The Summer Palace (2 page)

He had killed the Dark Lord, and he had demanded that the Council replace the Leader, the Thief, and the Seer, but he had not explained why; he had considered the business finished.

He had thought, when that was done, that he was done with his service. He had thought that Artil im Salthir would be a sensible and harmless Wizard Lord.

The Red Wizard, however, had proved to be a very
untraditional
Wizard Lord. Rather than passively reacting to threats to the peace, as his predecessors had, he had set about actively improving his domain. Where most Wizard Lords avoided contact with the Chosen, he had taken on Farash inith Kerra, the former Leader, as his chief advisor, and had asked Lore, the Chosen Scholar, for advice, as well. He had recruited soldiers—not the two or three dozen guards at most who had sufficed for previous Wizard Lords, but hundreds of eager young men. He had hired builders, and he had set them to work, building a network of roads and canals that were gradually connecting all the heretofore isolated communities that made up Barokan. He had done everything he could to promote trade, and had made the land vastly richer by doing so.

The wild places between towns had been home to various hazards and monsters—soul-eating trees, wild beasts, and semi-sentient man-traps of one sort or another. Artil im Salthir had removed as many of these as he could locate. After all, he was charged with removing criminals from the wilderness; why limit that to humans?

The custom had been for each Wizard Lord to build himself a mansion or tower, using his magic, to demonstrate his mastery of his power. Artil had instead used his construction gangs to build his two immense, elaborate palaces, in Winterhome and atop the cliffs.

That was all to the good, really. This Wizard Lord had made Barokan a richer, safer place, and most of the population idolized him for it; he was a hero, the man who had transformed his society.

The Chosen had observed it all with interest, but somewhat less enthusiasm. The roads and canals seemed an unadulterated good, and no one had any problem with removing hazards. The Summer Palace and Artil's extended stays there were a little worrisome, since it was outside Barokan's borders, but all in all, acceptable.

But then the Chosen learned that Artil had sent his soldiers to find and kill the remaining members of the Council of Immortals.

After centuries of restrictions and poor reputations, wizards were already few, and all of them belonged to the Council; none were considered rogues. That had not stopped Artil's men; apparently innocent wizards were burned, beheaded, or hanged. Still, killing troublesome wizards was the very essence of the Wizard Lord's role, so the Chosen were not certain that they were required to do anything to stop these murders, or to interfere with whatever the Wizard Lord was doing.

Until, that is, it became clear that the wizards were being killed solely because Artil im Salthir believed those wizards had created a ninth member of the Chosen, and were refusing to tell him who this ninth person was.

Although it was indeed true that it was customary to add another member to the Chosen any time a Dark Lord was executed, none of the eight traditional members of the Chosen knew anything about a ninth. Even if Artil was correct, this hardly seemed to justify slaughtering a dozen wizards. In fact, interfering with the Chosen in any way was one of the few things the Wizard Lord was forbidden to do.

So Boss and Lore had gone to discuss the situation—to discuss it, nothing more—and had been taken prisoner.

They had, in fact, walked into a trap. The Wizard Lord had been expecting the Chosen to attack him, and had been waiting for it, with troops specially chosen and trained to handle the specific magic of the eight Chosen. His personal guards had had their ears plugged, so they could not hear the Leader's attempts to persuade them. The moment Boss and Lore were captured, orders had gone out to kill the rest of the Chosen, including Sword—archers to fight the Swordsman, pikemen and swordsmen to fight the Archer, women to kill the Beauty, and so on.

These troops Artil had so diligently recruited and trained had indeed killed the Seer and the Speaker, had cut them to pieces in the street not a mile from where Sword now stood. He had seen the whole thing, and he and the Archer had done what they could to avenge those deaths before fleeing.

The others had scattered, and Sword had no idea what had happened
to the Archer, the Beauty, and the Thief. He hoped they were still alive, but he did not know.

He had fled as far as the town of Morning Calm, where the Wizard Lord's troops had found him. He had used the magic of the local
ler
to escape unharmed, but realized that he would never be safe anywhere in Barokan, so long as the Wizard Lord, Artil im Salthir, lived. Flight was pointless.

So he had retraced his steps.

When he had decided to return to Winterhome, he hoped he might catch sight of the other free Chosen, but as yet he had seen no sign of them anywhere. He had listened to a few conversations, hoping for news, but heard nothing relevant, and as a fugitive himself, he did not dare speak directly to anyone to ask. He wore the garb of a man of the Host People, and had done everything he could to match his appearance to that of a Hostman, so he could wander the streets unmolested as long as he kept the sword hidden and let no one see his face clearly enough to recognize him, but he knew he still spoke with the harsher accent of his native Longvale. Anyone who heard him talk would know he was not from Winterhome, and the chances were depressingly good that his face would be recognized. Even if a passing Hostman or foreigner had never seen him in person before, the Wizard Lord's men had been circulating pictures, with captions labeling him a traitor and murderer.

Not so very long ago, being recognized as the Chosen Swordsman would have been a good thing, as almost everyone in Barokan had considered the Chosen to be their protectors, their allies. No more. The Wizard Lord had done a good job of winning the loyalty of his people, and casting the Chosen as outdated relics who wanted to destroy everything Barokan had built in the past few years.

And Sword, in particular, had been labeled a bloodthirsty monster, the man who had slaughtered a dozen innocents in the streets of Winterhome.

Sword regretted now that he had been quite so eager to kill those soldiers, but he still did not consider his victims innocent. All of
them had aided in killing the Seer and the Speaker, two harmless, unarmed women.

