A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  The day passed in study.

  As Mondros fried up the trout he’d caught for their supper, he observed Jilo still bent over the rudimentary magic book, the one given to ten-year-olds who thought they might want to become mages. The boy’s lank black hair hung down unkempt, half-hiding his flat cheeks, and his shoulder blades poked the back of his shirt, which had lightened to a dull gray. Jilo didn’t appear to notice, or maybe it had yet to occur to him he could wear whatever he wanted. That there were other possibilities besides the badly dyed, one-size-fits-all flatfoot-probationer uniform.

  * * *

  —

  A week of hard study passed.

  The day came at last when rain on the Colendi side, merely thunder and lightning with no moisture to the north for the parched Chwahir, caused Jilo to say, “I think I ought to go back.”

  “Very well,” Mondros said. “I’m not stopping you.”

  Jilo’s head lifted from its habitual droop. His pale brown eyes met Mondros’s, then his gaze dropped again. “That’s all?” he said to the scuffed chair leg, and Mondros made a mental note to do some sanding and varnishing. The summer weather, when he moved his furniture outside, was difficult on the wood.

  Mondros said, “Did you expect something else?”

  “Threats?” One side of Jilo’s somber mouth curled up briefly, then he gave in to the resentment that had burned in him for years. “I know I ought not to expect a rescue, like Puddlenose got, time and again, which usually resulted in my being punished. Or Tereneth of Erdrael Danara’s rescue.”

  “Who was a prisoner,” Mondros said. “The first was a hostage. You are a Chwahir. Since all my efforts to curb Wan-Edhe’s attempts to spread his evil influence had to be done from the outside, how was I to know that you were not in Narad because you wanted to replace Puddlenose as potential errand-boy to Wan-Edhe?”

  Jilo could not suppress a recoil of angry revulsion. But he had to admit that from the outside, his compliance might have looked like choice, and not survival.

  Mondros saw some of this. “There are two secret exits in your fortress, one established by a Sonscarna mage-queen centuries ago. That one is magical, and I believe you now know of it.”

  Jilo shrugged jerkily, remembering what Clair had said. Senrid had used it.

  “The other was through the dungeon, a very old tunnel. It’s how Prince Kessler escaped, and how Puddlenose was able to get away. You should ask him about it.” Mondros put his fists on his knees.

  Jilo’s chin came up. “He might still think I’m a villain. The Mearsiean girls called me a villain.”

  Mondros said provocatively, “You did some villainous things, if their stories are true.”

  “I did what I was told to do. You knew what would happen if I didn’t follow orders.”

  “Always?” Mondros countered.

  “Yes . . .” Jilo thought back, and a tide of heat burned up his neck and made his ears itch. “Not always.” He scowled. “But that was my life. I didn’t see anything else.”

  “You saw the life Puddlenose and the girls led. It was very different.”

  “They were Mearsieans.”

  “And you tried at least once to take it away.”

  “I wanted to have that life, and taking it away was how it was supposed to go,” Jilo retorted.

  Mondros gave an encouraging nod. “All right. I’ll concede that you existed under a cloud of threat at least as palpable as that cloud under which you once lived. But from a distance, you were beginning to look like Wan-Edhe in training, until he put those spells on you.”

  “Well, I’m not Wan-Edhe. I don’t want to be Wan-Edhe. I can’t think of anyone I hate more than Wan-Edhe.”

  “Yes, everyone hated him. But who are you when you are not hating, Jilo? No, don’t tell me. Show me. There are no wards keeping you from transferring.”

  Jilo transferred out a short time later, carrying a basket of Mondros’s delicious food, and a carefully copied scroll of light magic fundamentals under his arm. It didn’t occur to him to wonder until later, when he sat down to eat the first item in the basket, why Mondros had been watching over Chwahirsland, when he wasn’t a Chwahir.

  * * *

  Late autumn, 4740, Sarendan

  Peitar Selenna, king of Sarendan, had looked forward to Atan’s next visit for weeks.

