A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  There CJ sat on a high stool, a bowl of whipped cream next to a silver pot of hot chocolate. A book lay on the table.

  She scowled in astonished recognition, poised to fling the hot chocolate at him since she didn’t have a weapon. Why hadn’t she been warned? Where was Ben, their trusty spy on the Chwahir? Except that there was no more Shadowland to spy on, and Ben had traveled off somewhere with Puddlenose.

  Meanwhile, Jilo just stood there, swaying on his feet. To CJ, he looked terrible. Her alarm forgotten, she said tentatively, “Jilo? You look like a week-old corpse!”

  A spurt of laughter bloomed in Jilo’s throat, but it didn’t come out. He could only manage a dusty huff of breath.

  CJ raised a finger. “No, I don’t know what a week-old corpse looks like, but if I did, it would look healthier than you. Have you been in the clink?”

  “Clink?”

  She waved her hands. “Dungeon. Jail. Where you skunks used to try to stick us when Kwenz was trying to take over.”

  “No, I’ve been busy.” That much talk seemed to make him breathless. He gulped in air, and tried again. “Where is Clair? I have a question.”

  CJ bit down on a retort, so long a habit. She’d promised Clair: assuming they ever saw him again, Jilo had to move first in resuming the old conflict. And saying he had a question wasn’t a gesture of war in any possible way. “Clair’s tobogganing with the girls, and I’m keeping an eye on things here, just in case.” Another glance at that drawn face. “Maybe you’re an ‘in case’?” Her thin black brows lifted in puzzlement as Jilo swayed on his feet. “Are you going to croak right on our floor?” She dashed across the room, picked up a cup, returned, and poured out a brown stream of chocolate. “Drink that.”

  Jilo was beyond questioning. He sipped. The flavor was completely new, and so delicious he gasped. More, the warmth, the fluidity seemed to send silver fire all through his veins, chasing out the dust. He drank it off, then reeled, dizzy.

  “Whoa! I think you better sit down. I’ve never seen anybody get snockered on hot chocolate before!” Small, insistent hands pushed Jilo onto a chair, where he collapsed like a bag of old laundry.

  When he had blinked the world straight again, there was Clair, wearing a bulky coat. Snow glistened in her white hair. Next to her, CJ stood, a small, adamant figure wearing the familiar white shirt, black vest, and long green skirt. Jilo had hated the sight of that outfit, and that girl, for too long to count. While Clair had been his chief enemy, CJ had been a personal enemy. But now he couldn’t seem to find . . . any thoughts at all.

  Clair whispered, “I have never seen anyone actually gray before.”

  “Is it a sign of good health in a Chwahir?”

  “Does he act healthy?”

  “Noooo.” CJ’s quick footsteps departed, returning with the tread of Janil, the Steward, a stout, cheery woman who bustled about, and soon set before Jilo a plate of brightly colored, delicious foods that he couldn’t name—but the flavors were indescribable. With it he drank down four glasses of clear, sweet water.

  Warmth chased the silver in his veins, and reached his head, clearing it. He felt strange, like someone had replaced his head with a dandelion puff. Other than the wobbly sensation, the feeling wasn’t bad. “How long has it been? I can’t seem to remember if it’s been four days, or five?”

  CJ’s fierce blue eyes rounded. Clair said carefully, “I don’t quite know if it’s been four or five days from what, but you left here eight months ago.”

  “Eight—”

  “Months,” Clair said. “It’s New Year’s Week. Jilo, Senrid said there was really heavy magic in that chamber.”

  “Senrid? Who’s that?”

  “Better ask what is that,” CJ said darkly, and when Clair began to protest, CJ raised her hands. “No, no, I couldn’t resist the crack. Boneribs is . . . Boneribs. Uh, Senrid,” she corrected quickly.

  Jilo was too exhausted to listen to CJ, who was always making up names for people.

  Clair wasn’t listening, either. She gazed past CJ and Jilo both, wrestling mentally with a new idea.

