The Ninth Talisman (9 page)

That halo was fascinating; it did not behave like ordinary light. It cast no shadows, and although it appeared fairly bright, it did not seem to illuminate at all anything more than a foot or so from the Priest-King's head. Sword found himself staring at it.

“Ah! So what do you think of the roads? How was the walk from Mad Oak?”

Sword answered as best he could as the Priest-King barraged him with questions, just as the villagers out by the boundary shrine had. He found himself recounting the story of how he and the other Chosen had slain the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills—though he left out a great many details he did not think the king needed to know.

At last, though, the king seemed satisfied; he swung himself around and rose from his throne. He was a tall man, a bit plump, a bit soft, with long curling brown hair that reached halfway down his back, and a close-trimmed beard streaked with gray; Sword did not think he would have been considered especially handsome were it not for that ethereal glow that surrounded him and flattered his features.

“You must be hungry,” the Priest-King said. “Come take supper with me.”

This invitation, like any other the Priest-King gave, had the force of an order, so Sword followed without argument, and found himself seated at a great carved-oak table weighed down with delicacies of every sort. Half a dozen lovely young women in low-cut dresses waited on them as they ate and drank, making sure neither of the men had to reach for anything, and that no goblet ever stayed empty for more than a few seconds.

As they ate, the king asked more questions, and Sword noticed that the serving maids listened intently to the answers, that in fact the Priest-King appeared to be timing his questions so that the women could hear Sword's responses. That undoubtedly explained why the king deliberately repeated certain questions Sword had already answered in private; they were matters the Priest-King thought were of general interest, and his staff would spread the answers throughout Willowbank.

The food was excellent, as might be expected at the Priest-King's table, and dish followed dish almost endlessly—thick soup and fine bread and assorted fruit and grilled meat and a stew of spiced vegetables, until Sword felt as if his belly were bulging and his sword belt had become uncomfortably tight.

At last, though, the meal was done, and the king sent Sword off to the appointed guest room, with a serving wench carrying a candle to light his way. It had been a long day, and Sword was ready to sleep, but when he reached his room he discovered that his hosts expected one more thing from him—the serving maid did not leave once his own candle was lit. He hesitated, then decided he was not
that
tired.

In the morning she fetched his breakfast, and carried his polite farewells to the Priest-King. As the sun cleared the Eastern Cliffs, he set out down the road to Rock Bridge.

The journey was uneventful, and Council of Priests in Rock Bridge made him welcome. They asked his opinion of the new roads; he answered truthfully that he had not yet formed an opinion. The roads certainly made travel easier, but they also disturbed the natural order of things, and he had not yet decided whether the benefits outweighed the damage.

The road from Willowbank to Rock Bridge was far less disorienting than the one from Mad Oak to Willowbank; it had had longer to recover from its creation, and the difference was obvious.

From Rock Bridge, Sword continued the following day to Broadpool. That stretch of road already showed traces of wagon ruts, and though he did not meet any traveling merchants in either town, the inhabitants of both towns were happy to tell him that some had been there, selling strange foods and fabrics and a variety of other wonderful things.

In Broadpool several of the witches, as the local priestesses were called, took turns interrogating him in various odd ways; the evening was well advanced before he realized that they were competing to see whose bed he would sleep in. He announced that he was exhausted and would sleep alone, and the questioning abruptly ceased.

In the morning he found every door in the village locked against him, and his pack placed beside the boundary shrine where the road led south; he took the hint and did not linger.

From Broadpool he had a choice of roads, to his astonishment. He took the more easterly route, to Beggar's Hill, where he found lodging with a woodcarver turned innkeeper who went by the name of Nicker.

It was in Beggar's Hill, as he was about to head up the stairs to his room in Nicker's Public House, that the big brown hound by the hearth raised its head and said, “Hello, Swordsman.”

Sword stopped and turned.

The half-dozen other occupants of the taproom were staring at the dog in astonishment and fear, but Sword knew what was happening. He had encountered talking animals before, when he and the other Chosen went after the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills; the Wizard Lord could see through the eyes of lesser creatures, and control their actions, even to the point of making beasts speak. It was a convenient way for him to communicate over long distances, a trick of which no other wizard was known to be capable.

“Hello, Wizard Lord,” Sword said calmly.

“Are you coming to see me?” the dog asked. Its voice was rough, not remotely human, but the words were clear enough.

“Yes, I am,” Sword replied.

“I thought so. I can only see your exact location at night, for some reason, but your route seemed to be headed this way.”

“Yes. I'm coming to Winterhome,” Sword agreed.

“Why can't I place you clearly along the way?” the hound asked. “Is there something wrong with the roads?”

“I don't think so,” Sword said. “I assume it's the
ara
feathers on my hat. Which I take off at night.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, that would explain it.”

“I don't entirely trust the roadside
ler,
as yet,” Sword said.

“Sensible of you. Then I'll see you soon?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I'm looking forward to it—and the dog is getting upset, so I'll speak with you when you get here.”

“As you please,” Sword said with a bow.

At that the dog started, getting quickly to its feet and letting out an unhappy yip. Then it shivered and trotted away toward the kitchens, whimpering.

The unnatural silence that had filled the room during the magical conversation suddenly burst into a murmur of hushed voices, and every eye in the room was focused on the Swordsman.

