The Ninth Talisman (38 page)

Snatcher slipped away so quietly that Sword did not even realize he was gone until he was at the edge of the plaza. He paused there and looked around for the Thief, who was supposed to find a way for him to eavesdrop.

There was no sign of him.

When the two spokesmen were admitted into the palace, Sword took up a position in a corner of the palace facade, leaning against the red-painted wood of a shutter with a casual air, as if he were waiting for someone. His sword was strapped to his back, under the loose black tunic of a Hostman, but he reached back as if scratching an itch and loosened the bindings; he could have the blade out in seconds, should it become necessary.

But he couldn't believe it would be necessary. Artil was a sensible person, albeit an ambitious and idealistic one; he surely didn't want to tangle with the Chosen, or to hurt anyone needlessly. He would agree to stay in Barokan, and all would be well. He would swear to harm no more wizards. He would have some reasonable explanation of his interest in the ninth talisman, and for killing those wizards.

He wouldn't do anything to the Chosen—he knew better. In seven hundred years, no Wizard Lord had ever bested the Chosen.

Sword glanced around at the guards; none of them seemed especially alert or disturbed. They were standing at their posts, two at each door, watching the people of Winterhome going about their business.

Then he felt a tickle at his ankle; he glanced down to see a fair-sized rat standing there, looking up at him. The rat had climbed up on Sword's left boot, and his whiskers had been responsible for the tickle.

Sword blinked. He suppressed his first instinctive reaction, and did not kick the rodent away.

This was obviously magic; rats did not naturally behave this way. Whose magic, though? Was this one of Babble's messengers, or was the Wizard Lord up to something? Might some other wizard be trying to contact him, or one of the Host People priests?

The rat, certain that it had been seen and recognized, scampered up
Sword's leg. Even knowing it was there and enchanted, it took a strong effort on Sword's part not to shout and fling it off. He forced himself to remain still while the rodent climbed up his flank, from trousers to tunic, until it reached his shoulder. It thrust its snout to his ear, and said, “Around back. There's a way up to the roof, and to the windows in the audience chamber. I'll guide you.”

It spoke in a squeaking, high-pitched, inhuman voice, but nonetheless it was recognizably imitating the Thief.

This, then, was Babble's magic—and quite an impressive feat, really. Sword wondered whether
all
the Chosen not in the palace were listening to similar vermin; somehow he doubted that Azir or Beauty would be pleased by such a method of communication.

Sword smiled at the rat. “Lead the way,” he murmured.

The rat pointed with its nose, and Sword went where he was directed.

A few minutes later he found himself clambering along a sloping ledge to where Snatcher crouched on the tiles, peering in at a narrow window. Sword hurried up beside him, and peered over the smaller man's shoulder.

This was one end of one of the two rows of clerestory windows that let daylight into the Wizard Lord's audience chamber. The two Chosen were able to look down directly at the dais where Artil sat, with Farash at his right shoulder.

Farash seemed to be smirking at someone.

“Keep low,” Snatcher whispered, gesturing. “Don't let your shadow be obvious.”

Sword nodded, and knelt at the second window in the row. The rat leapt from his shoulder and scurried up a sloping roof, then turned to watch and await further instructions.

“Thank you, Wizard Lord, for agreeing to speak with us.”

Sword could hear the muffled words well enough to understand, but it took an effort; he crouched nearer to the glass, putting his head to one side and peering down at an angle until he could see the Leader, standing before the throne. The pair of feet he could just barely make out behind her presumably belonged to Lore.

Boss was clearly the target of that smirk on Farash's face.

“Refusing to meet the Leader of the Chosen would hardly increase
my odds of a long reign, now, would it?” the Wizard Lord replied sardonically.

“We are not going to turn on you out of mere pique,” Boss said, in that surprisingly deep, strong voice. “We take our duty very seriously, and you have obviously done a great deal to benefit Barokan. However, there are matters of some concern to us.”

