Grinning, she took my advice. The stud eased after a moment, ears flicking forward as Del departed. "What, you like the view from behind better?" I asked him. "Fine. Can we go now?"

And indeed we might have gone beyond the first two strides, except someone stopped dead in front of us. On foot. It was either ride over the top of him, or halt yet again.

I reined in sharply, swearing, and looked down upon the interruption. A young man in an russet-gold burnous, a Southroner, with smooth dark skin, longish dark hair, strong but striking features, and the kind of liquid, thick-lashed, honey-brown eyes that can melt a woman's heart.

It might have been happenstance that he stepped in front of the stud, impeding my way, except that one hand was on a rein, holding the stud in place-and the other held a sheathed sword.

"You are the Sandtiger," he declared, raising his voice. Plainly he wanted an audience.

I might have denied his opening salvo in the interests of saving time, except I'd nearly lost myself in Meteiera and would never hide from my name again. I merely stared down at him.

Expressive eyes challenged me. "Will you dance? Will you step into the circle?"

I opened my mouth to explain I couldn't dance, not the way he so clearly wanted, with a circle drawn in sand and all the honor codes. Instead I said, "Not today," and jammed heels into the stud's ribs.

Startled, he jumped forward. The young man, equally startled, lost his grip on the rein.

With agile alacrity he leaped aside so as not to be ridden over, and I heard his fading curses as I struck a crisp long-trot to the end of the street.

Del waited there atop her quiet gelding. The stud took one look at him, considered spooking again, but was convinced otherwise when I cracked the long reins across his broad rump. There was no further dissent as Del fell in beside us.

"So," she said calmly, "the secret of your return is out."

"Yes and no."

She frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"He isn't a sword-dancer. Just a kid trying to make a reputation."

"How do you know?"

"He invited me to dance. A sword-dancer won't. They all know what elaii-ali-ma means: that there is no dance, no circle, merely a fight to the death. There's a huge difference."

"And every sword-dancer in the South will know this?"

"Everyone sworn to the honor codes, yes."

"But he recognized you."

"That," I said, "is likely more a result of the swordsmith spreading gossip."

"You think he recognized you?"

"Probably not. As I said, Haziz isn't a place many sword-dances go, unless specifically hired. But as you pointed out before, we don't exactly fit in with the rest of the crowd. All it would take is a description, and anyone who'd seen or heard about us would know."

"So. It begins."

"It begins." I glanced sideways at the long equine face with its black-painted eye circles, the wine girl's dangling golden fringe-I wondered briefly if Del had told her what she intended to do with it-and mournful blue eyes. "That horse is a disgrace to his kind."

Del put up her brows. "Just because your horse is afraid of him is no cause to insult him."

"He looks ridiculous!"

"No more than yours did when he stood rooted to the ground, trembling like a leaf."

Probably not. Scowling, I said, "Let's go, bascha. It's a long ride to Julah-"

"-and we're burning daylight."

Well. We were.

Del and I stopped burning daylight when the sun went down. Then it lost itself in its own conflagration, a panoply of color so vivid as to nearly blind you. Desert orange, blazing red, yellow, vermillion, raisin purple, lavender, the faint burnished shadow of blue fading to silver-gilt. Out here twilight dies gently, shading slowly into darkness.

We were beyond the last oasis between Haziz and Julah, so there was no place in particular we wanted to bed down. We ended up settling for a series of conjoined hummocks carpeted in a fibrous, red-throated groundcover bearing tiny white blossoms, and the threadbare shelter of a thin grove of low, scrubby trees boasting a bouquet of woody limbs bearing dusty green leaves. Within weeks the leaves would dry out, curl up, and drop off, when summer seared them to death, but for now there was yet enough moisture in the mornings for the leaves to remain turgid. Mixed in with the groundcover were taller-growing desert gra.s.ses with frizzy, curled topknots.

"This'll do," I said, reining in even as Del dismounted.

Since the stud was not always trustworthy when picketed close to other horses, I led him to a tree eight paces away and had a brief discussion about staying put as I hobbled him. Del and I busied ourselves with untacking and grooming both mounts, swapping out bridles and bits for halters, pouring water into the squashable, flat-bottomed oiled canvas bags doubling as buckets, and offering them grain as a complement to the gra.s.ses. It wasn't particularly good grazing, but it would do; and the next night we'd be in Julah where they'd eat well.

