I frowned. "What do we have to do today?"

Del laced up sandals. "Rescue Nayyib."

I watched her walk off, hunting privacy. I grumbled a protest, yawned widely again, contemplated going back to sleep. My bones ached.

My eyes flew open. "Bones." I sat up, threw back covers. All I wore was my dhoti, since I'd neglected to grab my burnous back at the bathhouse. That left me with an expanse of flesh tanned a deep coppery-brown, with the fine hairs bleached bronze-gold. I couldn't see any bones. Not naked ones. Just the lines and angles covered by muscle and flesh. I knocked on a kneecap, then inspected an elbow, since they were closer to the surface. "Is there anything any of you have to tell me? Like, how it is I'm supposed to find this woman?" Or whatever she was, buried in the sand.

For all they supposedly knew the answer, my bones remained stubbornly silent. Muttering, I pulled on my own sandals, cross-gartered them up my calves, then got up and limped off to make my own morning donation even as Del returned from hers.

"Don't take long," she called. "I want to get started."

Not something a man wants to hear first thing in the morning when he's only barely awake. "It'll take as long as it takes," I muttered, scowling at the sunrise.

Del had everything packed and the horses loaded by the time I returned, reins in her hands; and no, I had not taken that long. She was clearly impatient to get going.

"Hold your horses," I said, wondering if she'd get the joke.

She didn't. "According to you, we could reach Umir's today if we leave early enough."

"And we will reach Umir's today, even if we leave after we eat."

"We can eat on the way." She had packed my things, leaving behind only my harness, sword, and knife. Ready to go.

I wasn't. I picked up the knife, went over to a spike-fronded plant, cut off a flat, wide, thorn-tipped leaf. "You weren't in this much of a hurry last night."

"Last night we couldn't do anything but sleep. This morning we can . . . Tiger, what are you doing?"

Methodically I trimmed the sharp tip from the leaf, then carefully slipped the knife blade into the plump edge and slit the leaf from top to bottom, peeling them apart. I now had two halves, turgid with pale green sap. I turned over one half of the leaf and began to smear the greasy sap over my shoulder. Once worked into skin, it was colorless.

'Tiger-"

"If you want to save time," I interrupted, "you might cut off some leaves and give me a hand."

"What is it, and why are you doing that?"

"Alia oil," I explained. "The same stuff you put on your gelding's pink skin, remember? It protects it from sunburn."

Del, who had only seen alia oil mixed with a paste in cork– or wax-stoppered pots, not in its pure form, was surprised. "Oh. But why are you putting it on?"

"Because I'm fresh out of burnouses, and the last time I made this trek to Umir's, I arrived with at least one layer of skin peeling off. I'd just as soon skip the experience this time." I dropped the depleted half of leaf, began to work with the other. "Gee, bascha, I can think of a lot of women who'd just love to spread oil all over me. Have you grown immune to my charms? I did bathe yesterday." I reconsidered. "Well, half of me got bathed. I'll let you do the clean half. And you might want to put some on your face, even with the hood."

Del shook herself out of her reverie and bent to cut off leaves. I watched her. Clearly the body was present, but the thoughts were not.

"Have you grown immune to my charms?"

With great concentration she slit the leaf open, frowning. "What?"

"You're not listening to a word I say, are you?"

She flicked a glance at me, then walked around behind me and slapped the leaf sap-down on my back. "I want to get going. We can talk on the way." Strong fingers began to rub oil into my skin.

She wanted to eat on the way, talk on the way. I suppose I was lucky she hadn't insisted I piss on the way. "Fine," I said tersely.

After that we worked in silence, which seemed to suit Del. Me, I just got grumpy. It's a sad thing when a dead woman's bones are more talkative than a living woman's mouth.

I insisted we stop briefly at the big oasis at which Alric and I had spent the night. Del clearly wanted to continue, but she'd learned that in the desert one never passes up the chance to refill botas and rest the horses.

She did, however, protest as I pulled up at the outskirts of the oasis, taking time to mark the other travelers present. "What are we waiting for?"

"Oh, I don't know—maybe checking to see if any sword-dancers are here," I remarked pointedly. "We ride straight in without looking and I could end up dead in very short order, and then where would your precious Neesha be?"

Del was annoyed, but she shut her mouth on further protest.

"There's a spring about halfway in. Follow the main path. Keep your eyes open. I'll take the perimeter, then come in from the other side. All right?"

She nodded, giving the gelding a touch of her heels. Sighing, I reined the stud aside and began to reconnointer as I rode the perimeter of the big oasis.

I did not see anyone lying in wait for me, but that didn't mean no one who might challenge me was absent. I aimed the stud down the center path leading toward the spring and remained mounted. Being ahorse gives a man an advantage, usually. Being atop the stud gives me a huge advantage always, as he doesn't take kindly to assailants rushing up at him, even if his rider is the target.

Of course, I didn't know any sword-dancers stupid enough to do such a thing. We—they—aren't assassins, though we will take on death-dances depending on circumstances; the goal is the rit-ual and the challenge, not out and out murder.

Then again, there were no guarantees all sword-dancers would adhere to that unspoken custom. Me killing Musa in a dance had proven to all witnesses that out and out murder might in fact be easier. Of course, supposedly Umir wanted me alive, but I suspected there'd be a few sword-dancers willing to forgo the reward simply for the pleasure of killing me.

I rode down the path, poised for attack. There was a scattering of wagons here and there, with unhitched dray animals resting quietly in such shade as palm trees offer; half-dressed children running around, heedless of the heat—why is it we notice it more when we're adults?—and burnous-clad men and women visiting in small groups, exchanging tales of their travels, describing plans for when they arrived at their destinations. Someone was playing a reed pipe; the thin, wailing melody cut the air. No fires, as there had been the evening Alric and I stayed, merely fire rings with quiet coals hoarded against the evening meal.

As I rode up, Del was at the spring watering the gelding. He had lost his brilliant red tassels at the Vashni encampment, where someone had presented Del with a browband of dangling leather thongs, ornamented with blue beads. He still looked rather silly, especially with the black paint around his eyes, but not as ridiculous as he had wearing Silk's crimson tassels.

She had watered herself as well as her horse and had braided her hair into a single thick plait. To tie it off she'd robbed the gelding of one thong; blue beads clacked quietly against each other when she moved her head. They matched her eyes.

"All right," I said in answer to her expression, "so we didn't run into any trouble. But we might have." I dropped off the stud and let him nose his way in past the gelding, urging him aside with an absent nipping motion of his mouth.

Del handed me a dripping gourd ladle. "I didn't say anything."

I drank, swallowing heavily, not caring when water splashed down my bare torso to dampen my dhoti. I now wore a gritty layer of fine dust sticking to the alia oil from head to toe. So much for the half a bath in Julah.