Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (2 page)

Not
that anyone particularly
wanted
a wizard here— wizards usually meant
trouble. The one who had passed through when his grandparents were children had
been harmless enough, but there was still a dead patch at the north edge of
town where nothing would grow, and where anyone who set foot felt chills and
nausea, that was said to be a relic of where a Wizard Lord had slain a rogue
wizard centuries ago, rescuing three kidnapped maidens in the process. Wizards
brought plague and fire—or at least, the stori
es said they had in the old days, before the
Wizard Lords tamed them.

"Are you
serious?" Brokenose asked, breaking the silence.

Elbows looked past
the three strangers and asked Elder Priestess, "Is he really the
Swordsman?"

She held up empty
hands. "It could be illusions and trickery, but so far as I know, they
are what they claim to be."

The
Swordsman opened his cloak and pulled it back to display the entire scabbard he
wore. The sheath was almost three feet long, and if the blade matched, then the
weapon he bore was unquestionably a sword.

Breaker
had never seen a real sword before. He and his friends had fought duels with
sticks as children, of course, despite maternal demands that they not do
anything so dangerous as waving sharp sticks near each other's eyes, but the
longest steel blade he had ever seen was Skinner's knife, the length of his
forearm. He stared at the brass-and-leather hilt.

"I
am indeed the Chosen Swordsman," the Swordsman said, "and I have come
here to find my successor. So, does any
of you care to claim the title?"

The little crowd
fell silent once again; Breaker sensed his friends moving away from the
strangers, backing off from this outrageous intrusion on their celebration. He
glanced around.

Brewer had stepped
behind the table that held the beer kegs, separating himself from the entire
conversation. The musicians on the far side of the pavilion were staring; the
grandmothers had stopped rocking their chairs to watch. The harvesters had
formed up into a tight group, a closed barrier against the strangers.

And Breaker had
somehow wound up a little to one side, outside the group.

Joker was front and
center, with Brokenose and Elbows on his left, Spitter and Digger at his right,
and the rest of the party behind, while Breaker stood off to the left, toward
the rail overlooking the valley.

That
odd sense of detachment, of being separate from the others, welled up again,
and again Breaker wondered whether it might be a message from some
ler.
None had ever taken any interest in him before, and no one had ever suggested
he might have any priestly talents, but they were everywhere, and saw
everything, and guided the townsfolk's lives; perhaps one was trying to guide
him now.

And
whether a
ler
was involved or not, the idea of spending the rest
of his life here in Mad Oak in Longvale, growing barley and beans and watching
the seasons wheel around until his soul finally fled into the night, never
seeing what lay beyond the horizon, suddenly seemed horrific beyond imagining.

And
surely, if he w
ere the Chosen Swordsman, one of the eight designated heroes, he could
travel wherever in Barokan he pleased, and do more than tend crops until he
died. He could go anywhere, speak to anyone, even the Wizard Lord himself.

"I'll do
it," he said.

For a moment the pavilion
fell silent, as a smile spread across the Swordsman's face and the two wizards
glanced at one another. Then a familiar voice muttered, "And they call
me
'Joker'!"

Breaker half-turned
and growled, "And they call me 'Breaker.' Shall I demonstrate why?"

"Now, there's
no need for that," the male wizard said quickly.

"But he's never
even
seen
a sword before!" Joker protested.

"Neither have
you," Breaker retorted. "Neither has any of us. What's that have to
do with it? It's
magic,
isn't it?"

'That doesn't mean
there's no effort involved," the male wizard said hastily.

"What,
you need to talk to the
ler?
Brokenose asked.

"Oh, a little
more than that," the male wizard replied. "After all..."

"You have to
practice every day," the Swordsman interrupted. "One hour every day,
rain or shine, summer or winter, sick or well. If you don't have a sword, you
practice the movements without it. If you're too sick to move, you review it in
your head, moving whatever you can, even if it's just your eyes. And you do it
every day,
or the
ler
won't let you sleep, or eat, until you
do." He frowned. "I'm an old man, and I'm sick of it—I want some
rest.
That's why I'm offering
you a chance to replace me."

"I never heard
that, about daily exercise," Spitter said.

