CJ’s shoulders hunched under her ears. “What are the grownups doing?”
“What they usually do, Hibern said, and I also heard from the new addition to the alliance, Lilah of Sarendan. Plan defenses and drill armies and talk a lot.”
“What are we going to do? We can’t fight those spittoon-brains.”
“No. At least Aunt Murial finished renewing the border protections, and this time she taught me as she went along. I know them, now. I have them all written down, and we’ll at least have warning if anybody from Norsunder tries to invade. We might have time to get the word out to people to hide.”
CJ didn’t trust adults or their protections. If protections really worked, none of the villains would be able to attack, right? Wasn’t that what ‘protection’ meant? “Did you hear from Atan about what Sartor’s doing?”
“No.”
“I knew it. She’s too high and mighty for us—”
“CJ.”
CJ sighed explosively. “Then why haven’t we ever heard from her? Everybody else has written at least one letter to us all, to test the alliance net. Except Senrid, but I don’t count him.”
“Because she’s terribly busy learning to be queen of the oldest country in the world? Because her high council won’t let her? Because there’s another alliance with Sartor as its center, like it’s been in history for centuries? I don’t know.”
“Clair, Atan came and looked us over. She did. And didn’t invite us back for a visit. I can see her not inviting me, because she might think I’m not a real princess. But she could have at least invited you.”
Clair shrugged. “I don’t care. I don’t want to go to Sartor, particularly. More important is our alliance. If Atan is really a part of it, that’s good for everybody, because Sartor always led the fight against Norsunder in history. But I think we need to work on spreading the alliance. Getting more people.”
“Yes.” CJ rubbed her hands, then stuck them in her armpits. “And that means finding more kids like us. But how?” She stared at the glimmering white forest far below, then glanced at her blotchy hands in vague surprise. “Hey, I’m cold!” Inside, she said, “Won’t Puddlenose be showing up for New Year’s Week? Maybe we can ask him if he’s got any suggestions for new people, since he travels so much.”
“Good idea.”
* * *
Unaware of any events outside his dire quest, Jilo worked, and time slid past, unnoticed. He worked until colors leached out of the world, leaving it subtle shades of shadow-gray, and voices began to distort until he discovered he couldn’t understand anything any guard said. Their voices buzzed like the drone of bees.
But he stayed until he had to write out every syllable, and then read out the spell with his finger on each letter, because he scarcely recognized the sense of the words.
It took the remainder of his dwindling strength to complete the last spell.
But complete it he did.
So when he collapsed, he woke where he had fallen, his head pounding, his mouth dry, but he was alive.
He woke up undisturbed because every guard, cook, and servant also woke up lying on the floor, blood crusted around their noses. They crawled off to recover, and then to assume duty as if nothing had happened. Nobody wanted to risk a flogging, or worse, if they complained.
Jilo staggered up to the desk, aware of the heaviness of the atmosphere. It scarcely felt different. But he’d made a start on breaking the life-draining magic.
* * *
At Norsunder Base, Dejain made her way to the Bereth Ferian window, as she had begun doing each day.
She thought it duty to visit when she was most likely to catch the Bereth Ferian mages in the process of searching for the magic that had permitted Siamis egress. The reward had been learning a great deal about their process.
Henerek and a couple of the other captains were there a lot, hugely entertained by the lighters’ panic, the squawking, the horrified speculation after their discovery that the sword was missing.
In the days since Siamis had returned from Bereth Ferian, Dejain had noticed some patterns developing among those who habitually watched the lighters in their failed attempts to find the magic that had been slipped into their citadel—such as the spy window they visited each day.
The first thing she noticed was that Siamis was there less and less frequently, and he stayed a shorter time each visit. Second, Detlev never arrived at all.
Third, Kessler had stopped going.
Dejain peeked into the room and glanced at the magical window bespelled against the opposite wall. She recognized three of Oalthoreh’s senior mages busy working methodically through magic books, page by page. Their talk centered mostly around some celebration being planned.
Dejain turned her attention to the watchers. Henerek was there, and several of the minor mages.
Dejain left, and went about her business.
One of the most disconcerting things about Kessler was that he didn’t have easy patterns. But he did have to move about on his duties, and she knew the few places they would not be overheard either by physical or magical means.
She caught him later that day, as he was leaving the stable.
He paused, silent and still, a study in contrasts: black hair, pale face, flat blue stare; ignoring the general-issue uniform for a plain white shirt and black riding pants tucked into his riding boots. He wasn’t all that much taller than she was, slim, and young, but her heart always beat harder when she was around him in a way that had nothing to do with attraction. It was fear. They had once worked together, then, convinced by a third mage that Kessler had betrayed her, she’d helped destroy his plans for ridding the world of kings born to privilege. He knew it, and knew why.
The thing she never mentioned, hoping he did not know, was that the blood-spell on the knife that had cut him, binding him to Norsunder, had been cast by her.
He made a movement to pass by.
She had to get his attention at once, or never. So she revealed the secret she’d been sitting on: “I know you’re studying magic. You’ve been stealing my books, then putting them back. But I have tracers on them.”
