A Sword Named Truth by Sherwood Smith

Author:Sherwood Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2019-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

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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.

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