Sword-Maker(117)

“He’s a dangerous old fool. And he’s a liar—”

“And he’s been shukar forever.” Sula sighed and shifted against her cushions. “But now he has lost even that.”

“Lost it …” It stunned me. “How?”

“His magic was bad. Ever since you left, his magic has been weak. And so when the summons was made—when the Oracle called our names—the old shukar was replaced with a younger, stronger man.” Black eyes were sad. “The old man sits in the sun. The young man speaks of power.”

“Gained from the jhihadi.”

Sula nodded weakly. “The Oracle says the South will be given back to the tribes. There will be no more need for lengthy journeys from this oasis to that one; from this place to another. The sand will be changed to grass and water will run on the land.”

I cradled her hand in mine. “Is that kind of change what you want?”

She was very tired. Her voice was a travesty. “All I have known is the desert … the heat, the sand, the sun. Is it wrong to long for grass? To ask the gods for water in plenty?”

“If war is the cost, yes.” I paused. “Let me get you a drink.”

Sula lifted a hand. I sank back down at her side. “You see only one side,” she said. “You, of all people.”

“I don’t understand.”

She smiled, but very sadly. “Why did you stay with us?”

“Stay—?” I frowned. “I had to. I didn’t have any choice.”

“Why not run away?”

“Water,” I said at once. “I couldn’t carry enough water to get me far enough. The Punja would have killed me. At least with the tribe, I was alive.”

Stiff fingers curled in my hand. “If the land were lush and cool, no one could keep any slaves. It would be easy to run away, to survive a day unsheltered, with water in abundance.”

I had run away once. I had been caught. As punishment, I was tied to a stake in the sand and left for a second full day with no water to slake my thirst. Left there, and ignored, all of ten paces away from the camp so I would know what it was to realize the Salset were my deliverance; that I owed my life to them.

I had been nine years old.

I drew in a painful breath. “I came for information. You’ve already given me some … but I need to know about the jhihadi. About what the tribes are planning.”

Sula held onto my hand. “They are planning a holy war.”

“But no one worships the same gods!”

“It doesn’t matter. We are to have the jhihadi.”

“And this is what he wants? To destroy the South completely?”

“To make it new again. To make it what it was, before the land was laid to waste.” She rolled her head against her cushions. “I am only a woman … I don’t sit in councils. All I am told is the jhihadi will unite all the tribes. The Oracle promises this.”

“So, this man is just supposed to arrive one day, wave his hands and declare everyone friends, then send them out to kill?” I shook my head. “Not a peaceful kind of messiah.”

“The young men don’t want peace.” Sula closed her eyes. “They have listened to the Oracle, but have heard what they want to hear. When he foretells the ascendancy of the tribes, they think it can only come at the cost of other lives. They think nothing of living in peace with the tanzeers. They forget how our lives will change … how crops will grow on the land, how water will come to the tribes instead of the tribes following it.” She dragged in a laboring breath. “He says nothing of a war, but that is what they hear.”

“You’ve heard him? The Oracle?”

“He has gone to a few of the tribes. Word is being carried.”

“And they accept him without question, believing what he says.”

Sula rolled her head. “They believe what they choose to believe. The Oracle speaks of a jhihadi who can change the sand to grass. A man need only walk out into the Punja to know what that could mean.”

I knew. I’d lived there. Hoolies, I’d been born there.

Which reminded me of something.

“Sula.” I shifted closer. “Sula, there’s something I have to know … something I have to ask. It has to do with how I came to be with the Salset—”

Sula’s eyes were glazed. “—histories say the South and the North were one … divided between two brothers—”

I hung on to my patience. I owed this woman too much. “Chosa Dei,” I said. “His brother was Shaka Obre.”

“—and that after a final battle one half would be laid to waste—”