  He knew that even if Atan did release the Child Spell and miraculously fall in love with him, that would mean two unhappy people, for there was no future for them unless one of them abdicated.

  Yet when Atan appeared with tall, handsome Rel, whom Peitar immediately recognized from Lilah’s and Atan’s descriptions (and the praise didn’t seem exaggerated), the pain was quite sharp.

  It was a relief when Lilah leaped up, fired with inspiration. “Oh, Rel, would you come and drill our new Sharadan brigade like you did the Sartoran orphans in the forest?”

  Peitar watched Rel covertly. There was no roll of the eyes under shuttered lids, no curl of lip, however brief. The only sign that Rel was not overjoyed to be thus summarily taken off was the quick, amused look he sent at Atan, and the swift, secret smile she returned.

  But Atan said nothing. Rel smiled at Lilah’s hopeful, expectant face, and said, “I’d be glad to.” And he walked off with Lilah as if happy to toil in the bitter weather with a group of strangers.

  “. . . and I told them you might come some day, because Atan did promise she would bring you,” Lilah Selenna chattered on, proud and excited, as she and Rel walked down the steep hill into the eastern part of Miraleste, the capital of Sarendan.

  Fire damage still existed here and there, and rubble-strewn empty lots where houses had once stood, but those were rare. Everything else looked newly constructed, or at least refurbished. Even in the bleak lighting under lowering gray clouds, the city was bright and clean.

  “Won’t your brigade see me as an interloper?” Rel asked.

  “Oh, no, not at all! They’ve heard about what we Rescuers did in Sartor, and they all said, if you ever visit, would you come and show them what you showed the Sartoran orphans, in case we have to defend ourselves against the eleveners? I said you would,” Lilah finished, her slanted eyes earnest under puckered brows. “That you didn’t think the Sartorans better than us.”

  After that, what could Rel say?

  The weather was as bitter as to be expected as the year waned. Maybe none of her orphan brigade would show up. He tucked his chin down into his fleece-lined coat.

  “. . . and so the guilds all contributed, and they rebuilt the burned-out shop where we four hid while being the Sharadan Brothers, and it’s now our headquarters,” Lilah was saying proudly. “Sometimes Bren comes and does exercises with them, when he’s in the city. Innon has, too.”

  Rel glanced down at Lilah’s friendly face. She still looked like a rust-haired, stocky boy. “I thought Innon was noble-born. Doesn’t Derek mind?”

  “Derek likes Innon. He worked for the revolution.” Lilah rushed on, “And Derek knows all about you, and that you aren’t a noble, and he said he would like to meet you. I wish he was here, but Peitar sent him on a mission. Derek is Peitar’s most trusted person. Besides me. And Tsauderei,” Lilah finished as they turned down a narrow alley with newly laid brickwork instead of cobblestones, the buildings neat.

  “All the locals, mostly our age, pitched in to rebuild. Here we are,” Lilah finished.

  Rel’s hopes sank when they passed through a narrow gate into a newly flagged yard crammed with shivery, blue-lipped youth.

  They took one look at Rel’s size, and Lilah’s proud grin, and sent up a cheer.

  So Rel fell into his old routine, working them until they were sweating. All the while he wondered what Atan, Peitar, and Hibern were talking about during Atan’s precious free hour that he was missing.

  In the palace, Hibern began talkin
g about an interesting book she’d discovered in the northern mage school archive. Peitar half-listened while he analyzed the physical sensation of sharp disappointment and regret.

  How stupid it was to think that the Child Spell would keep Atan—or her friend—from experiencing the emotions of attraction. These things were not like following a recipe: the spell froze you at whatever age you were when you performed it, but it did not stop your mind from working. In that single quick gaze between Atan and Rel he sensed a natural turning to one another. They might never have kissed. Either or both might not even be consciously aware of their feelings. But they were there.

  “Don’t you think, Peitar?” Atan asked, and Peitar hastily recollected the thread of discourse, and joined in.

  The hour passed far too swiftly, as it always did, from history to historical people to who wrote about famous people to ideas about justice. The discussion turned into friendly debate as they tried to hammer out exactly what ‘justice’ meant.

