C. J. Cherryh - The Sword of Knowledge

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The Sword of Knowledge

Table of Contents

Book One:

A Dirge for Sabis

Part I

FIRE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Part II

FLIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

Part III

CANDLELIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Book Two:

Wizard Spawn

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Book Three:

Reap the Whirlwind

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Sword of Knowledge

C. J. Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey,

Nancy Asire, Leslie Fish

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Inc.

A Baen Book

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-9875-5

Cover art by Gary Ruddell

First hardcover printing, January 2005

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production & interior design by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

Baen Books by C.J. Cherryh

The Paladin

The Sword of Knowledge

(with Leslie Fish, Nancy Asire & Mercedes Lackey)

Baen Books by Mercedes Lackey

BARDIC VOICES

The Lark & the Wren

The Robin & the Kestrel

The Eagle & the Nightingales

The Free Bards

(omnibus)

Four & Twenty Blackbirds

Bardic Choices: A Cast of Corbies

(with Josepha Sherman)

The Fire Rose

Fiddler Fair

Werehunter

The Ship Who Searched

(with Anne McCaffrey)

Wing Commander:

Freedom Flight

(with Ellen Guon)

Lammas Night

(ed. by Josepha Sherman)

The Shadow of the Lion

(with Eric Flint & Dave Freer)

This Rough Magic

(with Eric Flint & Dave Freer)

This Scepter'd Isle

(with Roberta Gellis)

Ill Met by Moonlight

(with Roberta Gellis)

The Wizard of Karres

(with Eric Flint & Dave Freer)

Brain Ships

(omnibus with Anne -McCaffrey & Margaret Ball)

URBAN FANTASIES

Bedlam's Bard

(omnibus with Ellen Guon)

Beyond World's End

(with Rosemary Edghill)

Spirits White as Lightning

(with Rosemary Edghill)

Mad Maudlin

(with Rosemary Edghill)

The SERRAted Edge:

Chrome Circle

(omnibus with Larry Dixon)

The Chrome Borne

(omnibus with Larry Dixon)

The Otherworld

(omnibus with Mark Shepherd & Holly Lisle)

THE BARD'S TALE NOVELS

Castle of Deception

(with Josepha Sherman)

Fortress of Frost & Fire

(with Ru Emerson)

Prison of Souls

(with Mark Shepherd)

Book One:

A Dirge for Sabis

Part I

FIRE

Chapter One

"Fire ready!" Sulun shouted warning.

"We're safe," and, "Go ahead!" came two muffled voices from the trenches behind him.

In the middle of the dirt courtyard, a careful arm's length from the metal tube posed on its wooden

mount, Sulun hitched the hem of his tunic above his knobby knees and inched the glowing end of the

lighted reed toward the waxed string fuse.

The flame caught, sputtering a bit, and the fuse began burning toward the hole. Sulun dropped the reed,

turned, and ran for the trench. Omis's fire-scarred arms caught him as he tumbled in.

"Shhh!" snapped the burly soldier beside them. His studded leather armor creaked as he peered over the

trench's edge. "It's burning, almost there . . ."

The other two stuck their noses out of the trench and watched as the sullen little flame worked its way

up the fuse, across the base of the squat iron tube, and into the narrow hole.

Nothing happened.

A snickering came from the windows of the mud brick house that closed the courtyard behind them. The

apprentices.

"Don't laugh yet," snapped Omis, looking over his shoulder. "I've seen fire play worse tricks—"

A roar came from the bombard. Smoke and flame belched from its raised mouth, and a rattling

something whistled out too fast to see.

"'Ware low!" bayed the soldier, as he always did, as if this were an ordinary catapult.

"Going out to mid-river," Sulun noted, peering after the whizzing projectile as the crooked smoke trail

arched out the ruined garden wall between two eight-story apartment buildings, and across the dike and

moored rowboats.

"Kula, Mav and Deese of the Forge, let the seams hold!" Omis was praying.

The little gang of apprentices cheered and whistled from the house behind them. Neighbors on either

side shouted and swore, heads came out of apartment windows, and the neighbor next door threw some

garbage out his window. Out on the river a sudden waterspout rose, crested, and fell back.

"Within a yard of the buoy!" Zeren the soldier announced, standing up and starting to climb out of the

trench.

