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4

The next day the wind god deserted them. A strange golden haze settled over the River, smelling faintly of burning stubble, while the water lay dead as white oil. Directly overhead the sky was a pallid, sickly blue, and all around there was only blank nothing. Tomiyano did not even hoist sail, and Sapphire drooped at anchor. Other becalmed vessels showed faintly at times in the distance, like flags planted to mark the edge of the World, but for most of the day Sapphire seemed to be abandoned by both men and gods.

This ominous change made the crew uneasy. Lord Shonsu was needed at Casr, they believed, to take command of Her tryst. Why was She not speeding him there? Had they offended Her in some way? Not putting their worry into words, the sailors performed the usual chores in nervous silence. They cleaned and polished and varnished; they made clothes for the coming winter; they instructed youngsters in the age-old ways of the River and the sutras of the sailors; they waited for wind.

Honakura was as distressed as any. He liked to think that he had been sent along on Shonsu's mission as pilot, a guide to interpret the will of the gods as it might be revealed from time to time, and he did not know what to make of this sudden change of pace. It was strange that She had not taken Shonsu directly to Her tryst from Ov after the battle with the sorcerers, but likely the swordsman was just being given time to think. There seemed to be many things worrying the big man, things he had trouble discussing, or preferred not to discuss, and he brooded relentlessly, quite unlike his normal self. And the wind god had buffeted them along in spanking fashion—until today.

This was not the first time Sapphire's progress had been stayed, and each time there had been a reason for it. Either the gods had been waiting for something else to happen, or the mortals had overlooked something they were supposed to do. Honakura had no way of knowing which was the case now, but he suspected that the next move was up to the mortals—why else would the ship have been encased in mist? It was as if they had all been shut in a closet, as he himself had many times in the past locked up an errant protégé to meditate upon his shortcomings. By afternoon he was becoming seriously concerned.

He sat himself on his favorite fire bucket and surveyed the deck. Up on the fo'c'sle, the adolescents were clustered around Novice Katanji. From their antics, he guessed that the boy was telling dirty stories. The women had mostly gathered on the poop, knitting, mending, and chatting softly. A couple of men were fishing . . . without much success, he noted glumly.

For once there was no fencing lesson in progress. Adept Nnanji was sitting on the forward hatch cover with Novice Matarro and Apprentice Thana, grouped around three crossed swords. That was a stupid swordsman custom for reciting sutras. Priests taught sutras while pacing to and fro—much healthier and more sensible, letting exercise stimulate the brain.

Lord Shonsu sat alone on the other hatch. The crew understood that he needed to think and they left him alone when he wanted privacy, as now. He did have his slave beside him, so he probably would not think of himself as being alone. They were not talking, however, and that was unusual. Shonsu was probably the only swordsman in the World who talked with his night slave—except of course to say "Lie down."

Shonsu was whittling. He had taken up whittling after Ov, spending hours with scraps of wood and tools pilfered from the ship's chest. He refused to say what he was doing and he obviously did not enjoy doing it. His hands were too big for delicate work—they fit a sword hilt better than a knife handle. He scowled and chewed his tongue and nicked his fingers and spoiled what he was doing and started again. And he would not say why.

A sour sulfurous odor mingled with smells of woodsmoke and leather. They had met that before. Shonsu said it must come from RegiVul, where the Fire God danced on the peaks. A pale dust was settling on the planks.

Honakura sighed and sought a more comfortable position. The pains were getting worse. He remembered how his mother had baked bread when he was a child, and how she had run a knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the loaf so that it would come out cleanly. That was what the Goddess was doing to him—reminding him that death was not to be feared, that it was a beginning of something new and exciting, not an end. When he had left Hann with Shonsu, he had offered humble prayers that he might be spared long enough in this cycle to see the outcome of the Shonsu mission. Now he was not so presumptuous. He thought he might be happier not knowing. If anyone had suggested to him half a year since that he could ever be friends with a swordsman, he would have laughed until his old bones fell apart in a heap. Yet it had happened so. He liked that huge slab of beef. He could even admire him and he had never admired a swordsman before. Of course Shonsu was not a swordsman at heart, but he tried very hard to obey the dictates of the gods, and struggled to reconcile his own gentle instincts with the killer requirements of his job. They were incompatible, of course. Shonsu knew that and was troubled within himself. But he tried, and he was a decent and honorable man.

