Sword of Waters

by Hilari Bell

  Weasel came out of the classroom rubbing one ink-stained hand. “I hate this,” he grumbled under his breath. “I’m good at math and I hate it.”

  Prince Edoran offered her a brief nod, and said nothing.

  Was she supposed to curtsy? That was the kind of thing the etiquette mistress went on and on about, and Arisa couldn’t remember half of it. She didn’t want to curtsy, so she simply returned his nod as Weasel went on.

  “I told Edoran that you want to find the sword, and he thinks you’re crazy too. With a reward that large, if it still existed, someone would have brought it in long ago. And they didn’t, so—”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Prince Edoran interrupted quietly.

  “But you’re not the first to think of studying the old records to find it. I believe my father looked for it for a while, and he was the king.”

  “So if he couldn’t find it, nobody could?” The sarcasm leaked into her voice before she could stop it, and Edoran flushed.

  “He wasn’t a fool, and he had the same access I do. More than you’ll ever get, without me.”

  Here was the arrogance Arisa had expected. She opened her mouth to snap back at him, but Weasel got in first.

  “Edoran thinks you’re going to despise him because he can’t fence.”

  Arisa’s mouth hung open, but no words came out. The red in the prince’s cheeks deepened. If she’d been treated as he had, it would have embarrassed her to have someone watching.

  “No one could learn to fence from Master Giles,” said Arisa. “Especially not fighting with your off hand.”

  Edoran eyed her warily. Arisa couldn’t read enough of his expression to know whether he realized that she did despise him for other things, but after a moment he nodded.

  “Very well. If you believe you can succeed where every scholar in the realm has failed, I’ll assist you.”

  “I don’t believe I can succeed,” said Arisa, nettled. “But I promised my mother I’d try. I keep my promises.”

  “Then you’re going to need an ungodly amount of luck,” Weasel told her.

  The idea struck Arisa like a thunderclap. “Or some guidance! I can lay out the cards. Maybe they’ll show me where to start.”

  “Arcanara cards?” Edoran stiffened. “I don’t approve of arcanara cards. In fact, I’ve forbidden their use in the palace.”

  “Then don’t watch,” Arisa told him. “I’m going to go get my deck.”

  “She really believes in them,” Weasel told the prince. “It’s no use arguing. She thinks she’s got withe.”

  Arisa walked away. To her annoyance, Weasel and Edoran followed.

  “Withe is some sort of mystical ability,” Weasel went on, “to be one with the universe, or nature, or something. It—”

  “I know what withe is,” Edoran said.

  “Well, she’s got it,” Weasel continued. “And when she lays arcanara cards, it makes them reveal the future.”

  “They don’t reveal the future,” Arisa intervened. She knew better than to try to shut him up. “They show the forces that are working in your life.”

  “You don’t believe in arcanara cards?” Edoran asked Weasel.

  Weasel snorted. “I believe that I’ve seen a lot of con men make money with them.”

  “They told us the truth when I laid them out for you,” Arisa pointed out. “The fish and the craftsman saved you from Pettibone.”

  “There are opportunities in any heist,” Weasel told her. “And man-made objects are everywhere. That card could have meant your mother’s pistol as easily as the shield.”

  “You know it was the shield,” Arisa said. “Come on in.”

  There weren’t enough chairs for three to sit around the small round table, so Arisa pulled the table over to the bed, and then went to the bureau to get her deck.

  Edoran took a chair and Weasel sat on the bed, so she took the second chair and shuffled the cards.

  “I don’t approve of this,” Edoran repeated stiffly.

  “Then go away,” Arisa told him.

  “If he goes,” said Weasel in a soft singsong voice, “you’ll have trouble getting what you want from the records.”

  “Um. You could wait outside. Your Highness.”

  Weasel snickered. Edoran’s slight shoulders were so tense that Arisa thought he was going to rise and stalk out of the room.

  “This is my significator,” she said hastily. “The card that represents me.” She cut the deck and turned over the top card.

