TWENTY

ONCE AGAIN I came back to myself with someone pouring a drink down my throat, but this one was noxious. I choked, swallowed, choked some more. Then someone dragged me up into a sitting position, where I sputtered the dregs all over the front of my burnous. Fingers closed painfully on my jaw, holding my head still I saw eyes peering into my own.

I wanted to ask who of the Vashni had four eyes in place of two, but then they merged, and I recognized the face. Oziri's. It was his hand clamped on my jaw, squeezing my flesh.

"Le'goo," I mumbled through the obstruction.

He let go. I worked my jaw, running my tongue around the inside of my mouth. No blood, though I felt teeth scores in flesh. "What was that for?"

Oziri ignored my question and asked one of his own. "What did you see?"

"See where?"

Del interrupted both of us. "Is he going to be all right?"

"What did you see?" Oziri repeated.

"Is he going to be all right?."

I answered both of them. "Hoolies, I don't know."

"Tiger—" Del began.

"Be silent!" Oziri commanded.

My tongue worked. So did my mouth. So, apparently, did everything. I frowned at him, because I could.

"Not you," he said more quietly. "Her."

Del's tone was the one you don't ignore, even if you don't know her. "I have a right to ask if he is well."

I put up a hand. "Stop. Wait. Both of you." I squinted a moment. "I feel all right. I think. What happened?"

Oziri's expression was solemn. "You dream-walked."

"I thought that was what you wanted me to do in your hyort."

"In my hyort, yes. This is not my hyort."

"I did it here? Now?"

"What did you see?" Oziri asked.

"I didn't see—oh. Wait. Maybe I did." I frowned, trying to dredge it up. "There's something, I think. A fragment. But—" I clamped my teeth together.

Oziri seemed to read my reluctance. His mouth hooked down in a brief, ironic smile. "This is why you must train yourself to be still. That way not only do you walk the dream, but you understand it. You recall it at need and allow it to guide you. Otherwise it's no different from what anyone dreams."

I glanced briefly at Del, who wore an expression of impatient self-restraint—she wasn't happy with Oziri—then looked at the Vashni. "I'm not sure I want it to be any different from what anyone dreams."

"Too late," he said dryly. "You are the jhihadi."

"Can I quit?" I asked hopefully.

He laughed. "But if you are no longer the jhihadi, then you are not a guest of my people. I would have to kill you."

"Ah. Well, then, never mind." I sighed. "So, I'm just supposed to remember what I dreamed?"

Oziri nodded. "No more, no less than any memory. Yes."

"And there's a message for me in it?"

"Not this one," he said. "This was merely the test, to see if you have the art. There is more, but I will explain that later." He gestured briefly. "Recall the walk."

To remember my dream did not seem a particularly dangerous challenge. I recalled portions of my dreams the day after on a regular basis, though the immediacy faded within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes. Some stray fragments remained with me for years and occasionally bubbled up into consciousness for no reason I could fathom, but I'd never purposely tried to recall them. It seemed a waste of time. But the explanation of dream-walking, which I didn't exactly fully understand, seemed to require enforced recollection.

Oziri spoke of stillness. Sahdri and his fellow priest-mages had spoken of discipline. One seemed very like the other.

I closed my eyes. Focused away from the hyort, going inside myself. I waited, felt the tumult of my thoughts and apprehensions —I hate anything that stinks of magic—and purposely suppressed them. In the circle, I could be still. I had learned to relax my body. Now I relaxed my mind, and found memory.

My eyes opened even as my left hand closed. I raised it. "I saw—death." I uncurled fingers. My palm was empty. "Here, in my hand. Death."

Oziri nodded. "What else?"

"A man. From Julah. He was searching for something." I frowned. Felt weight in my hand, though it remained empty. "You killed him."

"Not I."

"Vashni killed him."

"Yes."

"Because he trespassed."

"Yes."

"You kill everyone who trespasses."

No change in inflection. "Yes."

My hand snapped closed on air and flesh. "Bone." I could feel the details of it, the small oblong circle with slight protruberances. "Backbone."

"Yes," Oziri said.

I opened my hand. Stared into it. "He strayed off the road," I said. "He heard the scream of a coney being killed and thought he might eat well, if he found it not long after it died. But he found Vashni. A hunting party. The next scream was his own." My hand was empty, but the memory was full. Fear. Pain. Ending. I looked at Oziri. "You gave me a piece of his backbone."

Oziri smiled. "Yes."

Del's voice was harsh. "What have you done to him?"

"I? Nothing. This comes of himself. Here." The Vashni put out a hand and tapped my chest. "The heart knows what he is."

"I'm glad something does," I said dryly. "Now, care to tell me what's going on?"

"You remembered the dream-walk. I believed the walk itself would happen in my hyort. We brought you back here when it became obvious nothing would occur." Oziri shrugged. "I should have expected it. You don't trust us."

I took a breath. Was frank. "Vashni are not known for their courtesy toward strangers. Just ask the man whose backbone you gave me."

Oziri was unoffended. "But he was neither the jhihadi nor the Oracle's sister. He was a man, and a fool, and he paid the price for it."

