The Wizard Lord

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

The guide shrugged. “It’s a town. A hundred families or so. They mostly eat fish and berries, and do some fine woodwork, and they make wine rather than beer. They have priests who deal with the ler so the crops will grow and the fish will stay in the nets, same as any other town. And they have one priestess, who runs the place.”

  “I’ve heard that their priests live underwater.” He had actually heard that they could turn into fish, but he decided to start with the more believable part of the tale.

  The guide snorted. “No, they live in the water much of the time, but not under it—they can’t breathe water any more than we can, and they’d freeze in the winter, and no, they aren’t part fish, they’re men like any other. But it’s true that Greenwater’s most powerful ler are in the lake, the soul of the village is the lake, and the priests spend hours standing in water up to their chests, coaxing favors from the water ler.”

  “I’ve never seen a lake.”

  “Then look over there.” The guide pointed ahead and to the right.

  Breaker looked.

  When not dodging supernatural hazards their path had led them more or less along a ridgetop for a distance of several miles, but the surrounding trees had blocked most of the view; now, though, as Breaker looked where the guide pointed, the ground fell away steeply ahead of them, and through gaps in the trees he could glimpse the far side of the valley.

  Except the valley was far wider than it should be, and its far side more distant than Breaker had thought possible—it seemed as distant as the Eastern Cliffs. He had been to the ridgetop in Mad Oak many times, and had looked out across the wilderness of Greenvale to the next ridge, and it had been much, much closer than this, closer than the northeastern side of Longvale. Here it was so distant it seemed hazy. The trees on that distant ridge were merely an uneven green blur.

  “Down there,” the guide said.

  Breaker’s gaze dropped to the valley floor ahead of them, and he saw the lake, a vast blue-green splotch gleaming in the afternoon sun—Greenwater’s water was indeed greenish, though not the vivid verdigris color he had always imagined it. It was closer to the dull green of a spruce tree.

  “Oh,” he said. The sheer size of the lake was overwhelming. It was many times as broad as the Longvale River was anywhere in sight of Mad Oak. The bargemen said the river grew much wider to the north, toward its mouth in the icy seas, but Breaker had never been sure whether they were telling the truth or just spinning yarns to amuse the townsfolk—and even if the stories were true, Breaker had never seen that. He had never imagined that as much water as he saw down in the valley below could be in anything but the ocean.

  “We should be there in an hour or so,” the guide said.

  “Oh,” Breaker said again.

  Then he began pointing, and asking confused fragments of questions, and the guide took pity on him and explained as they began picking their way cautiously down the surprisingly steep southern side of the ridge.

  “Not all the valleys in this part of Barokan are nice and straight like Longvale or Shadowvale,” he said. “Greenvale is almost triangular—it’s wide here and narrows sharply to the northwest. If we’d gone the other way along the ridgetop, toward Ashgrove, you’d have seen it narrow down to nothing, and this ridge we’re on merges with the next. North of that it wouldn’t be Greenvale over there at all, it would be Deepvale.”

  “But Deepvale is on the other side of Greenvale!”

  “Here it is, and at Mad Oak, but by the time you get to Ashgrove or Bell Hill, Greenvale is gone, and Deepvale is next to Longvale.”

  Breaker turned and peered through the trees on the other side, over the ridgetop, and was relieved to see the Eastern Cliffs were still where they ought to be, two valleys away.

  “I thought all Barokan was . . . there’s Shadowvale, and Longvale, and Greenvale, and Deepvale, and Ravenvale, and so on to the sea, lined up nice and neat.”

  The guide snorted. “No,” he said. “The ridges are just in this area, where the land jams up against the northern wall of the Eastern Cliffs, and only the first two are nice and neat. The farther you go from the cliffs the more the ridges wiggle and split. That’s why Longvale is long, you see—it’s between the two long, straight ridges. Even so, it doesn’t go on forever; I’ve never been to the northwest end, but I’ve been to the southeast, where it empties into the Midlands. If you think Greenvale over there is broad, you should see the Midlands! Flat as a table, almost, and fifty miles across, maybe more! Some of the towns there are so close they share their boundary shrines—you can step from one to the next with nothing between. And beyond the Midlands are the southern hills, and the western marshes—Barokan is big, my boy.”

  “Have you seen all of it, then?”

  “No. Didn’t I just say I’d never been to the far end of Longvale? And I’ve never been into the southern hills, or beyond the nearest edges of the marshes. I’ve never seen the sea, or the islands, or been up the path to the clifftops—I didn’t catch these ara feathers myself, I bought them from a Winterhome trader. I know half a dozen safe routes around Longvale where I work, from Bell Hill to Valleymouth, and I’ve traveled a little in the Midlands with someone else leading the way, but that’s all.”

