A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  Senrid hesitated, aware that he had the wherewithal to help Derek do both. He wanted to help Derek, who was the kind of person he admired most—fearless, loyal without being sickening about it, always looking to improve, because it was the only way to fight Norsunder.

  “Wouldn’t Tsauderei be the one to talk to about that?” Senrid asked, hedging.

  “Did.” Derek shrugged, then stretched his arms over his head and swooped downward, his long, tangled brown hair flagging in the wind. “He’s a mage,” Derek said over his shoulder as Senrid dove after him. “They jaw on about how they study for years, but all they seem to talk about is caution, watchfulness, and doing nothing.”

  Senrid wished that Detlev would do nothing, remembering that You will not see me coming. Disgust made him fly faster. He hated whining, including in his own thoughts. “Tsauderei has tough wards,” he shouted against the wind. “Nobody is going to get in or out without him knowing, unless he’s away.”

  “He goes out a couple times a week,” Derek said, swooping close enough for Senrid to see the honest frustration narrowing his brown eyes. “All I need to do is get to Miraleste, grab the youngsters most important to Peitar, and bring them back. I even have a casket of transfer tokens to get them back here. One for each.”

  Senrid struggled, reminded himself that he had made a promise, and said, “I’ll talk to Hibern and Leander.”

  Derek heard that as agreement.

  Senrid saw his chance when everyone broke for lunch before the big tag game the Mearsieans had organized for the afternoon. The study group—Atan, Hibern, Jilo, Leander, Senrid, and sometimes Clair—were picnicking on the roof of Selenna House, because eating on a rooftop was more fun than eating in Atan’s gloomy cottage, especially in the bright sunshine and cool breeze, with interesting cloud towers piling up in the west.

  Senrid gathered Hibern and Leander with a glance, and flew down to the boys’ room in Selenna house. They streamed through the open window. Leander dropped onto his bed, Hibern sat on the edge of Jilo’s, and Senrid shot into the hammock as he explained his conversation with Derek.

  At the end, Leander said, “I don’t get what you’re asking.”

  “It’s simple enough. Derek wants to transfer down into Sarendan to break the enchantment over some kids he’s sort of guardian for. It would be so easy to help him. Transfer tokens, to and from, he knows the specific locations so we can use that as Destination, in and out.”

  “How many?” Leander asked doubtfully.

  Hibern shook her head. “Didn’t we agree—”

  “Less than a dozen.” A shadow appeared at the window a moment before Derek did.

  The three started, Senrid annoyed at his own lack of awareness. But if anyone had the right to nose into this conversation, Derek did.

  Then Derek said, “I knew it. I knew you had the means to break that damned enchantment. This is why I hate mages, doing absolutely nothing for selfish reasons.”

  Hibern said, “It’s not selfish to wait to see if Norsunder retaliates against entire kingdoms after the enchantment is lifted. The antidote is new, so new we don’t know if there is other magic we have to watch for.”

  “I’m not suggesting you mess with entire kingdoms,” Derek shot back. “I’m talking about fewer than a dozen boys and girls. None of whom Norsunder has ever heard of.”

  Senrid looked at Leander, who was smart, dedicated, but a lighter through and through. Leander was clearly hesitating.

  Hibern said slowly, “I’d like to rescue a dozen people of any age. But . . .”

  “There’s no but about it,” Derek said. “I can’t believe Norsunder mages would put a lot of extra spells on the children of boot-makers and fisherfolk.” He added quickly, “I understand old—that is, Tsauderei has a lot of other concerns. He’s worried about kings and kingdoms. Rightly so. I’m just talking about a dozen youngsters I was responsible for—and who were lost when I came up here and fell asleep. Sometimes I want to cut my own throat because of my stupidity,” he added ferociously.

  Senrid certainly understood that, and the other two saw in Derek’s face that if he wasn’t going to act on his own yet, he was close to it.

  Hibern sighed. “Give me one day. Will you? I want to talk out magical problems that I might not see.”

  “Not Tsauderei,” Derek said. “You know he’ll nail you down for your own good.”

