Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (4 page)

"Nonetheless,
every so often a Wizard Lord has thought he found a way to defeat the Chosen,
or was simply overcome by madness or evil, so that three more times the Chosen
had to leave their ordinary lives and find their way into the Wizar
d Lord's stronghold,
wherever it might be, and kill the corrupt ruler. The most recent was a little
over a hundred years ago, when the Dark Lord of Goln Vleys was defeated, and
the eight Chosen—the Swordsman, the Beauty, the Leader, the Scholar, the Thief,
the Seer, and
...
I don't remember
the others just now."

"The Archer and the Speaker."

"Oh, that's right. Anyway, the eight are
still Chosen, but don't really need to do anything but stand ready, since our
modern Wizard Lords are good, well-chosen rulers—"

"Well, that's what we always hope for,
certainly."

"I don't know of any Council of
Immortals, though."

"Oh, but you do! You mentioned us. You
just don't know the name."

Breaker frowned. "What are you talking
about?" he asked.

"The group of wizards who set up the
Wizard Lords in the first place. That's us, the Council of Immortals."

Breaker stared at her for a
moment. "Are you claiming to be six hundred years old?" he said. He
knew priests and wizards could do amazing things, but he was not sure whether
he was willing to believe that—she was obviously elderly, but
six hundred years?

"No, no," she
said. "We aren't
literally
immortals. And I certainly wasn't
born until centuries after the first Wizard Lord was appointed. But the group
of wizards that set hi
m up in power, and that created the Chosen, didn't disband; they
admitted new members as the old died off, including any Wizard Lord who retired
honorably, and continued on, keeping an eye on matters from behind the scenes.
It's the Council of Immortals that chooses each new Wizard Lord, and that picks
the Chosen, and sometimes it's the Council of Immortals that tells the Chosen
when the time has come to remove a Wizard Lord who has become a danger and refused
to resign willingly. You see?"

Breaker thought
about that for a
moment, then said, "So the Wizard Lord does not actually rule Barokan?
He's merely a figurehead for this council?"

"No, no, no," the
wizard said, shaking her head vigorously. "We don't rule anything; the
Wizard Lord does. He has the magi
c, the eight Great Talismans. He controls the
weather and the wild beasts. He has the authority to hunt down and kill rogue
wizards—any wizard who disturbs the peace, even if he's a member of the
Council. All we do is choose who will be given the power, and decide if and
when it must be removed. And giving the command to the Chosen, as we have just
a handful of times over the past seven hundred years, requires a nearly
unanimous vote—if just three of us believe the Wizard Lord's misbehavior does
not require his death, then the Chosen are not called."

"But you
could
decide to remove him
at any time."

"Well
...
yes."

"So you really have the final
authority."

"Collectively, I suppose we do. But we
don't use it."

Breaker considered that for a long moment,
then asked, "Why not? Why bother with this system of controlling the
Wizard Lord? Why doesn't the Council rule directly?"

The wizard grimaced. "We don't control
him. I just told you that."

"You have the power to kill him
..."

"Only if we almost all agree! And
believe me, lad, we don't often agree on
anything."

"But why did you—or your ancestors—set
this up? Why didn't you just rule Barokan yourselves? Why don't you now?"

"Because we don't
want
to—don't you understand? We're the descendants of the rogue wizards you
hear horror stories of at your mother's knee—and most of the stories are
true,

Breaker; have you ever heard about the Siege
of Blue-flower?"

"I know the song . .."

"The song is
true,
Breaker. That really happened. If there's no greater power to rein us
in we wizards run
rampant across Barokan, pillaging and plundering and smashing anything we
please, and fighting among ourselves. You must have heard how the old wizard
wars laid waste to entire areas—you just
said
it happened,
so I
know
you heard about i
t! Well, the only thing that prevents that
sort of chaos now is the Wizard Lord, the one man with the power to smash us
all. There's a
reason
we vested the means to destroy him in
ordinary men and women, rather than keeping it for ourselves and our fellow
wizards—we know we
can't be trusted with it."

Breaker thought about that
for a moment. He thought about the Siege of Blueflower, famed in song and
story, where according to legend three rogue wizards had joined forces to
enslave an entire town, and had or
dered the men of the town to defend them
against the Wizard Lord, on pain of seeing their wives and daughters tortured
to death should they fail to do their utmost.

The men had done
their best, for the most part, and out of pity the Wizard Lord had done hi
s best to see that
neither they nor their loved ones died—but the song's last three verses were a
mournful recitation, horrifyingly detailed, of how the victorious Wizard Lord
and the freed townsfolk had found the mangled remains of a dozen young women in
the dead wizards' stronghold, and how the Wizard Lord had grieved over his
failure to save them all.