"Not yet!" Sulun caught him by a booted foot. "We have to inspect the tube first."

Zeren waited, grumbling. Ordinary catapults weren't so temperamental; once fired, they were done. This

iron bombarding tube of Sulun's seemed as fractious as a bored palace lady.

But oh, if she could be made to perform reliably . . .

Big Omis reached the bombard tube first. He inspected it anxiously, peering at the welds, poking at the

touch hole, and patting the base of the tube to check its heat. "She seems to be holding," he shouted

back. "I think that lard-flux weld is just what we needed."

"Will she fire again?" Zeren shouted, scrambling up from the trench at Sulun's heels.

"Should," Omis said.

Sulun, likewise patting the tube to check its heat, cautiously waved toward the house, toward youngsters

clustered in the courtyard doorway.

His apprentices came tumbling out like puppies, toting the necessities in a proud little procession: tall,

twenty-year-old Doshi hefting the stiff leather tube of round stones; Yanados with the measured bag of

firepowder, swaggering enough to show the width of her woman's hips under the man's robe and cape;

skinny little Arizun bearing the fuse and the reed and the tamping brush in his arms as if they were sacred

symbols in a temple procession.

Omis chortled at the show, but Sulun scarcely looked up.

First he took the brush Arizun offered and worked it cautiously down the tube's barrel, feeling for

obstructions. Next he took the new fuse and worked it carefully into the touch hole. Then he pulled out

the brush and delicately poured the black firepowder into the tube, at which point everybody else took a

respectful step back.

He reinserted the brush, tamped firmly twice, and withdrew it.

Last came the greased leather canister filled with stones. He struggled, lifting the heavy container so as to

position it into the muzzle of the bombard tube. Failing to do that, he set it down and prepared to try

again.

Omis stepped forward and shoved him grandly aside. "Here," Omis laughed. "That's another job for the

blacksmith." Omis picked up the canister in one hand, hauled it up, and shoved it smoothly down the

barrel.

"Still, better let me do the tamping," Sulun insisted, taking up the brush again and pulling the tattered ends

of his flapping sleeves up to his elbows. "After all this time working with firepowder, I've learned a certain

touch for it. . . . Ah, there!" He tamped carefully, withdrew the long brush, and checked the fuse. "Ready,

test two!"

Everybody but Sulun ran for cover in the house or the trench.

"Now where's my tinderbox?" Sulun searched among the half-dozen pouches on his belt.

"Here." From the trench, Omis clambered out of his refuge with the little box in hand. "You dropped it

when you fell on me."

"Oh. Um. Yes." Sulun scratched repeatedly at the box's scraper, lit the whole tinder compartment, then

realized he didn't have the reed ready to hand. Inspired, he shoved the burning tinder at the end of the

fuse. It caught.

Fast.

"Fire ready!" Sulun squeaked, scrambling for the trench. Once more he dived in headfirst, and once

more the blacksmith caught him.

"You've left your tinderbox up there," Zeren commented, watching the fuse burn. "'Ware low!"

The back door of the house slammed. Yells. Arizun's voice protesting.

The bombard fired with another roaring belch of fire and smoke.

Again the canister whistled off toward the river, leaving a snaking trail of smoke between the buildings,

and finally landed, sending up a geyser of muddy water and reed.

"It hit the marking buoy!" Zeren crowed, starting to his feet. Omis jerked him down.

Again the neighbors swore and yelled, "Noisy wizards!" Another load of garbage came flying out the

window over the south wall, this one containing parts of a freshly slaughtered chicken.

Once more the engineer, the blacksmith, and the Emperor's soldier inched out of their safety trench and

went to inspect the bombard.

"I don't know, I don't know," Omis fussed, brushing his curly black hair out of his eyes. "The seams look

all right, but she's hotter this time, I think. . . ."

"Best wait till she cools a little then," said Sulun, fumbling around in the weeds after his dropped

tinderbox. "Hmmm. Of course that could be a problem in actual combat. . . ."

"No worse than reloading and rebending a catapult." Zeren waved the objection aside. "We'd have a

whole battery of these things, half a dozen at least, the first would be cool again. Definitely faster than

catapults, Sulun! And the distance! Given a dozen of these pretty bitches, we could retake the whole

north country. . . ." His pale eyes, seeing a vision far beyond the muddy Baiz river, held a look of quiet,

infinite longing.