But hardly anyone knew that, and no one cared. He had seen that when he tried to take refuge in Morning Calm. The townspeople had done nothing to help him when the Wizard Lord's soldiers came looking for him; most of them seemed to take at face value the captain's claim that Sword had butchered the Wizard Lord's troops without cause. No one had asked for his side of the story; they simply wanted him gone.

He had no reason to think that matters would be any different anywhere in Barokan.

And that was why he was here, back in Winterhome, staring up at the cliffs and waiting for dusk. He could not live in Barokan. He knew of no refuge, no place where he could find shelter while he planned how to kill the Wizard Lord—and there was no doubt that he did intend to kill Artil im Salthir; whether he had served Barokan as a whole good or ill, the Wizard Lord had killed Sword's friends, Azir and Babble, the Seer and the Speaker, and Sword intended to see that the Red Wizard paid for it with his own life.

But there was nowhere in Barokan he could find safety, and that meant he must leave Barokan.

The only land route out of Barokan was that path up the cliff to the Uplands. Escape by sea might be possible, but Sword was no sailor, and knew nothing of where he might find a ship, or where it might take him; he preferred to stay on solid ground. He had doubled back to Winterhome because it was the last place the Wizard Lord's men would expect to find him, and because it was the only way to the Uplands.

Slipping into the town had been surprisingly easy.

It shouldn't have been.

After all, Artil im Salthir, Lord of Winterhome, surely
knew
that Sword intended to kill him. He had ordered the deaths of six of the eight Chosen, and he had taken the other two prisoner. It would be plain to anyone that Sword and any of the others who were still alive and free would now want to kill the Wizard Lord.

There had been half a dozen of the Wizard Lord's guards posted on each of the two roads into town that Sword investigated, and presumably on the other three entry roads as well, but there had been no visible attempt to guard the long border with the wilderness, even though the Wizard Lord knew that the Chosen could travel safely outside the towns, without need of roads. Sword guessed there were two factors at work in leaving the boundaries unmanned—that the Wizard Lord did not think any of the Chosen would be fool enough, having once escaped, to try to reenter Winterhome; and that he simply didn't have enough men to patrol every part of the border.

Whatever the reason, Sword had found it easy to slip across the boundary well away from any guards, and to creep along behind the
guesthouses, into the heart of the town, where he made his way up an alley onto the streets.

From there, he had worked slowly and carefully toward the central plaza.

He was not there yet; he had paused here because ahead the crowds were too thick. He could not hope to cross the plaza by daylight without being spotted. He still wore the concealing black garb of the Host People, and could blend in fairly well if he avoided passing too close to anyone else, but even with the hood up and his sword strapped to his back, hidden under the loose black tunic, there was a chance someone might recognize him.

And if anyone spoke to him—well, he had never learned to speak with the lilt of the Winterhome dialect.

He would have to wait until dark.

He wished he could stop in somewhere for something to eat, but the risk of being recognized was too great.

For that matter, standing here staring at the cliff might well draw attention; he lowered his gaze and ambled away, trying to look unconcerned.

The crowds were starting to thin as people headed home for supper, so he risked continuing on to the north, toward the plaza. He made his way safely almost to the edge and looked out at the crowd, and at the front of the Winter Palace.

There in the palace wall was the archway that led to the foot of the trail up the cliffs, and there, also, was a more serious obstacle than the mere possibility of being recognized. Four spearmen stood at the opening, guarding it.

Sword knew he could easily defeat four spearmen. However, he wanted not merely to get to the Uplands, but to do so undetected.

If the Wizard Lord knew where he had gone, it would defeat the whole purpose of going there.

He turned his attention to a merchant's wagon a few steps into the plaza, and began poking through the collection of cutlery and weapons displayed thereon; the proprietor was busy with another
customer and merely threw him a quick nod, acknowledging his presence and his right to look through the merchandise.

Studying the blades, holding them up to catch the sinking sun, allowed him plenty of time to think, and an opportunity to get a good look at the guarded gate.

There was no obvious way past the spearmen, who were clustered directly before the arch. He wondered, though, why it was guarded at all. The Uplanders would not be descending for at least another two months, and in any case, to the best of Sword's knowledge they were no threat to anyone or anything the Wizard Lord cared about.

It seemed more likely, given that the guards were facing out into the plaza, that the Wizard Lord did not want any of the people of Barokan slipping through that gate. Had he somehow guessed what Sword intended?

Sword did not see how Artil
could
have guessed.

He looked at the gate, and then up at the cliffs, the upper reaches still brightly lit by the setting sun, and a possibility came to him.

He had noticed when he climbed up once before that from the first diagonal stretch of the trail it would be fairly easy to drop large heavy objects, such as rocks, onto the roof of the Winter Palace. It might be possible to clamber down and lower oneself onto the roof, as well—and just a few days ago Bow, the Chosen Archer, had demonstrated how effective rooftop archery could be.

That
was probably what concerned the Wizard Lord, and prompted him to post guards.

It also suggested another possibility to Sword, though. If he could get on the palace roof by some other route, he could slip down onto the loose stone on the other side of the gate, and then go up to the path.

Sword immediately knew what that other route would be; Snatcher, the Chosen Thief, had shown him a way to get onto the palace roof by climbing up a low wall to the north of the palace, jumping across to the roof of a shed, and working upward from there. Sword and Snatcher had used that method to get to the high windows overlooking
the Wizard Lord's throne room, and had watched from that unsuspected vantage point as Boss and Lore confronted the Wizard Lord and brought on the open conflict that had ended with the two of them in the dungeons, Azir and Babble dead in the street, and the four remaining Chosen scattered.