That had been five hundred years ago—but this
wizard was acknowledging that she was one of the heirs to those three rogues.

"But then why doesn't the Wizard Lord just
kill you all, so you can't go rogue? And then you couldn't unleash the Chosen."

"Because that
would
unleash the Chosen—the Chosen have instructions to kill the Wizard Lord
if the Council fails to reassure them every year or so that everything
is running smoothly.
Our ancestors weren't suicidal—we
like
being wizards, even if we know we can't be
trusted."

"So the Wizard Lord is required to
defend Barokan against the wizards,
and
defend the
wizards against themselves, without killing you all? And
the Chosen are
there to ensure that works?"

"Yes."

"It sounds complicated."

"It is. I told you earlier that it was.
We don't claim it's a perfect system; it's just the best our ancestors could
come up with, and it's worked well enough since then that we haven't tried to
change it much. If anything, we've made it even more complicated, adding new
rules and more Chosen over the years—and we haven't had to kill a Dark Lord in
over a century, so it seems to be about right." -

"I suppose."

"And now you have a chance to be a vital
part of it all."

"By promising to kill the Wizard Lord if
he
...
what? If he displeases this
Council of yours? His fellow wizards?"

The wizard let out an exasperated sigh.

"More than displeases us," she
said. "He has to start killing or raping or robbing innocent people—and
not just one or two, either—before we'll summon the Chosen. Either that, or
breaking the rules."

"See? If he breaks your rules!"

"Breaker, the rules are all there to
make sure he's not trying to destroy the system and make himself invulnerable.
The rules mostly say that he can't kill the Chosen, that he can't interfere
with them or with anything else that's designed to keep him in check, that he
can't try to acquire magic that would let him defeat the Chosen. That's all. He
can do what he pleases otherwise; he can kill members of the Council and we
probably won't try to stop him—past Wizard Lords have done just that. After
all, the whole
point
of the Wizard Lord is to keep all the
other wizards under control, and that includes us. And remember that we don't
control
the Chosen; we can
tell them we want the Wizard

Lord dead, and why, but if they think our
reasons insufficient, they won't go."

Breaker blinked in surprise. "You can't
make
them do it?"

"The whole point of the Chosen is to
dispose of Wizard Lords gone bad; of course wizards can't control them!"

Up to that point
Breaker had been convincing himself that the whole system was corrupt, that he
and everyone he knew had been deceived about how Barokan was ruled, th
at the Chosen and
the Wizard Lord were just tools of this mysterious Council of Immortals, and
that his mother was right and he should take no part in it, but this suddenly
changed everything
...

If it was true.

But if it
was
true, then in a way the Chosen were the ultimate power in all Barokan.
He wasn't just being offered a ceremonial position that would give him magical
abilities with weapons that he could use to impress girls; in a way, he was
being entrusted with the final authority over... well, over
everything. He
would be the one to decide whether the Wizard Lord lived or died. Yes,
the Swordsman was supposed to obey the Leader, and listen to the other Chosen,
and apparently to this Council of Immortals that he had never heard of by name
until yesterday, but it was the Swordsman who was ultimately expected to kill
any Wizard Lord who might turn to evil—and he could make up his own mind about
it.
He
could
decide! He, Breaker of Mad Oak, could determine the course of history.

"What if the Chosen decided to act
without your Council's urging?"

The wizard shrugged.
"Then they would act. They have that right, indeed, that obligation, as
part of their role—and sometimes the Seer knows things the rest of us don't;
it's part of his or her magic to know cer
tain things about the Wizard Lord without
being told, so it might well happen. If the Seer and the Leader decide the
Wizard Lord must be removed, then the Wizard Lord must be removed."

"Even if the Council didn't agree?"

She shrugged again. "We couldn't stop
them. At least, I don't think we could. But why would that happen? If the

Wizard Lord is bad
enough to make the Chosen risk their lives to slay him, then the Council should
be happy to see him removed, and probably
would
be urging them on."

"But what if you weren't? What if the
Wizard Lord subverted your Council somehow?"

"Well, that's another reason we don't
control the Chosen. Yes, they could act on their own."

"Then I'll do it," Breaker said,
rising from his chair. "Go ahead and cast your spell."

The wizard blinked at him, and brushed at the
ara
feather
she wore in her hair.

"It's not that simple," she said.

Breaker sighed. "Nothing ever is,"
he said. "What do I have to do?"

'Talk to the Swordsman," the wizard told
him. "At least, that's how you begin."

Breaker tried to coax
more from her without success, and at last, with a bow to the wizard and
another to the
ler
of the pavilion, he took his leave.

