Szeth turned parallel to the shore.
You’re not going the same way as the others.
That was true.
Honestly, Szeth, I have to be frank. You aren’t good at slaying evil. We haven’t killed anyone while you’ve held me.
“I wonder, sword-nimi. Did Nin-son-God give you to me so I could practice resisting your encouragements, or because he saw me as equally bloodthirsty? He did call us a good match.”
I’m not bloodthirsty, the sword said immediately. I just want to be useful.
“And not bored?”
Well, that too. The sword made some soft hums, imitating a human deep in thought. You say you killed many people before we met. But the whispers … you didn’t take pleasure in destroying those who needed to be destroyed?
“I am not convinced that they needed to be destroyed.”
You killed them.
“I was sworn to obey.”
By a magic rock.
He had explained his past to the sword several times now. For some reason, it had difficulty understanding—or remembering—certain things. “The Oathstone had no magic. I obeyed because of honor, and I sometimes obeyed evil or petty men. Now I seek a higher ideal.”
But what if you pick the wrong thing to follow? Couldn’t you end up in the same place again? Can’t you just find evil, then destroy it?
“And what is evil, sword-nimi?”
I’m sure you can spot it. You seem smart. If increasingly kind of boring.
Would that he could continue in such monotony.
Nearby, a large twisted tree rose from the bank. Several of the leaves along one branch were pulled in, seeking refuge inside the bark; someone had disturbed them. Szeth didn’t give overt indication that he’d noticed, but angled his walk so that he stepped beneath the tree. Part of him hoped the man hiding in the tree had the sense to stay hidden.
He did not. The man leaped for Szeth, perhaps tempted by the prospect of obtaining a fine weapon.
Szeth sidestepped, but without Lashings he felt slow, awkward. He escaped the slashes of the convict’s improvised dagger, but was forced back toward the water.
Finally! the sword said. All right, here’s what you have to do. Fight him and win, Szeth.
The criminal rushed him. Szeth caught the hand with the dagger, twisting to use the man’s own momentum to send him stumbling into the lake.
Recovering, the man turned toward Szeth, who was trying to read what he could from the man’s ragged, sorry appearance. Matted, shaggy hair. Reshi skin bearing many lesions. The poor fellow was so filthy, beggars and street urchins would find him distasteful company.
The convict passed his knife from one hand to the other, wary. Then he rushed Szeth again.
Szeth caught the man by the wrist once more and spun him around, the water splashing. Predictably, the man dropped his knife, which Szeth plucked from the water. He dodged the man’s grapple, and in a moment had one arm around the convict’s neck. Szeth raised the knife and—before he formed conscious thought—pressed the blade against the man’s chest, drawing blood.
He managed to pull back, preventing himself from killing the convict. Fool! He needed to question the man. Had his time as Truthless made him such an eager killer? Szeth lowered the knife, but that gave the man an opening to twist and pull them both down into the Purelake.
Szeth splashed into water warm as blood. The criminal landed on top and forced Szeth under the surface, slamming his hand against the stony bottom and making him drop the knife. The world became a distorted blur.
This isn’t winning, the sword said.
How ironic it would be to survive the murder of kings and Shardbearers only to die at the hands of a man with a crude knife. Szeth almost let it happen, but he knew fate was not finished with him yet.
He threw off the criminal, who was weak and scrawny. The man tried to grab the knife—which was clearly visible beneath the surface—while Szeth rolled the other direction to gain some distance. Unfortunately, the sword on his back got caught between the stones of the lake bottom, and that caused him to jerk back to the water. Szeth growled and—with a heave—ripped himself free, breaking the sword’s harness strap.
The weapon sank into the water. Szeth splashed to his feet, turning to face the winded, dirty convict.
The man glanced at the submerged, silver sword. His eyes glazed, then he grinned wickedly, dropped his knife, and dove for the sword.
Curious. Szeth stepped back as the convict came up looking gleeful, holding the weapon.
Szeth punched him across the face, his arm leaving a faint afterimage. He grabbed the sheathed sword, ripping it from the weaker man’s hands. Though the weapon often seemed too heavy for its size, it now felt light in his fingers. He stepped to the side and swung it—sheath and all—at his enemy.
The weapon struck the convict’s back with a sickening crunch. The poor man splashed down into the lake and fell still.
I suppose that will do, the sword said. Really, you should have just used me in the first place.
Szeth shook himself. Had he killed the fellow after all? Szeth knelt and pulled him up by his matted hair. The convict gasped, but his body didn’t move. Not dead, but paralyzed.
“Did someone work with you in your escape?” Szeth asked. “One of the local nobility, perhaps?”
“What?” the man sputtered. “Oh, Vun Makak. What have you done to me? I can’t feel my arms, my legs…”
“Did anyone from the outside help you?”
“No. Why … why would you ask?” The man sputtered. “Wait. Yes. Who do you want me to name? I’ll do whatever you say. Please.”
Szeth considered. Not working with the guards then, or the minister of the town. “How did you get out?”
“Oh, Nu Ralik…” the man said, crying. “We shouldn’t have killed the guard. I just wanted … wanted to see the sun again.…”
Szeth dropped the man back into the water. He stepped onto the shore and sat down on a rock, breathing deeply. Not long ago, he had danced with a Windrunner at the front of a storm. Today, he fought in shallow water against a half-starved man.
Oh, how he missed the sky.
That was cruel, the sword said. Leaving him to drown.
“Better than feeding him to a greatshell,” Szeth said. “That happens to criminals in this kingdom.”
Both are cruel, the sword said.
“You know of cruelty, sword-nimi?”
Vivenna used to tell me that cruelty is only for men, as is mercy. Only we can choose one or the other, and beasts cannot.
“You count yourself as a man?”
No. But sometimes she talked like she did. And after Shashara made me, she argued with Vasher, saying I could be a poet or a scholar. Like a man, right?
Shashara? That sounded like Shalash, the Eastern name for the Herald Shush-daughter-God. So perhaps this sword’s origin was with the Heralds.
Szeth rose and walked up the coast, back toward the town.
Aren’t you going to search for other criminals?
“I needed only one, sword-nimi, to test what has been told to me and to learn a few important facts.”
Like how smelly convicts are?
“That is indeed part of the secret.”
He passed the small town where the master Skybreakers waited, then hiked up the hillside to the prison. The dark block of a structure overlooked the Purelake, but the beautiful vantage was wasted; the place had barely any windows.