Strange, therefore, that his divine master had not trusted him enough to explain exactly what his task was to be. That lapse had obviously bothered Shonsu, and still did. He thought he knew now what it was. He had been quite implacable toward the sorcerers once he met them—implacable for Shonsu, that is. Yet he had gathered wisdom at Ov, wisdom he could not or would not explain, and since then he had been more deeply troubled than ever.

Honakura was certain that he had a much better idea of what Shonsu's mission was than Shonsu did. He no longer wanted to see the end of it. The gods knew what they were doing and they knew why, even if mortals did not. And they could be cruel.

Sometimes they could even appear to be ungrateful.

A sudden ripple of change swept over the ship. Two of the women came chattering down from the poop and headed for the companionway in the fo'c'sle. The men abandoned their fishing at the same moment and went into the deckhouse, muttering about a game of dice. Apprentice Thana, tired of sutras, rose and stretched deliciously. Honakura sighed . . . If the Goddess sent him back at once, then in twenty years or less he would be after someone like Thana. Unless he came back as a woman, of course, in which case he would be looking for a Shonsu.

Adept Nnanji twisted his head round and shouted for his brother. Katanji pulled a face, left off his storytelling, and came down to join the sutra session. Nnanji could continue indefinitely. Despite his youth, he was the most single-minded person Honakura had ever met and he certainly possessed the finest memory.

That made him an incomparable learner. It had been entertaining to watch Shonsu snuggle to make himself more of a swordsman—meaning in effect more like Nnanji, who was a swordsman born—while Nnanji strove to be more like his hero, Shonsu. There was no doubt which of the two had more thoroughly succeeded. Adept-and-soon-to-be-Master Nnanji was unrecognizable as the brash, wide-eyed juvenile who had trailed behind Shonsu that first day in the temple, after the death of Hardduju. Yet neither man could ever really succeed. They were as unlike as the lion and the eagle that made up the griffon on the seventh sword.

One lion plus one eagle did not make two griffons.

Then stillness inexplicably returned and motion ceased. The ship lay in its cocoon of golden haze, the silence broken only by a quiet drone of sutras.

Thana had wandered to the aft end of the deck and was sitting on the steps to the poop. There seemed to be something missing about Apprentice Thana. Honakura needed a moment to work it out—she was not wearing the pearls that Nnanji had given her. He decided, then, that he had not seen them for some days.

She was studying Shonsu and frowning deep in thought.

Mm?

Of course Shonsu was worth studying from her point of view: huge, muscular—masculinity personified—and a swordsman of the seventh rank, a man of ultimate power among the People.

Brota and Tomiyano were incomparable pursuers of gold, but in Thana that family trait was subtly changed. She saw farther. Thana knew that gold was only a means, and the end was power. For most people gold was the surest means to that end, but power was largely a male attribute in the World, and there was a faster road to it for nubile young maidens.

Honakura rose and wandered across and joined her on the steps. She scowled.

Even at his age, it was pleasant to sit next to a Thana.

"When beautiful young ladies frown, they must have troubles," he said. "Troubles are my business."

"Beggars have no business."

He stared up at her until she averted her eyes.

"Pardon, holy one," she muttered.

They had all guessed that he was a priest, of course. His way of speaking would have told them that.

"Not a holy one at the moment," he said gently. "But I am on Her business. Now, what ails?"

"Just puzzled," she said. "Something Nnanji told me."

Honakura waited. He had a million times more patience than Apprentice Thana.

"He quoted something Lord Shonsu had said," she explained at last, "the first time he was in Tau. He talked of being reeve there. Well! A minnow town like that? This is after his mission is over, you understand? It just seemed odd. That's all."

"It doesn't seem odd to me, apprentice."

She glanced at him in surprise. "Why not? A Seventh? In a scruffy little hole like Tau?"

Honakura shook his head. "Shonsu never asked to be a Seventh. He did not even want to be a swordsman. The gods made him one for their own purposes. You are talking power, my lady, and power does not attract Shonsu."

"Power?" she repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Well, ambition. He has none! He is already a Seventh, so what is left? But Adept Nnanji . . . now there is ambition for you."

Thana frowned again. "He is a killer! Remember when the pirates came? Yes, it is good to kill pirates. But Shonsu wept afterward—I saw the tears on his cheeks. Nnanji laughed. He was soaked in blood, and loved it."

Honakura had known much worse killers than that amiable young man. "Killing is his job, apprentice. He welcomed a chance to do his job. He is honorable and kills only in the line of duty. A swordsman rarely gets a chance to use his skills. Adept Nnanji is very good at his job—better in some ways than Lord Shonsu is."