The world's greatest swordsman, chosen defender of Barokan, was not an
early riser; he did not emerge from Elder Priestess's guest room until the sun
was halfway up the eastern sky. Breaker had been waiting impatiently, eager to
talk over what the wizard had told him—and to find out just what was actually
involved in accepting a role among the
Chosen, if not just a wizard's spell. The
wizard had refused to explain, saying it would be better to hear it from the
man who knew it all firsthand.

Elder
had let him into the house, but then gone about her own business; she knew no
one in Mad Oak would
touch anything in her home without her permission. When at last the
Swordsman ambled out into Elder's parlor he found

Breaker standing
there, almost bouncing with anticipation.

The man blinked at
the youth, then said, "I take it you've decided to give it a try."

"I
think so," Breaker said. "It depends." He tried not to stare,
but he could not help noticing that the Swordsman, apparently fresh from his
bed, the laces of his shirt and trousers awry, nonetheless had his sword on his
belt. Breaker wondered if
the man slept with it.

"Depends on
what?"

"On exactly
what's involved. I
think
I want to do it, but. . . well, you've been
the Swordsman a long time. Do you ever regret it?"

The Swordsman
snorted as he wandered past Breaker toward the pantry. "Lad, I don't know
that there's much of anything worthwhile a man can do that he'll
never
regret. You'll
always wonder how it might have been if you'd done otherwise. All in all,
though, I've been glad I chose to be what I am."

Breaker followed as
far as the kitchen doorway. "The hour's practice?"

"It's
no great hardship. One gets accustomed to it quickly enough." The
Swordsman opened the pantry door, then hesitated. "I am an invited guest
in this home," he announced to no one in particular, "and a stranger
to this to
wn.
If I am violating any customs or edicts, I am unaware of it." He waited.

"I
think Elder would have told the
ler
you're her guest," Breaker said.

"It never hurts
to speak up," the Swordsman said, leaning into the pantry to look around.
"What's custom in one village is a crime in the next. You've got a few
things here— this thing about
never
using
any
of a person's true
name is unusual, for example."

"Is it?"

"Well, I won't
say this is the only place that does it, but yes, it's unusual. There are
villages where it's an insult to
not
use part of a true name."

"I've never
been in another village," Breaker said.

"No?" The
Swordsman pulled his head out of the pantry and glanced at the youth. "No
surprise, really. Well, if you take the role, that'll change. You'll be
expected to travel to keep up on the news, so you'll know if the Wizard Lord is
misbehaving."

"All the
time?"

"No, no—just
occasionally. Where
is
the priestess,
anyway? I don't feel right opening her jars and boxes when she's not
here." He thrust his head back into the pantry.

"She's
out in the fields talking to the
ler,
hearing what they have to say."

"Keeping up
with the gossip, is she?" Breaker heard the rattle of an earthenware lid.

"Asking about
the weather and the crops, I think."

"Ah, that would
make sense. I'm sure she knows the
ler
of her land
better than anyone else, and knows what they want. What's in ... oh, raisins!
Excellent." Pottery rattled, and the Swordsman emerged from the pantry a
moment later with both hands dripping raisins and his mouth too full to speak.
He crossed the kitchen, gesturing for Breaker to accompany him out to the yard.

Breaker
followed, and the two seated themselves on a wooden bench beneath a graceful
willow; the shade was hardly necessary on so cool a day, but
it was pleasant
enough. Breaker could see flickering shadows among the leaves, too faint to be
birds, and knew some of the more visible
ler
were watching them.
He waited politely while the Swordsman chewed and swallowed.

"Like
some?" the older man said, holding out a still-full hand.

"No,
thank you," Breaker said. He wondered slightly at the audacity of the man,
grabbing great wallowing handfuls of Elder's goods that way—but then, not only
was he an invited guest, he was the Swordsman, one of the Chosen.
Presumably his
position allowed him certain liberties and privileges.

"They're
good."

"No."
Breaker didn't have any special privileges—at least, not yet.

The Swordsman
shrugged, and said, "Tell me what else you need to know," before
stuffing more raisins in his mouth.

"What exactly
is involved? I mean, what do I need to do? What will my life be like?"

"Well, we told
you about the daily exercises," the Swordsman said thoughtfully, licking
raisin residue from his fingers. "And every so often you'll travel to
either the home of one of the other Chosen, or some predetermined meeting
place, to discuss whatever rumors the two of you might have heard about the
Wizard Lord. Sometimes someone will drop in on you, too, or meet you somewhere
while you're traveling. You'll get messages from the other wizards every so
often—the Council of Immortals, they call themselves, though that's just
bragging."

"Messages? What
sort of messages?"

