A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  He laughed again. “So I am.”

  “You can do anything you want,” she accused.

  “I will be able to, soon,” he said, entertained enough to lean his wrist on the bannister’s marble-carved acanthus leaves, smoothed by generations of touch.

  “Can I go with you? Show me how to get what I want. All They do is try to make me do what They want. I hate that. I don’t want to be Them. I don’t want to be dead,” she said, a memory flash of her mother’s slapping hands, her low voice when she pinched Julian, whispering in her ear, always that phrase, You would like to be a princess, wouldn’t you?

  Kessler stared down at the child whose eyes were shaped like his own, one of those random features that appeared from time to time in descendants of the Landis family. He liked teaching. He’d always wanted to find young people similar to himself after he’d escaped Wan-Edhe, ambitious.

  But there were standards. He said, “You don’t even have the self-discipline to clean yourself up. Why should I teach you anything?”

  Julian opened her mouth to yell, but he turned away, his indifference plain. So she said speculatively, “If I do that? Will you?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But you’d better be fast. I’ll be out of here soon. If you’re not here waiting before I leave, then you’ll have to find your way same as I did.”

  He walked off, forgetting Julian within a few steps. His search was systematic; he was beginning the second floor when he spotted Siamis exiting a room in the midst of a lot of sleepwalkers. Hatred spiked for Detlev’s strutting pet.

  Kessler paused to enjoy the spike, to speculate on the success of an attack right now. But Siamis was carrying that sword of his, and a marble hallway was a stupid place for swordplay. Kessler would wait until he found the right ground. “How long before that brat with the dyr thing shows up to blast this spell of yours?”

  “Soon, I hope.” Siamis smiled. “This spell of mine is only meant to hold them until Detlev finds what he’s looking for on Geth.”

  “Which is?” Kessler asked.

  “Rifts,” Siamis said equably enough. “They transfer in tunnels, which apparently can be broadened to rifts. As yet I don’t know the details. I was kept elsewhere for an appreciable time.” He made a large gesture, and then added, “Some don’t appear to understand the difference between enterprise and stupidity. I’m surprised to discover you among their number.”

  Kessler shrugged. “Why not? If nothing else, mounting an invasion gives us seasoning.”

  “Leave the seasoning to me. As for the idiot who started this stampede. Henerek, as you probably are aware, decided to smite his childhood rivals, and is in Everon botching the job. Detlev wants you to go clean that up.”

  He walked past, leaving Kessler standing there.

  So Kessler transferred back to his cave, where he summoned his captains. “We’re done here.” Before they could express their disappointment, in which he had no interest, he said, “Though I think, since we’re going in that direction anyway, we’ll stop in Miraleste first. Resupply. Then we’re going to double it across Sarendan, and take ship at the nearest port.”

  “What’s the target?”

  “Everon,” Kessler said, and smiled.

  * * *

  —

  Julian ran upstairs as fast as she could, giggling with triumph and anticipation. So there! She should have thrown that notecase thing of Atan’s down a well long ago. Now everything was going to be fun, if that runaway prince could really teach a person to get everything she wanted.

  Julian burst into her bedchamber and looked at the trunk full of clothes that she had refused to touch. She flung her wrap on the floor and took out the first thing on top. It was riding clothes, a top and trousers, not a horrible princess outfit.

  Only how were you supposed to pull it on, from the bottom or the top? In the forest, before anyone talked about princesses, all she had was somebody’s robe. That had been so easy!

  She tried to stick her feet through the top, but the head part wouldn’t go past her upper legs. So she kicked it off, laid it on the floor, opened the hem, and crawled into it, feeling the way into the arm holes and head hole. When that was on, she jammed her feet into the trousers and yanked them up. She was about to run through the door, but caught sight of her hair in the mirror, and grimaced. A hairbrush lay on the table below the mirror, never before used.