  The ancient goddess was walking on clouds, and lightning shot from the places where she stepped.

  “The storm,” said Weasel. “That’s about right, for you.”

  “The storm is almost always my significator,” Arisa admitted. “If it doesn’t show up, I can’t be sure if my withe is working or not.”

  “Well, you’re a stormy sort of girl,” said Edoran.

  He sounded far more relaxed, and Arisa wondered why.

  “It doesn’t really mean storms,” she told the prince. “The storm represents something that brings both good and bad in the same package. Like water for crops, but also floods and sinking ships.”

  “Like courage and loyalty,” said Weasel, “combined with violence and temper.”

  Arisa scowled at him. “This supports me.” She drew a card to lay beneath the storm. “This is what I’m relying on….Oh.”

  “The lost messenger,” said Weasel. “That means missing information, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, and I’m not sure I like that,” said Arisa. The card that supported you was supposed to be something you could count on. Relying on important information that was missing or unknown was like stepping onto a grassy hummock in a swamp and hoping it wouldn’t sink.

  “But it fits,” Edoran pointed out. “You are relying on missing information, to lead you to the sword.”

  “So I am,” said Arisa. “This is what inspires—Now that’s ridiculous!”

  “The traitor?” Weasel asked, eyeing the cloaked figure stealing out of a quiet camp. “What does it mean?”

  “It means a traitor,” Arisa snapped. “Lies, and betrayal of trust. But that certainly doesn’t inspire me!”

  “Even if they lied and betrayed for a cause?” Weasel asked. He was cynical about causes, which worried Arisa. Without a cause, without something he cared enough to fight for, a person was… smaller.

  “Even if they’re doing it for a cause,” Arisa confirmed. “You should fight an enemy honestly, not gain his trust and then betray it.”

  “Then I’d say your quest for the sword is off to a rocky start,” the prince told her. “What next?”

  “This to mislead me,” said Arisa, laying a card to the storm’s far left. The six of stars met her curious gaze. “Trust? Trust misleads me? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Was her withe not working, after all? But she’d drawn her usual significator, and that could hardly be random.

  “It might make sense,” said Weasel, “if there’s a traitor around. What guides you true?”

  Arisa laid the five of fires between the storm and trust.

  “The thief,” said Weasel. “So you’d better listen to me.”

  “But your significator is the hanged man,” Arisa murmured, puzzled. The thief indicated sudden loss of wealth, from any cause.

  “What threatens you?” Edoran asked.

  He might not approve of the cards, but he knew what came next in the layout. Somewhat apprehensive, Arisa laid a card to the storm’s far right.

  “Vacillation,” she said, relieved. “I’m not usually wishy-washy, but I can see how it might be a problem.”

  “No, you’re not,” Weasel murmured, not quite under his breath.

  Arisa glared. “Vacillation is not a good trait! Anyway, this will protect… The weaver? How can the creation of beauty protect me from anything?”

  She stared at the scattered cards. If there was guidance here, she couldn’t see it.

  “Baffling,�
�� said Weasel, shaking his head. “Very baffling. We must contemplate this for a long, long time, trying to discern its deep, hidden meaning. Or we could go and find out where the sword was last seen, and who had access to it.”

  “All right.” Arisa sighed. “I admit, it doesn’t seem to have worked this time.”

  She gathered up the deck and put it away.

  “No one really knows when the sword was last seen.”

  Edoran led Weasel and Arisa toward the public rooms in the older wing of the palace. Arisa hadn’t gone there since she and her mother had first toured the place, shortly after they’d moved in.

  “The official version of the story is that the sword and shield were stolen by a burglar,” the prince continued. “But my father didn’t think much of the investigation. You know I’ve been reading his journals? He says no one ever asked why would a burglar steal only two items, that couldn’t be melted down or recut. They could only be held for ransom, and no one ever demanded any. Or if they did, my father couldn’t find a record of it.”

  “According to Justice Holis,” said Weasel, “to prosecute any crime you need to know who, what, when, where, why, and how. And no burglar would steal something he couldn’t fence.”