There was a commotion of some sort in the plaza just then; Sword tried to shut out the raised voices and banging noises that echoed over the rooftops to keep his attention focused on what was happening in the audience chamber.

The Wizard Lord had said something Sword did not catch, and was waiting for a response.

“We are here,” Boss continued, “to discuss three issues. First and least, we are concerned about your lengthy absences from Barokan during the summers. You are sworn to defend Barokan against outlaws of all kinds, natural or otherwise, and the oath says that you are given the magic of the Wizard Lord to aid you in this defense. To leave behind Barokan
and
your magic would seem to violate your oath—you were abandoning your sworn duties as Wizard Lord.”

“No,” the Wizard Lord said, as Sword shifted his gaze, trying to get an idea of how many guards were in the room below. He could see perhaps half a dozen, but from his current post most of the room was not visible. There could be an army in there.

He was vaguely aware that the Thief had moved away, up the slope of the roof. Well, he didn't suppose they both needed to hear every word.

“I was kept well-apprised of everything that happened in my realm,” Artil continued. “If the need were there I could have had my full range of magic back in a matter of hours. My stay at the Summer Palace wasn't a violation of any oath.”

“The Scholar and I have some doubts on this,” Boss replied. “You say yourself it would be a matter of hours before you could recover the use of your magic; a great deal can happen in a few hours. The weather in your absence was . . . unpleasant. There were frequent daylight rainstorms, and many days were swelteringly hot. Talltrees reportedly suffered an actual thunderstorm. You gave the
ler
of wind and sky
instructions before you left, but clearly, they did not feel constrained to
follow
those instructions in your absence. If you spend every summer in the Uplands, I foresee a time when we will have not merely unregulated heat and rain, but lightning storms killing innocents, hailstorms destroying crops . . . ”

“Hailstorms?” the Wizard Lord interrupted. “What are hailstorms?” He was clearly interested—apparently he had never heard the word before.

Lore's voice spoke, though Sword could still only see the Scholar's boots. “Storms in which balls of solid ice fall from the sky,” he said. “We only know of them from stories centuries old, from before the Wizard Lords took on the task of controlling the weather, but until seven years ago that was all we knew of lightning. The fact that I remember the descriptions of hailstorms in detail would seem to indicate their accuracy.”

“Solid ice? Really?” the Wizard Lord said, and Sword saw Artil lean forward eagerly. “I hadn't known anything like that was possible; I'll have to have a few words with those
ler.”

“Lord, we want to
prevent
hailstorms from ever happening,” Lore protested. “The stories say they can wreak terrible destruction if they come at the wrong time.”

Boss said, “Wizard Lord, as Leader of the Chosen, I ask you to stay in Barokan from now on. Do not go back to your clifftop palace.”

“Is this a demand, then?” Artil straightened up again, and stared at Boss. “Will you depose or kill me if I refuse?”

Something looked odd, Sword thought. At first he was unsure what was bothering him, but then he realized. The guards behind the Wizard Lord should have tensed at that exchange, and they had not.

Farash had; the smirk had vanished. He looked worried.

“No, Lord,” Boss said. “It is a request, nothing more.”

“Ah. I will take it under consideration. Now, I believe you said you had other concerns, as well?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Call me Artil.”

“Yes, Artil. I thought it best to start with the least important. Our next concern is that we have heard it reliably reported that your men have killed several wizards.”

“Rogue wizards, yes. Was I required to inform you of such executions? If so, then very well, I hereby inform you—I have indeed sent soldiers to attend to the disposition of several rogue wizards.”

“May I ask, Lord, how many wizards, and in what way they were rogues?”

The Wizard Lord stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Shall we come back to that? I'd like to know what your third complaint is.”

“It's related. The matter of the ninth talisman. You sent your men to interrogate wizards about a ninth talisman; I can only assume that you mean there's a ninth member of the Chosen.
We
aren't aware of any ninth. If you are, we'd very much appreciate knowing the details.”

