A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  “Why have we not heard about this?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Because he’s still seeking the fundamentals. If he’s right, this method is akin to intensifying the effect of light through refraction, the mirror behind the sconce. Can it be intensified enough to rip a hole in the between?”

  Rifts. Even the Host of Lords could not move until the powerful spell that Evend of Bereth Ferian had sacrificed his life in making could be broken, permitting rifts once again between Sartorias-deles and Norsunder-Beyond.

  She lifted her hand, and sighed. “You had better get to it, then, errand-boy. Your master is waiting.”

  He made the sign to transfer to Norsunder Base. As soon as the transfer magic dissipated he walked straight through a cleaning frame, and resisted the nearly overwhelming impulse to step through a second time, as if her touch, and that whiff of Efael, still lingered. But he knew it didn’t; a second step-through would do nothing but raise interest, if he was being watched.

  He intended to get a meal and listen to a status report at the same time, but the first two sentences spoken by the desk flunky in the command center caused him to abandon his meal untouched: in her last gesture of spite, Yeres had not kept him a few hours, she had kept him for nearly two years. In those two years, the Base had apparently disintegrated into quarreling factions, resulting in Henerek going off to invade Everon, Bostian busy planning to march on Sartor with all the warriors Henerek and Kessler didn’t want—all stupid, short-sighted campaigns that made a hash of this crucial stage of Detlev’s plans. And no sign of Detlev.

  Siamis went to fetch the world transfer token from Detlev’s warded room, where he stood, tossing the transfer token on his hand as he considered his next move.

  Yeres’s purpose had been to anger Detlev. And he would be angry. But she wanted the anger to fall squarely on Siamis.

  Power, he had long ago decided, was a fluid concept. In the Garden of the Twelve, it meant privacy. Yeres spied as she willed, and expended much effort in breaking into minds, yet she herself was used by Svirle or Ilerian, whose thoughts, and intentions, were shared with no one.

  If Yeres didn’t know what Detlev was doing on Geth, then that meant Efael didn’t know, either. Efael’s most recent surge of malice was probably the result of his being warded from Detlev’s project on Five, which meant that Yeres’s random pulse of concupiscence was the first move in their latest lethal game.

  Well, figuring out that game was for later. Right now? She had yanked Siamis’s strings, so he’d better be dancing.

  But before he could nerve himself for the bone-socket wrench of world transfer to Five, Detlev himself appeared in a whirl of singed metal smell.

  Of course he’d have a window; impossible to know who else did. Siamis sustained the mental contact as Detlev reviewed the memory of the conversation with Yeres. He was clearly irritated at finding Norsunder Base nearly empty, the captains scattered pursuing their own plots.

  Siamis was supposed to be holding the Base in readiness. Detlev said contemptuously, as avid eyes all around watched and eager ears listened, “You walked right into that, didn’t you?”

  Siamis retorted, “I was in Norsunder on your order.”

  “You may commence your dance.” Detlev flicked his fingers. “But leave Marloven Hess to me.”

  * * *

  Sixthmonth, 4742 AF

  Sartor

  What remained of the Sartoran Guard still patrolled the outskirts of the city, and the southern border, below which Norsunder Base existed in constant threat. Mendaen of the Rescuers, now captain of a small company, was riding the familiar road between the capital and the border when a cloud of dust ahead signified someone galloping belly to the ground.

  Mendaen urged his mount to the side, but placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. That hand fell away when he recognized one of his border scouts, a seventeen-year-old redhead, who pulled up, eyes round as robin’s eggs.

  “They’re coming!” the scout gasped.

  “Who—what, Norsunder?” Mendaen demanded.

  “Yes. Riders and marchers both, in column!”

  Mendaen muttered, “It has to be an advance force. Go—” No. He looked at the scout’s sweaty horse, then said, “Ride back and tell the patrol to go to ground. Don’t attack. Just watch. My horse is fresh—I’ll get word to Eidervaen.”