  “That’s one of the reasons why I am glad of my council, constraining as I find them,” Atan said earnestly. “They still see justice clearer than I do. I listen, I feel for both sides, they decide, they explain why, later, and I say ‘Oh-h-h-h, I did not see that.’”

  “Perhaps you didn’t interpret it that way,” Hibern suggested. “One thing I’ve learned reading records, everyone sounds reasonable when they explain why they did something. Then you consider what they did, and you get the sick feeling.” She made a fist and lightly struck her middle.

  “And so it is, sitting in on justice.” Peitar spoke in a low, ruminative voice, thin hands clasped, long dark lashes shuttering his eyes as he gazed sightlessly at his hands. “There are always two sides, sometimes three, which makes it even more difficult to find a compromise that fulfills the expectations of all parties. If the king has to make a judgment against one when there is no compromise, that party might go away feeling betrayed by what is supposed to be royal justice. The emotional price is one the king pays. It should be that way, or we risk becoming—”

  The distant city bells rang.

  Atan said, “Peitar?”

  He looked up, and shook his head. “I lost the thread. I was blathering. It wasn’t worth following.”

  “The emotional price,” Hibern said, thinking of Senrid.

  “You’re in danger of becoming a tyrant?” Atan prompted teasingly, disturbed by his mood; she couldn’t define it, but sensed somberness in the subtle tensing of his shoulders, his hands, his high, intelligent forehead. “But wouldn’t a tyrant perpetrate injustice on whim?”

  Peitar’s hand lifted, palm out, and his smile twisted. “It matters not. I suspect I’m beginning to sound pompous.”

  Atan jumped up. “Not at all, but I can’t stay to argue! We’ve already figured out that your bells ring noon very little before ours do.” She held up two fingers as she turned to Hibern. “Will you be able to bring Rel back, if he wants to return to Sartor?”

  “Glad to,” Hibern replied.

  Atan muttered a quick apology for transferring directly in company, and vanished in a puff of herb-scented air.

  Lilah and Rel arrived a short time later. Peitar watched Rel look around, and his expression shutter as Lilah said in the tone of one who had been marshaling every persuasive argument she could, “So can you stay? I know Derek wants to meet you, and it’s only two days until we expect him back. Maybe even tomorrow!”

  Lilah turned expectantly to Peitar, who said obediently, “You are most welcome. We have plenty of room.”

  “There, you see?” Lilah exclaimed, bouncing on her toes, her short rust-colored hair flopping on her freckled forehead and over her ears. “You see? Peitar, you should have been there, they loved it. They were so proud of themselves. Rel, you have to show Derek those things you’ve learned, he’s been trying, and trying, but he never had any military training . . .”

  Rel looked slowly from one face to the other. He’d heard about Derek from Lilah, and Atan; on the surface, they scarcely seemed to describe the same person. But he knew that people were seldom all good or all bad, and that opinions were rarely uniform.

  So. He was curious. He also wanted to keep his promise to Puddlenose and invite Peitar and Lilah into the alliance, since Atan kept forgetting. Most important, he’d already missed Atan’s free hour; if he returned now, he would only have two more days of catching her at odd moments before Atan’s noble watchdogs would expect him to be pushing along.

  “If you truly don’t mind,” he said.

  “Yah!” Lilah jumped around the room. “It will be such fun!”

  * * *

  Six weeks later

  Rel: Will you be here to celebrate the anniversary of the Freeing of Sartor? If so, ask Lilah if she would like to come, since she was a Rescuer, too. I plan some special entertainments just for us. Atan.

  Rel looked up at Peitar, who had just received the note through his notecase. Atan knew that Rel didn’t have a notecase, after having lost two on his travels, so she’d sent her note to Rel via Peitar.

  His expression didn’t change as Rel offered the note back to him. He glanced down at it and then handed it to his sister.

  Lilah bounced up and down on her toes. “Oh, may I go?”

