Sword-Maker(54)

Del apparently did. She sat all wrapped in white fur with her eyes fixed on distances, losing herself in the music. I wondered if it took her back to her childhood, when her kinfolk had gathered to sing. And I wondered, suddenly, if she had ever sung to anything or anyone other than her sword.

At the end of the song Halvar turned yet again to us and said something. This time Del looked surprised.

“What?” I asked, rousing.

“He’s bringing the holy man out to throw oracle bones.”

“So, the old man likes to gamble.”

Del waved a hand. “No, no—to really throw the bones, as they were meant to be thrown. Before people began using them for wagering.”

I wanted to say something more, but the old holy man had appeared. He stopped before us, bowed to us both, then sat down on the spotted pelt Halvar carefully spread. He was a very old man, as holy men often are, having stuffed so much ritual into a single life. With the Salset there’d been the shukar, sort of a holy man/magician; I wondered if Northern customs were the same.

The old man—white-haired, blue-eyed and palsied—seemed to be waiting for something. And then one of the younger men brought a low tripod and set it carefully before him. Onto the triple prongs was placed a platter of polished gold. Its rim, curving upward gently, was worked in Northern runes.

I blinked. “I thought you said Ysaa-den had only two copper pennies.”

“In coin,” Del agreed. “That’s an oracle stand and platter. Each village has one … unless it’s stolen, or traded away.” She shrugged. “Some of the old ways die when the need to survive is greater.”

The old man took a leather pouch from beneath his furs and carefully untied the drawstring. He poured the contents into one palm: a handful of polished stones. They were opaque but oddly translucent; pale, pearlescent white showing green and red and blue as the old man spread them in his hand. One was fiery black, but alive with so many colors I couldn’t name them all.

I frowned. “Those aren’t really bones. Those are stones. Oracle bones are bones.”

“Bones of the earth,” Del said. “They’ve been carefully carved and polished.”

I grunted. “Maybe so, but they’re not the sort of oracle bones I’m used to.”

“These work,” she agreed.

I opened my mouth to protest—yet another story—but didn’t say anything. Even though I didn’t believe in foretelling, I knew perfectly well what Del would throw in my face if I said anything rude about the old man and his stones. She’d mention Chosa Dei, whom even she thought was a story until he’d nearly killed her.

So I didn’t give her the chance.

The old man threw his stones onto the golden platter. They rattled and slid, as expected, falling into random patterns. Only to the man who uses them to foretell, the patterns are never random. That much even I knew.

He threw seven times before he spoke. And then he said a single word.

This time Del frowned.

“Jhihadi,” the old man repeated.

Del glanced at Halvar, ignoring me entirely. “I don’t understand.”

Halvar shook his head, mystified as Del.

“Jhihadi,” the old man said, and swept the stones into his hand.

A great silence lay over the gathering. No doubt everyone had expected profound words of wisdom, or a promise of good health. Instead, the holy man of Ysaa-den had given them a word none of them knew.

“Jhihadi,” I said quietly, “is a Southron word.”

“Southron?” Del frowned. “Why? What has a Southron word to do with us?”

“Actually, it’s Desert, not pure Southron … and it might have something to do with the fact that I am, after all, Southron.” I smiled benignly. “Although, knowing the word, I doubt it indicates me personally.” I grinned at her, then shrugged. “He must mean something else, or someone else; he is old, after all, and those are just pretty stones.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously. “What does ‘jhihadi’ mean?”

“Messiah,” I said plainly.

Braids whipped as she turned instantly and faced the holy man. She asked him something courteously, but I heard the underlying doubt. The need for an explanation.

Obligingly, the old man threw the stones again. And again they fetched up into varied patterns, none of which I could read.

He studied them, then nodded. “Jhihadi,” he repeated. And then added something in uplander, ending in yet another Desert word.

“Iskandar?” I said sharply. “What’s Iskandar got to do with this?”

Del looked at me blankly. “I don’t know what that is.”