The Ninth Talisman (41 page)

But Bow the Archer had still been alive and free last he saw. He had no reason to think the Beauty had been caught. And Snatcher, the Thief—what had become of
him?
Sword had no idea. He had still been on the roof of the Winter Palace last Sword saw; he had not followed his companion down to the street.

And, Sword realized, he had no way to find out where any of the others were. The Seer was dead. A part of her magic had been the ability to always know where the eight Chosen were in Barokan, and where the Wizard Lord was, at any given time. That had not been
all
of her magic, but it was the heart of it. It was the Seer's duty to guide the gathering of the Chosen, when it became necessary.

The Speaker had been able to ask questions of
ler,
and sometimes send messages through them as well, which had been helpful in locating and gathering the Chosen—but she, too, was dead. Her hold on those rats and squirrels that had carried messages had undoubtedly broken when she died.

So how would the surviving Chosen find each other now? None of the other six had any magic that would serve in any obvious way. He was the master of blades and sticks, with superhuman speed and
strength in combat, while Bow was the master of projectiles and adept at stealth and the art of ambush; neither of those would help them find the others. Beauty could distract almost any adult male, and coax him to do what she wanted, but that was of no obvious use. Snatcher could move unseen and unheard, could get through locks and guards, but he still needed to know where to go.

Boss had made plans to regroup, but those plans had assumed that the Seer was still alive, and Beauty's home still standing. They no longer applied.

And there was the whole question of whether they
dared
regroup, with the Wizard Lord's men hunting them.

There was some very small hope in the knowledge that the Wizard Lord had no more magical means of finding them than they had of finding each other. His magic would normally have let him locate them all, but now they were doubly safe. Each of them wore several
ara
feathers, which would guard them against magic, and in any case the Wizard Lord's ability to detect their whereabouts was dependent upon the Talisman of Warding, one of the eight Great Talismans. The Talisman of Warding was magically bound to the Seer's talisman, the Talisman of Sight, and with the Seer's death both those talismans would have lost their power, at least temporarily.

The Speaker's death would have rendered her device, the Talisman of Tongues, inert, which would in turn have neutralized the Talisman of Names. The Wizard Lord would no longer be able to instantly determine the true name of anyone and anything in Barokan.

That was a
huge
part of his power—or rather, it would have been for any other Wizard Lord, but the Dark Lord of Winterhome did not rely on magic for his power. He relied on his servants and his soldiers, and the deference everyone automatically gave to his position.

The Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills would have been relatively harmless and almost defenseless without the talismans of Warding and Names, but his successor was another matter entirely.

Artil still had six presumably working Great Talismans, of course, as well as the mysterious Talisman of Trust and all the ordinary, lesser magic he had had when he was an ordinary wizard, before becoming the Wizard Lord. He had taken Boss and Lore alive, which meant that
the Talisman of Glory and the Talisman of Memory were still working—he could not learn new true names without effort, but he could still recall every one he had ever learned previously. The Talisman of Glory gave him an aura of authority and power that made it hard for anyone—well, anyone but the Chosen—to disobey or defy him.

He had the Talisman of Strength, paired with Sword's own Talisman of Blades, which meant he had superhuman strength and endurance.

He had the Talisman of Health, the Talisman of Weather, and the Talisman of Craft, as well, though whether they still functioned depended on whether or not Beauty, Bow, and Snatcher, respectively, yet lived.

That was plenty of magic, even if he had lost one-fourth of his power.

And he had his soldiers and servants, and he probably had most of the population of Barokan on his side. His roads had brought wealth and wonders, he had removed several assorted menaces like the Mad Oak, and his talk of a brighter, richer future had enthralled many people. The Chosen had been cast as obstacles in the path of this beautiful progress. This Wizard Lord hadn't killed innocent villagers the way Galbek Hills had; he hadn't flooded out crops or blasted guides with lightning. He
had
allowed a hot summer and daylight rains, but really, how seriously did most people take that? Sword had heard several people say they found the rains a pleasant novelty. Artil im Salthir had killed most of Barokan's wizards, but who cared about wizards? To most people, wizards weren't really people; they were the monstrous villains in old ballads like “The Siege of Blueflower.”

Whereas Sword and Bow
had
killed people—not innocents, necessarily, but men and women who were simply doing what they had been told to do. Those swordswomen had butchered two of the Chosen, but all twelve of them had been slain in return, along with the four torchbearers and an indeterminate number of archers and spearmen.

And all those dead men and women had families and friends, as Babble did not. Sword was not sure whether Azir shi Azir might still have half-siblings living back in Bone Garden, but if she did, it was virtually certain that they would not care about her death.

The dead soldiers would probably leave a score or more of grieving
households. In the past the ordinary people of Barokan had always welcomed the Chosen, and on those few occasions when the Chosen had found it necessary to remove a Wizard Lord only those directly under the Wizard Lord's magical sway had tried to prevent the Chosen from carrying out their mission, but Sword wondered whether that would be true this time.

For centuries, Dark Lords had tried to find a way to subvert the established order and make their own power absolute, and the Chosen had always ensured their failure, but Sword wondered whether Artil im Salthir might have finally found a way to do it, simply by relying on popular support rather than magic.

If that was true, then
should
the Wizard Lord be removed? Maybe it really
was
time to bring the whole system to an end. Maybe Artil was right.

But the Wizard Lord's soldiers had butchered Azir and Babble without giving them any chance to surrender. They had taken Boss and Lore prisoner for doing nothing more than their duty. And the Wizard Lord had, by his own admission,
planned
for that. He had prepared troops with stopped ears to capture the Leader, female troops to face the Beauty. He had
intended
to destroy the Chosen, he hadn't just stumbled into it.

