Swordheart

by T. Kingfisher

  And you’re afraid. If she does abandon you, even if it is no more than you deserve, you will lose her.

  She looked over at him and smiled, and Sarkis wondered what he would promise her, to keep her from abandoning him, and did not know the answer.

  Chapter 29

  The next day passed easily enough. The day was cold and frost lay on the leaves long past noon. It was not until early evening that trouble struck them.

  Zale inhaled sharply, looking ahead. Sarkis saw the flash of indigo cloaks and his heart sank.

  “Them again,” he said.

  “They are persistent,” muttered Zale. “Like flies returning to a turd.”

  “Making us the turd?”

  “Well…”

  “Halt!” said the man in the lead, the one Sarkis was thinking of as Red.

  Brindle did not halt, but given that the ox was moving only slightly above a dead stop at any given time, the Motherhood men didn’t seem to notice.

  “We must insist that you allow us to inspect your wagon for contraband,” said the one Sarkis called Scar.

  “And I must insist that you do nothing of the sort,” said Zale, drawing themselves up to their full height. “We have been over this. You have no authority here.”

  “The Motherhood is charged with rooting out wickedness,” said Scar. “We have the authority of our goddess.”

  “The Hanged Mother has no authority over the Rat.”

  “On this road, the Mother has authority over everyone,” said Red. He crowded his horse closer. “The Archon trusts to our discretion.”

  “This is tyranny!” Zale fumed. “You overstep yourself!”

  “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear,” said Scar.

  Sarkis had heard that line before, usually in the mouths of men who had a great deal to hide themselves. He ground his teeth.

  Attack and you can probably take them both. Neither has a bow. But they’re mounted and you’ll only get the advantage of surprise on one. There’s a chance Halla or Zale could get injured.

  And supposing you do kill them, what then?

  He doubted that anyone would cry for the priests, but the others of their Motherhood might come looking. And as far as a speedy getaway was concerned…well, perhaps if they all got out and pushed.

  Zale’s thin hand closed over Sarkis’s wrist. He hadn’t realized that his hand had been drifting toward the hilt of his sword. The priest looked him in the eye and clearly made a calculation.

  “Fine,” grated the priest. “Look all you want. Brindle, stop the wagon.”

  The gnole guided the ox to a stop by the side of the road. “Haw!” he called, and then, finally, “Whoa!” The ox obeyed, deeply unimpressed.

  There was a secret compartment in the wagon. Sarkis found out about this when one of the Motherhood men went straight to it and pulled it up out of the floor.

  They knew there was a compartment. Probably they’ve seen wagons like this before. Sarkis kept his hand away from his sword, eyes locked on Zale, waiting for a signal.

  “And what have we here?” asked Scar, hefting a small bag.

  “Money,” said Zale, not at all perturbed. “You carry it to buy things with.”

  “Why are you hiding it?”

  “Are you really asking why I keep my money in a safe place in the wagon rather than dangling it off my belt where any bandit can see it?”

  Sarkis’s hand moved to the hilt of his sword again. Zale gave him a warning look.

  Scar seemed annoyed at this response. He searched the wagon in a somewhat perfunctory fashion.

  “If you told me what you were looking for, I could probably be more helpful,” said Zale, in a not at all helpful voice.

  Red reached under the wagon seat and pulled something out.

  “Can you explain this, priest?”

  “It’s a crossbow,” said Zale, as if speaking to a rather dim child. “You shoot it at things.”

  “Why are you carrying one?”

  “Because we might get stopped by bandits,” said Zale. “Or other people intent on mischief. As I’m sure you’re aware, these roads are simply full of people who like to harass innocent travelers.”

  Red scowled. So did Scar.

  “You’ve found nothing,” said Zale, folding their arms. “Because there is nothing to find. Now will you stop pestering us?”

  “We are watching you, priest,” said Red, tossing down the crossbow. It was unloaded, but Sarkis and Zale both flinched when it struck the wagon seat anyway.