  Court historians like to point to ceremonial treaty signings, battles, and royal marriages as turning points in history, but it is the archivist in possession of insights into such moments as this who recognizes the individual decisions that change the world.

  So it was now, as Clair drew Jilo into the nascent alliance.

  She gave a tiny nod of decision. “Senrid lives in Marloven Hess, on your continent, but at the end closer to us. He knows dark magic, and he’s the one who found that terrible spell on you, in Wan-Edhe’s experiment book.”

  Clair waited. Jilo waited. Then he understood she was waiting for permission to introduce him to someone, something he was utterly unprepared for.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, feeling stupid.

  Clair nodded. This had to be how an alliance really started, not with everybody making promises, but by doing the right thing, an item at a time. At least, she was pretty sure this was the right thing. She had to test the idea herself before trying it on CJ, who she knew would not like the idea of allying with a former enemy.

  So she said to CJ, “I’ll take him to Senrid.” And then, as a hint, “Maybe our alliance is going to need a name?” She went to get a transfer token for Jilo, as she was afraid he couldn’t hold a transfer spell on his own.

  * * *

  Marloven Hess

  Hibern pulled her coat tighter around her, as the distant rhythm of a drum rumbled through the winter windows, followed by the rise and fall of voices in long-familiar martial melody. It was the end of New Year’s Week and the Marloven Convocation.

  The sound of Marloven singing threw her back to memories of home. She’d managed to stay away from that spot overlooking Askan Castle since the last visit. Erai-Yanya was right, thinking of home hurt a little less, but the difference seemed akin to a hard stab with a knife compared to a lot of little cuts. The cuts were questions: Would her mother ever contact her again, or her aunt? Had Father succeeded in removing his spells from Stefan?

  When she was honest with herself, she knew why she kept at these study sessions with Senrid, when she could have found someone else for Senrid to study with. Like Arthur. But she wanted word to get out, to her family. If she worked hard, might they be proud of her, ask her to come back, say all was . . .

  Was what? She still didn’t believe she had anything to be forgiven for.

  And yet she knew if her mother required her to beg forgiveness, she would do it, if it meant she would have her family back.

  And she knew what Senrid would say: “Lighter sentiment and weakness.”

  She let out a sharp sigh, then entered Senrid’s study. He looked up, his slight frown altering to a wry grin. Mind-reading? No, she suspected that it wasn’t her thoughts but her expression that had given her away. “That mind-shield thing is hard to maintain,” she said.

  Senrid jerked a shoulder up. “If you’re going to tangle with Norsunder, you lighters are going to have to make the mind-shield into a habit. Siamis made a strategic retreat. Detlev didn’t even retreat. They both are Ancient Sartorans, and they know how to listen in on thoughts and dreams from a day’s journey away. A continent away.”

  Hibern’s neck prickled with warning. “You’re still saying ‘lighter’ in that tone, as if you’re still dedicated to dark magic. If so, why am I here tutoring you in light?”

  “Because light magic has its strengths,” Senrid retorted. “Dark magic is only useful for brute force. People using either for long enough to build customs around them have managed to make some stupid ones. Dark for mindless destruction, and light for mindless hypocrisy.”

  “Mindless!” Hibern exclaimed in the same tone of genial sarcasm. “How did I miss the fact that I think exactly like every one of those Sartoran or northern mages, not to mention every hair-colorist
or bridge-mender? Oh wait. None of us can think.”

  “I didn’t say they were alike,” Senrid shot right back. “I said—”

  “You said we’re mindless.”

  Senrid grinned. “Okay,” he said. “I take that back.”

  Hibern sighed, still finding it strange when Senrid used the slang he’d picked up from the Mearsiean girls while they were all in Bereth Ferian. “Lilith the Guardian said to me once that we—humans—are still changing. We lost our civilization in the Fall four thousand years ago. We’re still trying to catch up to the place where we lost ourselves.”

  “A grim thought,” Senrid said. “That we need to catch up to the time when we nearly managed to destroy the world.” His expression tuned sardonic. “Strange, the idea of her living back then.”