"Oh, mostly
just checking up to make sure you're paying attention. They . . ." He
suddenly stopped and threw Breaker a sideways glance. "Can you read,
lad?"

"A little. My
sister learned it to help with her music, and she taught me the letters."

"Well, you'll
need to read and write sometimes. Not much. Let's see, what else?" He
looked up at the luminous green of the willow leaves, and Breaker noticed light
and shadow flitting across the greenery in ways that had nothing to do with sun
or wind, but only with the movement of the
ler.
The Swordsman's presence seemed to have disturbed them some
what.

"You need to
keep a sword handy, of course," the Swordsman said. "And you need to
carry certain talismans when you travel, and have them nearby when you do your
practice."

That explained why
the man had his sword with him here in Elder Priestess's home, where no one was
going to attack him. "What else?"

The Swordsman pursed
his lips thoughtfully, then blew out a puff of air. "Nothing else. That's
all of it, as long as the Wizard Lord behaves himself."

Breaker hesitated,
then said, "And if he doesn't, you kill him."

"In
theory, yes. The Chosen would gather, discuss whether the misbehavior is bad
enough to call for removal, and if it is we would devise a plan, then go and
deal with him. But it hasn't happened for a century, remember. My father used
to
say they should have disposed of the Lord of the Golden Hand, but apparently
the Chosen at the time didn't think so. My father thought he made the winters
much too cold, but that wasn't really a crime, was it?"

"So you've
never killed a wizard?"

"No."

"Have you ever
killed
anyone?
I mean, if you're the world's greatest swordsman, then you must fight
other swordsmen sometimes ..."

The Swordsman
snorted. "Who'd be stupid enough to fight me to the death? Everyone
knows
that I'm the best in the world, that the
ler
of steel and flesh make sure I can't be beaten. Oh, sometimes people
want to duel me just for fun, I've fought any number of duels, but it's always
just until I disarm them, or at most to first blood. No, I've never killed
anyone, and I fervently hope to keep it that way. If you're thinking taking my
role means you can go out and slaughter anyone who annoys you, then you're
wrong—being one of the Chosen doesn't exempt you from the law, and we can be
hanged or otherwise punished just as effectively as anyone else. And if you
are
thinking along those
lines, then we've all misjudged you."

"No! No, I
don't want to kill anyone. I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't need to."

"Not unless a
Wizard Lord goes bad."

"And that
hasn't happened for a hundred years."

"That's right."
For a moment he looked as if he intended to say more, and Breaker waited, but
nothing more came.

After
a brief silence, Breaker asked, "What's it
like?
How do people treat you? Do women
...
Are you married?"

"I was married
once," the Swordsman said. He frowned. "She died in childbed. So did
the babe."

"I'm
sorry."

The Swordsman
shrugged. "It was a long time ago." "But
...
well, what is it
like,
being one of the Chosen?"

The Swordsman had
been looking off down the valley; now he turned his attention to Breaker and
met the youth's gaze.

"I
ought to tell you it's wonderful," he said. "I want you to take the
job, so I can retire and rest and just forget about practicing and listening to
all the nasty gossip and the rest of it, so I ought to tell you whatever will
make it sound good to you. I should say that everyone loves you, and women
throw themselves at your feet, and all that—but I won't, because not only do I
have too much respect for you, for myself, and for the truth, but if I
did
lie to you like that, and you took the job and found I'd lied, you
might hunt me down and kill me, and there wouldn't be much I could do to stop
you, and I might well deserve it."

"Then
it's ... it's that bad?" Breaker's visions of a lifetime of glory
shattered. He swallowed.

"No,
it isn't. Honestly, it isn't. But it's not that wonderful, either. It's a job.
People don't treat you as a hero; you're just someone with a strange
occupation, like a fletcher or a well-digger. You get respect, but no more than
that, and sometimes people forget that you've got just the one promise to keep
and expect you to be a hero in other ways, not just in keeping the Wizard Lord
in line. You get teased for
not
killing the
Wizard Lord, sometimes by people who've just been talking about w
hat a nice master he
is, how safe and calm everything is and how well-behaved the weather is, or
even about how he tracked down some ghastly criminal who had fled the
village—yes, the Wizard Lord himself sent bears to drag that nasty rapist back
before the priest magistrate, and that was wonderful, he's such a great man,
why haven't you killed him?" He shook his head. "People can be so odd
sometimes. And of course, it doesn't pay anything, being one of the Chosen—you
still need to earn your living somehow. I've got an acre and a half of rice
back in Dazet Saltmarsh, and I sometimes work as a courier when I travel, to
pay my way. But there are good points. Sword tricks do impress people, even
when they know it's as much magic as skill, and yes, they impress women at
least as much as men.