Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01

The sun had dropped
below the western ridge, plunging fields and groves into shadow, and an evening
mist was thickening, further obscuring the still-green trees below the
pavilion. Sparkles of colored light flickered through the mist and the leaves
as some of the
ler
went about their mysterious business, bright and sharp against the
blue-green dimness.

The sky above was
still ablaze with color, orange in the west, indigo above the distant cliffs in
the east, in stark contrast to the mist-shrouded depths. The pavilion seemed
suspended between two worlds, the clear emptiness above, the soft thicknesses
below. It was beautiful, and the youth gave the
ler
and the Wizard Lord
silent thanks for such fine weather.

"Hey,
Breaker!" someone called from somewhere in the pavilion behind him,
breaking the spell. "If you aren't going to drink your share of the beer,
I will!"

"Oh,
no, you won't," the youth said, turning. "I'd rather leave it for the
ler
than
waste it on the likes of you!"

That got a laugh
from the dozen young men clustered around the village brewmaster, and a path
opened for Breaker to stride up and take his heavy mug of ale from the old
man's hand. He took a swig, swallowed, and looked around to see whether anyone
else was still waiting a turn.

He had apparently
been the last; he gulped more beer, then stepped away to leave room for anyone
who needed a refill.

Inside
the pavilion was neither the misty dimness of the valley nor the vivid color of
the sky, but a third world, a world of wood and stone and candlelight. The air
was clear, but daylight was fading, shadows beginning to appear despite the
yellow glow of a hundred lanterns set on the handful of tables and hung from
the beams overhead. The familiar faces of his friends and fellow villagers surrounded
him
;
close at hand, clustered around the
brewmaster,
were the young men who had just finished bringing in the barley harvest—a job
of which he had done his share and more. Over in the back of the big room a few
other villagers, his elder sister among them, were tuning their instruments
for the evening's planned entertainment. Three old women sat in rockers by the
big central hearth, talking quietly.

Most
of the rest of the local population would probably stop in later to help
celebrate the harvest—and not incidentally, to drink up the few remaining kegs
of last summer's stock of beer and make room in the cellars for the new batch
that would see them through the coming winter. For now, though, most of the
pavilion's hall stood open and empty beneath the lant
ern-hung beams,
tables folded and benches stacked against the stone wall at the back.

Five
people were sitting on a bench at the far end of the terrace rail, Breaker
noticed, by the door to the outside road. One was the village's elder
priestess, the sigil of office glowing faintly upon her forehead, while the
other four were cloaked, and three of them were elaborately adorned with
protective
ara
feathers. Breaker was fairly sure he recognized
one of the feathered ones as the Greenwater Guide, the man who worked the
southwestern road out of Mad Oak, past the eponymous tree itself, but the
others were unfamiliar—presumably travelers the guide had led, probably on
their way to Ashgrove and perhaps beyond, since

Breaker could think of no reason strangers would be stopping in Mad
Oak.

Or
perhaps they had just come from Ashgrove and were bound for Green water. That
was actually a little more likely; from Greenwater one could travel on to the
Midlands and the southern hills and all the wide world to the south of Longvale,
while beyond Ashgrove were just half a dozen towns in Longvale and Shadowvale
before the safe routes ended.

Whatever their destination they clearly were travelers, since two of
them wore
ara
feathers, and even cloaked, Breaker doubted there
was a man in Mad Oak he wouldn't have recognized. He wondered why the travelers
weren't claiming their share of the beer; they were certainly watching the
harvesters drink, and Elder Priestess would have let them know they 'were
welcome to share in the land'
s bounty.

And
why did one traveler not have
ara
plumes on his cloak to ward off the hostile
magic of the wilds between towns?

"Hey,
Breaker!" called one of the young man's companions. "If you keep
staring at those people, we may just have to throw you over the rail to the
ler
to apologize for
your rudeness!"

The other young men
laughed as Breaker turned around angrily. "I wasn't staring!" he
said. "At least, no more than
they
were staring
at
us."

"All
the same, you don't seem to be paying attention to the rest of
us
—or to the beer, and
that's an insult to all the work we did today to earn it. Maybe we should heave
you over just on general principles."

"You think you
could throw me over the rail, Joker?" Breaker demanded.

"Oh, not by
myself," Joker retorted. "But I'm sure some of these other fine
fellows would be happy to help."

Breaker's
momentary annoyance was already spent; he smiled. "Now, why would they
want to help
you,
Joker? There isn't a one of us you haven't tormented this summer!"

"But at least I
do the beer justice!" He turned and held out his mug. "Brewer,
another round!" The brewmaster obliged him, opening the tap as Joker
thrust the mug into position.

