A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  The air was also bluish, colors subtly different than what he was used to. The pier joined a sandstone quay surrounded by low houses made of some kind of polished material that resembled wood, except the ruddy brown color was unlike any wood he’d ever seen, more like melted chocolate with streaks of berry juice stirred in.

  Lusty male singing soared over the everyday noises of chatter, hammers, and footsteps on the wooden pier. The singing poured through the open doors of a tavern next to the pier. So much for this being a children’s world, Senrid thought, as he took in flirting couples, and big dock workers hauling goods back and forth along the pier.

  Though youth there was aplenty, he was glad to see, because that meant he didn’t stand out. Much. The boys all seemed to be wearing colorful nightdresses. No, they wore light robes, some over the sort of loose trousers he’d seen in pictures of his ancestors, only those had been gathered at the ankle and stuffed into boot tops. Some were bare-legged somewhat like that morvende boy Senrid had seen at Atan’s, but the weave and colors were different: the garments had loose sleeves, and were tied with sashes or scarves, and people wore headbands of bright colors. At least nobody seemed interested in him, but he yanked his shirt from his waistband and let it hang over the belt on his riding trousers.

  The Universal Language Spell worked better than he’d hoped. Someone had clearly been adapting it. The language itself was pleasant to the ear, with trills and bits that sounded like coughs at the back of the throat. Like the ‘ch’ in Chwahir. And it was all the same language, not the cacophony of tongues he’d heard in Jaro Harbor during the first Siamis attack.

  He saw a row of boys sitting on a rail eating grilled fish on a stick. It smelled of pungent spices; he walked up to the boy on the end. “Have you seen a girl wearing clothes kind of like mine, but gray on top and green trousers? Bare feet, short hair?”

  The boy waved a hand in a circle, which Senrid took to mean ‘no.’

  “I mean, in the last day.”

  Another negative.

  “Where is the magic city, Issal, Isool . . . ?” he asked, to test the Language Spell as well as to orient himself.

  The boy turned his head, his dark brows rising as he looked Senrid up and down. “You are a curious one! From a far island, is it? If you mean Isul Demarzal, you’ll be going north.” He waved his hand at the sea.

  “Where’s your boat?” someone on the end asked.

  Senrid waved vaguely in the direction of the water, and went on to ask people who seemed to live or work there. He’d thought to pick up Liere’s trail first thing, but to his dismay, his description of Liere only caused incurious stares and negation.

  So he ventured father along the shore, and still nothing.

  That meant she’d done the worst possible thing: transferred herself directly to where the enemy was, instead of scouting. He let out his breath as he turned in a circle.

  What now? Find out more. Like, north as in walking, or north as in another island? Instinct prompted him to look around more slowly, breathing in the familiar scents of garlic, smoked fish, hemp, and unfamiliar spicy scents.

  He turned again, his attention drawn to the pier, and the boats bobbing alongside. He liked boats, liked the pleasant sound of laughter floating over the water, and the rise and fall of a lone voice in song from somewhere beyond the end of the pier. A kid’s voice.

  He turned his steps that way, and stepped up onto the warped boards, more poured chocolate, unlike the grainy oak or pine that came from carefully coppiced wood at home.

  Each boat had at least one person in it, working away with ropes or barrels or nets. When he reached the end of the pier, he spotted the longest vessel. The singer was a girl about Senrid’s age, as she sanded the rail forward.

  Senrid caught the gaze of a comfortably plump, grandmotherly woman who met his gaze steadily, her expression benevolent. She sat in a kind of hammock chair, slung on the roof of what was probably the living quarters, rising waist-height from the smooth deck. Now here was someone who had surely sat right there for a while. Without much hope, he asked about Liere.

  “No, she was not here,” the woman answered, her gaze steady and her tone final.

  “Can I get a ride to the magic city, ah, Isul Demarzal?”

  “You’ve a few days’ sailing ahead of you.”