“What do you want?” he said, his angry light blue gaze direct.
She sure had his attention now.
Extortion would never work on him. “I thought you’d want to learn the ways of the enemy. But you don’t watch at the Bereth Ferian window anymore.”
His mouth tightened. “It’s there to keep us busy.”
“How do you come to that conclusion? It took months to build the location spell for it. And nearly that long to successfully place it.”
“Yes, but who did the work? Not Siamis. He retrieved the sword, then afterward used the window exactly as long as it took to get Henerek and those other fools listening every day.”
“We learn a lot.”
The corner of Kessler’s mouth curled. “You learn what Oalthoreh wants you to hear.”
“So you think they know about the location spell.”
“I think they did from the start.”
Dejain had suspected that as well. So the question then was, “If you’re right, why did Siamis bother at all?”
“To deflect us from what he’s really doing,” Kessler said, and made to push by.
“Which is what? I overheard him and Detlev talking. They’re searching for something. All they said was ‘it.’ Do you think that refers to that dyr they looked so hard for when Siamis ran his enchantment?”
Kessler said impatiently, “They have to be looking for ways to create rifts. There is no way to bring over the armies stashed in Norsunder-Beyond until they can regain group access.”
Dejain nodded slowly. In the meantime, the lighter mages kept finding ways to foul what were, for convenience, referred to as ‘transfer tunnels,’ though time and space were not so easily holed.
People transferring even in small groups of ones or twos had been burning into nothingness if they followed one another too quickly. No one knew why only the ancient Destinations were the most stable, but even those couldn’t be overused.
Kessler started away, saying over his shoulder, “And Siamis, maybe Detlev, too, they’re not looking on this world.”
She extended a hand to halt him, but didn’t touch him. He had a nasty way of reacting with extreme prejudice if one crossed that invisible boundary. “Is that what the Geth project is? Looking for rift magic?”
Another expression of derision. “What else could it be?” He shoved past, turned, and said, “You should be watching closer to home. Henerek has been stalking your mages.”
“They’re not my mages,” she said.
He lifted a shoulder, and was gone in a few quick steps.
* * *
Spring, 4741 AF (autumn in northern hemisphere)
Marloven Hess
The first warm night of spring, Senrid left all his windows open when he went to sleep.
He fell into a dream.
Through the door in the dream room he was working in walked a familiar figure, light from somewhere catching in his blond hair, outlining a shoulder, an arm, an empty right hand. The man halted before Senrid’s desk in the dream room. He waved a negligent hand, and the jumbled elements of the dream whipped away quick as the wind.
“Senrid.” Siamis’s voice chided gently. “Are you really that unaware?”
Senrid bolted upright in bed, his heart drumming at a gallop. He flung aside the coverlet, wrestled into some clothes, took up his fighting dagger, then lit the entire upstairs and searched room by room.
By the time he’d done that, and had had time to slow his heartbeat, he remembered his wards and tracers. He returned to his study to check . . .
And found them broken.
So he widened the search. Morning light filled the windows, and the rooms, unnoticed; he missed his drill time on this determined hunt through every room in his castle, though he didn’t know what he would do if he found Siamis waiting, sword in hand.
Finally he crossed to the garrison side, and climbed up to Keriam’s office.
The grizzled commander sent away a runner and a couple of academy boys, still self-conscious in their new-made military tunic jackets and real blackweave belts. The boys saluted Senrid and clattered down the stone steps.
Keriam looked up from the neatly aligned stacks of papers on his desk, and said, “I was going to send a runner to you. Did you leave this for me?” He moved a stack of papers, revealing a golden coin.
Round, with the hawk’s eye hammered into it.
Senrid’s breath hissed in. “Where did you find that?”
“Oddest thing, it was on the floor.”
“Where exactly?”
Keriam pointed to a spot between his desk and the rows of empty benches upon which during evening lessons sat the specially selected candidates for command class.
“Shit!” Senrid yelped, then smacked his hands over his eyes. He called up a string of complicated tracer spells, and sensed the magic flashing through the surroundings. In his mind’s eye, the magic was like liquid lightning, splashing ineffectively from floor, ceiling, window frame, and walls, before vanishing.
Someone had tried to plant some kind of spell, but had been foiled by four-century-old magic. Senrid drew a deep breath, and let it out, glad of the mysterious Colendi mage only known as Emras, who had laid down the protections over the city and castle. History named her evil, but she had protected Marloven Hess.
Whoever in Norsunder had tried to break her wards had not succeeded.
When he opened his eyes, Keriam said, “What’s the significance of this coin? It looks a little like one of ours.”
“It’s ancient Venn, I’m almost certain,” Senrid said. “There was another like it left up north, after Emeth disappeared—”
“Emeth?” Keriam asked.
“Not a person. Name of Siamis’s sword. Translates to ‘truth.’”
“Odd name for a sword,” Keriam said.