  “Oh. But . . .”

  “We turn here,” the guide interrupted. “And the ler in this next stretch like it quiet, so if you have any more questions they’ll just have to wait. Watch your footing; the stones like to slip out from under your feet and make you stumble.”

  Breaker fell silent, but found himself staring through the trees at the lake, and thus distracted he quickly discovered that the guide’s warning had been apt. When the two of them passed the boundary shrine into Greenwater he was still wiping the dust from the seat of his pants.

  [11]

  Greenwater was arranged along the lakeshore, with every house and workshop facing the water. The village did have a central structure Breaker took for a pavilion, like the one in Mad Oak, but instead of being built into the ridge it stood on wooden pilings in the lake. There were docks and boats along the water, as well, and then a broad clear area, and then the houses in three parallel rows. Above that were the orchards and gardens and vineyards, stopping abruptly at the boundary. There were no broad fields in the river bottom—but then, there was no river bottom, but a lakeshore.

  Breaker had expected to see many different places in the world, but he had not expected one so different to be so close, less than a day’s journey from Mad Oak. He stared at the unfamiliar surroundings as he followed the guide down the slope and into the village.

  People working in the vineyards and gardens glanced up from their labors as the pair approached; some then turned back to their duties, while others stared at the stranger the guide had brought.

  Breaker found it uncomfortable to be the object of such scrutiny; for that matter, he found it unsettling simply to see so many unfamiliar faces. These people were still people, with the same sort of eyes and hair and skin he was accustomed to, but their clothing was slightly odd—the colors seemed darker than they should be, and the sleeves were neither the full wrist-length sleeves of winter nor the short, loose sleeves of summer, but tighter than they should be and reaching to just below the elbow.

  And there were so many of them, without a single face he recognized!

  The guide did not speak, but led Breaker down the slope; Breaker followed silently, for fear that so much as a single word might violate the demands of the local ler and bring misfortune down on him. He stayed close to the guide, for while the man was a foreigner, and neither kith nor kin, he at least was someone Breaker had spoken to before.

  When they crossed the boundary Breaker felt the transition clearly—the air became softer and more welcoming. At the same time, though, it was not the air of home; this was not Mad Oak, and he did not belong here as he had there. This place was not his own, it was merely not hostile.

  The guide seemed to straighten a bit when they were within the town’s limits; des
pite his earlier claims to dislike people and be at home in the wild, he, too, clearly felt more comfortable here.

  Together the two of them passed the vineyards, then the orchards, and the gardens, and one by one the three rows of houses, and Breaker began to wonder whether the guide intended to march directly into the lake—was some sort of ritual ablution required? But in the open space below the houses the guide turned aside and headed for the plank walk leading out to the pavilion.

  Breaker followed, noticing that the earth beneath his feet had a slightly peculiar feel to it, packed hard, but with a faint sponginess. He looked down at the black soil, and when he looked up again there was a woman walking out from the pavilion to greet them.

  She was stark naked.

  He stumbled, and barely caught himself before falling. His mouth opened, but at the last instant he caught himself and did not speak. He glanced at the guide.

  The guide seemed utterly undisturbed by this apparition, and somewhere in the back of Breaker’s mind old stories and rumors bubbled up, and he remembered that he had heard, often accompanied by adolescent giggling, that in some places the ler required their priests perform various rites in the nude.

  And yes, Greenwater was said to be such a place—it went with the story about the priests living underwater, since clothing would scarcely be practical in an aquatic environment, and would have fallen away when they transformed into fish.

  Maybe they really did turn into fish, after all—he hadn’t actually asked about that.

  More likely, though, the nudity was just something the ler required. There were far more lurid and unsettling tales of priestcraft in more distant lands, of blood sacrifices and horrific rituals, but those were all just rumors from afar; Greenwater was merely said to keep their priesthood as naked and submerged as the fish in the lake—sometimes literally as the fish in the lake.

  It appeared that however exaggerated the guide might say the stories were, they were based on truth.

  With this, he finally noticed a few details of the woman’s appearance other than her lack of clothing—for example, that her waist-length black hair was dripping wet, and that there were green marks on the skin of her face and arms, marks that probably had some priestly significance, like the embroidery on the priests’ garments back in Mad Oak. And while she was still young and slim enough to be attractive, she was not a mere girl; she had filled out, and begun to show the effects of time. Breaker judged her to be at least a decade older than his own nineteen years, perhaps as much as twice his age.

  The guide led Breaker on, until the two men stood at the end of the wooden walkway; there he stopped and knelt. Breaker hastily followed his example.

  The naked woman walked up to the very last plank to be over water instead of soil, and stopped as well, about twelve feet from where the guide waited.