  “And I’m watching you,” grated Zale. “And the eyes of the Rat see farther than those of the Mother. For one thing, there’s a lot more of them.”

  Red curled his lip, stalked to his horse, and mounted without a word. He kicked his horse into a trot before Scar had finished mounting, and the two vanished in a cloud of road dust.

  “Petty tyrants,” muttered Zale. They grabbed their pewter braid and twisted it irritably.

  Halla shook her head. “The miller back home was like that,” she said. “He had a little bit of power and he lorded it over everyone. Although there’s less damage you can do with a mill than with a religious order.”

  There was a brief pause while everyone gave this statement the consideration it deserved.

  “I am going to compile a book,” said Zale. “Wit and Wisdom of Mistress Halla. With occasional interjections by Ser Sarkis of the Weeping Lands and Brindle the Gnole.”

  “Humans talk too much,” said Brindle. “There’s a wisdom for a human’s book, rat-priest.”

  “That probably deserves its own chapter.” Zale shook themself, looking not unlike a gnole as they did it. “Well. To turn to more important matters…Before we were so rudely interrupted, I was thinking about the enchantment on the sword. I believe your sorcerer-smith had a wild talent of some sort, but she built on that foundation. Do you know what happened to your body when you died?”

  “Eh?” said Sarkis. He’d still been thinking about the Motherhood men. “What?”

  “The first time,” said Zale patiently. “When you were trapped in the sword. Did your body dematerialize into the blade or did it simply die?”

  Sarkis blinked at them.

  “How would he know?” asked Halla. “I mean, if he went into the sword right away…”

  Zale sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It’s a pity, that might tell us more.”

  “Not me,” said Sarkis slowly. “But I saw Angharad and the Dervish run through.”

  He could see it far too clearly suddenly: the dim, stinking forge, the smell of iron and charcoal and burning flesh.

  “Angharad was first.” He picked at the seam of his armwraps. “I watched them quench the sword in her heart’s blood. She didn’t cry out. She was always strong and silent as an ox. The Dervish screamed, though. I remember his scream. I still hear it sometimes, when I’m dying.”

  Halla clutched his hand. He looked down at it, puzzled, then squeezed.

  This makes hard listening. I should have thought.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “No!” she said, exasperated. “I’m not…oh, dammit.” She tucked his hand under her arm and bumped her shoulder against him, awkward and sincere.

  Zale had gone pale. “I should not have asked,” they said. “I find a thread and pull it, sometimes, and I forget that there may be genuine emotions attached.”

  “It is all right,” said Sarkis. How much did I give away, when I was talking? I know I did not weep or scream… He cleared his throat. “The bodies fell. They did not turn into fire or vanish into the sword. At least, not that I saw.”

  Zale looked, if anything, more uncomfortable. “I see.” They took a deep breath. “Then, Sarkis, I fear I must inform you that you are probably dead.”

  Sarkis stared at them for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Of course I’m dead!” he said. “I’ve died more times than I can count. I just don’t st
ay dead for more than a fortnight at a time.”

  “Oh good,” said Zale, with clear relief. “I was afraid that might be a shock to you. You never know how people will take this sort of thing.”

  “He’s not dead, though,” said Halla. “I mean, he’s warm. And he’s got a pulse. And he eats and drinks and then…err…”

  “Yes, we’ve been through what happens after the drinking once today already,” said Sarkis.

  “To go back to that—” Zale began.

  “Oh, by the great god. Am I to be required to fill another jar?”

  “No, no. Well, probably not. Tell me, if you have a full bladder and then go back in the sword, do you still have one when you re-emerge?”

  “I…” Sarkis had never given this much thought. “I do not spend centuries having to piss, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Thank the gods,” muttered Halla. “Can you imagine? That would be dreadful.”

  “No, no. But when you re-emerge, do you still need to? Or does the sword make all of that go away?”