"You think Nnanji will be a Seventh one day?" she asked idly, but he sensed the steel in the question.

For a moment he hesitated, pondering the inexplicable lack of wind, the breathless pause in Shonsu's mission. Then he decided to gamble on this sudden hunch of his.

"I am certain."

"Certain, old man? Certain is a strong word." She sounded like her mother.

"This must be in confidence, Thana," he said.

She nodded, astonished.

"There is a prophecy," he told her. "When Shonsu spoke with the god, he was given a message for me. Shonsu did not understand it—it was a message that only a priest would hear. But it comes from a god. So, yes, I am certain."

She had very beautiful eyes, large and dark, set in very long lashes.

"This prophecy is about Nnanji?"

He nodded.

"I swear on my sword, holy one—on my honor as a swordsman. If you tell me, I will not reveal it."

"Then I shall trust you," he said. "The prophecy is the epigram from one of our sutras. We—the priests, I mean—have always regarded it as a great paradox, but perhaps to a swordsman it will not seem so. The epigram is this: The pupil may be greater than the teacher."

Thana drew in her breath sharply. "That refers to Nnanji?"

"Yes, it does. He was destined to be Shonsu's protégé. He was only a Second, you know. Shonsu made him a Fourth in two weeks. And he is the equal of a Fifth now, Shonsu says."

"A Sixth!" she snapped, and fell silent, thinking.

He waited patiently and after a while she looked up. "It only says 'may' be greater. Not 'will' be."

Honakura shook his head, "Gods do not cheat like that, Thana. The god was saying that Nnanji will be greater. It is obvious! He is absurdly young for even his present rank, and Shonsu says he fences better every day, without exception. He forgets nothing. Yes, Nnanji will be a Seventh—and very soon, I think."

She frowned. "He thinks he is a Sixth now, but Shonsu will not tell him the sutras—the last few he needs to try for Sixth."

"I am sure," Honakura said, and then wondered if he was sure, "that Lord Shonsu has his protégé's best interests at heart. Nnanji had been very lucky to find a mentor like him—few do. Many mentors grow jealous of successful protégés and hold them back. Indeed, that is the thrust of that sutra I mentioned—that protégés must be encouraged and aided at all costs, not impeded." He chuckled, thinking of examples he had known. "Even priests can be guilty of that sin, and obviously there are special advantages to a swordsman in having a protégé who can fight above his rank. Whereas, when that protégé gains promotion, he may set off on his own. But I do not think that Lord Shonsu would ever do that to Nnanji. If he is holding him back from trying for Sixth, then it is only because he does not think that Nnanji is ready."

I think that, but Shonsu is no fool.

She nodded. "And when the tryst is over, then Nnanji will not be satisfied to be merely reeve of some polliwog village?"

"Nnanji wants to be a free sword. He would be happy just to lead a band of ragtag swordsmen around the countryside looking for sport, killing and wenching."

She nodded and sighed. Honakura carefully arranged a shy smile on his face.

He said, "I think he would be wasted doing that. The Goddess must have more important tasks for a man like Nnanji. He needs guidance!"

"You mean . . . "

He shook his head. "I don't think I need say more."

Thana blushed. She jumped up and strode away, the yellow tail of her breechclout swinging. She went by Shonsu without a glance, then by the three-man sutra session, which wailed into silence as the chanters were distracted. Then she vanished through the fo'c'sle door.

Honakura chuckled. The chanters went back to their droning. Shonsu continued his whittling—apparently he had not even noticed Thana go by him, although Jja had.

Honakura waited hopefully, but there was no sign of a wind rising, no diminution of the stabbing pain in his ribs. He sighed and told himself to be patient. However, perhaps he had earned one tiny reward—it would be satisfying to know just what that big swordsman was doing, littering Sailor Tomiyano's tidy deck with shavings.

The old man heaved stiffly off the steps, walked over to the hatch cover, and levered himself up beside Shonsu. He was accustomed to being small, but the big man made him feel like a tiny child. The swordsman turned his head in silence and regarded him. For just a moment Honakura could imagine that he was back on the temple steps that summer morning when he had so briefly met the original Shonsu—that steady glare, those vindictive black eyes with their promise of carnage. Startled, he reminded himself that this was a man from a dream world, not truly Shonsu, and it was not his fault that his gaze was as deadly as his sword.

"And how is Apprentice Thana?" the swordsman demanded in his distant-thunder rumble.

