By the Sword (8 page)

“Lordan will survive until I get there,” the sorceress said abruptly, turning so quickly that Kero's heart jumped. “Trust me on that. And as for your going after those bandits—what makes you think
you
can do anything? You aren't trained in magery or weaponry.”

“I have to try,” Kero said stubbornly. “I have to. There's no one else, and
you
told me what Dierna's uncle—”

“Why you?” Kethry repeated.

“Why not me?” Kero stood up, as tall as her shaking knees were permitting, and raised her chin defiantly. “Why not me—if you'll help, I can do it. You did more with less when you were my age.”

She was all worked up and ready to say a lot more, but to her surprise, Kethry nodded. “There's truth in that, child,” her grandmother said softly. “More truth than you know. And now I know who it is I've been waiting for all these years....”

“Stay there.” The sorceress crossed the room to one of the shadow-shrouded corners, and bent over a chest, opening it with a creak of iron hinges.

She turned with a long, slender shape in her hands, and as she moved into the light again, Kerowyn could see that it was a sword. Not a very impressive blade; the hilt was plain leather-wrapped metal, and the sheath was just as plain.

“Here,” Kethry said, holding it out to her. “Let's see if she'll take to you.”

She?
Kero reached forward to take the hilt without thinking, and as she clasped it, Kethry pulled away the sheath.

For a moment, no more than a breath, writing blazed up on the blade itself, as fiery and white-hot as if the sword had just come from the heart of a forge. Kero gasped, but Kethry only nodded, unsurprised.

“She wants you all right, child. You're the only one of my daughters or granddaughters she's spoken for. She's yours now—or you're hers.” Kethry slid the sheath back over the now perfectly ordinary looking blade. “Take your pick. When she speaks, I don't think anybody denies her.”

“What did it say?” Kero asked, aware of—something—in the back of her mind. A testing—but distracted by what her grandmother had just said.
Granddaughters? Daughters? I thought Mother—

“Woman's Need calls me, as Woman's Need made me. Her Need will I answer as my maker bade me. ”
Kethry tilted her head sideways to fix Kero with a penetrating stare. “This is my sword Need, Granddaughter—the sword I wore for most of my life. Your sword, now; for well or ill, you're bound to her like you'll never be bound to another living thing, man or woman. But I don't think you'll rue the bargain.”

Kerowyn almost dropped the sword in her surprise. This was Kethry's famous blade? Even she had heard stories about
this
sword. “B-b-but I don't know how to—”

“You won't have to,” Kethry said confidently. “She'll take care of you. At least in this instance she will—well, you'll see.”

Kero managed to stop gaping and slid the sheath onto her belt, removing the old blade she'd taken from Lordan's armory. “Grandmother,” she said slowly, looking from the sword to Kethry and back again. “A few moments ago you wanted me to go back home. Now you've given me
this
—and you're all but throwing me after those raiders. Why?”

Kethry clasped her hands behind her, and stepped back a few paces, looking Kero up and down with a distinctly satisfied expression. “I was testing you,” she said calmly. “What you're about to do is going to change your life forever. Oh, don't look so skeptical; I know what I'm talking about. It will. And the road you're about to take is not for the fainthearted. But you seem to be made of stronger stuff than poor Lenore.” Kethry nodded, slowly. “Yes indeed. I think you'll do.”

 

One moment, Kero was standing in the middle of Kethry's Tower, staring at her grandmother. Then there was a moment of dizziness, as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her, and she found herself here, at the foot of the stairs.

She blinked, and the moonlit meadow wavered a little in front of her eyes.
Dizzy—blessed Trine—
She staggered two steps forward, her hand outstretched in front of her, stopping herself on Verenna's shoulder. The mare snorted in alarm and jumped, as if
she
hadn't known Kero was there until that moment.

The dizziness vanished. She looked up suddenly, only to see the light in the Tower blink out, leaving it entirely dark.