  She had seen people brush their hair. She tried the brush, but it stuck right away, and stung her scalp. Gritting her teeth, she dragged the brush through as much of her hair as she could reach, at least in front. It still looked horrible. So she dug through the drawers in the table until she found winter things—gloves and caps. She shoved all her hair up into a cap, and flung the hairbrush at the mirror as hard as she could. She smiled when the glass cracked like a big spider web.

  Then she ran downstairs, where she found the tall friendly one with the sword talking to two more of the ones in uniforms. But the runaway prince with the black curly hair wasn’t in sight. “Where is he? He said he’d wait. I went as fast as I could! But he’s gone.”

  The friendly one said, “I fear we all get less attention than we feel we deserve. Except when we don’t want it.”

  Julian ignored his smile. “He didn’t wait!” she yelled.

  “Who didn’t wait?”

  “That man. The one who ran away from being a prince. Who can do anything he wants.”

  “He’s gone, I’m afraid. On my orders.”

  “So he doesn’t do what he wants?”

  “He would like to. But he must do what I tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “Come along, and we’ll talk about it,” said the yellow-haired man.

  “You won’t try to make me a princess?” Julian said suspiciously.

  The man sat down on the broad marble steps. “Why wouldn’t you want to be a princess?”

  “I hate it,” Julian said. In memory, there was her mother, with her jewels, and her mad face, pinching Julian hard and hissing, Don’t you want to be a princess? before telling her to smile at the baby princess, take a flower to the queen, be the first to say this thing, or that thing, to be pretty—pinch—smile—pinch—be pretty and smile—tweak—wear her pretty clothes and smile. “I hate it,” Julian burst out again.

  “Well, then, let’s see if we can find a use for you,” the man said. “Where nobody will expect you to be a princess.”

  “Promise?” Julian demanded.

  “I promise,” he said, laughing. When he got up and walked away, she followed along behind.

  Chapter Seven

  Chwahirsland

  THE alliance began to gather at last.

  * * *

  —

  In Chwahirsland, without any idea of what was going on beyond its borders, Jilo turned a cup around in his hand, then finally said, “What’s a neckin?”

  Granduncle Shiam glanced up in mild surprise.

  Jilo twisted uneasily in his chair, distracted by the patiently painted dots indicating patterns of raspberry clusters alternated with grape around the rim of his cup. “I know it’s old army slang for ‘a lot,’ but why wouldn’t someone just say ‘a lot,’ in talking about a wager? Don’t they usually mention an amount for the stake?”

  “Because they were really wagering a trip to the wall,” the commander said.

  “I heard that before.” Jilo looked puzzled. “‘A trip to the wall’ usually meant an execution. They were wagering on deaths?”

  “No. Sex.” Shiam remembered that Jilo had no close family to explain sex, and of course he hadn’t had a twi to exchange information with, much less indulge with in practice sex play. If he was even of age enough for that.

  But Jilo had been running around a garrison all his life. “It’s sex? Against a wall?”

  “Sex in the army was forbid
den. ‘Neckin’ was originally slang for the number of floggings you would get for capital crimes, such as having relationships. The Hate wanted all loyalty strictly to on him. But people, being people . . .” The commander waited for Jilo to ask the questions that would indicate he was ready for the answers. “There was a certain amount of humor in choosing slang for a long punishment resulting from a brief act,” he finally said.

  Jilo shrugged off the unpleasant subject. Sex as mechanics was familiar. You didn’t do stable duty without knowing the rudiments, and the language of it was everyday around rec time back in the Shadowland. The feelings that led to it? Those were as distant as the winter stars.

  So he lifted the cup to study the painting around his rim. He wondered if the cup was old, from before the edict against painting things had been issued. Yet another forbidden thing that made life better, if you chose to have it.

  Jilo looked up at his granduncle. This was his third visit to his relatives since winter. After lifting the killing wards around the castle Destination, he’d placed tracers on it so if anyone arrived he would know.

  His granduncle noticed his interest. “Grandfather Nissler made those cups. He was a potter, before the edicts.” Uncle Shiam furrowed his brow.

  “Maybe that ought to go on our list? Releasing the edicts binding the potters to the army for ten years.”