Another shock! Honakura could have sworn that Shonsu had not even seen Thana depart, let alone noticed the two of them talking together. "She is well," he said, carefully not showing reaction. Yet he knew that everything about Shonsu was of the seventh rank—his reflexes, his eyesight. Could his hearing be so acute that he had overheard the conversation? Impossible, surely?

The swordsman continued his inspection of Honakura for a moment and then turned his attention back to the peg he was shaping. After a minute or so he remarked, "Apprentice Thana has been surprising me."

"How so, my lord?" inquired Honakura, as expected.

"She has developed a sudden and passionate interest in sutras," Shonsu growled. "I assume that she plans to seek promotion when Nnanji does."

"Commendable! She is qualified, is she not?"

"In fencing, certainly," the swordsman said "And she has been surprising me with her speed at picking up sutras. Not quite a Nnanji, perhaps, but remarkable."

Honakura waited, knowing there must be more.

There was. "Of course Nnanji is always available to coach her—he can gaze at her without interruption." Shonsu paused again. "Yet she has been pestering me, also, and even her mother. She sets it up with either Katanji or Matarro keeping Nnanji out."

Honakura remembered now that the swordsmen had a limit of three to a sutra session, another foolish custom.

"Perhaps she is equally glad of a chance to gaze at your noble self, my lord."

The black eyes flashed dangerously at him. "No, she has some other reason. Apprentice Thana always has her impulses totally under control. She is a cold-blooded little golddigger!"

Honakura certainly was not about to say so, but he thought Lord Shonsu rather resented Thana's cold-bloodedness. With his rank and physical presence he could have any woman for a nod, with no questions asked. Not that he did, but he must be aware that he could. It was precisely because young Thana would have questions to ask—and would require the answers first—that he smarted over her immunity.

"Why are we becalmed?" Shonsu demanded suddenly probably believing that he was changing the subject.

Honakura dared not say what he suspected. "I don't know, my lord."

"Is it because I was supposed to recruit an army in Tau, do you think?"

So he was still brooding over that? "I doubt it," the priest said. "As you suggested, we should be returned there if that were the case. We must just be patient."

Shonsu nodded and sighed.

"You are troubled, my lord?"

The swordsman nodded again. "I am perplexed by the encounter with Prince Arganari. That felt like the hand of the god, old man, but I don't understand what was required of me. How many swordsmen own one of the Chioxin seven? Not more than two or three in the whole World! The rest of the seven have been broken or lost. For us to meet by chance was utterly impossible so . . . why?"

He brooded in silence for a while. "I should have kept him on the ship I think."

"But you said that Master Polini had sworn an oath?"

"Yes," Shonsu agreed miserably. "But I could have challenged him." He cut savagely at the peg and nicked his thumb. He swore and stuck it in his mouth Jja reached up and pulled it out again to look at it.

"Tell me what you are making, my lord?" Honakura asked. "Is it some contrivance from your dream world, perhaps?"

"I am making a toy for Vixini," the swordsman said.

Which is what he always said.

Pain had made Honakura testy. "My lord! The god told you that you could trust me!"

Again Shonsu turned to regard the priest with that deadly killer gaze. "Yes, he did. Was he correct?"

Did that mean he had indeed overheard the conversation with Thana? It seemed impossible.

"Of course!" Honakura said, aware that dignity was hard to project in the garb of a Nameless One.

"Very well!" said the swordsman. "I will tell you what I am making if you tell me about Ikondorina's brothers."

Now it was the priest's turn to sigh. Why had he ever been such a fool as to mention those? It had been a serious indiscretion, even if it had happened very early in their relationship before he had realized how much he himself was involved. When the god had sent word that Honakura was to tell Shonsu the story of Ikondorina, it had been an obvious chicanery. Even the swordsman had seen through that, but then Honakura had stupidly admitted that he knew of two other references to Ikondorina in the priestly sutras. Later, and even more stupidly, he had mentioned that they concerned Ikondorina's two brothers, his red-haired brother and his black-haired brother. He had been very tired that evening, he remembered.

"I fear I misled you, my lord," he said now. "Obviously there was a reference there to Nnanji and Katanji. But that was all—they joined your quest and the prophecy was fulfilled. There is nothing more to tell."

"I should like to be the judge of that!"

"I cannot reveal the sutras of my craft!"

"Then I cannot tell you what I am making."

Honakura turned his head away angrily. Swordsmen! It was so childish! Then he noticed that Apprentice Thana had reappeared on deck and was wearing the pearls again. Aha! And she had gone to lean on the rail where Nnanji would notice her. Sutra time would end soon, then.