  The scout wheeled about to obey.

  Mendaen kneed his mount into a canter, then let her stretch her legs into a gallop as they rode hard for home. That was orders, any sighting was to be reported. He hated the thought of just standing by, but a hundred Royal Guards scattered from the border to the north of the city was not going to do much against an invading army except serve as target practice.

  He didn’t slow until he spotted Eidervaen’s towers on the horizon. By now he was dodging traffic on the royal road, forcing him to ride up embankments and splash across summer-shallow streams, as the Guard no longer carried pennants that gave them the right-of-way.

  Orders were specific: report first to the mages, not to the palace. That wouldn’t keep him from yelling the news as he passed down the great parade ground before the palace, if he spotted anyone he knew, who might be able to get to Atan first. But all he saw was poor little Julian, still looking no older than six and filthy and bedraggled as ever, crouched down as she fed bits of something to a flock of birds. Probably her lunch.

  Mendaen rode straight to the mage headquarters. He tossed the reins to a waiting apprentice, shouted, “Walk her,” past the boy’s inquiry after his business, and ran inside. “Where is the mage chief?”

  A very short time later, there was Chief Mage Veltos. At least she listened as Mendaen delivered his one-sentence report. Then she turned her head and began handing out orders to the blue-robed mage students crowding around, beginning with, “You. Report at once to the queen.”

  Once all of the mage students had been sent with orders, Veltos shifted her attention back to Mendaen. “Thank you for being timely. You may go.”

  Mendaen was now free to spread the news, as the mages, who had been practicing emergency procedures daily, went in ordered haste about their arrangements.

  Veltos stood in the headquarters and took a deep breath, mind racing with tasks to protect the city. Presently a young student pattered up in slippered feet, saying, “Chief Veltos! I was sent by Verias at the desk. The alarm protection on South Road, it—”

  “Thank you,” Veltos interrupted. “Return to your classroom.” So, the magic alarm laid over the road was not faster than a human, probably because the magic required proximity, and that Guard’s patrollers had seen the evidence of the approaching invaders some distance off. She must remember that.

  A short time later, she, Atan, and certain senior mages stood on the cliff where, during winter, they had first planned this elaborate illusion. At the first sight of the long column riding up the road, she suppressed the urge to hide behind a boulder. The mages had already cast illusions before themselves—if the enemy should look up their way, they would only see a blurred reflection of the sky overhead. As long as no one moved, there would be no reason to look hard.

  Atan stood by Veltos, her fingers gripped tightly as the black-clad enemies, each holding a spear, rode steadily toward the crucial point. None of them seemed to be looking at any of the illusory terrain.

  Closer . . . closer . . .

  Without any hesitation, they rode past the true turn in the road, and headed down the false curve. In complete silence, Atan and her mages watched until a forested hill intervened, hiding the enemy from view.

  Atan said to Veltos, “I’m going. I have to see.” And before the chief mage could voice the objection Atan saw in her face, she touched a transfer token she’d secreted in her pocket, whispered the transfer word, and felt herself jolted from the cliff to a hiding place she’d selected in spring without anyone kno
wing.

  Veltos, furious at the useless risk their young queen was taking, had long since arranged for another vantage from which she could observe the road. Separated in heart as well as by distance, she and Atan watched from behind the safety of trees as, two by two, the invaders rode straight into the sun-dappled shadows of Shendoral Wood.

  * * *

  Marloven Hess

  Senrid’s two visits to Chwahirsland had been a dramatic lesson in the difference between light and dark magic. Light magic was useless for military purposes, no matter how many spells you layered. It would run off harmlessly, like an overfilled bucket. Dark magic was not much better, unless you interlocked dangerously volatile spells that required a terrible cost. Chwahirsland was living proof of that.