  “What I think stranger is the idea of being . . . somewhere . . . beyond time, and only coming back every now and then over the centuries, when you’re needed,” she said. “How could you bear that, knowing that everyone you met would be dead by your next return? How would you even know you’re needed? I read about a conversation with Lilith the Guardian in a record written a couple centuries ago, in which she said we can’t make the same mistakes our ancestors did, and that what you call lighter hypocrisy is a kind of standard to aim for. If it makes life a little better when we try, the failures don’t matter so much.”

  “There’s the moral superiority drumbeat banging my ear,” Senrid said, but his tone was no longer as derisive. He jumped up and moved restlessly to peer out his window, then turned. “Everything is about getting power. Keeping it. People can talk themselves into thinking they’re worthy, but they want power, same as anyone else.”

  Hibern wondered what that was about, and then remembered the day. Senrid would have given his speech before the jarls on New Year’s Firstday, outlining new laws, new policies. When Marlovens squabbled, they didn’t argue about who had the moral high ground. Instead, out came the knives. And he was waiting for the first sounds of steel being drawn.

  Senrid reached for the books stacked neatly on his desk as Hibern took the hint and brought her own study materials out of her satchel.

  Time passed as they studied together, looking at ways to layer building wards. When Senrid asked a question she didn’t know the answer to, he waited for her to look through all the notes she’d written in her classes at that mage school up north.

  At one point she halted, and her gaze slowly went diffuse.

  Senrid was tempted to try to read those thoughts, but he pictured Liere’s questioning face. Her disappointment. They’d had enough talk about that. He could hear her pointing out that just because somebody knew how to kill someone five different ways with only their hands didn’t mean they should do it.

  It was one thing when Hibern was so intent on a subject her mental images and emotions splashed out, like her grief and betrayal and pain for a long time after that idiot mage Askan had kicked his daughter out of his house, as if she were to blame for all the regent’s rot. It was another to deliberately invade. He knew how much he’d hate it, and she certainly intended no threat to him.

  A runner appeared. “Visitors,” she said. “Just transferred to the Destination. Said they are here to see you, Senrid-Harvaldar.”

  “Then we’re done.” Hibern got to her feet and pointed to the book she’d brought. “Study that, King Mindless Destruction.” She hefted her satchel and transferred.

  * * *

  —

  Clair and Jilo found themselves on a hilltop Destination.

  A cold wind whipped at them. Jilo shivered in spite of the bulky coat Clair had fetched from Puddlenose’s room, and Clair turtled her head deeper into her own coat.

  A scarf-muffled guard beside the Destination turned their way. “Go ahead,” he shouted against the wind.

  Former enemies, Clair and Jilo began trudging down a pathway toward the high walls of a fortress city, barely visible in whirls of snow. They could not have looked more like opposites: she short, sturdy, hair the same white as the snow; Jilo gaunt and gangling, his lank hair blue-black. But their thoughts were not all that dissimilar at that moment, Clair worried about Jilo, who looked so ill, and Jilo worried about pretty much everything.

  Clair tried to reassure Jilo with a description of Senrid, but she was wondering if he had the strength to toil through the wind-driven snow all the way to Senrid’s castle. Then horseback riders thundered toward them, and reined to a halt.

  “The king sent us,” said one of the riders.

  The two were each pulled up behind a rider, and they galloped the rest of the way, through the massive gates, and up to the castle.

  Clair wondered if she’d made a deadly mistake as she eyed the sentries on the walls. Everything looked threatening. Senrid had once said that she was welcome to visit. Maybe he hadn’t meant that as a real invitation, but as a kind of dare.

  Jilo wondered if this was going to be a deadly mistake. He’d heard of Marloven Hess. Who hadn’t? There had been glancing references to some sort of encounter between the Marlovens and the Chwahir in the past, though he’d never found out what happened.

  Then he was distracted by the wintry sunlight changing the color of the stone to an almost gold, and by the fine weave of the sentries’ uniforms. The histories insisted the Chwahir used to be the finest weavers of sailcloth and related fabrics in the south. If that wasn’t all lies, why was everything so shoddy now?