  Jilo had agreed that they ought to release Wan-Edhe’s terrible edicts a bit at a time. Food first: this spring, the secondary army fields had been opened under the strict control of local commanders, who measured off spaces for each village and town, a certain amount of ground per household. There had been no riots, though trouble had been threatened over hoarded seed, until Jilo let it be known that seed was coming from overseas. He did not say that he’d used some of Wan-Edhe’s terrifyingly immense hoard of gold to buy it—Senrid had set it up through the king of Erdrael Danara, who turned out to be a friend of his.

  “Slow,” Uncle Shiam said. “Very slow. If people are busy, they will not revolt. If you give them too many choices after no choice at all . . .” He shook his head. “We do not know how to negotiate choices anymore. I’ve seen death struggles over the possession of extra boot ties, and that in an army where any action whatsoever outside of orders gets you a bloody back.”

  Jilo swallowed. “Maybe over winter, then—”

  His cousin came in carrying a tray of corn cakes, but just as Jilo reached for one, a tracer warning poked him inside his head.

  Someone had actually used the Destination he had so carefully de-trapped?

  Unless it was . . . “I have to go,” he said.

  His family reflected surprise, but no one asked. And he wasn’t sure what to say. If there were normal patterns of conversation for such moments, he had yet to learn them, a thought that made him feel sorrowful.

  “Take a corn cake with you, Cousin Jilo,” Aran said practically.

  Jilo thanked her, and did. The cake was still hot when the transfer magic left him standing in the castle, making him reflect on how heat transferred as well as bones and skin and clothes.

  It had cooled by the time he recovered from the transfer; it had also left a pink spot on his hand, which throbbed faintly. He didn’t mind that. It was somewhat better than the way he used to feel when he returned to this castle. There were actual air currents along the lower floors now, and sometimes he heard voices. The time binding was still there, but it had begun to lessen the farther you got from the third floor, and people were showing tiny signs of possible recovery, in very small ways. Like, someone had dared to ask him a question, “Would you like a meal?”

  He walked through the Destination chamber door, which he had removed half the wards from. He stopped short when he recognized Senrid of the Marlovens.

  Senrid had been looking around the library, but turned at his step. “Haven’t you been keeping up with that book of yours?” he asked without preamble.

  “It’s locked up. While I go places,” Jilo said. Then he caught up mentally. “Something happened?”

  “Detlev and Siamis are back. Siamis, I heard about. I know Detlev’s back. Saw him myself, three days ago.”

  “At the head of an army?” Jilo braced for worse news.

  “No. But he destroyed all my border wards. Everything. Then smoked.” Senrid swiped his hand through the air, as if pushing something away. His lip curled. “If he does come back, he’s going to have to look hard to find our army.” His smile vanished. “Hibern says that Norsunder did launch armies against Sarendan, Sartor, and Everon. And I’d love to know where Detlev smoked to. Can we look in that book?”

  Jilo was already moving into the next room. “Wan-Edhe will be back,” Jilo said in a weird, flat voice.

  The way he said it made Senrid’s nerves jump. He knew why. Substitute ‘My uncle will be back,’ and there was Senrid’s own fear. That was the real horror of Norsunder. Well, one of them. People you saw dragged off, who should be dead and gone, weren’t.

  “Then you make sure your army isn’t there for him to command, at least, as much as you can. But Jilo,” Senrid said sharply, and the other boy turned his way, the glassy expression in his eyes turning to worry. At least he was listening. “Siamis doesn’t seem to bother with armies. According to Hibern, who got it from Tsauderei, he entered Eidervaen’s royal palace, and exited half a glass after, leaving the entire kingdom sleepwalking. It’s just like before.”

  “What do we do?”

  “My suggestion is, get yourself out of reach of Siamis, or whoever they might send here, and join us in our alliance fallback.” Senrid described the Delfina Valley Destination.

  “Me?” was all Jilo could think to say, then reddened at what he knew sounded like witlessness.

