The horses picked their way over dribbles of fallen stone. There was no actual trail through here, and clearly none of Mehmet's people had ever attempted to bring in a wagon. The only tracks I saw belonged to animals.
And then the walls reared back. A passageway lay open, and the stream purled through. Beneath hooves, grass sprang up, thick, lush grass. Rocks in the water were mossy, wearing streamers of vegetation. Canyon walls became crumbled hillsides, cloaked in a tangle of shrubbery and trees.
Old trees. Mature trees. Mehmet's little canyon was new. This one was not.
The path we made took us out of shadow into sunlight. Out of canyon into valley. Out of paradise into perfection.
We stopped, because we had to. We gazed upon it, marking how the stream cut through the middle of meadow. Here was the true heart of the canyon with high walls surrounding us except for the throat we'd passed through.
Nayyib released a blissfully appreciative sigh. 'Good grazing.'
Del climbed down off her gelding and knelt on one knee, digging into the soil. She brought up a handful, rolled it through her fingers, then smelled it. 'It should be,' she agreed. 'This is fine, fertile soil.' She shook her hand free of damp dirt, then led the gelding by me, intent on something. After a moment Nayyib and I followed.
Del paralleled the stream. All around her lay the meadow, stretching from canyon wall to canyon wall. We were nearly to the far end when she stopped and shielded her eyes against the sun's glare as she looked up and up, studying the rim of the canyon and the blue sky beyond.
I saw her smile, and then she pointed. 'Eagle.'
Nayyib and I looked. Sure enough, an eagle spiraled lazily over the canyon.
Del's smile didn't fade, but grew. She stood in one spot and turned in a full circle, taking it all in. Her expression was rapturous. 'It's almost like the North, this place. Not exactly, but very close.'
I frowned. 'In the borderlands, maybe.'
'There are high valleys in the mountains very like this. You just never saw any of them.' She began unbuckling her harness.
'What are you doing, bascha?'
'I'm going wading.'
'Wading?
'Maybe even swimming.' She gestured up the way. 'There's a pool, Tiger. See where the stream is partially dammed by rocks? On the other side there's a natural pool.'
I hadn't paid any attention to it. But she was right. Nayyib rode up a little way, seeing for himself.
I recalled the big tiled bathing pool in the metri's house, heated by some means I didn't understand. Del had splashed around quite happily in it. I'd never learned how to swim and thus wasn't as enamored, though it did feel good, but the pool was shallow enough that I could stand in the middle with water up to my shoulders and not worry about going beneath the surface.
Mehmet had said this place was for us. That he'd kept it for us. His people had settled just inside the mouth of the new canyon. This one had remained untouched. This one, much older, had been untouched forever.
Del, who had tied up the reins so the gelding wouldn't trip over them, stripped out of harness, sandals, and burnous. She wore only the patched leather tunic a Vashni woman had repaired for her. Long-limbed, fair of skin, she strode to the water's edge as she unplaited her braid and shook it free. She was magnificence incarnate.
I realized it was the first time in months I'd seen her looking so relaxed. The tension had fled her face, leaving an incandescent joy. Every fiber of her body was reacting to this place.
I smiled, enjoying the sight. Ah, bascha, if you only knew what I see when I look at you.
Then I noticed Nayyib but a couple of paces upstream, staring at her. Del glanced at him and laughed. 'Come in, Neesha. Lift the dust from your skin.'
She had invited him. Not me.
Pleasure was extinguished. A chill washed through my body. It left me sick, angry, and afraid.
'I'm going back,' I told her abruptly. 'I'll leave the stud with Mehmet, hike up to the chimney and try to find the sword.'
Del, picking her way carefully into the water, was startled. She halted, bare feet perched on round, slick stones. Sunlight gilded her skin. 'Now?'
'I need to do it.' And as she made as if to turn back, I waved her away. 'No, no—you stay here. I'd rather do this alone.' Which wasn't true, but I couldn't face taking her away from the canyon. I swung the stud. 'I'll look for you when I'm done.'
'And if you can't find it today?'
'I'll look again tomorrow morning.' I turned my back on them both and headed out the way we'd come in.
THIRTY-FOUR
MEHMET, who knew nothing about jivatmas or that I'd left one behind, was perplexed when I said I wanted to climb up to the chimney. He reminded me that its collapse might have killed me. I reminded him that it hadn't and that I had business up there. Whereupon he, recalling I was the jhihadi, offered to guide me there.
I shot him a strange look. 'Mehmet, I've been there.'
'Things have changed,' he explained. 'After you and Del left, the earth trembled. Rocks fell. Mountains shook. This part of the canyon came into being. You don't know what's up there.'
'Do you?'
He was forced to admit he didn't.
'Fine. You stay here. I'll be back before nightfall.'
'But, Tiger—'
'I'm going. Look after my horse.' I unsheathed my sword and offered it to him. 'And look after this.'
He was startled. 'Why not take your sword?'
'Because I hope to find another one.' I clapped him on the shoulder. 'I'll be back in time for the feast. I promise.'
Mehmet was unhappy, but he nodded. I left him carefully cradling my sword to his chest.
* * *
The climb up to the chimney was more demanding than I remembered or expected. But Mehmet had confirmed my suspicions: Something indeed had happened after Del and I left to collapse the remains of the chimney and crack open the earth to form the newer canyon Mehmet's aketi had made their home. Probably it had opened the entrance into the older canyon, which looked as though no humans had ever been there. I groped my way up, clutching rocks for handholds, trying not to stub my toes. Sandals are not approriate footgear for climbing, but they were all I had.
Originally the chimney had been the hollow core of a mountain. Del and I had found a tunnel and made our way into the heart of the mountain. There we'd discovered the ribbed, rounded chamber open to the sky far overhead. It was purportedly the home of what was left of Shaka Obre, the so-called good sorcerer; his brother, Chosa Dei, who had taken up residence in my jivatma and later in me, was considered the bad one.
I'd go along with that.
I found no trace of any tunnel or passageway. What remained of the chimney lay in pieces, broken up as if a capricious god with a giant ax had chopped it into sections. Parts of it were indistinguishable from the shattered mountain. But something drove me on.
'Take up the sword' she had said. I would do my best. But it was possible I couldn't. That I might not even find it.
