Sword Breaker-Sword Dancer 4 Read Online Free PDF Page B

on my right hand. "Oh, not much--just a slip
    ..." I scowled, sucking the shallow but painful slice in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. "Stings like hoolies, though." I removed the flesh from my mouth and inspected the cut again. "Ah, well, too far from my heart to kill me."
    Del, thus reassured, sat down on her own blanket, spread next to mine. "Getting careless in your old age."
    I scowled as she, all innocence, turned her attention to cleaning her blade, soiled with gritty dust and sticky grass juices.
    As for my own, I'd intended much the same. I'd unpacked oil, whetstone, cloth. Such care was required if the steel was to stay unblemished and strong, and it was nothing I considered a chore. It was as much a part of me as breathing; you do it, you don't think about it.
    Cross-legged, I settled the sword across both thighs. In dying light it glowed, except for the blackened tip. About a hand's-width of darkness, soiling beautiful steel as it climbed toward the hilt; as always, I swore beneath my breath. Once upon a time the blade had been pure, unblemished silver, clean and sweet and new. But circumstances--and a sorcerer--had conspired to alter things. Had conspired to alter me.
    "Thrice-cursed son of a goat," I muttered. "Why'd you pick my sword?"
    It was an old question. No one bothered to answer.
    I put one hand around the grip, settling callused flesh against taut leather wrappings knotted tightly around the steel. I felt warmth, welcome, wonder: the sword was a jivatma, blessed by Northern gods because I'd troubled to ask them, "made"--in the Northern way--by a Southron-born sword-dancer who wanted no part of it. I'd blooded it improperly by killing a snow lion instead of a man; later, knowing just enough to get myself into serious trouble, I'd requenched the thing in Chosa Dei, a sorcerer out of legend who turned out to be all too real. In requenching I'd finally keyed it. The sword was alive now, and magical--as Northern beliefs had it--only I'd perverted that life and magic by requenching in Chosa Dei.
    That I hadn't had much choice didn't seem to matter. My jivatma, Samiel, hosted a sorcerer's soul.
    An angry sorcerer's soul.
    "Tell me again," Del said.
    Distracted, I barely glanced at her. "What?"
    "Tell me again. About Jamail. About how he spoke."
    Frowning, I stared at blemished steel. "He just did. The crowd separated, leaving him in the open, and I heard him. He prophesied. He was, after all, the Oracle--or so everyone said." I shrugged. "It fits, in an odd sort of way. Rumor had it the Oracle was neither man nor woman... don't you remember the old man in Ysaa-den? He said something about--" I frowned, trying to recall. "--'a man who was not a man, but neither was he a woman.' " I nodded. "That's what he said."
    Del's tone was troubled. "And you believe he meant Jamail."
    "I don't know what he meant. All I know is Jamail showed up at the sword-dance and pointed me out as the jhihadi. After he spoke."
    "But his tongue was cut out, Tiger! Aladar did it, remember?" Del's face was pale and taut. Words hissed in her throat. "He made him a mute, and castrate--"
    "And maybe an Oracle." I shrugged, wiping soft cloth the length of the blade. "I don't know, bascha. I have no answers. All I can tell you is he did point at me."
    "Jhihadi, " she said. The single word was couched in a welter of emotions: disbelief, bafflement, frustration. And a vast, abiding confusion no weaker than my own.
    "I don't know," I said again. "I can't explain any of it. And besides, I don't know that it really matters. I mean, right now all anyone wants to do is kill me, not worship me. That doesn't sound much like a true messiah to me."
    Del sighed and slid her sword back into its sheath. "I wish--" She broke off, then began again. "I wish I could have spoken to him. Seen him. I wish I could have found out the truth."
    "We had to leave, bascha. They'd have killed us, otherwise."
    "I know." She glanced northward. "I just wish--" Then,