“Gods.” She stared up at the Tower, but could make nothing out in the shadows—and something told her that if she climbed all the way back up again, she could pound her fists bloody on that door and never raise a soul. She'd gotten all the answer she was going to get, at least for now.

She looked back down at the sword hanging from her belt. It was
not
the one she'd gotten from the Keep. It
was
the one she remembered her grandmother giving her.

She stroked the mare's neck to calm her. “I think I've been dismissed, Verenna,” she said quietly. “I didn't get the answer I came for—”

She clenched her jaw, and mounted before she could turn coward. “Come on, girl,” she said to the mare, turning her back down the trail, the way they had come. “We've got a hard ride in front of us.”

Tarma shena Tale‘sedrin, Kal'enedral warrior of the Shin‘a'in Clan of the Hawk, urged her tall gray warsteed a little faster up the backtrail to Kethry's Tower. The mare snorted an objection as she moved from an amble into a running walk; she didn't like taking the back way at night, and she didn't like to be rushed at the end of a journey.

“You're going to like what's coming up even less, old girl,” Tarma told the mare, patting her coarse-coated neck. “You only
think
you're getting a warm stable and a rest. I'm afraid we're going to be turning right back around as soon as we find out what my partner's planning.”

:So you're going to follow the girl?:
asked a rough voice as familiar to her as her own in the back of her mind, a voice carrying overtones of approval.
Good. I like her; I'd have followed her alone if you'd refused. She has courage.:

“Oh, that, certainly. Lots of guts, not too many brains, but that's the way of things when you're young,” Tarma retorted to the shaggy, calf-sized beast trotting along with its head level with her stirrup.

The
kyree
turned its lupine head up so that his great glowing eyes met hers, and blinked.
:Exactly. Reminds me very much of a certain barbarian Shin‘a'in I knew many years ago.:

“Barbarian?”
Tarma exclaimed, as her mare's ears swiveled back with surprise. “Who's calling who a barbarian ?
You're
the one who eats his meat raw. And fish-blessed Goddess, that's a vile thought.”

:Cooking ruins the flavor,:
Warrl replied haughtily.
:Some of the most civilized beings in the world eat their fish raw.:

“Dear Goddess. No wonder they die young. Yes, I'm going after her. I just want to find out what Keth has in mind for both of us.” Tarma reminded her mare with a touch of her heels that she was supposed to be trotting. The mare grunted, and grudgingly increased her speed. “Have you picked up anything more from Keth's mage alerts down on the Keep?”

:No.:
Warrl, creature of the magic-riddled Pelagir Hills, had some mage-abilities of his own; how much, he'd never told Tarma or her partner. He'd been able to throw off magical attacks in the past that would have killed a man. He'd once managed to feign death, pull Tarma out of a demon-sent trance, and smell the presence of mage-energy. He was also able to speak mind-to-mind with Tarma—which meant, she assumed, that he could do so with anyone he chose.

She'd been quite grateful for those abilities in the past, and never more so than tonight. She'd actually been within a couple of leagues of the Tower, returning from her annual visit to Clan Tale‘sedrin, when Warrl had sensed the alarms Kethry had placed on the Keep sounding a danger-signal. They'd pushed their pace, knowing Keth was going to need them—only to have Warrl sense the girl riding hell-for-leather straight for the Tower herself. He knew her, of course; he knew all of Kethry's children and grandchildren, whether or not they knew
him.
He'd played spy for Kethry often enough; Rathgar didn't know of the
kyree's
existence, and what he didn't know about, he couldn't forbid. Warrl's excursions to the Keep were often the only things that kept Kethry from violating her sworn word.

They'd stopped Kerowyn easily enough; even a Shin‘a'in-bred horse didn't readily pass something as large and carnivorous as a
kyree.
Tarma had played a part then; testing her while she and Warrl extracted information from the girl's words
and
mind. Tarma had sensed the despair in her voice, the fear she had been trying to cover with bravado.