Our dinner consisted of dried c.u.mfa meat, purple-skinned tubers, and flat, tough-crusted journey-bread. Del drank water, I had a few mouthfuls of aqivi from the goatskin bota. Sated, we sprawled loose-limbed on our bedrolls and digested, blinking sleepily up into the deeping sky as the first stars kindled to life.

"That," Del observed after amoment, "was one huge sigh."

I hadn't noticed.

"Of contentment," she added.

I considered it. Maybe so. For all there were risks attendant to returning South, it was home.

I'd been North with Del once, learning what real forests were, and true mountains, and even snow; had sailed to Skandi and met my grandmother on a wind-bathed, temperate island in the midst of brilliant azure seas, but it was here I was most at ease. Out in the desert beneath the open skies with nothing on the horizon but more horizon. Where a man owed nothing to no one, unless he wished to owe it.

Unless he was a slave.

Del lay very close. She set her head and one shoulder against mine, hooking ankle over ankle. And I recalled that I was man, not child; free, not slave. That'd I'd been neither child nor chula for years.

I remembered once telling Del, as we prepared to take ship out of Haziz, that there was nothing left for me in the South. In some ways, that was truth. In others, falsehood. There were things about the South I didn't care for, things I might not be cognizant of had Del not come along, but there were other things that meant more than I expected. Maybe it was merely a matter of being familiar with such things, of finding ease in dealing with what I knew rather than challenging the unexpected; or maybe it was that I'd met and overcome the challenges I'd faced and did not wish to relegate them to insignificance.

Then again, maybe it was merely relief that I was alive to return home, after nearly dying in a foreign land.

I grinned abruptly. "You know, there is one thing I really miss about Skandi."

Del sounded drowsy. "Hmmmm?"

"The metri's tiled bathing pool. And what we did in it."

"We can do that without the metri's bathing pool. In fact, I think we have."

"Not like we did there."

"Is that all you think about?"

I yawned. "No. Just most of the time."

After a moment she said reflectively, "It would be nice to have a bathing pool like that."

"Umm-hmm."

"Maybe you can build one at Alimat." "I think I have to rebuild Alimat itself before building a bathing pool."

"In the meantime . . ." But her voice trailed off.

"In the meantime?"

"You'll have to make do with this." Whereupon she squirted the contents of a bota all over me.

The resultant activity was not even remotely similar to what we'd experienced mostly submerged in the metri's big, warm bathing pool. But it sufficed.

Oh, indeed.

FOUR.

THE BALANCE of the journey to Julah was uneventful, save for the occasional uncharacteristic display of uncertainty by the stud when the white gelding looked at him. Del's mount was a quiet, stolid kind of horse, content to plod along endlessly with his head bobbing hypnotically on the end of a lowered neck-though Del claimed he didn't plod at all, but was the smoothest horse she'd ever ridden. I wasn't certain I knew what that was anymore, since the stud had forgotten every gait except a sucked-up walk that put me in mind of a man with the runs, trying to hold it in until he found a latrine. When this gait resulted in him falling behind Del's gelding, which happened frequently, he then broke into a jog to catch up and rea.s.sert his superiority. The gelding was unimpressed. So was I.

Julah was the typical desert town of flat-roofed, squared-off adobe buildings, deep-cut windows, tattered canvas awnings, and narrow, dusty streets. But there was water here in plenty, so Julah thrived. Opting to cool off before taking the risk of meeting other sword-dancers, we stopped at a well on the outskirts of town, discounting to winch up buckets.

We filled the horse troughs, permitted our mounts to drink, then quenched our own thirst and refilled botas. It was early enough in the season that the heat wasn't unbearable; but then, we hadn't reached the Punja yet. There was only one season in the Punja: hot.

Del dampened the hem of her burnous and wiped dust from her face. "Tonight I get the bath." Then, "How many sword-dancers are likely to be here?"

I backhanded water from my chin, realizing I needed to shave before we hit the Punja. "Oh, a few."

"Then we shouldn't stay longer than is necessary."

"We'll head out first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, except for a visit to Fouad's cantina, we'll keep our heads down."

"Walking into Fouad's, where at any time there may be half a dozen sword-dancers drinking his spirits, strikes me as keeping our heads up."