  Senrid could consult Keriam on everything except magic. That, he alone was responsible for. So he’d decided not to rely solely on the illusions, which were too easy to get rid of once you knew they were there, but to create a spiderweb of tracers along the border. By the time any Norsundrian could dismantle his webwork of tracers, Senrid would know, and could get his secondary plan—equally laboriously put together with Keriam—into action.

  He was so certain the threat would come in the middle of the night that he’d taken to sleeping in his clothes, with his notecase next to his dagger under the pillow.

  But he was halfway through breakfast on a bright morning that promised a hot summer when the mental poke somewhere behind his eyeballs caused him to look around for a heartbeat. He dropped his bread onto his plate.

  “The tracers,” he said to the bread crumbs.

  He thrust his hand into his shirt pocket, where he had stashed his fast-escape ensorcelled shank button, then he whispered the transfer spell that would pull him to whatever, or whoever, had tripped the tracer.

  Shock washed through him with the impact of ice when he came out of the transfer reaction to find himself high on a cliff overlooking a winding river valley that he recognized instantly.

  Standing at the extreme edge, looking down, was Detlev.

  Senrid clutched his escape shank and said his transfer word. Horror suffused him when he found it blocked.

  Detlev said, “Sentiment?” One hand, an empty hand, gestured toward the scene below.

  “It is not!” Then the real meaning struck Senrid: Detlev knew very well that sentiment was no part of why Senrid had chosen this cliff to anchor his tracer web. He’d chosen it as a reminder of the humiliating defeat he had suffered while watching his own people being slaughtered by Norsunder.

  There’d be no Erdrael now.

  Detlev watched the slow river winding down the middle of the valley below, a random updraft stirring the light brown hair on his brow.

  Senrid stood poised to run, knowing he probably didn’t have a chance. He’d run anyway if he saw even a sliver of opportunity.

  Detlev said to the view, “Incompetent in two forms of magic, are you? Now that, I am afraid, can only be attributed to sentiment.”

  His left hand came into view, also empty, but Detlev didn’t need to carry weapons. One thing all the records agreed on, he could kill with a thought.

  Detlev glanced upward, then to either side, as if listening to something or someone Senrid could neither see nor hear. His impassive expression altered to faint disgust, as if he regarded shoddy workmanship, then he met Senrid’s gaze, the morning sun striking a cold pinpoint of light in the center of his hazel-framed pupils as he said, “It seems there is another demand for my attention. When I do find the time to undertake your education, you will not see me coming.”

  He vanished. Leaving Senrid to discover that the entire webwork of wards and tracers he and Hibern had labored over so painfully had been swept into nonexistence, like a stick through a spiderweb.

  Senrid gave himself a few moments to breathe as his heart thudded in his ears. He dared not transfer with his carefully prepared token, lest Detlev had altered it somehow. He flung it away with all his strength, then stood there with his breath shuddering, his knees watery, as the shank spun end over end until it vanished below.

  He braced—and spoke the old transfer spell.

  Magic flung him inside out, then restored him in his study. Alive. Unharmed. He forced watery limbs into motion, and presently dashed through Keriam’s office door, panting for breath.

  Keriam glanced at Senrid’s pale face, his pupils huge and black, and his pen dropped. He had never seen Senrid that afraid, even in the darkest days under the threat of his uncle.

  “Detlev.” Senrid whispered the name, as if the man could hear across time and space. “He was there. My protections . . .” He snapped his hand flat, as though smashing something away. “Give the signal,” he croaked. “It’s begun.”

  Keriam strode to the door, beckoned to the runner waiting outside, and said, “Sound the retreat.”

  Senrid heard the rap of departing footsteps, and within a very short time the tower overhead rang tang-tang, tang-tang, the signal for which everyone had been practicing all summer.

  Senrid ran to Keriam’s tower window, which looked out over the academy. For a heartbeat or two, nothing could be seen. Then as the garrison bell picked up the rhythm, tang-tang, and then the south tower, followed by the city bell, Senrid saw orderly lines of boys running low to the ground below a wall. One by one the boys vaulted the wall into the corral, then completely vanished from sight.