Sword paid the observers no attention. He watched the dog go, to make sure there would be no last-moment afterthought, then turned and continued upstairs. It was useful to know that the Wizard Lord was taking an interest in him, he told himself. Useful, but as always, a bit disconcerting.

It was the morning after, as he was raising his head after making his farewell prayer to the
ler
of Beggar's Hill, that he looked up at the sun clearing the Eastern Cliffs. He had already taken a step past the boundary shrine onto the road, but now he stopped dead in his tracks.

“What is
that
?” he asked, pointing.

His host, Nicker, had escorted him to the border, as the town's
ler
were wary of unaccompanied strangers. The innkeeper had started to turn back just short of the shrine, but upon hearing the traveler's voice he paused. “What is what?” he asked.

Sword pointed. “That,” he said.

Nicker looked where the Chosen Swordsman was pointing.

Something stood atop the cliffs far to the southeast, a broad structure of some sort. It did not appear particularly remarkable, though details could not be seen at so great a distance and with the morning sun behind it, but it was not the architecture that had caught Sword's eye. It was the location.

There
were
no permanent structures atop the cliffs. Everyone knew that. The Uplands were a vast windswept prairie, and the Uplanders who lived there most of the year were nomads who lived in tents as they followed the great flocks of
ara,
the gigantic flightless birds that provided them with meat, magic-resistant feathers, and the beaks and hollow bones they used to make their tools.

The Uplanders did not build multistory buildings right at the cliff edge.

“I don't know,” Nicker said. “They started building it two or three years ago; I think it's finished now.”

“
Who
built it? The Uplanders?”

Nicker shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “I don't think so. The rumor
is that it's another of the Wizard Lord's projects. I'm pretty sure one of the road crew said it was.”

“Projects? What sort of project is it?”

“I don't really know.”

Sword did not like that. The Wizard Lord was the mystical overlord of all Barokan and could go anywhere in his realm that he pleased, but the land atop the cliffs was not part of Barokan. The cliffs were the eastern boundary, just as definite as the boundaries of the towns within Barokan. The Wizard Lord had no business doing anything in the Uplands, and certainly shouldn't be
building
anything up there; that was intruding into the Uplanders' territory. Building roads through the wilderness within Barokan was one thing—all Barokan was within the Wizard Lord's purview—but building something in the Uplands?

And who knew what the Wizard Lord might be building elsewhere in the Uplands, too far back from the cliff edge to be visible?

“Did that road-builder say what it is? What it's for?”

“Well, he had a name for it,” Nicker said, glancing up at the cliff-top structure. “At least, my niece said he did.”

“What was that? Did she say?”

“She said it's called the Summer Palace.”

Sword blinked at him, then turned to stare at the building atop the cliffs. “Summer Palace”—just what did that mean? Some Wizard Lords had built palaces and lived in them, probably more than hadn't, but a
Summer
Palace?

And surely the Wizard Lord couldn't intend to
live
in it, to dwell outside Barokan!

He definitely needed to speak to the Wizard Lord!

As he followed the roads to Winterhome, Sword gradually approached the Summer Palace, watched it grow nearer, then passed it and saw it recede again. It stood a few miles northeast of Winterhome along the cliff edge.

He could still see it clearly, though, as he passed the boundary stones and saw the immense guesthouses lining the road ahead of him. It was hard to be sure at so great a distance, but he believed it to be two or three stories in height, with broad sloping roofs, and fairly large, perhaps as large as the guesthouses the Host People of Winterhome maintained for the Uplanders.

The guesthouses, of course, were empty at this time of year. The Uplanders had long since made their annual climb up to the plateau and would not return for months, but their clan banners still flew from each guesthouse that Sword passed, fluttering from a pole at the southeast gable of each, the gable nearest the path that led up from Barokan to the Uplands. Each guesthouse stood three stories high—two stories of massive stone, and a third of wood and plaster, beneath broad, overhanging roofs. The doors and windows were shuttered and barred for the summer; the dormitories were abandoned until autumn.

Sword knew there were three avenues of these structures, leading into the heart of Winterhome, the streets where the Host People lived year-round; he was coming in along the road that led northwest from that central core. He marched on, seeing no one—but that was to be expected in the late spring.

But then he came within sight of the great central plaza, and stopped dead.

He remembered well what the plaza had looked like six years before—a broad open space with five streets radiating out to north,
south, west, northwest, and southwest, while the east side ended in the steep stony slope at the foot of the cliffs, the rough road to the plateau winding up from the center of that eastern edge. This was the one spot in all Barokan where enough of the Eastern Cliffs had crumbled that people could climb a path winding its way for several miles across broken stone and jagged outcroppings to the Uplands, and the plaza of Winterhome had been built around the foot of that path.

The loose, mossy, gray stone had been left untouched for centuries, and the town had been built on the gently rolling land just to the west. The eastern side of the plaza had been open to that steep, rocky wilderness.

Now, though, the entire eastern side of the plaza was occupied by a palace, and the entrance to the road up the cliffs was a great stone arch that led
through
that palace.

The plaza was bustling with people, the vast majority of them in the distinctive all-black garb of the Host People. None of them seemed to be paying any very special attention to the palace—that is, unless one counted the guards at the various entrances, standing comfortably in their places, with their red-and-black uniforms and ornate eight-foot spears. Most people seemed to be huddled around various wagons, but Sword paid those no attention. He focused entirely on the palace.