"Why would you?"
the Swordsman said. He glanced at the male wizard. "You think the Council
of Immortals goes about spreading every little detail of their methods to any
farmer who might ask?"

"What
happens if you just fast for a day, and don't sleep, and wait i
t out?" Digger
asked.

The Swordsman
grimaced, but before he could speak the wizard said, "You really wouldn't
want to do that."

"That would
break the Swordsman's oath to the Council of Immortals," the female wizard
added.

"An oath that
binds some very powerful
ler,"
her companion
confirmed.

"I was never
fool enough to try it," the Swordsman said. "I had enough problems
without angering wizards and spirits."

"What of
it?" Breaker asked. "Practice every day—that's no problem. We haul
water every day, tend the crops every day . . ."

"Not in
winter," Spitter interjected.

"We do
some
sort of work every
day of our lives; this wouldn't be so different. I'll do it—or is there more to
it?"

"Well, of
course there's the whole bargain," the male wizard said. "The whole
reason the Chosen are Chosen."

"To
kill the Wizard Lord," Breaker said. He looked the Swordsman in the eye.
"How many Wizard Lords have
you
killed?"

"None,"
the Swordsman snapped. "Even here, you must know that! I've been the
Chosen Swordsman for forty-four years, since I wasn't much older than you are,
and I've seen three Wizard Lords hold power, and they've all served honorably
and well so far—the weather has been good, the wizards well-behaved, criminals
captured, the beasts held at bay. No one needed to remove them. And the
Swordsman before me served for thirty-eight years and was never called, and the
man before
him .
. . well
..
."

"The man before
him slew the Dark Lord of Goln Vleys," the male wizard said. "But he
lived happily for another twenty years afterward."

"So it's been a
hundred years or more since the Swordsman was summoned to kill a Wizard
Lord," Breaker said. "I don't think I need to worry so very much
about that part of the job."

"But the whole
purpose of the magic is to defend against a corrupted Wizard Lord," the
female wizard reminded him. "You mustn't forget that."

"Breaker, are
you seriously considering this?" Joker asked quietly, all humor gone from
his voice.

Breaker turned.
"What if I am?" he asked.

"I think you
should take your time about anything this important," Joker said, still
utterly serious. "Talk it over with your parents, with people you trust.
Talk to the priestess, maybe consult some
ler.
This is ... If this is true, if these people are who they claim to be,
this is
big,
the
biggest thing to ever happen here. Don't let them ruin your life by dragging
you into things too big for you."

"Too
big
for me?" Breaker snorted. "You think I can't handle it?"
But then he calmed, and said, "But you're right— I don't need to rush into
it."

"You
couldn't rush into it in any case," the male wizard said. "There's a
great deal to be done before the title can be handed on—you must be trained and
prepared, the
ler
summoned and constrained, a sword found
for you. And it may be you won'
t be able to take the role; it requires
natural ability, as well as magic, to be chosen as the world's greatest
swordsman."

"But you look
like you're capable enough," the Swordsman said. "Don't let old
Islander here put you off."

Breaker looked at
the Swordsman, then at the two wizards, and finally turned to Elder Priestess,
who had been standing silently throughout the discussion. He half expected her
to tell him why he could not consider the strangers' offer.

"It's your
decision," she said.

"Then I'll
think about it," Breaker said. "And I'll have another beer." He
turned and held his mug out toward Brewer, who obliged.

Breaker woke up in his own bed, which was a
pleasant surprise; he had no memory of returning home from the pavilion.

He did remember most of the evening, though.
He remembered the wizards and the old Swordsman, and his sister Harp
chastising him, during a break in the dancing, for even
considering
their offer. He remembered Brewer rapping his knuckles on the last keg
to demonstrate that the summer beer was indeed gone. He remembered Joker being
surprisingly subdued the whole evening. He remembered singing along with
"The Ballad of the Chosen," or at least the verses he knew, and he
had joined in the chorus for that old song ab
out the Wizard Lord of the High Redoubt hunting
down the three murderers. He remembered dancing with Curly and Little Weaver
and even young Mudpie, and having the distinct feeling that Elder Priestess
was watching him as he danced.