Del's voice verged delicately on accusation. "You kill everyone who comes into what you perceive as Vashni territory."

"We do."

"But no one knows the borders of Vashni territory."

"They learn."

"Not if they're killed."

A smile twitched his mouth. "Others learn."

"You kill them even if they trespass by mistake?"

"Yes."

She considered that. Because I knew her mind, I saw the struggle to remain courteous, nonjudgmental. "It is a harsh penalty."

"It is a harsh land," Oziri replied. "We are a part of it. We reflect it." His gesture encompassed her body. "You yourself were attacked by a sandtiger. You know how harsh the land is."

I knew it, certainly, having grown up in the desert, but I wasn't aware of another tribe quite so quick to kill as the Vashni.

Certainly other tribes killed people if they perceived a threat—I'd witnessed the Salset do it—but the Vashni did it even if no threat were offered.

And yet Del and I, Oracle's sister and jhihadi, were treated honorably. And Nayyib, apparently, because he served Del and wore the fingerbone necklet.

Oziri watched me think it through. Irony put light into his eyes. But he returned to the topic of dream-walking. "Here, in this hyort, you can be still. Because you trust the woman."

I glanced at Del, whose brows arched up.

"And the smoke was still in your body," Oziri explained.

"So, it's the herbs that do it?"

"The herbs assist," he answered with precision, "when one is new to the art. In time, you will be able to do it without such things. Just find the stillness, and it will come." He paused. "If you choose."

"This is a Vashni custom," I said. "I'm not Vashni."

"But you dream," he countered, "and your dreams trouble you. If you can walk them, you'll understand what it is you're to do."

Del and I asked it simultaneously. "Do?"

He smiled. "Listen," he said. "Find the stillness. Walk the dreams. They will tell you."

I glared. "You're being obscure again."

Oziri rose with his bota of noxious liquid. He glanced briefly at Del, then looked down at me. "They are your dreams," he said. "It's for you to find the meaning in obscurity."

I waited until the doorflap fell behind him. Then I flopped down on my back, grabbed the nearest waterskin, and dragged it over my face. I growled sheer frustration into leather.

After a moment Del lifted the bota to examine my expression. "Are you sure you don't want to leave tomorrow?"

I yanked the waterskin out of her hand and let it settle its gurgling weight over my face again. "Don't interfere." My words were muffled by leather. "I'm trying to smother myself."

"With a bota?"

"Why not?"

"I can think of better ways."

"Oh?"

She peeled the bota back, tipped it off my face. She studied me a moment. Then, as she leaned over my face, her mouth came down on mine.

When she was done, I reminded her that kiss or no kiss, I could still breathe.

She kissed me again. This time she also pinched my nose closed.

I ruined the moment—and the kiss—by laughing. Del removed her fingers, removed her mouth, and stared down into my face. Loose hair tickled my neck.

"Are you truly all right?" she asked.

I was still grinning. "I seem to be." I threaded fingers into silken hair. "It really was like a dream. Except it didn't feel like mine. It felt like—his. Or, rather, it felt like his life, and I was there. Watching." I frowned, stroking the ends of her hair across my mouth. "Except it was more vivid. I could smell, and taste, and feel, too. Usually I just see and hear in my dreams."

Del nodded. "Are you going to go to Oziri tomorrow?"

"You were the one who said it'd be rude to refuse."

"That was before you collapsed in a heap with your eyes rolled up in your head."

The image was perversely intriguing. "They did that?"

"They did."

I felt my eyelids. "Hmmm."

"Very dramatic," Del added. "I thought you might break out into prophecy at any moment."

"You did not," I said sternly. "Besides, that doesn't really happen. Only in stories."

Del shrugged. "Jamail apparently did it. That's why the Vashni called him the Oracle."

I gazed up at her. I didn't want to think about dream-walking or oracles or stillness anymore. I tugged her hair. "Come down here."

Del followed the pressure on her hair and stretched out next to me.

"Just how tired are you?" I asked.

She suppressed a smile. "Oh, very tired. Extremely tired. Excessively tired. Far too tired for what you have in mind."

I sighed very deeply. Extremely, excessively deeply. "And here I was hoping it might be you I dreamed about."

Her fingers were on my belt, working at the buckle. "If you walk anywhere," she said, "I'm going with you."

The belt fell away. I arched my back so she could pull it out from under me. It took but a moment to free myself of the damp burnous. Then I performed for her the identical service, stripping away folds of cloth.

I turned her under me, taking weight onto knees and elbows. "How tired was that again?"

Del's hand moved downward from my ribs. Closed. "You tell me."

True to my word—well, actually it was true to Del's expectations, because I didn't feel like opening a debate—I met her for a brief match the next morning. The last time we'd sparred was aboard ship on the way to Haziz, and it had been Del's task to challenge me enough to help me regain fitness and timing as I adapted to the lack of little fingers. This time it would be me leading her through the forms trying to improve her fitness.