Poor child,
the Shin‘a'in thought, wishing she was already guarding the “child‘s” back. Wishing she'd dared to be sympathetic.
She wasn't ready for this.

:I'm glad you intercepted her,:
the kyree said, evidently following her thoughts.
:She still might have tried something like this if she'd been as feather-headed and stuffed full of tales as you accused her of being. If she'd been like her mother—:

“She isn‘t, Star-Eyed be thanked.” Tarma had very little use for Lenore, living or dead. But then, while Lenore had been alive, the antipathy had been mutual. Contempt on Tarma's side, fear mingled with disdain on Lenore's. Warrl teased his mind-mate by calling her a barbarian; Lenore had
meant
it. “Lenore wouldn't have done anything other than faint, though. And have hysterics. Girl's well rid of that father, though the boy has promise. We'll get her through this one, then we'll see she finds out about her kin and Clan—then she can make up her mind about what she
really
wants to do with herself.”

:Get her through this one first,:
the
kyree
interrupted.
She is brave, and resourceful, but—:

“But, my rump. I did more with less at her age.” Tarma said, with more certainty than she felt.
She's what, sixteen, seventeen?
No
real
weapons'
training? Dear gods, I was trained all my life, then retrained by the
leshya‘e
Kal'enedral—

Uncomfortable thoughts. Best to get all the plans straight, then go see that the girl survived this quest of hers. She nudged the mare again, bringing her up to a canter. The mare knew every pebble of the way from this point, and Tarma didn't want to waste any time getting on Kerowyn's backtrail. Warrl barked once, then put on the wild burst of speed of which his kind was capable, and sprinted ahead of her toward the dark, craggy bulk of the cliff housing the Tower.

When Tarma pulled her mare up at cliff-side, Warrl was nowhere in sight, which meant he'd gone on ahead.
:The lady is saddling up,:
came his mental call, thinned by rock and distance.
We are in the stable.:
Light from a full moon directly overhead showed that the path here curved around the side of what looked to be sheer rock face, heading toward the stair that led to the Tower itself. The rough granite gave lodging-room here only to occasional scrub trees and bushes, and a little moss. There was no sign whatsoever of a stable.

Which was, of course, exactly as Kethry intended.

The mare tossed her head, as Tarma dismounted stiffly, her right hip aching a little from the long ride. It would
have been nice if this mess had managed to happen some time next week,
she reflected wistfully, trying to flex some mobility back into her legs.
Give me a chance to get a hot bath ... my own bed for a few nights....

As often as she pulled this trick, the mare still balked when it came to going through the hidden entrance. Tarma pulled off the scarf that had held her hair out of her eyes all day, and blindfolded the mare with it.

And walked into the side of the cliff, leading the docile horse.

This trick wouldn't work for just anyone, of course; only those Keth had keyed into the spell. For anyone else, that granite cliff-face wasn't illusion, it was real, and solid enough to climb. Tarma still hadn't made up her mind about it, and like the mare, she didn't much enjoy passing through it. She kept thinking that one day something was going to go wrong, and she'd get stuck halfway through.

Three steps through absolute darkness, then she and her mare emerged into the tunnel that led to the Tower's stables. The tunnel, the stable, and the “door” were the only extravagances Keth permitted herself in the way of magic. The tunnel and stable had been carved from the living rock by magic, and were illuminated by permanent witch-lights. The rock walls of the tunnel were planed and polished until the granite shone like marble, and the yellow globes of witch-lights brightened just ahead of her and dimmed after she had passed. “Austere, but attractive,” was what Warrl had called it. It gave Tarma a case of claustrophobia.

Her footsteps and the mare's echoed up and down the tunnel, announcing their arrival. Oddly enough, the Tower—which everyone seemed to think Keth had mag icked into place—had already been here when they'd first had their schools at what was now the Keep. Besides the obvious way in, there'd been an escape route down through the cellars. That was what Keth had enlarged into the stables and tunnel, and had concealed with her magic.