“You claim you don't know?”

“I
don't
know. If any of the others do, they've lied to me about it. Why do you think there's a ninth?”

“Because of
this,
of course,” the Wizard Lord said, thrusting a hand into the collar of his robe and pulling out something small and shiny.

Boss took a step forward. “A coin?”

“Yes, a coin. A coin that one of my fellow wizards, a man called the Cormorant, handed me a few months after I became the Wizard Lord, a coin that I must now carry with me at all times, or else I become ill.
Seriously
ill.
Deathly
ill.

“Unless, of course, I'm not in Barokan. Then I can leave this coin aside—but I can't return to Barokan without it, any more than I could abandon it here in Winterhome.” He tucked the coin back in his robe. “The Cormorant called it the Talisman of Trust, but would not explain why. I know it has powerful magic, that it commands strong
ler,
but even after these six or seven years I'm only able to use a tiny portion of that power, because I don't understand it—and because it's linked to another talisman, and that link is
blocking
me! How is that possible, Leader of the Chosen?”

“I have no idea, Lord. I'm no wizard.” Sword thought he saw Boss glance at Farash, who now looked very seriously uncomfortable. The Wizard Lord did not seem to notice.

“I
am
a wizard, and I can't understand it,” Artil told her. “This is like no talisman I have ever encountered before. The Great Talismans, the talismans given to the Wizard Lords, are supposed to provide power,
the power to rule Barokan, to find and kill outlaws, to guide the weather and ensure peace and plenty, but
this
talisman does little but thwart me. The Council of Immortals created it, and by doing that they betrayed me—
that's
why I have treated them as rogues, and had them killed for refusing to explain it to me. They broke faith with me by giving me this so-called Talisman of Trust, and I have repaid them accordingly.”

“It would seem they broke faith with the Chosen, as well, by not informing us that we have a ninth member,” Boss said. She was definitely looking at Farash, rather than at Artil, but the Wizard Lord still took no notice.

“If I am to believe you, then I suppose they have. Perhaps in that case you will pardon me for having disposed of them.”

“The four wizards you killed were the ones who made this Talisman of Trust, and its unknown companion?”

“Four?” The Wizard Lord looked startled; his face, which had been set and grim, suddenly broke into a smile.
“Four?
You only knew of four?”

“Four—the Cormorant, the Blue Lady, Brownleg, and Kazram of the Bog. Yes. Were there more?”

“Leader, in these decadent times a new Great Talisman can only be created by
all
the Council. Four wizards escaped my men, two are unaccounted for, and
eleven are
dead.”

Sword's eyes widened, and the blood seemed to chill in his veins at those words.

“That's—drastic,” Boss said, her voice somewhat strangled; Sword could barely make out her words. Her gaze was once again fixed on the Wizard Lord, his treacherous advisor forgotten.

“I have never believed in half-measures, Zrisha oro Sal thir Karalba,” the Wizard Lord said, straightening on his throne. “Rather, I believe in being prepared. I have been thinking this over carefully for years, Zrisha oro Sal.”

“Stop calling me that!” Boss snapped.

“It's your true name, isn't it?”

“You
know
it is! Stop it!”

The Wizard Lord was grinning now. “Ever since I first became the
Wizard Lord,” he said, “I have feared—no, I have
expected
—that the day would eventually come when the Chosen would decide, in your arbitrary fashion, that my plans violated some rule or other. I had allowed myself to hope you would be sensible, but I never really believed it. When you made no objection to the new roads, I was guardedly optimistic. When you allowed me to build the Summer Palace, I hoped. But when you demanded this audience, I knew I couldn't take any chances—and sooner or later you would need to go, in any case. Barokan is
done
with all this complicated system of wizards and magic and Chosen. The time has come to wean the people of Barokan from their dependence on the whims of wizards and
ler,
and to run this land with common sense and proper organization.”