might never move again.
Del's expression was quizzical as she shut the door. Her arms were full of bundles. 'I can think of more comfortable places to sleep—and positions to sleep in.'
With care I pulled myself upright, spine scraping against rough wood. In an hour or so I might manage to stand. Scowling, asked if she'd spent every last coin we claimed.
Del was piling bundles on the bed. 'Supplies,' she replied crisply. 'I assume we're leaving tomorrow, yes?'
I rearranged stiff legs with effort and hauled myself dripping out of the cask, swearing under my breath. 'Yes.'
Del tossed me the length of thin fabric doubling as a towel, examined my expression and movements, then frowned. 'Your hands are hurting.'
'Yes.' I wrapped the cloth around my waist.
'Tiger-'
'Leave it, Del. I just banged them around on the stud, that's all.' I bent, carefully grasped the jar of ale I'd set on the floor beside the cask, and upended the remaining contents into my mouth.
She clearly wanted to say more, but did not. Instead she turned back to the bed and began sorting through bundles. 'Food,' she announced, 'suitable for travel. New botas; we can fill them in the morning. Medicaments. Blankets for bedding. A griddle. Flint and steel.' There was more, but she left off anounc-ing everything.
'What about a mount for you, and tack?'
'Arranged. We can collect the stud and my horse first thing tomorrow morning.'
'Do we have any money left?'
'Not much,' she admitted. 'Refitting is costly.'
I could not get the memory of the dream fragment out of my mind. I turned away from Del and dropped the towel, rooting around in my belongings for fresh dhoti and burnous. I was done with Skandic clothing. I was in the South again. Home.
Where the dead woman was.
Del held out a small leathern flask. 'Liniment,' she said. 'One of the horse-breakers gave it to me. He said it would help.'
I tied the thongs on my dhoti. 'I think the stud got the better end of the deal. I'm not sure he needs any help.'
'He didn't mean it for the stud.'
Ah. Trust a horse-breaker to know. And Delilah.
Sighing, I surrendered pride and annoyance and limped to the bed. 'Be gentle, bascha. The old man is sore.'
'It will be worse tomorrow.'
I closed my eyes as she began to work aromatic liquid into my shoulders. 'Thank you for that helpful reminder.'
'There's a bota of aqivi in the supplies. For the road.'
My eyes flew open. 'You packed aqivi?' 'Only for medicinal purposes, of course.' I smiled and let my eyes drift shut again. Del herself was the best medicine a man could know.
She lifts an arm. Beckons. Demands my attention. When I give it, understanding, acceding to that demand, I see that the fragile bones of her hands have begun to fall away. A thumb and three fingers remain. The fourth, the smallest, is missing.
The jaw opens then. A feathering of sand pours between dentition. Shadowed sockets beseech me.
'Come home,' she says.
'I am home,' I say. 'I have come home.'
But it is not, apparently, what the woman wants. The hand ceases its gesture. The bones drop away, collapsing into fragments. Are scattered on the sand.
'Take up the sword,' her voice says, before the wind subborns it as well.
I opened my eyes. Square-cut window invited moonlight. Illumination formed a tangible bar of light slicing diagonally across the bed. Del's hair glowed with the sheen of pearls. Her breathing was even, uninterrupted; though neither of us slept deeply in strange places, we had grown accustomed to one another's movements and departures.
Were the dreams my heritage from Meteiera? Would I spend my life viewing the remains of a dead woman in my sleep? Was I doomed to hear her voice issuing nightly from a broken mouth?
Or was there something I was to do, some task to undertake that I didn't yet understand?
I was too restless, too disturbed to sleep. Carefully I peeled back the threadbare blanket, warding tender stumps from rough cloth, and slipped from the bed, trying not to permit the ropes to creak. Trying not to groan about the stiffness of my body. The liniment had helped, but time and movement were the only true cures.
I halted three steps away from the bed, brought up short by a sense of—something. Something in the room. Something in the darkness. Something in the moonlight.
Something in me?
I lifted my face. Closed my eyes. Saliva ran into my mouth. Flesh prickled on my bones. Thumbs and six fingers splayed.
Something was here. Begging for recognition.
It sang in my body. The mantra of the mages.
Discipline.
Nihkolara, blue-headed mage of Meteiera—and apparent relative—had told me denying the magic was impossible. That to do so was to invite the madness, to commit self-murder.
I had no inclination to do either.
They had tried to steal my name, the priest-mages, and my knowledge of self, there atop the stony spires. Very nearly had succeeded. But something in me, something more insistent than burgeoning power, despite its insidious seduction, had given me the strength to throw off the infection. At least, enough that I retained my name, rediscovered knowledge of self.
I am Sandtiger.
I am sword-dancer.
More than enough, for me. I needed nothing more.
Even if I had it.
Sweat filmed my body. Soreness remained, bruises had bloomed. But such petty things as discomfort are bearable when weighed against the greater needs of the world.
Or the dictates of magic.
I took up the new sword. In the midst of the moonlight, with eloquent precision, I began yet again to dance, to hone the flesh that sheathed the bones. And the mind that controlled them.
So that I could control it.
I was, as expected, still stiff in the morning, though the midnight dance had helped. Del and I dressed respectively in tunic and dhoti, donned sandals, gauze burnouses, and buckled on harnesses over the clothing. Once we'd merely split the left shoulder seams to allow sword hilts freedom, but that was when challenges were to dance, not to die. Now we didn't have that luxury. We packed up the balance of our belongings and headed out to the livery to collect and tack out our mounts, grabbing something to eat from a vendor along the way.
The stud, when led out into the stableyard square in the kindling sun of early morning, gifted me with a sublimely serene expression suggesting he was nothing but a big, sleepy pussycat. Though one of the horse-boys offered, I saddled him myself to give my body the chance to get used to movement. I took my time examining the fit of new tack, including bridle, bit, long cotton reins knotted at each end, and of course the saddle. Satisfied, I loaded my share of the supplies, checked the weight distribution, tossed a colorful woven blanket over the new saddle, and turned to see what progress Del was making.
'What is that?' I blurted.
She glanced up from assessing stirrup length. 'I think he's reminiscent of you after a particularly drunken cantina fight.' She paused. 'A little pale, with two black eyes.'
A little pale? He was white. And she didn't mean his actual eyes were black, because they weren't, but the
