[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
couldn't suppress a familiar apprehension.
I reminded myself I was a grown man now, no longer a helpless chula. The old
shukar was dead. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You said I was hidden.
Hidden from what?"
"Stillness," Oziri said simply.
I waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, I asked him what he meant.
"You are never still," Oziri replied. "Even if your body is quiet, your
Page 137
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
thoughts are not.
They are tangled and sticky, like a broken spider web. Until you learn to be
still, you will not find the answer."
"Answer to what?"
"Your dreams."
Apprehension increased. "What do you know about my dreams?"
Oziri took a pinch of something from one of the bowls and tossed it onto the
fire with an eloquent gesture. Flames blazed briefly, then died away. Yet
another scent threatened my lungs. It was all I could do not to cough.
"You must learn to be still," he told me.
"I'm kind of a busy man," I said. "You know me being the jhihadi. There's much
to think about. It's hard to find time to be still."
Another gesture, another pinch of herbs drifted onto the coals. Smoke rose.
The back of my throat felt numb. This time I couldn't suppress a cough. I
wanted very much to open the door-flap, or retreat outdoors altogether, but I
had a feeling that among the Vashni, rudeness might be a death sentence.
Oziri smiled, handed me a bota.
I unstoppered it, smelled the sharp tang of Vashni liquor. Just what I needed.
But I drank it to wash away the taste of the herbs, nodded my thanks, handed
it back. Oziri drank as well, then set it aside.
"What " I cleared my throat, swallowed down the tingle of another cough. "What
exactly are the herbs for?"
"Stillness."
"So I can understand my dreams." I couldn't help it; I scowled at him. "What
it with you is priests? Why do all of you speak so thrice-cursed obscurely?
Can't you ever just say anything straight out? Don't you get sick of all this
melodramatic babbling?"
"Of course," Oziri said, nodding, "but people tend not to listen to plain
words. Stories, they hear. They remember. The way a warrior learns and
remembers a lesson by experiencing pain."
It was true I recalled sword-dancing lessons more clearly when coupled with a
thump on the head or a thwack on the shin. I'd just never thought of it in
terms of priests before. "So, how is you know about my dreams?"
"It is not a difficult guess." Oziri's expression was ironic. "Everyone
dreams."
"But why do my dreams matter?"
His dark brows rose slightly. "You're the jhihadi."
I gazed at him. "You don't really believe it, do you?"
"I do."
Page 138
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Because the Oracle said so?"
"Because the Oracle said so when he had no tongue."
"But there must have been some kind of logical explanation for that."
"He had no tongue," Oziri said plainly. "He could make sounds but no words. I
examined his empty mouth, the mutilation. Yet when we brought him down from
Beit al'Shahar, he could speak as clearly as you or I. He told us about the
jhihadi. He told us a man would change the sand to grass." His smile was
faint. "Have you not shown us how?"
He meant the water-filled line in the dirt, with greenery stuck in the end of
it. I'd done it twice before various Vashni. "It's just an idea," I explained
lamely. "Anyone could have come up with it. You take water from where it is,
and put it where's it not. Things grow." I shrugged.
"Nothing magical about that.
You could have come up with it."
"But I am just a humble priest," Oziri said with a glint of amusement in his
eyes.
"And I'm just a sword-dancer," I told him. "At least, I was. There is some
objection to me using the term, now."
"Among other things." Oziri took up another pinch of herb, tossed it onto the
coals with a wave of supple fingers. "The jhihadi is a man of many parts. But
he is not a god, and thus he is not omniscient. Therefore he must be taught."
Be taught what? I opened my mouth to tell him I didn't understand. Couldn't.
Because no more was I seated across the fire from Oziri but had somehow come
to be lying flat on my back, staring up at the smoke hole. The closed smoke
hole. No wonder it was so thick inside the hyort.
Oziri's voice. "A man must learn to be still if he is to understand."
Understand what?
But I didn't ask it. Couldn't. My eyes closed abruptly. What little control of
my body I
retained drained away. I was conscious of the furs beneath me, the scent of
herbs, the taste of liquor in my mouth.
It would be a simple matter for the Vashni to kill me. But he merely put
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]