But what had happened
after the dancing
ended was lost, drowned in the summer beer.

Breaker sat up warily;
sometimes the day after such a night found his head aching and his guts
troubled. This time, though, the
ler
had been
kind—he felt fine. The morning sun spilling in the wi
ndow was still
tinged with gold and slanting from low in the east, so he had not slept
particularly late despite the beer and the dancing.

And the
barley harvest was in. Brewer's boys would be busy for the next several days,
starting the next batch of mal
t, and there were undoubtedly people cleaning
the pavilion, but Breaker was in neither group. He could take a day or two to
do nothing before starting preparations for winter.

Or he could find those
travelers, and ask if they had been serious in suggestin
g he might become
the world's greatest swordsman, one of the Chosen, the eight heroes designated
to keep the Wizard Lord in check.

Not that the present Wizard
Lord was in any obvious need of restraint; he had been in power for a few
years, and Breaker had
heard not the slightest rumor of impropriety. The weather had been as
well regulated as ever—sunny days relieved by scattered clouds and cool
breezes, the gentle rain falling only late at night, and so on. No rogue
wizards had been reported anywhere in Longvale. The wild beasts stayed in their
caves and forests, and no travelers had been set upon and eaten. All was right
in Barokan.

Breaker glanced at the
sunlit window, trying to remember just how long the present Wizard Lord had
been in power. When had new
s of his predecessor's resignation and the incumbent's
ascension reached Mad Oak?

Breaker knew he had
been old enough to understand the news, and to ask questions until his parents
got annoyed enough to send him to bother Elder Priestess instead. It had b
een spring, he
remembered; she had been walking the fields, talking to the
ler,
asking them to help the crops grow, and he had walked alongside,
badgering her with pointless questions about wizards and true names and Chosen
Heroes—except then the conversat
ion had drifted to when he would be ready to
work in the fields himself, doing more than running errands or gleaning.

He must have been a few months short of his
twelfth birthday, then, so that was almost eight years ago.

If the Wizard Lord had behaved himself and
ruled wisely for eight years, it seemed unlikely he would turn evil now.

Not that Breaker
understood why
any
Wizard Lord would ever go bad and need to be removed. After all, when
all

Barokan's wizards appoint you to hold the
power of life and death over them, when you are master of half the magic in the
world, when you can control wild animals and even the weather itself, when you
can go anywhere and do almost anything, why would you risk it all by breaking
the rules?

He knew from the stories
that
sometimes
a Wizard Lord
did
go mad, or turn bad, so that the Chosen
were summoned to slay him, but it seemed amazingly stupid. Maybe the first one,
all those centuries ago, had thought he could somehow get away with it, but the
others since then must have
been fools.

In most of the stories about
Wizard Lords, of course, the Wizard Lord was the hero, protecting people from
monsters or evil wizards, or tracking down criminals who fled beyond the
boundaries where the priests couldn't reach them, but there were
those few Wizard
Lords who had gone bad and been slain by the Chosen. Just a few, a handful, out
of the dozens of wizards who had held the title.

And of course, as the
Swordsman had pointed out, none of them had done anything of the sort in more
than a hu
ndred
years. The Chosen were still needed, just in case, but they didn't need to
do
anything. They were
like the guard on the cellars—as long as he was there no one tried to sneak in,
even though all he did was stand ready.

So becoming the Chosen Swordsman, or any of
the others, wouldn't mean he would actually need to kill a Wizard Lord; he
would just need to be
ready,
and knowing that he was would keep the Wizard
Lord from abusing his power.

Would being the Swordsman mean he would meet
all the other Chosen? Not that he particularly wanted to meet the Leader, or
the Thief, but meeting the Beauty
...
he wouldn't mind that. Or the Seer, who was privy to so many secrets.

But unless they were summoned to slay a
Wizard Lord, he supposed they would remain scattered across Barokan.

How were they summoned, if they were needed?
Elder hadn't known, when he asked her all those years ago; she had just said
she supposed it was magic.

Those wizards would undoubtedly know, or the
present

Swordsman—and Breaker had the perfect excuse
to ask them all the questions he wanted, if he was considering becoming the
Swordsman's replacement.