"They
are
staring at us, aren't they?" remarked Elbows,
another of the group, looking past Breaker at the strangers.

Breaker
turned again. He was almost beginning to get dizzy, looking around at
everything like this, and he frowned at himself. This was supposed to be a
celebration with his friends—it had been a good year and a good harvest,
thanks to the
ler
and the Wizard Lord and plenty of hard
work, and they had the summer beer to drink up to make room for the brewer's
next batch. In an hour or so they would be dancing with the village girls,
begging kisses and maybe something more than kisses, and here he was looking at
the sky and the
ler
and the travelers and everywhere but at
his companions and the beer. He felt somehow detached from his surroundings, as
if he were a mere observer rather than a participant, and he didn't know why;
it certainly wasn't a common sensation for him. It was as if the
ler
were trying to tell
him something, but he couldn't imagine what.

He gulped the rest
of his mug, but did not immediately turn back to refill it.

The strangers really
were watching the harvesters with an intensity that seemed out of place.

"If you want
some beer, come ahead," Breaker called to them. "We can spare you a
few pints."

The travelers
glanced at one another, exchanged a few words Breaker could not hear; the
priestess leaned over and whispered something equally inaudible. The guide—
Breaker was sure now that that man was the guide who worked the roads to
Ashgrove and Greenwater—threw up his hands, rose from the bench, and stepped
away, clearly dissociating himself from whatever the others were discussing.

Then the strangers
rose, all three of them, and began walking toward the party of harvesters. The
priestess hesitated, then arose and followed them.

Breaker watched
their approach with interest. He set his empty mug down on the nearer of the
two tables the brew-master had set up, and put his hands on his hips.

The
two of the strangers who wore feathers, a man and a woman, also carried
staves—not simple walking sticks, but elaborately carved and decorated things
as tall as their bearers, with assorted trinkets dangling from them here and
there. The third figure was a big man, bigger than Breaker himself, and as he
walked his featherless cloak fell open to reveal a heavy leather belt with a
scabbard and hilt slung on one hip—a large scabbard, tho
ugh the cloak still
hid its actual length, and an unusually large and fine hilt.

And
all three of them, Breaker saw now that their faces sometimes caught the lantern
light as they moved, were old, easily as old as the grandmothers chattering by
the hearth. That was odd; travel was usually considered too dangerous for the
elderly.

But
then, Breaker was already fairly certain these three weren't just traders or
wanderers; he had a thought or two as to who they might be, though it was hard
to believe. He step
ped aside, to let them at the keg of beer, but the old man with the
staff spoke.

"We didn't come
here for beer, I'm afraid."

"Though we do
appreciate the offer," the old woman added hastily. She glanced around.
"We are grateful to the
ler
of this place
for making us welcome, and would not spurn any hospitality they might see fit
to give us."

"If
you want to talk to the
ler,
you want to talk to the
priestess," said one of Breaker's companions, with a nod at the woman
behind them. "We're just honest working m
en with beer to drink up."

"And it's
honest men we seek," said the man with the scabbard.

Breaker and his
fellows glanced at one another.

"If you're
looking for workers, we've already done our share," Brokenose said.
"Filled the storehouses to the rafters, we did."

"And how do you
propose to tell whether we're honest?" Joker asked. "Take our word
for it?"

The man with the
staff held up a hand. "We aren't looking for workers—not the sort you
mean, at any rate. We just need
one
man, in all Barokan."

Joker grinned. "Is
your granddaughter
that
ugly, old man, that you need to go searching
from town to town to find her a man?"

"Why don't you
keep your wit to yourself, lackbeard?" the man with the scabbard replied.
"It's not as if you have much to spare."

That got a better
laugh than either of Joker's sallies, to the local youth's annoyance. Breaker
smiled, but did not actually laugh; instead he said, "Why don't you save
us all some time, and just tell us what you want of us?"

The
man with the staff glanced at the old woman, but before either of them could
speak the man with the scabbard said, "All right, then—how would one of
you like to be the world's greatest swordsman?"

The
laughter stopped abruptly, and smiles faded. The young men all stared at the
old fellow with the scabbard— with, as Breaker had already realized, the sword.
That wasn't just a big knife on his belt; it was a
sword.

And
those staves—the other strangers weren't just travelers carrying protective
charms, were they? If this was the Swordsman, then these two were probably
either others of the Chosen, or they were wizards—and the staves implied
wizards. Breaker had never seen a wizard before. Oh, he had heard stories, but
so far as he knew, no wizard had set foot in Mad Oak in more than fifty year
s.

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