She had, of course, not bothered to don her burnous. Her cream-color leather tunic showed the aftermath of her encounter with the sandtiger, but a Vashni woman had patched it and stitched up the rents as Del recovered. The new leather didn't match, being the pale yellow hue of foothills deer, but the tunic was whole again.

Del, however, wasn't. In exploring her body the night before I'd examined with fingers and mouth the scars she bore, but I'd seen none of them. I knew better than to react as she exited the hyort, sword in hand—I was already outside—but inwardly I quailed to see the damage. Her right forearm bore a knurled pur-

plish lump of proud flesh around the puncture wound and a vivid ditch left by a canine tooth as she'd wrenched her arm free. At the point of her jaw a claw tip had nicked flesh clear to bone. There were other scars, I knew—those stretching from breast tops to collar bones; and the punctures and claw wounds, not to mention the cautery scar atop her left shoulder—but the tunic covered them.

I caught her eye, then tossed her the leather thong I'd bought with a smile from a Vashni woman repairing a hyort panel. Del caught it, suspended it in midair, noted the curving black claws. Between them, acting as spacers, were the lumpy red-gold beads formed of heartwood tree resin. She'd worn them strung as a necklet as I wore my claws; I'd stolen them earlier this morning, since the Vashni had taken the necklet off to treat her wounds.

"Welcome," I said, "to the elite group of people who've survived sandtiger attacks."

Del looked at me over the necklet. "How many are there in this elite group?"

"As far as I know, two."

She nodded, half-smiling, and hooked the necklet one-handed over her head. "Too long," she murmured. "I'll shorten it later." Then she lifted her sword and placed both hands around the grip. "Shall we dance?"

"Spar," I corrected.

Her jaw tightened. "Spar."

"Until I say to stop."

That did not please her. "You'll say to stop after one engagement."

"I will not. Three, maybe." I waved fingers at her in a come-here gesture. "We're too close to the fire ring. Let's go out into the common area."

"Here, then." Del tossed me her unsheathed blade, which I managed to catch without cutting off any vital parts—I scowled at her even as she smiled sunnily—and accompanied me out to the common as she worked at the knot in the leather thong.

By the time we reached the spot I'd selected, she'd shortened the necklet and retied the knot. Then she flipped her braid behind her shoulder, gestured for the sword, and caught it deftly as I tossed it. Well, that ability she hadn't lost.

More than two weeks before, I had been clawed and sick from sandtiger poison, then unceremoniously hauled off to Umir's with both hands tied at the wrists, and imprisoned in a small room out of the sun and air. Such things should conspire to rob me of any pretense to fitness and flexibility, but I'd spent my ten days of imprisonment profitably in near-constant exercise accompanied by good food and restful sleep. I had then met an excellent sword-dancer in the circle, which had the effect of not only challenging my body but my confidence. Aside from missing two fingers– actually, because of missing two fingers—I was in the best condition I'd been in for years.

Del, on the other hand. . . . Inwardly I shook my head, even as I pointed to the spot where I wanted her to stand. I took up my own position, closed my hands on leather wrapping, nodded. She came at me.

It is impossible to spar in silence. Steel brought against steel has a characteristic sound; blade brought against blade is unmistakable. Before long we had gathered onlookers. I was too focused on the match to listen to what they said, but many comments were exchanged. I didn't doubt some of them had to do with a man meeting a woman; Vashni women, who look every bit as fierce as their men, do not avail themselves of the sword. No women in the South did. Oracle's sister or no, once again Del was opening eyes and minds to the concept that a woman too could fight.

Probably everyone watching expected me to 'win.' But, as I've said before, that's not what sparring is all about. Del and I worked until the sweat ran down her flushed face, the breath was harsh in her throat, and her forearms trembled. I let her make one more foray against me, turned it back easily, then called a halt.

"Don't fall down," I told her cheerfully as she stood there breathing hard, "or they'll think I'm punishing you unduly."

Del shot me a scowl.

"Not bad," I commented. The scowl deepened. "Go cool off," I ordered.

She wanted very badly to say something to me, but she hadn't the wind for it. Instead she turned, visibly collected herself, and stalked back through the ring of hyorts. Upon reaching ours, I did not doubt, she'd suck down water, then collapse. Or collapse, then suck down water. Once she could move again. Actually, she'd gone longer than I had expected. It was sheer determination and stubbornness that carried her, but such things count, too, when it comes to survival.

After the physical exertion, the taste of Oziri's herbs was back in my throat. I hacked, leaned, spat. Heard onlookers discussing the origins of the scar carved into one set of ribs. I wanted badly to tell them Del had been the one to put it there so they'd understand she was indeed a legitimate sword-dancer, but I decided against it. Anything that demoted me from jhihadi could well end in my execution, if I believed Oziri's explanation that anyone else in Vashni territory was put to death. And I had no reason to disbelieve him. One had only to look at all the human bones hanging around the necks of men and women alike.

I turned to follow the departed Del, found a warrior standing in my path. "Oziri," he said merely.

Numerous refusals ran through my mind. All of them were discarded. Glumly, carrying a naked blade, I followed the warrior.