  Senrid stared at her. He’d expected to be a short walk away. How had he managed to transfer a few days off? Clearly a lot of island beaches had white sand. No wonder no one had seen Liere! “How do I get there?”

  She chuckled. “If you step aboard, nothing easier. This vessel is sailed by those your age.”

  That was far too easy. He backed away, scanning the boat, which was long and narrow, with a tall mast slightly forward of the middle, and a shorter one behind the roof on which the old woman sat. At the bow, three girls and a boy worked at something. They as well as the singer paid no heed to the old woman or Senrid.

  It was too convenient. Nothing was more unthreatening than an old woman, except maybe an infant. Senrid knew he’d spoken first because of this assumption; he never would have addressed a brawny man sharpening a sword. Old women didn’t raise suspicion.

  That in itself spiked his suspicion. So, either he could stand there and dither, or do something. He looked around once more for any obvious threat as he braced his feet on the pier, and then he lifted the habitual mind-shield and focused on the old woman, making an effort to skim the surface of her thoughts.

  It was like falling out of the sky into a new world, one that expanded beyond the horizons, flickering with uncountable memories filled with poignant joy, with sharp sorrow, with the calm, infinite waters of peace. A soft inward voice said: You do need training, do you not, dear boy?

  Senrid would have resented anyone calling him ‘dear,’ except he could sense that she meant it. Further, that everyone present in that inlet and beyond was dear to her.

  And he’d heard that inward voice before—in Liere’s shared memories.

  “Lilith the Guardian,” he breathed. Because life had made him wary, “You just happened to be here?” He spoke in Sartoran.

  “No,” she answered in the same tongue, but her accent carried an unfamiliar lilt. “Let us say that your arrival by the spell given to Erai-Yanya alerted a number of people, after your young friend Liere’s unfortunate arrival before the gates of the city. I was fastest, and I thought you might find this conversation easier if I let you find me, rather than my approaching you.”

  Senrid’s nerves flared at that mention of Liere. But first things first. “And them?” Senrid jutted his chin at the kids working in the bow.

  “They are what they seem: a group of your peers. They’re on what is called on Sartorias-deles ‘the Wander.’”

  Senrid shrugged. There had been a time when he’d traveled with Puddlenose and Christoph on the Wander—and not by choice. It was during that journey that he’d encountered the weird whatever-it-was called Erdrael.

  He eyed Lilith warily as she indicated the working teenagers at the front of the boat. They seemed completely unaware of her, or Senrid. Lilith said, “The lightest of illusions keeps attention away. You may converse safely.” She smiled at the space between them. He stood on the pier, well out of physical reach, though if she were even half as powerful as legend had it, she could probably smite him with a word. A thought.

  So she was permitting him to feel in control of the situation, though he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how he liked that. “You said Liere’s ‘unfortunate arrival.’”

  The furrows in Lilith’s ruddy face deepened to concern. “She transferred directly to the gates of Isul Demarzal. She was immediately seized and taken into the city as a prisoner.”

  “Shit,” he exclaimed in Marloven. “Send me there right now.”

  “So that you may be taken as prisoner as well?”

  “Better
two of us than her alone.”

  Lilith shook her head. “But Siamis would not put the two of you together. From what I have gathered, Detlev has marked you for his future project. Siamis would have to send you along. Do you want that?”

  “No.” The word was a voiceless exhalation. He didn’t even try to hide his horror.

  “Then you should gather your friends and go back to your world,” she said. “There is nothing you can do here.”

  “No.” Senrid said it sharply. “First, I don’t know where they are. We didn’t transfer together, and I don’t see them. Second, I’m not in command.”

  “They are scattered between three islands,” Lilith said. “You don’t know the nature of the magic here. Suffice it to say that world transfer requires magework at this end to complete the, oh, we’ll call it a tunnel, to save half a day’s digression into magic as used here.”

  “Scattered on purpose, I take it?”