He turned back to Shonsu, who was looking at Jja, and Honakura was just in time to catch the tail feathers of a vanishing grin on the slave's face. They were laughing at him!

"The stories are quite irrelevant!" he said angrily. "And trivial! The sutra that mentions the black-haired brother, for example—the epigram says merely Water pipes are made of lead."

That, he thought, would stop a whole army of swordsmen.

Shonsu nodded thoughtfully. "I approve, of course."

"Indeed? Perhaps you would be so kind as to expound further, my lord?"

The swordsman flashed Jja another glance that the priest could not see. He could not be winking, surely?

"Certainly!" he said "A water pipe adds nothing and takes nothing away; it merely transmits a substance water, from one place to another just as Mistress Brota and her ship transmit goods from one port to another. But these are services vital to the well being of the People. Water pipes are useful things, yet lead is the lowliest of metals. Conclusion: Humble folk, who may originate nothing themselves, may yet perform valuable duties, not to be despised. Correct, learned one?"

Angrily Honakura agreed that he was correct. After all these weeks, he should have remembered that this was no ordinary swordsman. Few priests, even, could have worked that out for themselves, and so quickly.

"The epitome, I would presume," Shonsu said, "would deal with the value of labor—no, commerce!"

Correct again, Honakura admitted grumpily.

"Then the episode, please?"

The priest was about to protest once more that he could not reveal arcane matters when he caught Shonsu's eye. A shy smile crept over the swordsman's face, making Honakura think of granite slabs being thrust aside by tree roots. But it was affectionate amusement—it invited him to share. Suddenly they both laughed. The knife twisted in Honakura's chest, but he felt better afterward.

"Very well, my lord! I suppose you have earned it. But I warn you that it is a foolish and banal doggerel."

"Which may yet transmit valuable thought?" Shonsu asked innocently.

Honakura laughed again in surrender and quietly chanted him the episode.

 
Ikondorina's black-haired brother
Late at night to village came,
Weary from a long day's plodding,
Very hungry, dry, and lame.
 
Heard two peasants loud disputing,
Also heard a farrow squeal.
"There," proclaimed the black-haired swordsman,
"I can hear my evening meal."
 
"Villagers!" he then addressed them.
"Notice, pray, my honest face.
As a stranger come amongst you,
Let me judge this sorry case."
 
The peasants laid the facts before him—
Each one claimed he owned the beast.
Swordsman, drawing his sword to slay it,
Bid the peasants share his feast.
 

The big man had a big laugh, and now Shonsu put his head back and uttered one enormous bellow of laughter like a clap of thunder. Chanting stopped. From bowsprit to rudder, heads turned in astonishment. Smiles appeared, the sailors pleased that their hero was restored to his normal good humor.

"That's marvelous!" Shonsu said. "No artist could have drawn him better—Katanji to the life! Honest face! And you said it was irrelevant? Come now, holy one, share the other with me!"

"No, my lord."

The barbaric glare returned. "I am making a toy for Vixini."

"Not fair, my lord!" Honakura protested, although he no longer cared very much what Shonsu was doing. He must certainly not be told the other sutra.

"Half a truth deserves half a truth!" the swordsman persisted. "I figure that if Vixini can work this, then perhaps the swordsmen can . . . Why will you not tell me?"

"The god said you could trust me," Honakura replied. Nnanji and Thana were deep in a world of their own by the rail.

"But can I trust the god?" asked Shonsu.

"My lord!" Honakura displayed shock—but secretly he knew that he shared that doubt. It would depend how one defined trust, of course.

The swordsman was studying him closely. "Why would he not tell me exactly what is expected of me? How am I supposed to serve him under those conditions? What should I do, priest? You tell me, then, if you are so trustworthy."

"I am not a priest anymore," Honakura said. "I am a Nameless One."

"You're a priest when you want to be!" Shonsu roared. "All right, then, answer this one! After the battle on the holy island, the god put a swordsman fathermark on my right eyelid. Fair enough—my father in the dream world was a sort of swordsman. But after the battle of Ov, I was given a sorcerer's feather on my left eyelid. What does that mean? How can I ever expect the tryst to follow a man with a sorcerer for a mother?"

Honakura had no idea. He had worried about that since it happened.

Before he could reply, however, they were interrupted. Nnanji and Thana stood before them, hand in hand. Thana had her eyes demurely lowered, her pearl necklace shimmering with a virginal white glow like dawn over the River. Nnanji's face was as red as his hair, and his eyes bulged with excitement and joy.

"My lord mentor!" he shouted. "Your protégé humbly requests permission to get married."

 

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