'Yes. He needed money, and I offered to pay him.'
I nodded, bending to work oil into thighs. 'And you decided by the time he left that you wanted to challenge me.'
Once again color warmed the dusky tan of his face. 'I didn't mean it as a challenge. I just wanted to step into the circle with you. I knew I would lose.'
I grinned lopsidedly. 'Not necessarily.'
'Against you? Of course.'
'Nayyib, the first time I stepped into a circle against a legendary sword-dancer, I won.'
'But you're you.'
I straightened up. 'I wasn't me then,' I said in exasperation 'I was just a gangly seventeen-year-old kid with hands and feet too big for his body, who was underestimated by a man who should have known better. Complacence in the circle is dangerous—it nearly got him killed, and I had only a wooden sparring blade, not live steel.' I shook my head, remembering Abbu's shock. I waved a depleted leaf at him. 'And there, Neesha, is another lesson.'
His mouth twitched in a half-smile. 'Will you give me more? It would be my honor—and I have the money to pay you, too.'
I laughed, tossing aside the leaf. I was aware of Del moving even more slowly as she prepared the gelding. Nayyib's horse was already tacked out and loaded, ground-tied some distance away. 'Look …' I paused, thought about it briefly, gave it up. 'I have every intention of reopening the school at Alimat, but not quite yet. There are a few things to settle first. If you truly want to learn—if you haven't lost interest or gotten distracted by something else by then, like a woman—come find me then.'
His jaw tightened. There was nothing puppy-doggish about his eyes now; he was angry, but he was suppressing it with unexpected self-control. Some of the boyishness faded behind a harder veneer. Suddenly he wasn't a kid at all, but a man. His voice was very quiet. 'What would it take?' 'Time.' And then I heard my shodo's words come out of my mouth. 'There are seven levels. But there is no prescribed length of time required to reach any of those levels. It may take two years to reach the first level. You may leave after you reach it, if that is your choice—but to leave before you can walk means you'll be killed before you can even dream of running.' 'And to achieve seven levels?'
I shrugged. 'Few men last that long. They leave to make a living.'
'You are a seventh-level sword-dancer.' 'I was. I'm not anything now, other than outcast.' 'Elaii-ali-ma,' he said. 'Rafiq told me, when I asked.' 'Time and oaths,' I told him. 'It's a demanding service, the circle. Too many believe it's about glory. Rafiq does, and it's why he'll never survive. In truth, it's mostly about honor, and oaths, and service. The elegance of the dance, the beauty of live steel. Glory comes, if you win enough, well enough—but that's not the point. It only seems like it to young men who don't want to stay in the village, get married, and father babies on the first village girl they bed.'
He had controlled the anger. His voice was steady. 'And if I choose to achieve the seventh level, as you did?'
'Can you afford ten years?'
He blinked. 'It took you ten years?'
I bent to apply oil to my calves and shins. 'No, it took me seven. But I was the first to do it that fast.'
Nayyib nodded once. 'Seven levels. If it requires twelve years, then I will give you twelve.'
Del led the gelding around in front of the stud. Waited, saying nothing.
'Don't swear any oaths just yet, Nayyib,' I suggested. 'Not until you know what they are. Because at Alimat, the oaths you swear are for life.'
He didn't shy from it, was not afraid of me. 'You broke yours.'
'And every sword-dancer in the South is trying to kill me.'
His glance slid to Del. Quietly, he said, 'There are times when certain oaths must be broken, if to keep them breaks oaths you have made to others.'
So. She'd told him. It seemed the Northern bascha had been doing quite a bit of talking to the Southron boy.
Who wasn't really a boy. Just considerably younger than I.
Like Del.
He was still gazing at her. She didn't avoid it. I saw a look pass between them, though I couldn't interpret it.
Something pinched deep in my gut. Jealousy? No, not really. But an awareness that things were changing; that they would continue to change.
And Del knew nothing about my limited time. Her life would change, too.
I looked back at Nayyib. He said he'd give me twelve years. In twelve years, or possibly ten, I would be dead.
Abruptly I tossed away the rest of the leaf. Turned and mounted the stud. I reined him in and looked down at Nayyib waiting for my answer. 'You can come with us as far as Julah. We'll spar there, and then I'll decide.'
The stud has a very comfortable long-walk, once he consents to settle into the gait. Too often he has a burr under his blanket, or a bee up his butt—figuratively speaking, of course—and takes it out on me. But for now he was content to just walk on, head bobbing lazily at the end of his neck. I very nearly fell asleep, until Del's voice woke me up.
'Tiger!'
I let the stud go on, twisting in the saddle to look back. Del and Nayyib had stopped some distance away and were staring at me. 'What?'
'Where are you going?' Del called.
'Julah!'
'Julah's this way.'
I reined in. 'No, it's not.' I pointed. 'This way. South.'
'That's east,' she declared.
Was she sandsick? 'No, it's not. This is south. Julah's this way.'
Del stabbed a finger in front of her horse. 'There's the road.'
'That's a road,' I told her. 'Five of them meet at the oasis. This is the road to Julah.'
Nayyib shook his head and said something to Del I couldn t hear.
'What?' I asked, irritated.
'It's east,' he answered.
'How would you know? You're not from around here.'
'No, but I do know my directions.'
'That's not a road at all, Tiger,' Del called. 'Take a look.'
This was ridiculous, having this pointless discussion in the middle of the desert. I looked. Blinked. Saw that indeed the stud and I were striking out across the desert with no road, trail, or track in sight.
I scowled. It felt right, this direction. It felt south. Or else I really had fallen asleep, and the stud had chosen his own route.
I turned him around and headed back. Felt an abrupt sense of wrongness so powerful I reined in sharply. 'No,' I insisted, 'it's this way.'
Del pointed down the road. 'South. Julah. I'm not from around here, either, but I know that much.'
But it was wrong. Wrong. I knew it. Felt it in my bones.
And abruptly I swore, remembering the dream. My bones would know, she'd said.
Del's voice, 'Tiger?'
I closed my eyes tightly. Tried to reorient myself. Tried to let my lifelong sense of direction tell me which way was the correct one. Yet when I opened them again, I still felt that they were wrong and I was right, despite the evidence of the road.
Or maybe we were both right. Julah lay south, but where I was supposed to go lay east.
'Find me,' she had said. 'And take up tine, sword.'
I looked at Del. 'Which way is the chimney from here?'
'The chimney?'
