Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (21 page)

"I heard that
story," Breaker said. "My grandmother told me about that. That was
the Dark Lord of the Tsamas, two
hundred years ago."

"Two hundred and twenty-eight."

Breaker ignored the correction.
"He
wasn't killed by the Swordsman."

"Nor was the Dark Lord of Kamith t'Daru.
But the Dark Lords of the Midlands, of Tallowcrane, and of Goln Vleys were
slain by Swordsmen."

"Swordsman," the Seer said,
"you surely knew when you agreed to take your role that it would be your
responsibility to kill the Wizard Lord if he went mad or gave in to evil."

"Yes," Breaker admitted, "but
I never thought it would really happen—and certainly not so
soon!"

"It may not have happened—but it's our
duty to find out.
Our
duty, all three of us."

"But won't the Wizard Lord notice the
three of us traveling together?" He pointed at the Scholar.
"He
thought it would
look suspicious!"

"Swordsman," the Seer said gently,
"the Wizard Lord is going to know what's happening in any case. He's the
Wizard Lord.
He has magic that
keeps him informed of everything of significance in all of Barokan. He has
magic that allows him to locate every rogue wizard. He can see and hear through
any pair of eyes he wants—well, any living eyes that aren't human. If he
doesn't already know our true names, he can learn them in an instant, and
surely you know that means he can always find us. We can't hide from him, and
we can't keep what we do a secret. He'll know. The Chosen have
never
had the element of
surprise in their favor; the Wizard Lord
always
knows when he's been marked for removal."

"The Chosen can use surprise in certain
ways," the Scholar objected. "There are ways to limit the
effectiveness of the Wizard Lord's divinations."

"But still, every Dark Lord knows the
Chosen are coming well before they reach him, even if he doesn't know when or
where or how."

"Well, that's true," the Scholar
admitted. "It's inherent in the system, more or less."

"But then won't he try to stop us?"
Breaker asked.

"Of
course
he will," the
Seer said. "And we'll go on with the job all the same. That's what makes
the Chosen heroes, Swordsman—we'll do what needs to be done, despite the
danger."

"You must have known it might be
dangerous," the Scholar remarked.

"Yes," Breaker said. "Yes, of
course—but somehow it seems much more
..
. more
real
now, more frightening. There's no way I can turn back, is there?"

"Not really, no," the Scholar told
him. "If you were ill or injured or old, you might contrive to pass the
title of Swordsman on, but as you're young and healthy I don't think the
ler
would accept
that."

"You'll come with us into the Galbek
Hills," the Seer said. "It's your duty. And with any luck at all this
will all turn out to be nothing, some leg
itimate
action the Wizard Lord took as protector of Varagan."

"1
suppose,"
Breaker unhappily agreed.

He was not entirely convinced; he was unsure
of everything now, unsure of whether these people were really the Seer and the
Scholar, unsure what the Wizard Lord might be up to, unsure whether the Old
Swordsman and the wizards might have tricked him somehow. Was he really the
world's greatest swordsman, one of the Chosen, at all?

He didn't
know.
Since leaving Mad Oak he had often felt as if he didn't really know
anything
anymore, as if the entire world around him were shifting facades built
upon mist and mud, liable to change or collapse or vanish at any moment. He had
been
told
how everything was
, told about the towns and roads, told about
local customs and priesthoods and
ler,
told about
the Chosen and the Wizard Lord, but how could he be sure that any of it was
true? Back home he had seen the barley grow every year, seen the crops respond
to the
priests, seen the summers come and the winters go, and he had known how
everything worked, but out here in the wider world he could only rely on what
he saw and heard, and had no experience to guide him in telling truth from
falsehood.

"We'll leave in
the
morning," the Seer said. "We'll go see what there is to see and
settle this matter, one way or the other."

Breaker didn't answer.

"And Swordsman," she added,
"I'm not any happier about this than you are. Do you think / want to
confront the Wizard Lord? I'm an old woman, I should be safely at home in
Sedgedown watching my grandchildren grow up, but instead I'm wandering around
the southern hills and risking the wrath of the most powerful magician in the
world. He's as likely to kill me as he is to kill you." "I know,"
Breaker said quietly.

He wasn't sure what
was going on, wasn't sure whether everything he had been told was the truth,
but he really couldn't see any way out. If he went home to Mad Oak, or anywhere
else other than accompanying these two, he wo
uld be failing in his duty, failing to live
up to the role he had agreed to.