  “The sword and shield were important,” Arisa protested. “Even back then. They couldn’t just vanish without anyone noticing.”

  “They didn’t,” said Edoran. “There were all kinds of rumors about their disappearance, most of which made even less sense than burglary.”

  “I like the one where King Regalis lost them gambling in a low tavern,” Weasel put in. “But since we found the shield in the palace, we know that isn’t true.”

  “Maybe the burglar started out of the palace with both of them,” said Arisa. “But the shield was too heavy and awkward, so he hid it with those old theater props. He intended to come back for it, but then he died or something. That’s why there was no demand for ransom.”

  “Demanding ransom for something like that would be really stupid,” Weasel told her. “All they’d have to do is grab you when you show up to get the money, and then what? You can’t threaten to have your partner kill a sword if they don’t let you go.”

  “You could threaten to break it,” said Arisa. “King Regalis wouldn’t have liked that at all. He probably would have paid to get it back, if the burglar hadn’t died!”

  “There’s no real evidence that there was a burglar,” Weasel retorted. “Much less that he died. And no burglar would take—”

  “Excuse me,” Edoran interrupted firmly. “Since there’s no way to know what really happened, or where the sword is, I thought we’d start with what it was, and who lost it. That’s why we’re here,” he finished, opening the doors to the royal portrait gallery.

  Arisa looked curiously into the long stone-floored room. When she and her mother had been here, all the portraits had been swathed in sheets. Today they were visible, and the wall sconces between them augmented the dim light that came through the rain-splattered windows. Clearly, the servants had prepared the room for them. Having the prince on her side might be worth putting up with him after all.

  Their steps echoed in the empty gallery, but Edoran stopped before Arisa could become self-conscious about it. The first portrait showed a burly dark-haired man wearing a long red robe in the ancient style.

  “Is that King Deor?” Weasel asked. “Really?”

  “No,” Edoran admitted. “This is what some later painter thought he might have looked like. Deor, and the sword and shield themselves, came into the world so long ago that there are no portraits from that time. Only legends.”

  “Let’s skip the legends, shall we?” said Arisa.

  Edoran scowled. “The sword and the shield come from the legends. It all starts with him.” He gestured to the stocky blackbrowed man on the canvas. Outside the thick walls, thunder grumbled.

  Arisa shivered. Despite the glowing sconces, the gallery was cold.

  “King Deor united the warring tribes,” said Edoran firmly. “He was the first king of Deorthas, which clearly took its name—”

  “From him,” said Weasel. “We can see that.”

  Edoran scowled. “Do you want to hear this, or—”

  “No,” said Arisa.

  “Yes,” said Weasel. “Go on. We might come across a clue sometime—that we’ll miss if we don’t know the background.”

  He was right about that. Arisa sighed. “All right. Go on.”

  Edoran eyed them a moment, then shrugged. “Anyway, toward the end of Deor’s reign something terrible happened. Scholars think it might have been a drought, but there were droughts before, so I’m not sure if that was it.”

  “It’s happened since then too,” Arisa put in.

  “And it’s happened since,” Edoran agreed. “But the tribes were too newly united, the chieftains too rebellious, for the new realm to endure a famine. King Deor went to the high priest of the old gods and asked for help. The priest prayed, and then he told Deor that the gods were willing to help him and all his descendants, but in return they required a sacrifice.”

  The last word was so weighted that a chill ran down Arisa’s spine. “You’re not talking about a goat or a pig, are you?”

  “No.” Edoran’s face was sober, but his voice held a gruesome relish as he went on. “Deor said yes—the sacrifice was voluntary, all the legends agree on that—so the old pagan priests hung him upside down and cut his throat.”

  “Voluntary,” Weasel murmured. “Voluntary like a jail sent… Wait a minute. He’s the one on the card, isn’t he? The hanged man. Voluntary sacrifice.”

  “My father thought so,” said Edoran. “Though arcanara cards are supposed to predate even Deor. My father speculated that the card originally represented one of the old gods, but was changed to reflect Deor’s sacrifice.”

