The Summer Palace (41 page)

“And you went home to Mad Oak?” Beauty asked.

Erren nodded. “I grow barley and beans there, and care for my mother, and try to keep my younger sisters out of trouble.”

“That doesn't sound very exciting after all your adventures!” Kiamar exclaimed. “Surely, this King you say now rules Barokan could have found a use for the world's greatest swordsman!”

Erren smiled. “I'm sure he could,” he said. “But I didn't ask. Farming is a good life. And it's the life
I
chose.”

Beauty smiled, and looked at Kiamar. “Just as I chose
this
life, here with my husband.”

Kiamar returned her smile, then gathered up the dishes. “I'm sure you two have more to discuss; let me just clear this away.”

The two Chosen watched him go; then Beauty turned back to Erren, her smile fading.

“You said Boss is the Queen, now?”

“Yes.”

Beauty frowned. “Sword,” she said, “I didn't think about that at first, but . . . she still has her magic, doesn't she?”

“Yes,” Erren said.

“Do you think . . . well, you remember . . .”

“I remember what Farash did to Doublefall when he was the Leader, yes. Do I think Boss may have . . .
encouraged
King Azal in some of his decisions?” He shrugged. “I don't know. I honestly don't know.”

“But if she did—then she's just another Wizard Lord, isn't she?”

“Maybe.”

“But
Sword
—then we
are
still the Chosen, and we have to defend Barokan!”

“From what? She may be using her magic to rule, yes. That might make her something like a Wizard Lord, yes. But she isn't a
Dark
Lord—or Dark Lady, I suppose it would be. So far, she and Azal have been doing just fine at running things. Remember, most Wizard Lords filled the role peacefully.”

“But . . . but the system . . .”

“The old system is broken,” Erren told her. “There are still vestiges of it, yes—we're two of them, and Queen Zrisha is another. But we're the last. None of us has the magic to choose a successor and pass on his or her role. Queen Zrisha is helping to establish a
new
system, one that will have to work without magic once she's gone. Let her have a chance to help.”

“But what if she
does
turn dark?”

Erren shrugged. “I still have my sword,” he said. “I'm immune to her magic, and she doesn't have anything like the same magical power the Wizard Lords had, in any case. She thinks of me as a friend. If I choose, I can kill her. Or Snatcher can. We don't need the entire Chosen.”

“She's younger than you are,” Beauty said.

“If she outlives me and then turns bad, then someone else can choose to remove her.” Erren's hand fell to his pocket, where he could feel the silver talisman that made him the Swordsman. “After all, we chose ourselves, really; other people can choose, too.”

“But they won't have any magic.”

“The soldiers who slaughtered the Council didn't have any magic, either.” Erren sighed. “You know, Beauty, I noticed something a long time ago, back when we were fighting our way through rainstorms to get to the Galbek Hills, but I didn't really understand it until much later. We called ourselves the Chosen, but we
did
choose ourselves. Yes, we have the magic the Council gave us, but most of all, we
chose
to fight the Dark Lords. And other people chose
not
to. The wizards never fought; they left it to us. The
townsfolk never fought, either; they, too, left it to us. Why? Because we were the Chosen. Everyone knew we were there, chosen to defend them—and because we were there, they didn't need to defend
themselves.
But we chose
ourselves.
When the Old Swordsman came to Mad Oak seeking his successor, I
chose
to speak up, when no one else would. No one came and told me I
must
be the Swordsman; I volunteered. I stepped forward because I thought
someone
had to. Later on, when we were fighting for our lives, no one else stepped forward to help us, because we were the Chosen, we had already been selected for the job and it wasn't anyone else's place to be involved—but if there hadn't
been
any Chosen, would anyone have stepped forward?”

“I don't know,” she whispered. “Would they?”

“I hope so,” Erren said. “I think there were probably dozens of people who might have thought, someone needs to do something, and no one else is, so I need to try. But they didn't; instead they thought, the Chosen will defend us, how fortunate,
I
don't need to do anything! Only now there are no Chosen. And I hope, I
hope,
that that means that when the day comes that Barokan has a bad king or an evil queen, ordinary people will step forward to deal with the problem. They won't wait for someone else to act. They won't rely on preselected heroes. They'll do what must be done. Farash didn't need to kill Artil, you know, but he did it anyway, because he knew it had to be done, even if it got him killed. I hope there will always be people who can do that.”

Beauty glanced toward the door where Kiamar had vanished.

“I hope so, too,” she said. “But Sword, I will tell you right now—if a time like that comes, I probably won't be one of them.”

Erren shrugged. “You have your own life to live,” he said. “And I have mine. And I don't think the present King or Queen will ever need to be removed. If they do, well, we can worry about it then.”

At that point Kiamar reappeared, and the conversation turned to lighter topics.

