Sword-Maker(9)
I scrubbed sweat off my face. Took pains to steady my breathing. Then silently followed the brightness down and stepped out of a tree-striped, hollow darkness into frost and fog and rainbow, where a sword held dominance. Alien, rune-wrought steel, naked in Del’s bare hands.
Delilah was alive.
She stood as I have seen her stand before, paying homage to the North, or to the sword herself. With legs spread, braced; with arms stretched wide above her head, balancing blade across flattened palms. Three feet of deadly steel, shining whitely in the night; a foot of knotted silver twisted carefully into a hilt. Ornate and yet oddly plain, with a magnificent symmetry. Simplistic in promised power, lethal in promises kept.
All in white, Delilah. Tunic, trews, hair. And the stark, ravaged face, devoid of all save desperation.
Thin fog purled down from the blade. Streamers licked Del’s hands, face, clothing, frothed around her ankles, spilled out across the ground. Drops of moisture glistened, reflecting sword-born rainbows. All in white, Delilah; uncompromising white. A blank, stark canvas. Behind her was the night; uncompromising black. But arrayed above us both were the colors of the world, summoned by rune-wrought steel.
White on black, and light. A brilliant, blinding light that made me want to squint.
Ghost, I thought; wraith. A spirit made of shadows, lent light by a playful demon. Nothing more than a fetch, or a trick of imagination. It wasn’t really Del. It couldn’t really be Del.
Gods, let it be Del—
I felt the touch of wind. It blew softly across the clearing, shredding sword-born fog, and gently touched my face. The testing fingers of a blind man; the subtle caress of a lover’s touch. A cold, winter wind, bordering on banshee. Letting me taste its strength. Letting me sense its power.
Believe, it told me plainly. I am born of Boreal, and only one commands her. Only one can summon her power. To key it, and control it. To make me substance out of nothing; to give me life out of proper season.
Winter was in the clearing. It numbed my ears, my nose; stiffened aging joints. Lifted the hem and folds of my cloak and snapped it away from my body, stripping hair out of my face. Threatening beard with frost-rime and my lungs with frigid breath.
Del sang on. A small, soft song. A song of infinite power.
She had traded her soul for that song. As well as humanity.
I turned my back on her. I turned my back on her power. On winter and on the wind, fixing my eyes on spring. Thinking of things to come, not on what had passed.
Walked out of her light into darkness. Into things I could understand.
Thinking: Del is alive.
Which meant I could be angry.
And so I was, when at last she came riding into my camp. Hoolies, six weeks. And all that time: alive.
Me thinking her dead.
Me thinking I’d killed her.
All those days and nights.
Delilah is alive.
I squatted by the fire cairn and warmed hands over the coals. I didn’t really need to, since Del’s sword-summoned winter was banished, but at least it was something to do. It gave me something to look at instead of staring at her.
Oh, I looked. I looked—and swallowed hard. Glanced away again in forced, false negligence, staring blindly at hands that tried repeatedly to tremble; they didn’t because I wouldn’t let them. It took all the strength I had.
She rode a dark dappled horse; roan, I thought, blue, though in the darkness it was hard to tell. A tall dark-eyed gelding stepping daintily through storm-strewn rubble.
The stud, less concerned with pride and appearances, peeled back his lip and squealed. He’d teach the gelding his place or know the reason why.
Moonbleached hair was white, scraped back from a too-pale face showing keen edges of too-sharp bone. The skull, now strongly visible, was flawless in its beauty, but I preferred more flesh on it. She had lost too much to the circle, and to its aftermath.
The fire was gone from the sky like so much wine spilled from a cup. The blade rode her back in its customary harness, slanting left to right. From the downward curve of ornate quillons to the carefully crafted pommel knot, nearly a foot of shining steel rose beside her head.
Boreal: jivatma. A sword-singer’s blooding-blade.
With it, she’d killed the man who had taught her how to fight. With mine, I’d nearly killed her.
Delilah is alive.
The stud stomped, pawed, squealed, arching neck and raising tail. I was relieved to see it, because even though, for him, it was muted, the show of dominance nonetheless meant he was feeling better. Maybe I’d worried for naught.
About the stud and Del; here she was before me.
With customary prudence, Del reined in her gelding at the edge of the cairn’s sphere of meager light. Not far enough to calm the stud, but enough to tell him the gelding offered no threat to his dominance.