  “You. Or, better, take this transfer token.” Senrid dropped a cheap brass ring of the sort found at festivals onto Jilo’s palm. Jilo could feel the tingle of magic on it. “Get yourself to Delfina Valley, where Tsauderei is hiding out. Used to be some kind of lighter mage hideout. Norsunder can’t get past the protective wards.”

  “Are the Mearsieans going to be there? You know they won’t want me in their alliance.”

  “Mearsieans?” Senrid exclaimed, in disbelief. “You mean Clair and the rest of those girls?”

  Jilo ducked his head in a nod.

  Senrid stared at the kid who had taken over a vast kingdom with a formidable reputation, who had been wrestling single-handed with magic far beyond Senrid’s skills. Was Jilo really worried about some bratty girls who couldn’t manage a sword between them? “If they don’t, then they are an almighty pack of lighter hypocrites. But Clair was the one who brought you to me for help.” Or had she thought Senrid would have Jilo put up against a wall? His gut curled at the bitter thought.

  “It’s not Clair I’m thinking about.”

  Senrid laughed. “CJ, then? She was the one who said we should recruit. I’m recruiting you. She can like it or shut up.”

  Senrid flicked the subject of CJ aside impatiently. He wanted, needed, to see that book. “Jilo, listen. If Siamis gets you, then that means he’s got your entire kingdom. Whatever you’ve set up to get around Wan-Edhe, Siamis can make you put it all back again. He can make you do anything, and you’ll do it.” Senrid’s features lengthened with horror. “Nobody can tell me if you feel yourself doing what he wants, or if your mind just goes somewhere else. Either way . . .” He snapped his fingers. “So much for all your plans.”

  Jilo blinked. “Yes. Right. My Uncle Shiam and I . . . there’s an order I can give. It will go through all the captains. The army will go into the fields, because it’s our first year of allowing general planting—”

  Jilo abruptly stopped babbling, and muttered spells. His ‘locked up,’ Senrid saw, was in the magical sense. The book appeared in a tiny flash of light and puff of air that smelled of singed paper.

  Jilo flipped it open
, and stared.

  “What does it say?” Senrid demanded impatiently.

  “There is nothing for Wan-Edhe,” Jilo muttered. “He must still be in Norsunder-Beyond.”

  “What about the head snakes?” Senrid rapped his knuckles lightly on the table as he fought the nearly overmastering desire to grab the book and transfer out.

  “Detlev’s last mention was Norsunder Base. That was right after Marloven Hess, three days ago.” Jilo glanced up briefly. “Siamis has been moving around a lot. A lot. Sartor, Imar, a bunch of places I’ve never heard of—”

  “Like?”

  Jilo rattled off names, during which Senrid said, “Got to be a scouting run,” but then a pattern emerged, just as Jilo said, “Mearsies Heili?” He looked up in surprise. “Why would he go there?”

  “Bereth Ferian, Roth Drael, Mearsies Heili.”

  “All in the same day?”

  “Yes.” Jilo glanced up in question. “He must have the world’s worst headache.”

  “He’s hunting Liere,” Senrid whispered, raised his hands, and vanished.

  Jilo started. Senrid’s abrupt disappearance was somehow more unsettling than his news, which Jilo had been dreading since the day he’d first walked into this castle and made his first spell.

  He scrabbled among the papers for a pen, dipped it, scrawled the pre-arranged message to Uncle Shiam, then whispered a transfer spell over it. The paper vanished in a tiny puff of air.

  He was about to send the book back to its hiding place, but Senrid’s words caused him to hesitate. He wasn’t used to using it to track other people’s enemies, none of whom had shown any interest in Chwahirsland. However, what if someone else tried to take it?

  If he hid it . . .

  He placed the book between the two light magic guides given him by Mondros, closed them into a travel bag, and looked around. Enemies—Wan-Edhe—might come. He could do nothing beyond the wards he’d already laid to trap him. Anywhere Jilo went beyond his border seemed to be among enemies. But he had learned there were degrees of enmity.