Sword-Maker(48)

Hoolies, but I stink.

No more time to waste—

I slid boots over the lip, took an extra wrap in the harness straps around my left wrist, and lowered myself down.

Hips slid through again, though fabric snagged a little. And my waist, all slick with blood even though it didn’t need it. And then my lower ribs. The upper ones stuck fast.

It is a particularly vulnerable sensation to be stuck like a cork in a bottle. From the waist down I was completely accessible, but I couldn’t see past my rib cage.

There was still slack in the harness straps. I braced my right arm against the lip of the hole and pushed, trying to twist myself free. Layers of skin peeled away, stinging in protest. And finally I slipped free, leaving bits of me on stone teeth. My shoulder joints lost flesh also, then obligingly added my own blood to the slime already present.

It was enough to loosen the cork; I dropped, felt the straps tauten, winced as the loop snugged around my left wrist. All of my weight hung from it; I wished I weighed a bit less.

My head was level with the bottom of the hole. I peered down past my body and tried to judge the distance. It was still dangerously far from the floor—about seven of me hooked together—and the landing would be on rock. If I didn’t break a leg, I’d probably break my head.

The sword still lay in the tunnel. Carefully I began pulling myself back up one-armed, sliding my right arm up through the hole. All I needed was a little lift; then I’d snatch the sword, hold it vertically, and drop straight down to the floor.

To get my bearings, I glanced down. And saw Chosa Dei with a hound.

Hoolies, he was eating it!—no, no he wasn’t … he was—hoolies, I don’t know … something, something disgusting … he knelt down before it and put his hands on its head … he said something to it, did something to it—and the hound began to change.

It melted. I have no better word for it. The beast melted from this known shape into something else. Something vaguely human, but without humanity.

He was unmaking the beast. Making the man again.

Hanging from my harness, I was very nearly sick. I had not, until that moment, realized the full implication of Chosa Dei’s powers. If he was free, if he got free … once he unmade his brother, what would he do to others? By “collecting” all the magic, would he then remake the world?

Chosa Dei rose, leaving the half-made thing on the floor where it twitched and spasmed and died. “Someone is here,” he said. “Someone else is here … hiding in the tunnels. Hiding in my mountain.” He swept the chamber with a glance. “And he has a second jivatma, fully quenched and blooded.”

Hoolies. Oh, hoolies—

“There!” Chosa cried, and pointed directly at me.

I saw Del’s upturned face. I saw the mass of hounds. Knew what I had to do.

Unmake Chosa Dei.

Straining upward, I thrust my right hand up through the hole and scrabbled at the lip. Touched the blade, traced it back to the hilt, lurched up to lock fingers around it. Began to think of a song as I dropped back through the hole to dangle on my harness.

Beneath me swarmed the hounds, waiting for me to fall.

A song. Think of a song. Of something personal. Of something powerful. Of something no one but the Sandtiger fully comprehends.

I thought of the South. I thought of the desert. And then I thought of the Punja with its deadly simooms and sciroccos, the scouring wind-blast of sand that could strip a man bare of flesh, polishing his bones. I thought of the sun and the sand and the heat and the power of a storm blowing the Punja here and there, feckless as a goat kid, going where it was told. Because there is a greater power than merely heat and sand. There is also the desert wind. A hot dry wind. A wind composed of a violence equal to Chosa Dei’s.

Scorching desert windstorm stripping everything down to the bone. Scirocco and simoom. But also called samiel.

Inside, I sang a song. Of blooding, of quenching, of keying. Of unmaking a sorcerer who thought only Del’s jivatma was capable of great power.

Your mistake, Chosa. Now come grapple with me—

I sliced through the harness and dropped.





Sixteen




I landed in squirming bodies full of teeth and claws and foul breath. Thanked them for breaking my fall. Then disengaged myself, though my body remained where it was.

Heat—sand—sun … the blast of a samiel—

The blast of Samiel, loosed to cleanse the mountain of beasts and sorcerer.

Scorching, scouring sun—blistered, weeping flesh—cracked and bleeding lips—

Del and I had lived it. But Chosa wouldn’t survive.

The chanting of the Salset, gathered to celebrate the changing of the year … the high-pitched whining of the shukar praying to his gods … the hoots and shrieks of desert borjuni, riding down a caravan … the clash and clatter of Hanjii with gold rings in nose and ears …