Breaker wasn't sure
how serious he was about taking the job, but he definitely wanted to talk to
those three again, preferably with less of an
audience this time.

He rose and found his drawers and his trews,
and a moment later he ambled out to the kitchen to inquire about breakfast.

His mother was rolling out dough, and did not
look up as he entered, nor did she say a word. Breaker paused in the doorway.
He knew she had heard him; her ears were sharp, and the occasional thump of the
rolling pin would hardly disguise the thump of his footsteps. On any ordinary
morning she would have looked up and wished him a good morning.

His two younger
sister
s,
Fidget and Spider, were sitting silently at the table, staring at him. He
sighed.

"What did I do?" he asked. "Or
not do, if that's the case."

The rolling pin stopped. "Harp told me
about the strangers," his mother replied.

That stirred a few memories. His parents had
not come to the harvest celebration; his father had reportedly felt ill, as he
often did, and his mother had stayed home to make sure it was nothing serious.
Fidget had brought the news, and had asked Elder Priestess to look in on Father
on her way home, and maybe talk to the
ler.

"Is Father all right?" he asked.

His mother snapped, "Don't change the
subject!"

"I'm not
...
well, maybe I am, but I'd like to know."

"Elder says he ate something he
shouldn't have, as usual, but he'll be fine.
You,
on the other hand,
seem determined to ruin your life."

"I'm not determined to do anything, but
yes, I'm considering the possibility of becoming the Chosen Swordsman. How
would that ruin my life?"

"You could get called away at any moment
to traipse halfway across the world to kill the Wizard Lord! You'd kill the man
who lets the crops grow, who sends the spring rain and hunts down killers. And
if the call came in the middle of the harvest, or of planting, it wouldn't
matter—you'd have to go all the same, even if it meant losing the entire crop.
And he might kill
you,
instead—it's happened, you know. The
Chosen don't always all survive. The first Dark Lord killed something like
half
of them, my
grandmother told me."

"That was what, a thousand years ago?
Things are different now, Mother."

"Six or seven hundred, I think—less than
a thousand, at any rate. And who says everything's changed for the better?
Maybe the Wizard Lords have gotten smarter again, and found ways around all the
precautions!"

"Mother, there hasn't been a Dark Lord
in a hundred years. The current Swordsman has never seen one, and the Swordsman
before him didn't, either. The wizards who
choose
the Wizard Lords
have gotten smarter, and they don't pick bad men anymore."

"How can you be sure of that? And if
it's true, then why do they need
anyone
to be Chosen?"

"It's just a precaution. A tradition.
And I think I'd like being part of the tradition."

"They don't pay you anything, do they?
You'd still need to make your living in the barley fields or some other
ordinary place,
and
do this sword nonsense in your spare time."

"I suppose," Breaker said. He
hadn't really thought about that part—so few people in Mad Oak ever used money
that it hadn't occurred to him to worry about it.

"So why would you want to do it, then?
It's extra work and danger, and what do you get in return?"

"I don't
know," Breaker admitted. "It's just... well, I'd be famous. I could
travel. And it ought to impress the girls, don't you think? Don't you want me
to find a good wife, an
d sire some grandchildren for you?"

His mother snorted derisively. "I don't
know what sort of girl would be impressed by foolishness like that."

Breaker thought that a good many girls would
be, but he didn't say that. Instead he said, "It's a needed role, Mother.
Someone
has to do it."

"Even if that's true, which I am not
convinced of, why should that someone be
you?"

"Because I think it. . . oh, I don't
know. Because I want to, that's all."

His mother stared at him for a moment, put
down the rolling pin, crossed her arms on her chest, and then said, in her
flattest and most deadly voice, "You want to be a killer?"

"No, I do
not
want to be a
killer," Breaker replied. "What are you talking about?"

"The Swordsman's
job,
his whole purpose among the Chosen, is to kill the Dark Lord, and
anyone else who tries to stop the Chosen from killing the Dark Lord. If you become
the Chosen Swordsman, you'll be accepting that role. You'll be agreeing to kill
people. You'll be promising to stick a great big knife through someone's chest.
Is that what you want?"