  “Oh, of course!” said Halla. “That’s a great question! If you eat out here, when you dematerialize, the contents of your stomach obviously go back in with you.”

  “They do?”

  “Well, think about it,” she said. “They must. You’ve been eating food for the last few days, but when we put you back in the sword, there isn’t a pile of half-digested potatoes suddenly hanging in midair, is there?”

  Sarkis removed his hand from her arm and inched away from her on the wagon seat. She rolled her eyes at him.

  “We’ll have to test it,” said Zale firmly. They grabbed a waterskin. “I’m going to need you to drink this.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Sarkis drank the water, even though he wasn’t remotely thirsty, and lowered the skin to see both Halla and Zale watching him closely. “I haven’t had anyone this concerned about my bladder since my mother trained me out of split pants.”

  “Sorry,” said Zale, clearly not remotely sorry.

  “But think how much we’re learning!” said Halla.

  “The two of you are like kindred spirits. Horrible, horrible kindred spirits.” He took another swig of water.

  The ox plodded down the road. The air crackled with frost. Brindle ignored them all with the air of long practice.

  His companions were far too obviously waiting for his bladder to fill. Sarkis cleared his throat uncomfortably. “So I’m a ghost, you say?”

  “I hope not,” said Zale. “If you’re a ghost then we might be practicing necromancy.”

  Halla blanched.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Necromancy is anathema in every civilized nation,” said Zale.

  “Is it?”

  “People do frown on monstrous evil,” said Halla.

  “Not nearly often enough if you ask me,” Sarkis said. He drank more water, not with much enthusiasm. “We don’t have necromancers in the Weeping Lands. At least, not that I have ever heard of.”

  “Fortunate land,” said Zale. They rubbed the back of their neck. “Necromancy is honestly more legend than reality here. But there is at least one well-documented case a century ago. A healer who could not bear failure, and had the gift. He chained the souls of the dying to their bodies, until, he said, he could find a way cure death itself.” They shuddered. “The records make for grim reading.”

  “Did they start to decay?” asked Halla.

  “Yes. Many of the dead went to great lengths to try to destroy their own bodies. Some lashed out at others around them. It is the blackest of the black arts.”

  Sarkis leaned back. “What is the punishment?”

  Zale shot him a brief glance. “There isn’t one.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not a thing you punish.” The priest shrugged. “It’s a thing you stop. It’s like…oh, like a rabid dog. You don’t punish the dog or the necromancer. It’s not like that. You just kill them so that it stops. It was a group of paladins that killed the healer, with the blessings of any number of gods. They had to burn the entire place down to stop the dead. Fortunately, there was a priest of the Many-Armed God in attendance, and he rescued the healer’s notes.”

  “The great god have mercy.”

  “I don’t think He had a paladin there, but presumably that was a matter of distance rather than approval.”

  Sarkis snorted.

  “The Rat calls lawyers and advocates to His service rather than paladins, but I must admit, the ones with swords have their uses.”

  Halla was clearly working something over in her mind. “Sarkis may be dead, but he’s not decaying,” she said. “But that might be because the sword doesn’t decay. Do you think a necromancer could bind a soul into a sword?”

  “You’re saying the smith was a necromancer?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” said Halla, sounding exasperated. “I’m asking a question!”

  “That is a skill you have,” muttered Sarkis.

  Zale tapped their fingers together, brow knitting. Finally, they said, “It’s an interesting question. It would make a certain sense, but it’s not a thing that I know how to test. And I’ve never heard of a necromancer that could make a temporary body out of pure magic, the way that the sword does for Sarkis.”

  Sarkis set the waterskin down. “Speaking of which, you could probably put me back in the sword now.”

  “What? Wh—oh!” Halla flushed. “Right! Sorry. Got distracted.”

  “Believe me, anything that took the conversation away from my bladder was worth it.” He shifted uncomfortably on the seat.