Sword wondered how much of this had been Farash's suggestion, and how much had been Artil's own idea. He was fairly sure Farash had contributed something, but Artil had said all along that he wanted to destroy the old system and run Barokan without magic. He was the one responsible, even if Farash had been there advising him.

Sword wondered just how Farash was involved. If he ever did get the chance to kill the Wizard Lord, he did not think he would spare Farash again.

The Wizard Lord had said he wanted to eliminate magic, and Sword had never really thought that through, never understood just how completely he meant it. Artil had spoken with Sword and Lore, treated them as honored guests and trusted advisors, and all along he had been planning how to kill or capture them.

Sword could imagine what Artil would have said to this—that there were inevitably going to be some awkward moments in the transition,
that not everyone would be pleased with the improvements he was making, but that over all, it was for the greater good. Azir and Babble were just in the way, like the
ler
of the wilderness that had been driven out or destroyed by the road crews. Boss and Lore were resources to be guarded.

And the rest of the Chosen? More obstacles.

He looked down at the sword in his lap, remembering how he had cut his way through the Wizard Lord's soldiers with it—and how
easy
it had been. The
ler
of muscle and steel had given him superhuman speed and control, and neither the
ler
nor his years of practice had failed him; he had always known just where the blade needed to be, and how to get it there. He had not been thinking of those men and women as people, with friends and families, with their own lives and souls; he had been thinking of them as targets.

That was
wrong,
to ever think of his fellow human beings that way.

The Wizard Lord probably saw him as a menace, and Sword was not sure he was wrong.

He was still staring at the freshly wiped blade, seeing blood that was no longer there, when he heard voices, and footsteps—many footsteps. He froze.

The tramping drew closer, and he knew what he was hearing; this was a company of the Wizard Lord's soldiers, marching steadily closer.

Then they stopped, still some distance away, and he heard voices again as one man barked orders he could not quite make out. There were footsteps again, just a few this time, and then the sound of latches rattling and fists pounding on wood.

“Locked up tight, Captain,” someone called.

“All right, then—back in line!”

The footsteps retreated, and then the captain's voice called, “Forward, march!”

Sword understood now; they were checking the guesthouses, to see whether anyone had broken in and taken shelter in one. Sword thought that was slightly stupid. It would take an ax or a sledgehammer to break through those massive doors and shutters, not just a sword, and the damage would be obvious. It had never even occurred to him to try to get
into
one of the guesthouses, and it had apparently not occurred to
these men that someone might just hide
behind
them, out of sight of the road.

At least, he hadn't
heard
anyone looking behind the one they had just checked, but perhaps . . .

His hand closed on the hilt of his sword.

The company had marched up to the very structure he was sitting behind, and once again the main body stopped while a few men tried the doors. He waited, muscles tensed, ready to spring up and fight his way free.

But no one came around the corner of the guesthouse, no one spotted him, no one called an alarm, and after a moment the soldiers marched on, to the next guesthouse in the row.

He could not be certain who they were looking for, of course, but it seemed very likely that they were hunting for the remaining Chosen, including himself. And their intentions were not benign. He remembered Azir shi Azir screaming, her blood spraying; he remembered Babble folding and falling almost silently, and the blades chopping at her until her head rolled free of her body.

He knew that if he met any soldiers, death would result—perhaps his own, perhaps others, he wasn't sure, but there would definitely be death. He didn't want that. There had been enough killing—or almost enough; the Wizard Lord still had to die, and probably Farash with him.

Sword realized he could not stay anywhere in Winterhome; the Wizard Lord's people were everywhere, constantly moving around the town on one errand or another. He would have to go elsewhere.

And he could not safely use the roads. The Wizard Lord's soldiers might be patrolling those, looking for him.

He could not hire a guide, if there even were any left around here; guides could speak to some
ler,
and might recognize him as the Swordsman. While he doubted most guides would be very fond of the Wizard Lord who had built the roads that put most of them out of business, he could not rely on anyone's silence. He had to remain anonymous, wherever he went.

He looked down at his sword again, and turned it so the blade caught the afternoon sun. He would need to hide it.

He could not leave his talisman behind, though; he became ill any
time he was more than a few feet from it. Fortunately, it was small and easily concealed. The sword could be hidden or buried. . . .

But he would need to practice for an hour every day; the
ler
required that of him. He did not need to use an actual sword in his practice, but he did need to practice, and that might be inconvenient. Surely, though, he could contrive an hour of privacy each day.

And he needed to get away from Winterhome until he could devise some method for getting at the Wizard Lord and slaying him. He could use neither road nor guide, but he was one of the Chosen, and more than a dozen
ara
feathers lined his garments; he could cross the wilderness on his own in reasonable safety. He would need to be careful, as some of the wild magic might be dangerous even to him—he remembered his encounter with the Mad Oak the first time he left his home village, and shuddered. The Wizard Lord had removed some such hazards, but others still lingered.

An additional complication was that he had no supplies; all his belongings save his sword and the clothes on his back were either back in his mother's house in Mad Oak, or had burned up when Beauty's home was destroyed.

Still, he could manage, he was sure.

But where would he go?

Returning to Winterhome would be suicide. He would want to go back someday, to kill the Wizard Lord, but he could not risk it immediately. Those soldiers would be everywhere, hunting down the Chosen.

He wondered what had happened to the others. Snatcher ought to be safe enough; stealth and concealment were his specialty. He might even find a way to slip into the dungeons and free Boss and Lore eventually, or at least talk to them—freeing them might be a mistake, actually, as the Wizard Lord would never kill them while they were prisoners, but he might have no such compunctions if they attempted escape. Those three were probably alive and well, and safer without the Swordsman around.