  Elsewhere, a couple of blond heads bobbed, then vanished abruptly, as if yanked. Senrid imagined lines of boys running low along the fences and vanishing into the practice grounds beyond the stables, and from there following the lines of creeks into wilder country, where he knew that the senior boys in charge of each group had stashed supplies.

  All over the castle, the garrison guards had gone into alert mode. Runners would be departing through the gates to warn the army garrisons to vanish. Everything happening just as he’d planned.

  It was a relief to see those empty stone corridors, but fear still churned inside him, twisted into worry—what if he was wrong, and Detlev wasn’t launching an army over the border? There had been that moment of distraction before he uttered that last threat.

  Senrid scowled down at the empty academy. Why else would Detlev come to Marloven Hess? Unless the target was not the kingdom, but Senrid himself. You will not see me coming.

  “Senrid,” Keriam said, more loudly.

  Senrid realized the commander had said his name a couple of times. He looked up, as Keriam said gently, “They’re gone. Now it’s your turn.”

  * * *

  At the same time

  Sarendan

  The galloper dashed into Peitar Selenna’s private family chamber in his palace in Miraleste. The teenage scout, mud-splashed to the waist, nose and ears raw with cold, had ridden through a wild hailstorm to bring the news.

  “They’re coming,” he declared, eyes wide with excitement. Then bowed belatedly, falling against a curve-legged table in his weariness.

  Peitar’s heart constricted, more at the excitement in the boy’s face than at news too long dreaded to be a surprise.

  Derek got to his feet. “I’d better join my defenders.”

  “Wait. Wait,” Lilah exclaimed.

  “I don’t think you ought to ride at night. Especially in this weather.” Peitar indicated the rain beating against the windowpanes, as he signed to a waiting servant to take the shivering galloper somewhere and get something hot into him.

  “Storm’s nearly blown.” Derek flashed his careless grin. He was excited, too. “You know I’m used to riding in bad weather.” He turned to Lilah. “Norsunder won’t wait.”

  Lilah swallowed, then said stubbornly, “I have to pack.”

  “Pack?” Peitar and Derek said together.

  She forced a nod. “I promised the orphan brigade. I would fight with them.”

  “M
ost of the younger orphans are staying right here in the city,” Derek said, with a glance at Peitar’s distraught expression.

  Derek felt the same way about sending children into battle. He eyed Lilah, a sturdy figure for a child, but in no way ready for what lay ahead. “You haven’t been drilling but during summer,” he began.

  It was the wrong tack. “Same with many prentices,” she retorted, bravely meeting that assessing gaze. At least Derek wasn’t angry. She had seen him angry, the day he started the revolution, and she dreaded his anger. “They had to divide between work and drill. I promised.” Her voice rose anxiously as she turned in desperation from one to the other, afraid of a worse thing than bad language and glares: that they were going to laugh at her. Dismiss her promises with a sickening, But you’re just too young. “I promised.”

  Derek heard Peitar stirring, but half-raised a hand. “All right, then. If you can beat me in a sword fight, you can go with me.”

  “Beat you?”

  “If you can beat me, then you can beat a Norsundrian,” Derek said reasonably. “But if you can’t, then all you’ll do is serve as target practice, which will make everybody who didn’t defend you feel terrible. Want that?”

  “No,” she said grittily. “All right. Let’s go. Right now.”

  They trooped off to the salle, where Derek chose one of the side rooms, away from the city guard’s own drill space. Lilah looked doubtfully at the weapons—real ones, not wood—and said, “How many tries do I get?”

  “As many as you like,” Derek said.

  She picked up a sword, braced, and held it up. And attacked.

  He struck the blade out of her hand.

  She ran to get it, saying over her shoulder, “I wasn’t ready.”

  “That’s all right,” Derek said. “Go ahead, strike when you are.”