  “I was thinking of someone else,” Hibern said, and because Derek was still there, blocking the window, she slid off the bed and opened the door.

  She left Selenna House, shot into the air, and bypassed a swarm gathering for the tag game to head for Atan’s cottage. She found Atan there alone, not interested in tag. Atan had three books spread before her, but she set the one she was reading aside when Hibern entered.

  Hibern sat down and, having ordered her thoughts during her flight, began to explain.

  Hibern’s nightmares usually fell into two categories. There were the nightmares about her home, and then there were the ones where she would be stuck in mud, or weighed down some way, and somehow the more she labored, the less success she had. The harder she strove to explain, the more angry Atan looked, until Hibern—aware that she had repeated herself at least twice—said helplessly, “I guess I’m not explaining well.”

  Atan had been struggling to keep her temper in check. But at this invitation, she burst out, “Oh, you’ve explained quite well! You know, all of you know, how to lift that enchantment, and you kept silent?”

  Hibern stared in shock. “But we promised.”

  “Didn’t you think I could keep a promise?” Atan shot back.

  “Of course,” Hibern said. “That was never a question. But I don’t think anyone believed it would help you to know you had the antidote, but couldn’t use it. Sartor would be the first place Norsunder would lay lethal spells, surely you see that? I think everyone assumed it would be better if you didn’t know, until it could actually be used.”

  “How is that better?” Atan cried.

  Hibern was so shocked she stared back, hot tears blurring her eyes. She dashed them impatiently away with her sleeve, her throat tight. As she groped for words, Erai-Yanya’s calm, practical voice whispered in memory, and she said slowly, “Maybe it’s a fault in those of us who become mages. Erai-Yanya says we tend toward a type, the sort of person who prefers book things. Certainly every senior mage I know is single, if not an outright hermit. In fact, Erai-Yanya told me once that your Sartoran school had a reputation for selecting out mage students who showed an interest in political questions and moving them over to the scribes before they started using their magic to meddle in questions of state. You’re thinking in terms of state, now.”

  “And you will no doubt tell me why that’s bad?” Atan asked, eyes narrowing.

  “It’s not bad, it’s . . . well, how much do you think your royal council would welcome a mage who was really interested in how kings get and keep their power?” Hibern asked.

  It was a wild guess, barely connected, but she saw in how Atan’s eyes widened that her stray thought had a powerful effect. “I think that’s a fear every government has about mages,” Atan said, in a subdued voice.

  “So you can see that there are different ways of seeing the world, and trying to serve the world. Right now Erai-Yanya—well, no, she’s at Geth-deles, but these others, they’re seeing the possible magical threats. They can’t think about political things. The Siamis enchantment is cruel, but it’s not life-threatening, and no one is actually in pain, at least that’s what Clair said.”

  “She knows?” Atan asked.

  “Yes—she was the second one we freed, the first being Oalthoreh, who we knew would willingly sacrifice her life in case there were hidden lethal spells.”

  Atan’s mouth thinned. “So the Mearsieans know about this spell, too?”

  “Yes, but Murial mad
e them promise not to speak of it, the same promise I had to make. And Leander, who I taught it to, in case something happened to me.”

  Atan’s expression didn’t ease, which worried Hibern a little. Atan was thinking that those irritating Mearsieans, out there laughing and playing tag, didn’t think about the rest of the world, so long as they were all right.

  But she didn’t say it. There was no use in speaking resentful thoughts, as satisfying as it might feel. “All right, I get it. So Senrid wants to help Derek rescue a dozen children from the enchantment, to make things easier on Peitar. I think I can see it. I absolutely believe that Peitar would be grieved at any of his young friends being imprisoned by that magic a heartbeat longer than necessary. When is this going to happen?”

  “Right away.”

  Atan said, “Why don’t you bring the two boys. I want to hear what they have to say.”

  Relieved to escape, Hibern went to fetch Senrid and Leander, who were hovering on the edge of the tag game.

