The Ninth Talisman (26 page)

Once the sun had topped the Eastern Cliffs golden sunlight dappled the road ahead, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead. Every so often a merchant's wagon would come creaking northward, and they would wave polite greetings as it passed, but mostly they had the road to themselves, and simply walked along enjoying the day.

After a time, though, Sword asked, “How did you become the Thief? Merrilin tarak Dolin lived near Quince Market, in the eastern Midlands, not out on the Soreen Coast.”

“And did the old Swordsman live in Mad Oak, or anywhere in Longvale?” Snatcher asked.

“No,” Sword admitted. “He was from Dazet Saltmarsh. He and a couple of wizards found me.”

“And the old Thief found me in, I suppose, much the same fashion, though in her case she was traveling with her husband and two children as well as two wizards.”

“All the way out on the Soreen Coast?”

The Thief brushed away a butterfly that had wandered near his face. “Well, no,” he said. “They found me at an inn in Crooktree, actually. I left Bayshead when I was fourteen, a few months after my mother died. My aunt had taken me in, but her heart wasn't in it, and I decided to save her the trouble of looking after me. I packed up a few things and paid the guide to take me to Greycliff, then made my way from there.”

“You're an orphan?”

“For almost ten years now.” A squirrel scampered through the undergrowth beside the road, and Snatcher idly tossed a pebble at it.

“And you . . . where do you live, then?” Sword asked. “Bayshead or Greycliff or Crooktree?”

Snatcher shrugged. “None of them, really. I travel around. It's much easier now, with the new roads.”

“But how do you support yourself?”

Snatcher grimaced. “Plague, man, I'm the world's greatest thief! How do you
think
I support myself?”

“But . . . oh.”

“I was a thief even before I was Chosen, you know. That was
why
I was chosen. The old Thief hated her role, so she sought someone for whom it wouldn't be a problem.” He smiled. “It isn't a problem for me, I assure you.”

“But that's . . . that's wrong, stealing for a living!”

Snatcher shrugged again. “I'm sure it is. I didn't have much of a choice at first, though—stealing or begging were about the only options once I left Bayshead, and I decided that if I was going to take other people's money and food and other belongings, I'd rather take them from the stingy than from the generous, so I preferred stealing to begging. Now that I have magic, as well as my native skills, I can be very particular about what I take from whom, and I assure you, I never rob the needy, and I try not to be unkind to the kindly. A coin here, a loaf of bread there, from the rude or greedy, and I appease the
ler
of my talisman, keep my belly filled, and satisfy my own sense of justice.”

“But it's still not . . . not
right.”

Snatcher shrugged. “Was it right for my father, whoever he was, to abandon my mother, and for my mother to die young?” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Is it right that Bone Garden exists, and no one does anything to change it?”

Sword frowned.

“The world is full of things that aren't right,” the Thief continued. “The
ler
aren't concerned with what's right and fair, only with following their nature, and we who live among them must accept that.”

“I know,” Sword said, with a glance back at the Seer. “I know.”

With that, the conversation trailed off to nothing.

Later, though, when a northbound wagon loaded with bright fabrics had rolled past and reminded him, Sword asked, “Why did you wear that ridiculous cloak when you came to find me?”

“I had to ask your townsfolk where I might find you,” Snatcher explained. “Seer was exhausted and needed to rest, and I didn't want to wait for her to recover. The two of us traveling together wouldn't interest anyone, but someone asking for the Chosen Swordsman might, so I dressed up a little. I knew that way no one would remember my face, or anything about me but the cloak and the officious manner. No one would ever think of that absurd, self-important messenger as the Chosen Thief.” He shrugged. “I use disguises fairly often, in my line of work. When we reach Winterhome I'll be in Host People black.”

“No one would know you, you thought, including me,” Sword suggested.

“True enough. As I said last night, I wanted to get a look at you before you knew who I was.” He rubbed his throat, remembering. “That was quite a display of swordsmanship.”