He couldn't do that,
no matter how many doubts he had. He had agreed to this. His mother had warned
him against it, he had had months to change his mind, and he had committed him
self; he couldn't
turn around and run home now.

"We'll leave in the morning," he
agreed.

"I'll find the guide," the Seer
said.

And in the morning, although the Swordsman
was no more certain of anything than he had ever been, the four of them—the
three Chosen and their guide—set out southward.

Breaker cast an occasional longing glance
over his shoulder, toward his distant home in the north, but he trudged resolutely
south.

Their progress was
uneven; the Seer knew where their destination lay, but not how to get there,
and the guides they hired along the way only knew routes between towns. The
Seer would indicate a direction and distance, and the guide would do his best
to deliver them to the town farthest along that line, but sometimes that town
woul
d
prove a dead end, forcing them to double back or veer miles off their intended
path.

As summer neared its
end the weather began to turn cooler—but not as fast as Breaker felt it should
have. When he remarked on this the Seer and the Scholar stared at him
blankly for a
moment; then the Seer said gently, "Swordsman, we're more than a hundred
miles south of your homeland, perhaps more than two hundred. Winters are
milder and arrive later here."

"Oh,"
Breaker said. He did vaguely recall hearing that the sun
's path across the
sky passed more closely over the southern lands, and that the South was
therefore warmer, but he had never expected to experience this firsthand; he
had somehow assumed that those warmer lands lay thousands upon thousands of
miles away, perhaps not in Barokan at all.

The journey itself
was fairly uneventful; the guides knew their work, and in any case these hills
seemed to harbor less danger, fewer hostile
ler,
than the
northern lands—or perhaps the presence of three of the Chosen trave
ling together cowed
the troublesome spirits with their partial immunity to magic.

The towns in which
they stopped varied immensely in detail, but in time they all began to seem
basically alike to Breaker. There would be a small priesthood that dealt with
the local
ler,
a few tradespeople and shops clustered around the center, and dozens,
or even a few hundred, of farm families working the land the priests had
declared safe. The larger towns often had an inn, but the smaller ones made do
with families will
ing to rent out extra beds.

And everywhere the
three of them were quickly recognized as Chosen, regardless of whether any of
them had ever before set foot within the borders. Breaker wondered just what
made it so obvious—were travelers so very scarce that
any
group of strangers
with no clear purpose was assumed to be the Chosen?

But then he recalled that he wore a sword on
his belt and made no attempt to conceal it, and that the Scholar (whom Breaker
was learning to call Lore) and Seer did not look as if they had any legitimate
business that would send them traveling about. He wondered what would happen if
they actually denied their identity, or hid the sword and pretended to be
traders of some sort.

But there was no
reason to do so; the one person they mi
ght have wished could not locate them, the
Wizard Lord himself, would always be able to find them magically, no matter
what they did to hide or disguise themselves. Trying to conceal their true
nature would most likely simply arouse suspicion.

Furthermore,
performing sword
tricks was the most convenient way to raise a little extra money along the
way, to pay for bed and board and guides, and he could hardly hope that his
audience would not realize he was the Swordsman when he demonstrated his
superhuman skill with a blade.

Of course, this meant
that he found himself answering the same questions over and over, responding to
the same requests. Had he ever killed a man with his sword? Had he met the
Wizard Lord in person? Could he outfight two men at once? Th
ree? Four? Where did
he get the sword he carried— had he made it himself? And he would be asked for
lessons in swordsmanship—both skill with a steel blade, and skill with what
nature had provided.

Not all the questions
came up every time, and some require
d some thought. Even some of the common ones
could take a new slant, on occasion.

In a village called Cat's Whisker, in the
town's one public house, a boy not much younger than Breaker himself asked,
"How did you come to be chosen to be the Swordsman?

Were you born with some mark on your skin, or
under a particular sign in the heavens?"

"No," Breaker replied, as he had a
hundred times before. "When the Old Swordsman asked who wanted the job, I
said yes; that's all."

"But that can't be," the lad
protested.

"Why not?" Breaker asked, amused.

"Well, because how would the
ler
know you were
worthy, without some sign marking you? What if a cripple had spoken up, or an
old man, or a woman in disguise?"