  She passed Jilo, who was making his way to Atan’s cottage in search of a book that Arthur had loaned him, that he’d left somewhere. As he went through the stacks, Atan slipped out and awaited the others in midair above her cottage, thinking how wonderful it was to be able to hold conferences in places where one could see in all directions, even beneath.

  When Hibern returned with the two boys, Atan raked them all with those gooseberry Landis eyes and said abruptly, “Derek ought to have brought this up to Tsauderei, who is the person most concerned. In fact, I suspect he has, and was turned down.”

  Hibern said in surprise, “You think so? But why would Derek then turn to Senrid? Derek hates kings.”

  “For a while there I thought Derek was a king,” Senrid said flippantly.

  He expected them to laugh at him, but instead Atan’s expression shuttered, and Hibern pursed her lips. He gave a mental shrug and went on. “Derek doesn’t know who I am, only where I come from. He wants to keep his promise to his king friend, and grab those orphans of his. I don’t see anything wrong with that, if we do it the same way we rescued Clair, checking for magical traps first.”

  Hibern took her bottom lip between her teeth, needing time to work out in her own mind whether or not teaching Senrid the antidote spell and standing by while he transferred with Derek into Sarendan would be considered a trespass against Erai-Yanya’s and Murial’s implied trust. Because on the positive side, it seemed a right action for the alliance.

  She could see impatience in Senrid’s face. He flung his hands wide. “It’s not like it’ll be a secret, now that Derek knows about it! We’ll go, find the brats, and get out.”

  His expression changed as Leander, who faced the direction of Tsauderei’s cottage on the other side of the Valley, pointed. “Is that . . .”

  Two small figures emerged from Tsauderei’s. As the group watched, the figures bobbed up and down, testing the flying spell. Then the taller one launched wildly into the air, arms and legs gyrating as he tried to figure out balance. The smaller figure was slower, limbs stiff.

  From above the lake the tag game ended in a flock of girls zooming toward the newcomers, who resolved into Arthur, tousled and ink-splotched, and Liere, skinny as ever, her hair hacked off so unevenly above her ears that she was nearly bald on one side. Atan and her companions shot across the airy expanse to join them.

  Senrid grimaced when he saw Liere. “Somebody’s been calling her Sartora,” he said under his breath.

  A group of the orphan brigade followed. They’d been with the Mearsieans, trying to learn the rules of the complicated tag game the girls had invented. One urchin said in disbelief, “That’s Sartora? Really? Somebody must have tortured her!”

  CJ’s fluting voice carried over all, calling happily, “Hi, Sartora! Does this mean we can go home now?”

  Uh-oh. CJ had managed to say the worst thing possible, though it was clear that nobody knew that but Senrid.

  Liere’s first reaction to the warm, beautiful Valley and the prospect of flying had been thrill. But CJ’s question struck hard, with all its expectation that Sartora had of course Saved The World once again.

  “No,” Liere said, hating her weakness.

  CJ halted in the air, black hair flagging in the wind, her wide eyes as blue as the sky overhead. “Didn’t you get rid of Siamis? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

  “I’ve been hiding,” Liere said, as all the kids pressed around her.

  Senrid tried twice to get past them, then gave up as whispers and explanations rang outward.

  CJ goggled, her amazement plain to those watching. Her sharp sense of disappointment, no, of betrayal, smote Liere mercilessly on the mental plane.

  “Hiding? But . . . why? You saved the world before! Everyone’s talking about Bereth Ferian, and Sartora, and—” CJ heard her own voice rising, and halted. Liere had once been a hero, the first world-renowned girl hero, but now she wasn’t. It seemed disloyal to crab about it, but why hide when you’ve got all those mysterious mind powers?

  Liere was going to explain about how she couldn’t break the enchantment without the dyr, and she certainly couldn’t flash from kingdom to kingdom without that strange being made of light, whom she had no idea how to summon, but at the looks on all those faces, her throat closed and she couldn’t get past, “The mages thought I should hide . . .” She hated her bleating voice, and she stopped.

  Aware of everyone staring, CJ forced herself to speak cheerfully. “We’re going to play a big game of spy-versus-spy. Remember, we played it in Bereth Ferian, only this is going to be even better, because we’re in the air!”