Sword did not bother to reply to that.

“And you figured out who we were more quickly than I expected,” Snatcher continued a few steps later. “Bow didn't recognize us at all until we told him.”

That did not particularly surprise Sword, but again, he did not answer, and the conversation died.

They arrived in Willowbank around midday, where they paid their respects to the Priest-King. That was a quick and perfunctory event, very different, Sword thought, from the excitement when he had first visited the town, shortly after the road had first opened. The steady flow of trade and travelers had removed all novelty from any new arrivals, even the Chosen Swordsman.

The other two did not admit their identities; Snatcher once again claimed to be a messenger from Spilled Basket, and the Seer refused to identify herself at all.

Before the road opened, a stranger who gave no name and stated no purpose would have been viewed with extreme suspicion, but now no one seemed to care; the Priest-King simply shrugged and ignored her.

After the presentation they bought a good lunch from the traders in the town square, and then headed on to Rock Bridge. In the old days, with a guide leading them by a roundabout route through the wilderness, dodging hostile
ler,
the journey from Mad Oak to Willowbank would have been a full day's effort for anyone, but now it was no great feat to make the additional trip to Rock Bridge.

There, however, they stayed the night. The Council of Priests had had a large hostel built to cope with the sudden increase in visitors, and even with the several merchants in town there were plenty of beds for the three of them.

Beds, but not rooms. “We don't want to discourage anyone from opening a proper inn, or ordinary people from renting out rooms,” a young priestess explained. “If you want privacy, you'll have to pay for it. But we didn't want anyone sleeping in the market, either.”

“Do we want privacy?” Sword asked, looking at the others.

“I have no coin to pay for it,” Snatcher said with a shrug. “If you do . . .”

Sword turned to the Seer. “And you?” He caught himself before calling her “Seer,” and realized he had no other name for her.

“I don't care,” she murmured.

“Then we'll save our money,” Sword said. “Thank you, priestess.”

Later, as the three of them were walking in the twilight, Sword asked the Seer, “What should I call you?”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. “Anything you like.”

He glanced at the Thief. “What do
you
call her, when you aren't admitting she's the Seer?”

“Oh, whatever whim strikes me,” he said. “Pudding, or Fumble, or Prettyfoot, or Skinny, or Silence. Or I make up a bit that sounds like a true name—Dinzil or Kuri or something.”

Sword grimaced at the idea of calling the Seer skinny; she wasn't. “You don't know any of her true name?”

“She
doesn't know any of her true name,” the Thief pointed out. “You haven't met Babble?”

Startled, the Seer looked up at him as the Thief replied, “No. Why? What does that have to do with her name?”

“Babble calls everyone by true name,” Sword explained. “I don't
think she can help it;
ler
are constantly barraging her with true names. When she meets someone his soul announces his true name to her before he can speak aloud, and repeats it frequently, so she finds true names much easier to remember than what we call ourselves.”

“So she can tell me my name?” the Seer said, suddenly intent.

“Oh, yes. Of course. But wait—when you became the Seer, didn't the wizard who bound you to the talisman use your true name?”

“She may have,” the Seer said. “I don't remember. The shock—the whole
world
changed when I became the Seer. Everything I see and feel, everything I know—I don't remember much from the transition. I must have heard my true name, but . . . but it's gone. I remember a sound like a knife, but nothing more.”

“Ah,” Sword said. “It was quite an experience for me, too, but not so much that I forgot anything.”

“You and I, our magic is largely physical,” the Thief said. “Hers is perceptual. It's different, I'm sure.”

“Of course,” Sword agreed.

“The Speaker can tell me my name?” the Seer asked again. “You're sure?”

“Yes,” Sword said, startled by her insistence. “I told you she can. I'm quite sure.”

She looked at the Thief. “We need to find her.”

“We will,” he said. “But first we bring the Swordsman to Winterhome. It's almost on the way, in any case.”