Senrid scarcely heard. Memory flung him back to the conversation he and Liere had had about that, when he first went to Bereth Ferian to visit her. He also remembered her conviction that there was some symbolic meaning behind the sword being there. Senrid hated symbolic meanings. Lighter hyperbole about golden ages and peace forever signifying their own moral superiority were sickening enough, but he’d take a year of that, non-stop, rather than symbolic gestures from the likes of Siamis.
While Senrid stood there with distant gaze and his mouth a tight white line, Keriam thought of the history of the room he stood in, once known as the harskialdna tower, used by the brothers of kings, by army commanders, and during a brief period by mages. For the past few years it had served as the academy office, as it looked right out over the academy.
Keriam studied Senrid’s grim expression. “Is this coin a threat from Siamis?”
Senrid walked around the perimeter of the room. “Let’s call it a threat,” Senrid said, jerking his chin up. “Siamis, or someone, is either throwing down a war banner, or, more like, giving us the back of the hand. The next one will probably be found on my throne.” He remembered the dream invasion. “Or maybe on my pillow.”
Keriam swore under his breath. Then he said, “Right. So we’ll take it as a warning.” And though he hated magic with a passion motivated by fear, because it was nothing he could fight, he was no coward. “Let’s see what we can come up with to be as disobliging as possible.”
Senrid agreed, and walked out, resolving to be more disciplined about his mental shield all the time, not just when Liere was there—
Oh, shit. He stopped short. Two coins, one here, one in Bereth Ferian. The sword might have been a warning, or even bait. But two coins, one where Liere would see it, and one here—Senrid was absolutely certain that Dena Yeresbeth lay behind all this mystery, which made Liere and him specific targets.
That didn’t mean there weren’t other targets, too. He spent the rest of the day making a transfer token, then protecting it with several different personal wards. The next day, he chose his moment, when the lower school was playing a war game. This was the best time to catch one of the radlavs—the boy group captains—without witnesses.
Senrid rode along the academy practice fields until he found Shevraeth, the foreigner. He stood alone on a small tree-lined ridge, watching the little boys under his charge playing capture-the-flags on the grassy meadow below. He looked bored. Why should that bother Senrid?
Because he looked like a bored courtier, Senrid thought as he looped the horse’s rein over a branch so the animal could crop the spring grass. Senrid despised courtiers for their arrogance, their assumption of superiority in taste, brains, blood, whatever others held dear.
But he knew that Shevraeth had endured a tough year in the academy; in his first weeks, he’d had the snot beaten out of him. But he’d survived, and had not only found his place, but was doing well.
And Senrid was responsible for him.
So Senrid ran up to join him, and handed off the transfer token, which he’d attached to a gold chain from his mother’s collection of fine jewelry. Satire? Intent to impress? Shevraeth took it with scarcely a glance as Senrid explained it, then added, “There’s evidence that Siamis might return.”
He meant to leave, but Shevraeth said, “And you expect to be his initial target?”
“It’s not Siamis that worries me. At least, he’s a big threat, bigger than I can handle. But there’s a worse one.”
“There is?” Shevraeth’s head canted as he ran the golden chain through his fingers.
Senrid wondered how much the Remalnan boy knew, Remalna being about the size of an inkblot on the continental map. But small did not always mean backward. “Siamis was betrayed to
Norsunder when he was a few years younger than us. Some records say it was by Norsundrians. Others—the ones I believe—say he was betrayed by his uncle, Detlev Reverael ne-Hindraeldrei. They called him a dyranarya.”
Senrid stopped, struggling for words to define something he didn’t understand himself.
“What is that?” Shevraeth looked puzzled.
“No one’s sure. Except that they controlled people by thought, using these magical objects called dyra. Since Detlev was a dyranarya, it has to be something extra evil even by Norsunder standards.”
Senrid suppressed the urge to go into detail about the mysterious Ancient Sartoran artifacts, and how Liere was able to handle a dyr because of her Dena Yeresbeth, and use it to destroy the Siamis enchantment. Either he took the time to explain all these terms—which he didn’t even begin to understand himself—or he got to the point. “Here’s what matters. Siamis and his uncle might come back. I tangled with Detlev once, and he promised me we would meet again. From all I can gather he keeps his word—when it suits his purpose.”
Below, the small boys screeched and jumped and shouted, as the last struggle for the flags commenced. Around them the shadows had lengthened, leafing tree branches segmenting the field, light and shadow.
Shevraeth gazed between the screening trees at the little boys shrieking below as they pelted across the field with the enemy flag. His fingers opened, disclosing the medallion on his palm. “I take it I am to wear this?”
“Day and night.”
“It seems unfair that the only living Ancient Sartorans would be those one would exert oneself never to meet.” Shevraeth put the chain around his head and slipped the medallion inside his tunic. One responsibility covered.
“Oh, there’s also Lilith the Guardian, but she’s as dangerous, in her own way.”
Shevraeth’s brows lifted. There was the courtier again. “She’s real? I mean, not in the historic sense, but lives?”
The courtier was habit, Senrid reminded himself. Not intent. “She, too, has recourse to someplace outside of time. Because she does live. I’ve seen her.”
A Sword Named Truth Page 40