"The Old Swordsman did not ask any
cripples or old men or women," Breaker said. "He asked the young men
of the village as we drank to celebrate the harvest. He could see we were fit
and strong by the barley we had brought in. He saw me drink and dance that
night, and he taught me the basics of wielding a blade in the days that
followed, and if he had found me wanting he would have said so and moved on to
the next town. There were no si
gns or portents; he
offered me the role, and I accepted."

"But that isn't
right"
the youth insisted.

Up to that point the conversation had been
similar to a dozen others, but the boy's persistence was new. "In what way
isn't it right?" Breaker asked.

"The Swordsman is one of the
Chosen," the youth said. "But you said you weren't chosen! You
volunteered!"

"I chose myself, perhaps."

"You say he asked the young men of your
village—what if one of the others had said yes, instead of you?"

"Then he would be the Swordsman now,
talking to you here, and I would be at home—or dancing with Little Weaver in
the pavilion, perhaps."

"But
...
but..."

"He would have been chosen, and I would
not. And if none of us had spoken up—and that might well have happened, had I
not been in the mood I was in—then the Old Swordsman would have gone on to the
nex
t town, and the next, until someone
agreed."

"What if
two
of you had
volunteered at once? Or three?"

"Then I suppose the Old Swordsman would
have chosen between us, and picked the one he thought more promising. I don't
think I take your point, lad."

"You're supposed to be the
Chosen,
the people fated to protect u
s from any Dark Lord! You're supposed to have
a
destiny.'"

Breaker blinked silently at him before
answering.

"We
are
the Chosen," he said, gesturing to take in himself and his two
companions. "We were chosen by our predecessors, and chose to accept the
ro
les
they offered. The Chosen were created by wizards, boy, not by some mysterious
destiny."

"But then how do you know you were
chosen rightly? What if you're the wrong people for your roles?"

"Then you had better hope no Dark Lords
arise," the Seer said before Breaker could respond.

"I took the
job," Breaker said, "and I'll do it the best I can. I do have the
wizards' magic to help me, and the
ler
they bound to me, and that's all the destiny
any Swordsman has ever had."

"But you're the
Swordsman.
You're on
e of the
Chosen.
You're supposed to be someone special, something more than an ordinary
man!"

"I am," Breaker said. "I am
the world's greatest swordsman; the wizards of the Council of Immortals have
bestowed that upon me with their magic."

"But you should have been special
before!"

Breaker started to ask why, then stopped,
thinking back to that evening in the pavilion when Elder Priestess had brought
in the wizards and the Old Swordsman.

"I was," he said. "I was
willing."

"That's not special!"

"No one else in my town was,"
Breaker said. "And I don't think it was the first town he'd asked
in." "But it's not enough!" "But it is."

"Just because
you were
willing?
Because you said
yes?
That can't be all.

"Would
you
have said yes?" Breaker interrupted. The youth
stopped in
midsentence and stared at him.

"If I were to
have second thoughts—and believe me, I have—and decided that I did not care to
be the world's greatest swordsman anymore, that someone else should take the
honor from me, and if I came and asked you
whether you would do it—would you? And do not
answer hastily, because I may well be serious in this. Would you accept the
role, knowing that it would mean you would be forever set apart from ordinary
folk, and that you might be called upon at any time to fight your way into the
Wizard Lord's stronghold and drive your blade through his living flesh and
kill him?" Breaker had given that far too much thought of late, the image
of the steel of his sword stabbing into a human body; he remembered what it had
felt like to jab the Old Swordsman's shoulder, and he had exaggerated that
memory and imagined what it would be like to kill the Wizard Lord.

It was not a pleasant thought.

"I. . ." The youth looked at him
uncertainly.

"Would you?"

By this time the entire room had fallen
silent, and all eyes were upon the two of them. For a moment no one spoke. Then
the youth's gaze fell. "No," he admitted.

"Then do not
chide me for being born without a caul, on a day of no astronomical
distinction, to an ordinary mother and
father."

"But you didn't do anything to earn
it," the boy said.

"Oh, yes, I did. I practiced for
months."

"But you didn't go on a quest or have
any adventures . . ."

"I worked long and hard. That's more
useful."

The boy shook his head, but said nothing more;
while he was plainly not yet convinced, he had run out of arguments that he
could put into words.

Breaker turned away as someone else asked,
"Do you need to use a particular sword, or could you fight with another
one?"

Breaker answered that, and a dozen other questions,
but while he did a thought nagged at the back of his mind. The boy seemed
dissatisfied because Breaker had not proven himself worthy by mystical
means—but in fact, he
had
done exactly
that by defeating the Old Swordsman in their staged d
uel. Why had he not
mentioned that to the lad?