"Maybe. But we knew we'd face this coming back here."

Del said nothing. She had not argued when I said I wanted to return home-we had established that Skandi, for all my parents had come from the island, did not qualify-but she had quietly pointed out that to do so was sheer folly for a man sentenced to death by the very honor codes he'd repudiated. But the mere fact that she hadn't argued struck me as significant; I suspected Del was recalling that she was exiled from her own homeland and understood how much I needed to go back to mine. Unlike Del, I wasn't truly exiled. I wasn't under pain of death if I went back South. Oh, men would try to kill me, but that had nothing to do with exile.

Just with broken oaths.

At my behest, we waited until sundown before entering Fouad's cantina. We had in the meantime secured lodging in an only slightly disreputable inn with a tiny stable out behind in an alley and had eaten at a street vendor's stall. The odors and flavors of spiced, if tough, mutton, sizzling peppers, and pungent goat cheese had immediately s.n.a.t.c.hed me back to the days before we left for Skandi. I'm not sure Del appreciated that so much, having a more delicate palate-or so she claimed-but it felt like home to me. Then I led Del to Fouad's cantina, which was only fitfully lighted by smoking tallow candles on each small knife- and sword-hacked wooden table. I selected one back in the farthest corner from the door, a windowless nook veiled with smoke from a dying torch stuck in an iron wall sconce, dripping tallow. As we found stools to perch our rumps upon, I leaned forward and blew out our candle.

Dimness descended.

"Oh, good," Del commented, brushing bread crumbs off the table. "Makes it so easy to see whom I'm to stick my sword into."

"We're not going to stick swords into anyone, bascha."

"Not even Fouad?" Del really seemed focused on the fact that my friend had betrayed us.

"Not immediately," I told her. "Maybe for the after-dinner entertainment."

Fouad, proprietor of my favorite cantina, was a small, neat, quick man of ready smile and welcome. Though he had wine-girls aplenty-Silk was working our corner, though clearly she hadn't yet recognized me-he enjoyed greeting newcomers personally. He approached the table calling out a robust greeting in Southron and offering us the best his cantina had to offer.

In bad light, wreathed in smoke, shorn of most of my hair, with double silver rings hanging in my ears and a tracery of blue tattooing along my hairline, I was no doubt a stranger to him at first glance, as I'd hoped. But Del, as always, was Del, and no man alive, having seen her even once, forgot what or who she was.

Or whom she traveled with.

Fouad stopped dead in his rush to greet new custom. He stared. He very nearly gaped.

He had, helpfully, placed himself within my reach. I rose, kicking back my stool, and leaned close, slapping one big hand down upon his shoulder in a friendly fashion. "Fouad!" I shut the hand, gripping him so firmly a wince of pain replaced his shocked expression. "Join us, won't you? It's been a long time." I shoved him toward the empty stool and pushed him down upon it. "There's much to catch up on, don't you think?"

He was trembling. Very unlike Fouad. But then, so was betrayal.

I yanked over another stool and sat down upon it. "So, what's the news? Any word out of Sabra?"

Fouad flicked a white-rimmed glance at Del, then looked back to me again. The robustness had spilled from his voice. "They say she's likely dead."

I raised a brow. " 'They say'? They're not sure?"

"She disappeared." His thin tone was a complex admixture of emotions. "Some say a sandstorm got her, or a beast, or the Vashni. But Abbu Bensir said differently."

I grinned. "Abbu would. He's always one to tell a good tale. So, what did Abbu say about Sabra?"

"That you killed her."

"He did not." That from Del, who was never one to let a good story get in the way of the facts. "Sabra died of her own folly."

In truth, Sabra had died because she laid hands on a jivatma which was, at the time, utterly perverted by magic, full of a sorcerer wanting very badly to get out. Which he had managed.

Unfortunately, the vessel he chose for freedom-Sabra-was far too weak to contain him. But I suppose "folly" fairly well summed it up.

"And just when was good old Abbu here last?" I asked idly.

Fouad had stopped trembling. Color returned to his face. We had always been friends, and I supposed he was recalling that. But wariness remained. And guilt. "Weeks ago," he said.

"He's north of here now, I hear."

Well. At least I wouldn't have to grapple with Abbu Bensir immediately. "Aqivi?"