recall them. It seemed a waste of time. But the explanation of dream- walking, which I didn't exactly fully understand, seemed to require enforced recollection.
Oziri spoke of stillness. Sahdri and his fellow priest-mages had spoken of discipline. One seemed very like the other.
I closed my eyes. Focused away from the hyort, going inside myself. I waited, felt the tumult of my thoughts and apprehensions —I hate anything that stinks of magic—and purposely suppressed them. In the circle, I could be still. I had learned to relax my body. Now I relaxed my mind, and found memory.
My eyes opened even as my left hand closed. I raised it. 'I saw—death.' I uncurled fingers. My palm was empty. 'Here, in my hand. Death.'
Oziri nodded. 'What else?'
'A man. From Julah. He was searching for something.' I frowned. Felt weight in my hand, though it remained empty. 'You killed him.'
'Not I.'
'Vashni killed him.'
'Yes.'
'Because he trespassed.'
'Yes.'
'You kill everyone who trespasses.'
No change in inflection. 'Yes.'
My hand snapped closed on air and flesh. 'Bone.' I could feel the details of it, the small oblong circle with slight protruberances. 'Backbone.'
'Yes,' Oziri said.
I opened my hand. Stared into it. 'He strayed off the road,' I said. 'He heard the scream of a coney being killed and thought he might eat well, if he found it not long after it died. But he found Vashni. A hunting party. The next scream was his own.' My hand was empty, but the memory was full. Fear. Pain. Ending. I looked at Oziri. 'You gave me a piece of his backbone.'
Oziri smiled. 'Yes.'
Del's voice was harsh. 'What have you done to him?'
'I? Nothing. This comes of himself. Here.' The Vashni put out a hand and tapped my chest. 'The heart knows what he is.'
'I'm glad something does,' I said dryly. 'Now, care to tell me what's going on?'
'You remembered the dream-walk. I believed the walk itself would happen in my hyort. We brought you back here when it became obvious nothing would occur.' Oziri shrugged. 'I should have expected it. You don't trust us.'
I took a breath. Was frank. 'Vashni are not known for their courtesy toward strangers. Just ask the man whose backbone you gave me.'
Oziri was unoffended. 'But he was neither the jhihadi nor the Oracle's sister. He was a man, and a fool, and he paid the price for it.'
Del's voice verged delicately on accusation. 'You kill everyone who comes into what you perceive as Vashni territory.'
'We do.'
'But no one knows the borders of Vashni territory.'
'They learn.'
'Not if they're killed.'
A smile twitched his mouth. 'Others learn.'
'You kill them even if they trespass by mistake?'
'Yes.'
She considered that. Because I knew her mind, I saw the struggle to remain courteous, nonjudgmental. 'It is a harsh penalty.'
'It is a harsh land,' Oziri replied. 'We are a part of it. We reflect it.' His gesture encompassed her body. 'You yourself were attacked by a sandtiger. You know how harsh the land is.'
I knew it, certainly, having grown up in the desert, but I wasn't aware of another tribe quite so quick to kill as the Vashni.
Certainly other tribes killed people if they perceived a threat—I'd witnessed the Salset do it—but the Vashni did it even if no threat were offered.
And yet Del and I, Oracle's sister and jhihadi, were treated honorably. And Nayyib, apparently, because he served Del and wore the fingerbone necklet.
Oziri watched me think it through. Irony put light into his eyes. But he returned to the topic of dream- walking. 'Here, in this hyort, you can be still. Because you trust the woman.'
I glanced at Del, whose brows arched up.
'And the smoke was still in your body,' Oziri explained.
'So, it's the herbs that do it?'
'The herbs assist,' he answered with precision, 'when one is new to the art. In time, you will be able to do it without such things. Just find the stillness, and it will come.' He paused. 'If you choose.'
'This is a Vashni custom,' I said. 'I'm not Vashni.'
'But you dream,' he countered, 'and your dreams trouble you. If you can walk them, you'll understand what it is you're to do.'
Del and I asked it simultaneously. 'Do?'
He smiled. 'Listen,' he said. 'Find the stillness. Walk the dreams. They will tell you.'
I glared. 'You're being obscure again.'
Oziri rose with his bota of noxious liquid. He glanced briefly at Del, then looked down at me. 'They are your dreams,' he said. 'It's for you to find the meaning in obscurity.'
I waited until the doorflap fell behind him. Then I flopped down on my back, grabbed the nearest waterskin, and dragged it over my face. I growled sheer frustration into leather.
After a moment Del lifted the bota to examine my expression. 'Are you sure you don't want to leave tomorrow?'
I yanked the waterskin out of her hand and let it settle its gurgling weight over my face again. 'Don't interfere.' My words were muffled by leather. 'I'm trying to smother myself.'
'With a bota?'
'Why not?'
'I can think of better ways.'
'Oh?'
She peeled the bota back, tipped it off my face. She studied me a moment. Then, as she leaned over my face, her mouth came down on mine.
When she was done, I reminded her that kiss or no kiss, I could still breathe.
She kissed me again. This time she also pinched my nose closed.
I ruined the moment—and the kiss—by laughing. Del removed her fingers, removed her mouth, and stared down into my face. Loose hair tickled my neck.
'Are you truly all right?' she asked.
I was still grinning. 'I seem to be.' I threaded fingers into silken hair. 'It really was like a dream. Except it didn't feel like mine. It felt like—his. Or, rather, it felt like his life, and I was there. Watching.' I frowned, stroking the ends of her hair across my mouth. 'Except it was more vivid. I could smell, and taste, and feel, too. Usually I just see and hear in my dreams.'