A few hours later Erren took his leave. He shook Kiamar's hand,
then gave the Beauty a final embrace in the doorway of her feathered home.

“Remember,” he said as he turned away. “We choose what we want to be. Heroes choose themselves.”

“THE BALLAD OF THE CHOSEN”

(as sung at the coronation of Queen Zrisha)

 

One day turned dark and shadows fell
Across this land of fools
As madness turned the old ways ‘round
And shattered ancient rules
Then nine were called by wizards' schemes
To save us from our doom;
The Chosen came to guard us all
And lay evil in its tomb

 

 

The Leader showed her bold resolve
Confronted every foe
Her words would guide the Chosen as
She told them how to go

 

The Seer sought her comrades out
And gathered them to fight
Nor could their foeman hide from her;
She had the second sight

 

Chorus

 

The Swordsman's blade was swift and sure
His skill was unsurpassed
If any stood against him, then
That stand would be his last

A lovely face the Beauty had,
And shapely legs and arms
She distracted evil men
And lured them with her charms

 

Chorus

 

There was no lock nor guarded door
That could stop the Thief
He could pierce the fortress walls
To bring our land relief

 

Every song and story told,
The Scholar knew them all
He knew the wizard's weaknesses
To hasten evil's fall

 

Chorus

 

The Archer's missiles never missed;
His arrows found their mark
He struck at evil from afar
To drive away the dark

 

The Speaker harked to every tongue,
Of stone and beast and man
She found the Dark Lord's secrets out
So no defense could stand

 

Chorus

 

When here in Winterhome our lord
Forgot his proper role
The Traitor struck the Dark Lord down
To save our nation's soul

 

And thus the last of magic's spawn
Was slain where he did stand
Never more will wizards rule
Our lovely Barokan

 

Chorus

 

And now a noble man has come
To keep and rule the land
And bring us all a better world
Safe from magic's hand

 

The Chosen we shall need no more
Their long service now is past
A better way to keep the peace
We all have found at last

 

Our noble King will never turn
Against the common man
The Chosen nine no longer need
Bring peace to Barokan—
Yes, our King, and now our Queen,
Bring peace to Barokan!

The Dark Lords and the Chosen Defenders of Barokan

 

In the seven hundred years that the Council of Immortals maintained the system of Wizard Lords and Chosen, nine Wizard Lords were corrupted in one way or another, and declared to be Dark Lords.

Some eighty-eight years after the system was instituted, the third Wizard Lord, the Lord of the Midlands, became the first Dark Lord and was removed by three heroes chosen by the Council of Immortals. Those first three heroes, not yet called the Chosen, were given whatever magic the wizards were able to improvise—one was given skill with weapons, one gifts of persuasion and intuition, and the third magical senses, including awareness of the whereabouts of both his companions and the Wizard Lord.

Two of the three were killed before the third managed to dispatch the Dark Lord of the Midlands.

The Council of Immortals decided that such heroes should be maintained permanently, as a check on future Wizard Lords, and established the Chosen Defenders of Barokan. They recreated the same three roles, somewhat modified, and named them the Swordsman, the Leader, and the Seer; given the loss of two out of the three, they added a fourth, the Seducer, to improve their chances should they ever be needed again.

Almost fifty years later, the four Chosen were called upon to remove the Dark Lord of Tallowcrane. That Dark Lord's extensive use of locks and bars in his defenses led to the addition of the Thief, and it was decided that henceforth the Seducer role should always be taken by a female, to be called the Beauty.

For more than eighty years thereafter, there were no Dark Lords.
When at last another did arise, he resigned quietly, rather than face the Chosen. More than thirty years later, another did the same, and for the first time people began to think there might be an end to the matter.

Unfortunately, sixty years later, in the 305th year of the Council of Immortals, the Dark Lord of Kamith t'Daru demonstrated that Barokan was not safe. When Kamith t'Daru realized that he was likely to run afoul of the Chosen, he carefully studied the surviving records of how previous Dark Lords were defeated. This made him a difficult opponent, and after his death, the Council added the Chosen Scholar, so that the Chosen would always know at least as much about past encounters as their opponents did.

It was almost 170 years before another Wizard Lord dared to break his trust and became the Dark Lord of the Tsamas. His reliance on keeping his enemies at a distance led the Council to add the Archer.

The Dark Lord of Spider Marsh retired peacefully in the 511th year of the Council, rather than fight the Chosen to the death. About ninety years later, however, the Dark Lord of Goln Vleys put up a ferocious resistance before finally being brought down.

The Council added the Speaker of All Tongues after that.

The sorry end of the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills came at the hands of the Last Swordsman, while the one and only Chosen Traitor, added after the defeat of Galbek Hills, brought down the tenth and last, the Dark Lord of Winterhome.