  As if that served as a signal, everyone began clamoring around Liere, begging her to be on their side. Liere dreaded the inevitable discovery that she was terrible at games, and turned to find Senrid in the crowd, in time to catch sight of him and Leander flying off, talking earnestly.

  Liere turned away, sick at heart at the intensity of CJ’s sense of betrayal, which the girl had no notion Liere sensed. Liere loathed herself for a coward and a weakling, and she deserved all the disappointment and contempt she was going to get.

  “Very well,” she said, reaching out to the nearest hand. “Tell me the rules.”

  * * *

  At last Senrid had a project, and it had nothing to do with Erdrael or ghosts. His restlessness eased as he threw himself into the tedium of creating transfer tokens, once they elicited exact descriptions from Derek for the location of the first rescue.

  Leander had decided to go along with it because he knew Senrid, and suspected that if Senrid didn’t have this rescue to work on, he might hare off and do something reckless and dangerous, if only to himself.

  So they worked hard through the night, making transfer tokens for four. Leander was going along with Derek and Senrid to demonstrate the antidote spell one more time. They left Jilo sitting alone in their room with the door blocked and the window shut and curtains closed, watching his book. It was Senrid’s idea to lay tracer spells on the brass rings they were using as transfer tokens: if Jilo’s book said that Siamis or Detlev had transferred into Sarendan, he’d use his ring to send a burst of illusory color to the rings worn by Leander and Senrid. They would all three transfer instantly out.

  Their target lived in a village called Riverside, in the principality of Selenna. Derek had described a wooden bridge to use as a Destination, a bridge he knew well, as it had been a meeting place during the bad days before the revolution. They transferred, all three gasping as lowland summer’s intensity enveloped them. Heat shimmered off the newly paved stones of the road on either side of the bridge, and broke sunlight into brilliant shards in the river running below the bridge.

  “This way,” Derek said, looking at the ground. He’d borrowed a battered hat from someone in the Valley, which he’d pulled low over his forehead. He wore a plain-spun thigh-length tunic-shirt, sas
hed with rope, and his usual saddle-worn riding trousers. Being a brown-haired, sun-browned young man, he looked anonymous enough with his face hidden.

  Leander and Senrid took the lead as they tramped down the bridge into a village that seemed to be undergoing vast renovation. Cottages made of stone had been, or were being, freshly thatched, some subsequent to additions. Vegetable plots were framed by flower borders, and everywhere wild olive trees grew.

  As in Mearsies Heili, people drifted through their days in eerie silence. The boys overheard no conversation, saw no innovation and no tempers good or bad.

  All eyes would watch for whatever Siamis had commanded them, through the enchantment, to watch for.

  Derek shuffled along behind the two boys as they crossed the square and then proceeded down a narrow lane bordered with berry shrubs.

  “On the right,” Derek whispered.

  They stopped at a house indistinguishable from the others. The kitchen door stood open. Inside, a woman kneaded bread with slow, absent movements. Leander and Senrid moved past her, blocking Derek from her view. Senrid held his breath as her absent gaze passed indifferently over him.

  This enchantment might not look cruel, but he found it obscene, how effectively it wiped out all traces of individual thought and will.

  The little hall opened into three small rooms, one of which contained a gangling boy with a rust-colored thatch of short hair. Derek’s sudden smile made it clear they’d found Bren. Drawings and paintings covered all the walls, mostly village scenes of people working, dancing, eating. Celebrating. Bren sat on the bed, his hands loose. Drawing on paper, it seemed, did not come under the mandate of the enchantment, though it hurt Derek not to see Bren with chalk in hand, sketching his commentary on life at wall, eave, fence, door.

  Leander had to look away from the drawings. The contrast between the papers full of joy, anger, interest, laughter, passion and this blank-faced boy clawed at his heart.

  He glanced at Senrid, who leaned his shoulders against the door, blocking it. Derek took up a stance at the window to watch for danger from that angle. He kept his face averted; he couldn’t bear to see Bren’s slack expression stripped of all personality. It was too much like he was dead.