  Halla clicked the sword into its sheath and the blue fire took him away.

  Chapter 30

  “Right!” said Halla a day later. “We’ve established that even if you’re hungry or thirsty when you go into the sword, you come out feeling neither, at least if you’re in the sword for more than about twenty minutes.”

  Zale was writing everything down in their quick, precise hand, and nodded to her.

  “And if you go into the sword with a full bladder, you come out without one.”

  Sarkis rubbed his forehead in resignation.

  “And presumably that applies to other—uh—bodily wastes—”

  “We are not testing that,” said Sarkis grimly. “A man has limits.”

  “And if you eat until you are uncomfortably full, that, too, goes away.”

  Sarkis nodded. He hadn’t enjoyed that one. The only food they had on hand in quantity was porridge, and he had eaten a truly heroic amount. He wasn’t going to be able to look at porridge again for a month.

  “We have not tested what occurs if you are drunk—”

  “I become sober when the sword is sheathed,” said Sarkis. “I know that one.”

  Zale nodded, making a note, then paused with their hand over the ledger. “Have you ever starved to death?”

  “No. I’ve gotten very thirsty a time or two during a siege, but that’s all.”

  Zale tapped the pen against their teeth. They had excellent teeth. Sarkis had observed the priest scrubbing their teeth with salt and sage nightly, which was undoubtedly a factor. “I do wonder if you’d be hungry if you were starved until it became a form of injury, then went back in the sword for an insufficient time to heal…but I have a philosophical objection to testing that.”

  “As do I,” put in Halla.

  “Thank the great god for that.”

  He stifled a sigh, remembering sieges. He had dealt with more than a few in his time. His company of mercenaries had been good at sieges—making them, breaking them, occasionally even enduring them. Their services had been in high demand.

  And now I am riding on an oxcart with two people who are making me eat porridge until I am ill, and who get excited when my urine dematerializes. The great god laughs at man’s expectations.

  Still, he had to admit that he had learned rather more about the actual workings of the sword in a few days than he h
ad learned in all the years since the sorcerer-smith had trapped him.

  I should have listened more closely when she was explaining the process, but it was so clearly impossible, what she was saying…

  The beating he’d taken beforehand hadn’t helped his concentration. In truth, he’d probably been lucky to have absorbed as much as he had from the woman before she’d driven a length of white-hot steel into his chest.

  Even so, he couldn’t remember her explaining how it worked.

  “The smith was a genius,” said Zale, as if echoing his thoughts. “If she had been a simple wonderworker, we would expect that the magic would have released you when she died. Whatever she did, she built this magic that gives you a body that seems real…and to use the processes of that body, the food you eat and the air you breathe, to fuel the magic. And because your body is not truly reliant on the same weak, complicated meat that the rest of us are—” they slapped their arm by way of demonstration “—it converts those processes with remarkable efficiency. It’s incredible.”

  “Could you do it?” said Halla, genuinely interested.

  “Rat’s Tail, no! I can just barely understand how it works. The kind of mind that could set that up…” They shook their head so vigorously that their braid whipped from side to side. “That’s why I say genius. Most wonderworkers are creatures of instinct. They learn the boundaries of their power by running into them. This smith built her magic like the artificers in Anuket build clockwork automatons, and then used whatever natural talent she had to power it. It is extraordinary.” They gazed at Sarkis with something uncomfortably like awe. “Even killing your body only pauses the magic temporarily. In theory, at least, you are nearly immortal.”

  Sarkis sighed. “I am very tired of being immortal,” he confessed.

  Zale looked briefly surprised. “Are you?”

  “I would like to be allowed to die,” said Sarkis.

  Halla made a sound of protest and Sarkis reached out without thinking, taking her hand in his. “Not now. Not today. Someday, though, before I am nothing but silver scars, before I’ve forgotten what it was like to be human.”

  “Is it so awful?” asked Halla.