  “Yes. In hopes they will think better of their decision and return home.”

  Senrid decided against arguing about this piece of high-handed interference. He didn’t know the people or the situation here. He was clear on one thing: Lilith was sitting on the top of a boat instead of doing something.

  But the answer was obvious. Whatever magic had been laid over that city surely had wards against her magical signature as well as against those of Tsauderei and the rest of them. That was the tough part of being a famous mage: other mages knew your work, and could exert their own powers to keep you from interfering with theirs.

  “None of us can act,” Lilith said, paralleling his thoughts. “Not only has Siamis effectively and specifically warded all the senior mages of both worlds, but he set the enchanted mages to watch for any appearance of their colleagues, using a lethal mirror ward—yes, I can see you know what that is. It was carefully thought out, and it took appreciable time to lay.”

  And you walked right into it, Liere. Senrid’s stomach roiled.

  Lilith went on. “There is even a theory that Siamis’s enchantment over Sartorias-deles was, at least in part, practice for this very situation. Isul Demarzal is the oldest city in this world, the seat of magic learning.”

  “I won’t let her sit there alone,” Senrid stated. “Tell me what I can do, or I’ll try to figure it out for myself.”

  “If you wish to help your friend, you should go home and let those best trained free her.”

  “No,” Senrid said again, more forcefully. “Because you just told me they can’t do anything. I’ll bet you anything there are no mirror wards, or any wards, against me. I could get in and out, probably better than any senior mage they’re on the watch for. And I won’t use magic. And before you start telling me there are people better trained in sneaking than I am, they don’t know Liere like I do.”

  Lilith was quiet.

  Senrid grinned. “I also know the antidote to Siamis’s enchantment. You need someone Norsunder doesn’t expect to get inside that city. Right? Let me do it. I’m going to try anyway, unless you drop a stone spell on me, but you lighters don’t do that, right?” He knew he was goading her, but he was far too angry, and too upset, to stop himself.

  Lilith gazed back at him. “We are at an impasse,” she said finally. “We do need someone inside who can break Siamis’s enchantment—”

  Senrid cut her off. “I’ll look for whoever the leader is that the spell is anchored on, but I’m going after Liere. I won’t let her sit there and rot.” While you lighters run around trying to be fair and nice and moral, he didn’t say.

  “Go, then,” she said.

  Senrid was so surprised, he exclaimed, “What?”

  Lilith said distinctly, “Go with my good will. I will speak to the local mages. Perhaps the sharron can find a way to get you inside.” She swallowed the ‘r,’ and emphasized the last syllable, speaking the ‘o’ a little through her nose.

  “‘Sharron?’”

  “Think of them as the long-separated cousins of the Sartoran dawnsingers, the forest dwellers. The children who sail this boat will tell you all about them. Before you go, you need to know that the First Witch was not just enchanted by Siamis in order to bind the city, we have been able to detect from a distance that she has also been warded. If you walk up to her and try magic on her, you’ll kill her as well as yourself,” Lilith said. “No magic can be leveled at the city wards until the wards on her are lifted.” Her tone, even, reasonable, was more effective than sarcasm: Did you really think it would be that easy? “We know that Siamis has used a mirror ward. Do you know how to break it?”

  “No,” Senrid said. That level of dark magic had a habit of burning up the mages who attempted it. But Jilo had been studying wards. He would definitely know where to begin. If he found Jilo, they could do this in tandem. “First Witch?” he said.

  “The woman you could say is in charge. It is a respected title here. No one can aspire to it until he or she has lived and practiced magic for fifty years. The current one is a woman, who resembles me in many ways. She has a distinctive white streak of hair right here.” Lilith touched the top of her head. “The rest of her hair being dark.”

  Senrid said, “I’ll find her. After I find Liere.”

  “There are two more aspects to consider. First, Siamis has set Kessler Sonscarna to guard the city.”

  Senrid grimaced at the name. “He doesn’t know me.”