"Don't count your conquests yet," Sulun said, waving for his apprentices and their gear. "We're still not

sure this model can withstand repeated fire."

"Good ten-times-hammered iron!" Omis snapped, indignant. "And fluxed with lard in the mix, this time!

Those welds could hold an Eshan elephant!"

"But it's not an elephant they have to hold," Sulun muttered, peering down his long nose into the barrel of

the tube. "I suspect we're dealing with forces stronger than any beast that walks, any whale that swims or

wind that blows—"

"Magic!" Arizun chirped at his elbow, handing him the tamping brush. "Truesorcery!"

"Natural philosophy," Sulun corrected him, plying the brush. "Sorcery deals with spiritual forces. I deal

only with material—Hoi, Omis! It's snagged on something!" He poked it again with the brush.

Omis took the tamp into his hands and tried it, then pulled it out "Obstruction," he said gloomily. "About

halfway down the barrel. And I left my tools back at the big house."

"Let me." Zeren drew his sword in a quick, smooth motion, and poked its satiny grey length down the

tube. "Ah, there. Soft . . . Just a second. Ah, there!" He pulled the sword out, held it up, and displayed

the blackish lump stuck on the end. "What in the hells is this?"

Sulun rolled his sleeves up above his bony elbows and took a close look at the thing.

"Mmm, some sulfur? Perhaps not mixed smoothly in the grinding?"

He shot a look at his apprentices. Twelve-year-old Arizun looked indignantly innocent. Yanados

shrugged and shook her head, denying responsibility. Doshi looked hangdog guilty, but that proved

nothing: Doshi always looked guilty when anything went wrong, no matter whose fault it really was.

Sulun studied the mass again. "Huh, no . . . I think its a piece of charred leather from the canister. Ah,

that would mean that the stones weren't contained. They spread in a wider pattern. No wonder the buoy

went down!"

Omis, busy with the tamping brush, didn't notice. "It goes all the way down now," he announced. "Do

we try again?"

"Yes." Sulun straightened up and reached for the bag of firepowder. "We've got to. The whole point is,

we've got to be sure this design holds repeated firings."

"Better than the last one, anyway," Zeren muttered, shaking the lump off his sword as he headed for the

safety trench. He called back, "That one peeled like an orange at the second blast!"

The apprentices fled. Omis took cover beside Zeren in the trench. This time Sulun took care to have the

reed ready, lit it off the tinder, closed the tinderbox, and put it away before he lit the fuse. Once more he

shouted warning and ran for the trench. Once more the door banged, everyone ducked, watched, and

waited.

Nothing happened.

They waited longer.

Still nothing happened. Smothered chuckles from behind the wall and opened shutters above told that

the neighbors were listening. A knot of local boys leaned out the windows of the left-hand apartment

building, throwing out catcalls, jeers, and one or two empty jugs.

Still nothing.

"Hex," Zeren whispered. "Dammit, the neighbors—"

"Hex, hell. Hangfire," Sulun whispered. "It hasn't caught yet, that's all, it's just smouldering."

"Hex," Zeren said.

Possibility. If the neighbors got a pool together, they might afford someone potent enough.

Or if their master Shibari's fortunes were truly slipping . . .

Sulun ran his fingers through his wiry birds-nest of dark hair, bit his lip, then scrambled for the rim of the

trench.

Omis grabbed him by the tail of his tunic. "Uh, I wouldn't go out there yet."

Sulun sank back again, unnerved. Hex or not, dealing with a smouldering waxed wick in the touch hole

was not a comfortable situation.

And even a little hex could overbalance an already bad -situation.

With firepowder involved . . .

"Oh, piss on it!" Zeren picked up a stone from the bottom of the trench and threw it toward the iron

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摘要：

TheSwordofKnowledgeTableofContentsBookOne:ADirgeforSabisPartIFIRECHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTHREECHAPTERFOURCHAPTERFIVECHAPTERSIXCHAPTERSEVENCHAPTEREIGHTCHAPTERNINECHAPTERTENCHAPTERELEVENPartIIFLIGHTCHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTHREECHAPTERFOURCHAPTERFIVEPartIIICANDLELIGHTCHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTH...

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