The Seer blinked. “Is it? She hasn't moved.” She pointed to the southwest. “She's that way, about a hundred and twenty miles.”

“In Seven Sides?” Sword asked.

“I don't know,” the Seer said. “Is she?”

“I don't know,” Sword said. “I think that's the right general area, though, and she likes it there, as there's a place with no
ler.
Her home I think would be more
that
way, and a little farther.” He pointed a little more to the west than the Seer had. Then he looked around, at the fading glow in the western sky and the black line of cliffs in the east, and at the unfamiliar buildings of Rock Bridge, and spread his empty hands. “Or I could be wrong. I may be misjudging completely.”

“Wherever it is, we need to find her,” the Seer said. “Winterhome is
that way.” She pointed to the south and a little east. “Are you sure there isn't a more direct route?”

“We need to deliver the Swordsman first, Skinny,” Snatcher replied. “And there aren't many roads across the ridge into Greenvale, in any case. The nearest might be back in Mad Oak.”

“But she can tell me my
name,”
the Seer said.

“You've lived all these years without it,” the Thief said. “You can wait a little longer.”

“But . . .”

“Winterhome first. Then the Speaker.”

“I could come with you to fetch her,” Sword offered. “She knows me; that might be useful.”

“She'll know us on sight, won't she?” the Thief asked.

“Well . . . yes,” Sword admitted. “She'll hear your souls telling her who you are.”

“And Boss told us to bring you first,
then
go get her, so we'll bring you first, and
then
go get her. It's settled.”

“I want my name,” the Seer muttered.

“Why is it so very important to you?” Sword asked. “Isn't it enough to be known as the Seer?”

She hesitated, then said, “That's what I'm called, but I don't think of it as my
name.
I still think of what I was called in Bone Garden as my name, and I don't want to. I want that gone. I want to know my true name, instead.”

“Why?” Sword was confused. “What were you called in Bone Garden? You said you weren't a Breeder, but you . . .”

“Sword,” the Thief interrupted, “I don't think you . . .”

“No,”
the Seer said, cutting him off.
”You
don't decide, Snatcher.
I
do.”

“Of course, Seer, I know, but I . . .”

“You don't decide. You don't choose what I allow to hurt me.”

“I . . .” Snatcher looked baffled, then surrendered. “As you wish,” he said.

She glared at the Thief for another few seconds, then turned her gaze on Sword, meeting his eyes.

“You know that in Bone Garden, names are just descriptions, don't
you?” she said. “Just words, just facts, like calling a chair ‘Chair,' or a tree ‘Tree.' They're never whimsical or . . . what's the word? Metaphorical. They aren't, ever. Your mother is called White Rose, but in Bone Garden that isn't a name. It's not possible. You understand?”

“All right,” Sword said, confused. He had known nothing of the sort, but was perfectly willing to believe it.

“The most common names are Farmer and Priest, but sometimes there's someone chosen by the
ler
for something special, and that becomes his name—or hers. A child born to be sacrificed to freshen the soil might be called Blood, for example, because that's the only part of him that will matter, the only thing he lives for. I knew two people named Blood in my household.”

“Oh,” Sword said, unhappily.

“You understand?”

“I think so.”

She paused, as if working up her courage, and then said simply,
”My
name was Feast.”

For a moment, Sword was unable to comprehend her words; they seemed like meaningless sounds. Then he understood.

“Oh,” he said again. He swallowed, and his mouth tasted of bile.

“That's why I still have all my fingers and toes and ears,” the Seer said, almost casually. “No one wanted to waste any. Whipping and cutting didn't bother anyone, that heals up, so I have my share of scars, but they kept me intact. And of course no one worried about mistreating me in other ways, since I wouldn't be around for very long to seek revenge, and the
ler
would not permit me to bear children who might seek it for me. I wasn't allowed clothing except in winter, but I was very well fed. I was quite plump. You'd hardly know it, now that I've been doing all this walking and only eating when I'm hungry, with no one trying to fatten me up.”