  “You don’t actually know that,” Lilith countered. “Though you have not met him, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t observed you. Second, we are fairly certain that Detlev is warded as well. So he might conceivably be stirred to investigate, which is another reason why the local mages feel the pressure of time. No one wants to be caught in a possible magic battle between Detlev and Siamis.”

  Senrid’s nerves prickled. “Where’s Detlev?”

  “At present he is said to be somewhere in the estuary between two hill ranges, called the Marshes. There is magic centered there, akin to what is found in Shendoral and a few other places on our own world, but much wilder. Time and space are problematical.”

  The prickles turned to that nasty neck-gripping sensation. A sudden spurt of laughter from the tavern overlooking the water startled Senrid. “I want to kill Siamis,” he burst out, then braced for the lighter lecture on morals.

  Lilith said, “Is that a declaration or a request for permission?”

  Senrid flushed, suspecting that his outburst just made him sound like a scrub on the swagger. Here was someone who had lived four thousand years ago. Even though she had escaped the pressure of time, she had seen the real Ancient Sartor. “So you really were there, in what they call the Fall?”

  “I was.” Her intent gaze softened to sadness. “My view was limited to the struggle I lost, so I cannot answer most questions.”

  “Maybe you can answer this. In the histories Hibern has given me, written by lighters—that is—”

  “I understand your context. What is your question?”

  Senrid considered that, and decided against arguing that she didn’t know what he meant, but maybe she did. Maybe she could even get it from his memories. He made an effort to shrug that off, and said, “So they warn us that the native beings who have always lived on Sartorias-deles will kill off humans if they transgress enough. Is that just lighter hortatory, Be good, or else? I mean, wasn’t the Fall about as big a transgression as you can get short of destroying everything?”

  “There are two things that took the worst destruction, magic and human lives,” she said. “The world was largely unharmed. Not to say that mages don’t fear the indigenous life ridding the world of the human stain once and for all. Much has been said over the centuries about that, and no one knows the answer for certain, but this is my own guess: that though human greed and anger and intent to destroy were very much a part of the Fall, it was not caused by humans.”

  “It wa
sn’t?” Senrid looked askance.

  “Humans joined in, as you very well know. But they didn’t start it. There is someone, or something, else, from outside our world, something that consumes life in order to, ah, to metamorphose, I guess the word would be. My circle believed that to be the catalyst, if not the cause, of that war, and we think it still dwells at the heart of Norsunder, wearing human guise. If it is there, surely it is waiting to make another attempt. If we are right, humanity’s survival is not part of its plan.”

  Senrid flexed his fingers, feeling out-maneuvered and out-weaponed.

  But that could wait. He needed to focus on the present problem: Liere was a prisoner, and he had to try to free her. He would always have to try, until he couldn’t anymore because someone had stopped him dead.

  Before Lilith could burble about children being unprepared for danger, he said recklessly, “My second question is this. Who, or rather what, is Erdrael?”

  Her expression shuttered. Water slapped the sides of the boat, and from a distance came the sound of voices as the kids reworming the foresail rigging passed materials back and forth, and, farther in the distance, the singers in the tavern wailed another ballad.

  Then Lilith said, “It was a common enough name in my day. What is the context of your question?” She smiled. “Besides provocation?”

  He looked at the sparkling water, reminding himself that she had the kind of Dena Yeresbeth that Detlev did. Being a lighter, she was unlikely to kill at a thought, but she had the same sort of ability. And she was definitely hearing his thoughts. That meant his mind-shield wasn’t all that great when he was talking. He’d have to remember that.

  But she’d riposted his question with her own, and he really wanted to know the answer. So he said, “Never mind the circumstances. Someone once transferred me to another continent, where I met up with a couple of Mearsiean boys. While we traveled in search of transportation out of there, a . . . thing appeared. Looked like a bad illusion, as it was partly transparent. But it spoke. To us. Me.” And—there was the memory of that freckle-faced girl.