  He remembered he was living where a king once had, and might again. In spite of his headache (which was actually rapidly diminishing), Jilo looked around the way he thought a king might. He felt sorry for anybody who would try to attack this city. The walls were high and thick, and the guards walking along them looked alert. The street leading to the royal castle bent to the left, which would make it tougher for attack than a straight street—he’d read that once—and easier for defenders to pick invaders off.

  If you listened to Wan-Edhe, the danger wasn’t always from the outside. Nobody had tried to attack Chwahirsland for centuries. All Wan-Edhe’s magical protections, laws, and rules, were for a single purpose: preserving his own life against conspiracies among his own people. No, two purposes, the second being the gathering of power.

  They dismounted in a huge stable yard. It was much larger than any in Chwahirsland, but Chwahir were foot warriors, and the Marlovens were reputed to be mostly mounted.

  A waiting runner beckoned for them to follow.

  The castle’s inside looked luxurious to Jilo, according oddly with what he expected of another military kingdom. The stone wasn’t the slate-colored stone he was accustomed to, but something more the color of sand, and the upper reaches inside had plastered walls, with bas-reliefs of swooping, stylized, powerful figures. Jilo longed to stop and take them in, but he’d learned when young to hide his interest in art.

  Yet those dashing equine figures, the sweep of raptor wings, stayed with him, kindling the burn of resentment in his middle. All his life he’d heard that art was for the weak, and here were these Marlovens, who got the rep but still got to have art.

  But he could have art now. Jilo tested the idea as he and Clair were led into a huge room with actual windows. Maybe the Chwahir wouldn’t revolt if they found out there was art in the royal fortress.

  Or maybe they would.

  Nice rugs, a fine table. These Marlovens had it soft. Clair glanced toward a desk where a short blond boy sat before three neatly aligned stacks of papers.

  Jilo turned to stare at their host, who stared back, thinking that their timing could hardly have been worse.

  Oh, wait, yes it could. They could have showed up yesterday.

  The others saw no sign of Senrid’s bitterness as he got to his feet in a quick move. He was shorter than Jilo by quite a bit.

  “This is Senrid,” Clair said.

  “Senrid,” Jilo repeated. He
looked around, rubbing his temple. “You are a mage student? Mage?”

  “Senrid is the king,” Clair said. “He’s like us. Underaged ruler.” And to Senrid, “Jilo has taken over Chwahirsland.”

  A voiceless laugh escaped Jilo. “I think.”

  “Chwahirsland?” Senrid’s eyes had widened. “You led a revolt?”

  “No.”

  “Wan-Edhe didn’t kill off all his relatives?”

  “Yes. No. I told you before, Kessler Sonscarna is still alive. Or somewhere. In Norsunder.” Then she remembered that Senrid had been beaten bloody at the time. She decided against mentioning that.

  Senrid whistled. “So how did you get the throne?”

  Jilo spread his hands. “Walked in.”

  Senrid stared up at the tall, slope-shouldered, shambling boy with the pasty-pale skin and unkempt black hair who mumbled at his shoes. He was barely holding onto his own throne, and this fellow strolls in and just . . . takes over one of the biggest, nastiest kingdoms on the continent?

  At what cost?

  Senrid hadn’t met many Chwahir, but he was willing to bet anything that Jilo hadn’t slept since he’d ‘walked in’ and sat on that faraway throne.

  Clair said, “Senrid, you know I’m ignorant about how dark magic works. That spell you found helped Jilo.”

  “I didn’t really find it,” Senrid said, his gaze on Jilo, “as in a search. The book was left open by someone who probably expected to come back to it. All I did was read a few spells, since the language they were written in was the old-fashioned Sartoran everyone uses for dark magic.”

  Clair flicked a look Jilo’s way, and he bobbed awkwardly in assent, then winced as if his head hurt.

  Clair went on, “There’s something else. It’s really creepy. Jilo thinks he was gone a few days. But it was eight months ago.”