  “Of course you may,” Peitar said, and looked askance at his sister in her ragged old knee pants, scruffy haircut, and incongruously pretty blouse. “Lilah, may I in turn suggest you put on one of your better outfits? You’ll be going as Sarendan’s representative.”

  Lilah twitched a shoulder impatiently, but she was too happy at the prospect of seeing Sartor again to argue.

  And so, the next day, Peitar gave them transfer tokens.

  Peitar was surprised at the pulse of regret he felt when Rel vanished. Rel was smart, competent, easy-going, and utterly without pretense. Peitar had wondered how Derek would accept him, as he was wary around not only aristocrats and royalty, but anyone favored by them. But he’d been watching Derek when Rel said, “Don’t expect me to know a lot about commanding, because I don’t. All I’ve commanded have been fellow guards for small caravans when I earned my way through kingdoms. But I’ve done plenty of drills.”

  Derek said, “Someone called you Rel the Shepherd’s son. Is that true?”

  “Don’t know.” Rel shrugged his big shoulders. “My guardian has never said. But my first job was tending the holding’s sheep.”

  Derek’s reserve had vanished in the genuine smile that Peitar knew meant acceptance, and the rest of Rel’s visit had gone just as well.

  As Peitar returned to his tasks, he found it hurt a little less that Atan would find Rel attractive. He felt it in a mild way himself.

  * * *

  —

  Rel and Lilah transferred to the royal palace Destination in Sartor.

  A page ran off to report. When they recovered, Lilah was instantly claimed by Hinder. They vanished down a corridor, high voices echoing back, as Rel was conducted by a self-conscious page to Atan’s informal receiving room.

  When Rel saw her formally dressed in complicated layers of green and gold over ivory, with cherry highlights, the differences in their rank struck him afresh.

  She said, “The celebration was Hradzy’s idea, actually, that we institute a new festival day, the Freeing of Sartor, and have our candle march. Even though New Year’s Week is only a short time off, it still seems fitting.”

  Rel remembered meeting Hradzy Wendis during a previous visit. One of the youths born a hundred years ago, a skinny fellow with a charming smile, Hradzy reminded Rel a lot of Hannla. From a prestigious family, related to at least three duchas, the sort of fellow they’d want Atan to marry someday, he couldn’t help thinking. If they didn’t force her to marry some other kingdom’s spare prince for treaty purposes.

  Atan went on. “I put together this party beforehand, just for the Re
scuers. I hired a group of singers to perform for us before they lead the singing on the parade. I don’t know if it will take, but it’s nice to be queen when you can try to get around something you know is unfair,” she added under her breath, and Rel remembered hearing some gossip about how certain important nobles wanted the commoners among the Rescuers to be quietly yet tastefully closed out. “How was your stay in Sarendan?”

  He’d been thinking about what he ought to tell her. Atan hated military or war talk, and then there was that business about Derek.

  Keep it short, he’d decided. “I ended up traveling around to give the orphan brigade some rudimentary training.”

  “Did Derek decide you were tainted by my friendship?”

  “On the contrary. Invited me.” Rel shrugged. “He was the first to admit he’s a terrible military leader. I’ve had enough training to run beginners through the basics. Derek didn’t even know that. His style of training was to tell them rousing stories, or make speeches to bind them together at heart, then loose them in a melee, that is, an attack in a crowd.” Rel clapped his hands together, twined his fingers, and wiggled them. “No notion of discipline. I think in his mind, the idea of a chain of command was akin to the bad old king.”

  “Who very nearly had him executed,” Atan said, as they paced down to the concert hall. “And Peitar along with. Go on.”

  “Not much more to say. I convinced Derek to see discipline as the people working together. A commander is there to call directions.”

  “And not act like a king,” Atan said. “Does that actually work?”

  Rel spread his hands. “So far.”

  “So this is a new army?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t even know if their brigades will last out the winter. There was some muttering in some of the still-recovering trade towns about rowdy orphans playing with swords while others did the work to feed them. Criticism that Derek took hard, by the way, because it was from the workers and ordinary folk, not from the nobles.”