Because, he decided,
it hadn't seemed important. What was important was that he had spoken up,
saying he would take on the role, and that he had worked hard to learn it. The
actual ritual conflict that convinc
ed the
ler
to transfer their magical aid had been a mere
formality.

He thought perhaps he should explain this to
the boy, but when he looked around during a lull in the questioning the youth
had gone.

And the following morning the three of them,
Seer, Scholar, and Swordsman, accompanied by a local guide, continued on their
southward journey.

It
was three
towns, two guides, and four days later
that they found themselves in a village so small it had no agreed-upon name,
where the Seer's inquiries about findi
ng a guide to lead them just a little farther
into the Galbek Hills encountered worried silence.

"That way," she said, pointing.
"Perhaps half a day's walk."

"Oh, we know where you mean," the
village's one priest replied. "You mean Stoneslope. That's the only town
there. But you can't get there anymore."

"Why not?" the Seer asked.

"Because there aren't any guides,"
the priest explained. "The last one died five years ago."

"Five years?" Breaker looked at the
Seer. "How did he die?"

"She. She died in childbirth. Had the
child lived
...
but it did not. Her
family's secrets are lost, and there are no more guides."

"Then how do the people of Stoneslope
trade with the rest of Barokan?" the Scholar asked. "They
don't."

"Is there another route around the other
side, perhaps?" Breaker suggested.

"No. They no longer have any contact
with the outside world. To the best of our knowledge no one has entered or left
Stoneslope for five years now."

The three Chosen looked at one another.

"What do we do now?" Breaker asked.

"We go there without a guide," the
Seer replied.

"But the
ler\
We don't know the
path, don't know the dangers!"

"We'll just have to find our way. And
our magic will protect us."

"Not from
everything."

"From most
ordinary dangers. And we know the path can be found," the Seer said,
"because it
was,
once."

"After all," the Scholar said,
"someone had to find the safe paths in the first place; no one is
born
knowing the route to
another town."

"I suppose, but I'm no explorer.
.."

"We were chosen to be heroes," the
Seer said, and the rebuke in her tone was unmistakable. "A hero does what
he must."

Breaker sighed. "As you say," he
agreed.

"Does this have something to do with the
Wizard Lord?" the priest asked, looking from. Breaker to the Seer.

"Not
everything
t
he
Chosen do need be in connection with the Wizard Lord," the Seer said—which
Breaker knew was true, but irrelevant.

"Well, yes, but Stoneslope—the Chosen
wanting to go to Stoneslope . . ."

"And what does Stoneslope have to do
with the Wizard Lord?" the Scholar asked.

The priest looked
startled. "Why, I assumed you knew. He was born and raised there. Back
then he was sometimes called Feather, because he was so thin and frail—his
father had said he was as light as a feather, you see. He was called other nam
es as well, less
pleasant ones—he wasn't a popular child. He left home to learn wizardry when he
was just a boy, younger than the Swordsman is now, and we never saw him again,
but we would hear about him sometimes; when news came that he had been chosen
as the Wizard Lord we were all quite excited, and wondered whether he might
build a stronghold here." He sighed. "But he built it all the way
over near Split Reed, at the other end of the Galbek Hills. He never even
visited us here. I know there were some in Stoneslope who wanted to apologize
to him for not treating him better, but they never had the chance."

Breaker stood silent for a moment, absorbing
this information.

Somehow he had always had trouble with the
thought of the Wizard Lord growing up somewhere. Obviously wizards started out
as human as anyone, they weren't born with talismans in hand and spells in
their heads, but he never pictured them as children, growing up like anyone
else. The Wizard Lord had had parents and neighbors, perhaps siblings, uncles,
aunts, cousins, friends, and apparently enemies . . .

He found it difficult to picture.

And the Wizard Lord had killed people in or
near Stoneslope, his old hometown—why? Who were they, and what had they done
to deserve his wrath? Were they some of those people who had never had a chance
to apologize? And was the guide's death merely a coincidence, or had the Wizard
Lord arranged that, as well, so that the rest of Barokan would not hear what he
had done?

No—surely, no Wizard
Lord could be so petty as to kill a woman in childbirth just to keep a secret.
Still, Breaker felt a certain foreboding; fie hoped it was merely because he
was among unfamiliar
ler.