  “So where do the sword and shield come in?” Weasel asked. “And why does this next king have them and old Deor doesn’t?”

  The next portrait in line showed a man with lighter hair than Deor and the same stocky build. But then, Arisa reminded herself, this was all some long-ago artist’s guess. And this king wasn’t alone in his portrait either. Another man stood to his left, holding the sword, and the man who held the shield stood at his right. The sword bearer looked enough like the king to be his brother, but the other man had red-blond hair, graying with the approach of age.

  “The old priests gave the sword, the shield, and the crown of earth to Deor’s heir, after his death,” Edoran told them. “That’s him. King Brend.”

  “He’s not very happy,” said Arisa, looking at the painted man’s eyes. “Why doesn’t he hold the sword and shield? And if he was given a crown, why isn’t he wearing it?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t know,” Edoran told her. “But my father wondered about that too. All the legends agree that Brend was given the crown of earth, in exchange for his father’s sacrifice, but my father thought it must have been lost long ago, because there’s no mention anywhere of what it looked like. The sword and shield are the real ones, since they were still around when these portraits were painted.”

  “But why does someone else always hold them?” Weasel asked. “The statues are the same way.”

  Edoran shrugged. “All I know is that that’s the way the sword and shield were ‘supposed to be’ portrayed. You won’t see any picture of a king holding them until Regalis, who probably got tired of the old form. It’s this way,” Edoran added.

  He led them past what seemed like hundreds of kings, all shown with two companions, one of them holding the battered shield Weasel had found. Arisa could tell when painting portraits had come into fashion, for both the kings and their companions suddenly became much less handsome and kingly.

  “He’s quite… portly, isn’t he?” said Arisa, stopping before the picture of a very plump balding man. A woman held the shield for him. A good-looking woman, Arisa noted.

  “That’s Marfus,” said Edoran. “And accor
ding to the stories, he enjoyed life a lot. But he was a good ruler, too.”

  “He’s got a different crown from the one behind him,” Weasel observed. “And the one after him isn’t wearing a crown at all. But the sword and shield are always the same.”

  This was the sword she was looking for. Arisa stepped close to study it, for surely the artist who had made Marfus so fat hadn’t misrepresented the sword, either.

  It was plain, the blade broad and double edged, not at all like the slim rapiers men fenced with now. In fact, it looked just like all the other old swords she’d seen. There were half a dozen in the hall of armor that could have replaced it.

  “How do you know that the real sword isn’t sitting in a sheath in the hall of armor right now?” she asked Edoran.

  The prince glanced aside. “There are… marks on the true sword and shield. They’re subtle, to make it unlikely that a forger would reproduce them, but if you know what you’re looking for… After the sword and shield vanished, the kings of Deorthas taught their heirs how to identify those marks in case they were found again. And”—he smiled suddenly at Weasel—“to keep us from paying out the reward to some rogue, who turned up with an old shield he found in a pile of theater props.”

  Weasel, who had been more astonished than anyone when the shield he’d thought was fake proved true, grinned back at the prince.

  “At least I wasn’t—” He peered suddenly at the portrait. “What’s the king holding? Like a little twig with leaves on it.”

  Arisa looked closer and whooped with laughter. “I like this king! Either that or this painter had a lot of nerve. That’s a sprig of aramanthus, also known as cock-in-the-meadow.”

  “Why is that funny?” Edoran asked, and Weasel looked just as puzzled.

  “City boys.” Arisa grinned. “All the goodwives know that if you carry a sprig of cock-in-the-meadow on your person for three days… Ah, how to phrase this. Romance will bloom for you? Except it’s not romance, exactly.”

  Weasel laughed aloud.

  “But a k-king…,” Edoran spluttered. “I mean, even in that day and age, surely no one believed… I mean… It doesn’t work, does it?”

  Arisa took pity on him. “No, it doesn’t. Or so I’ve overheard my mother’s men saying. And sooner or later most of them tried it.”