Sword-Maker(50)

“Oh?” Del asked. “Are you so certain of that?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he? Isn’t that Chosa Dei?”

“His body,” she repeated. “His soul is in your sword.”

I stopped breathing again. “His soul is where?”

“In your sword,” she answered. “What do you think you did?”

“Killed him.” I paused. “Didn’t I? I took him through the ribs. It should have killed him.”

“Not that. I don’t mean that. I mean what you did when you sang.”

A chill washed across flesh. “What?”

Del’s eyes sharpened. “You sang. Don’t you remember? You dropped down from the roof of the chamber into a mass of hounds, and all the way you sang. You didn’t stop once.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t very good—you have a truly terrible voice—but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you meant it. What matters is that it worked. You unmade Chosa Dei, but you also remade your sword.”

“What?”

Del spelled it out. “You requenched, Tiger. Just like Theron did.”

Theron. I thought back months and months and recalled the Northern sword-dancer who had come south hunting Del. He had a jivatma, as she did; a true-made, true-quenched jivatma. But he had addressed a new need and requenched his Northern blade in the body of a magician. It had given him an edge. It had nearly defeated Del. Nearly defeated me.

“Well,” I said finally. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Del turned on her heel and walked away. I think she was still angry, though I didn’t really know why. I had just saved her life. I had just saved the world.

I smiled wryly at that. Then worked my way to my feet and went over to the body.

Well, it was sort of a body. It was charred and shrunken and crisped, collapsed upon itself. It was half the size of me. It was smaller even than Del.

Does a soul take up that much room?

It was odd looking down on the remains of a man I’d never seen, but killed. There were no recognizable features, no normal hair, nothing that spoke of a man. He was a shape, nothing more; it left a bad taste in my mouth.

From the pile of loose cloth and crisped flesh gleamed the hilt of my requenched jivatma. Chosa Dei’s new prison.

“I’ll break it,” I said. “I’ll melt it.” I glanced at the crucible. “I’ll melt it into slag, then get me a Southron sword.”

Del spun. “You can’t!”

“Why not? I don’t want to lug around a sword with him in it.”

Del’s face was white. “You have to lug it around. You have to carry it forever, until we find a way to discharge it. Don’t you understand? Chosa Dei is in there. If you destroy the sword, you’ll destroy his prison. You’re his ward now. His own personal ward. Only you can keep him imprisoned.”

I very nearly laughed. “Del, this is ridiculous. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that Chosa Dei is in my sword, and that if I personally don’t guard him, he might get out again?”

Under the blood, she was white. “Always,” she said, “always. Always you must doubt.”

“You’ve got to admit it sounds pretty farfetched,” I told her. “I mean, you were the one who told me Chosa Dei was only a legend, something someone made up for stories.”

“I was wrong,” she declared.

I stared at her. Here I’d been trying to get her to admit such a thing for the last two weeks with regard to her behavior on Staal-Ysta, and she still hadn’t done it. But she was more than willing to say the three magical words when it came to Chosa Dei—or whoever he was.

I itched all over from sweat and crusted, smelly blood. Thoughtfully, I scratched through my beard to complaining flesh beneath. “Let me see,” I said. “You expect me to spend the rest of my life making sure Chosa Dei stays put.”

“No, not your whole life. Only until the sword can be discharged.”

I frowned. “How do we do that? And what exactly is it?”

Del lifted her own sword, still clasped in her right hand. “There is power in here,” she said. “Wild magic, and controlled magic—the control comes from a proper blooding and keying, as well as strength of will. But there is a way of discharging the power, of channeling it elsewhere, so the sword is a sword again.” She shrugged. “Magic is magic, Tiger—it has a life of its own. That’s why, when Theron died, you could use his jivatma. The magic had been discharged.”

That, I didn’t much like. “So, you’re saying if I died, my sword would discharge its magic—along with Chosa Dei.”