  “Oh, glorious bridge between human and spirit, grant us entry to your realm,” the guide called out.

  “Say first who you are,” the woman replied, in a startlingly deep voice.

  “I am the traveler known to you as the Longvale Guide, who the spirits recognize by a name that begins Kopol,” the guide answered.

  Then for a moment no one spoke.

  Then the guide cast an angry sideways glance at Breaker, and the nude priestess said, “And you?”

  “Ah,” Breaker said. “Oh. I am . . . I am the Chosen Swordsman.”

  It was clear from her expression that that was not sufficient, and he hastily added, “The ler call me by a name beginning with Erren.” He grimaced slightly, wondering whether it had been wise to give even that tiny fragment of his true name; in Mad Oak true names were not used in ordinary conversation. Breaker had heard that other towns were less strict, that in some places people actually called each other by their true names as casually as the people of Mad Oak used nicknames, but back home no one but the priests or the visiting wizards would ever have dared ask for even a syllable of it, and even they would never ask it in so public a setting.

  But then, this woman was a priestess!

  It was hard to think of anyone but Priest, Elder Priestess, and Younger Priestess as priests, though. He had never met any others before.

  In any case, his answer seemed to satisfy her. “Then let me ask the spirits if you are welcome here,” she said. She turned to face the pavilion and the lake.

  That view had its points of interest, Breaker thought, but overall he preferred the front.

  Then he reprimanded himself for thinking such a thing about a priestess, and one from somewhere other than Mad Oak, at that.

  The priestess called out something in a language that was nothing Breaker had ever heard before, and as she finished a bird cried out somewhere, and a series of splashes sounded from the lake; reflected sunlight sparkled across the priestess’s gleaming black hair.

  Then she turned around again. “Well,” she said, “that takes care of the formalities. Come on, then, you two, and tell me why the Swordsman has come to Greenwater.” She beckoned.

  The guide got to his feet and stepped up onto the walkway; Breaker followed. The priestess waited until they were almost close enough to touch, then turned and strolled toward the pavilion.

  It felt very odd, to be walking so close to a naked woman in front of all the world like this. Everyone in town, looking down from their homes or fields, could see Breaker, the guide, and the priestess walking out across the lake.

  Then they stepped into the pavilion, where the priestess led the way through various rooms to a verandah overlooking the lake, on the far side from the village.

  This pavilion was very different from the one in Mad Oak; in fact, Breaker was not entirely sure “pavilion” was the proper name for it after all. He saw no dance floor, no storerooms; there was no reassuringly solid stone, nor fireplaces. Everything was built of wood and oilcloth, and the seams in the floor were so wide that he could catch glimpses of moving water through them, and hear the faint splashing of the lake against the pylons. Rooms and corridors opened into one another in confusing fashion, and it was not at all clear what most of them were for.

  And the whole thing smelled of fish, rather than woodsmoke and beer.

  There were other people present in the building, Breaker glimpsed at least half a dozen, but they vanished at the approach of the priestess and the travelers, quickly slipping into other rooms and closing the doors behind themselves—clearly they did not want to be around the threesome, but he could not tell whether they were avoiding the strangers or their own priestess.

  The ler were moving around him as well, he could sense them; they did not seem as bashful as the humans.

  Once the little party had reached the verandah the priestess settled into a large wooden chair, and gestured for the others to find themselves seats. There were half a dozen similar chairs, and a wooden bench along one wall; Breaker settled gingerly into one of the chairs.

  The priestess smiled at him, then turned to the guide. “I didn’t expect you back so soon, Kopol.”

  The guide shrugged. “He wanted to come to Greenwater,” he said, jerking a thumb at Breaker, “and I was in no hurry to reach Ashgrove or Bell Hill.”

  “So you’re only here to guide him?”

  “That’s right. I’ll be taking him as far as Valleymouth, unless his plans change.”

  She nodded, and turned her attention to Breaker. “And you’re the new Swordsman? One of the Chosen Heroes?”

  “Yes.” He wanted to say more, and not sound like an idiot, but he couldn’t think what to add.

  “So why have you come to Greenwater? Why are you bound for Valleymouth?”

  Breaker stared at her face helplessly for a few seconds, then swallowed.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “I wanted . . . you see, I . . . I take my responsibilities seriously. If I am to judge whether or not the Wizard Lord should be slain, then don’t I need to see more of Barokan than my own hometown? Shouldn’t I try to see him and judge his character for my
self? What if he is truly an evil man, but has simply not had occasion to direct his evil at Mad Oak? The Old Swordsman said I must travel, to learn more of the world, and so I am traveling.”

  “But why Greenwater and Valleymouth? Are you planning to spend much time in the Midlands?”

  “No—I’m going to Valleymouth because it’s on the way to the Galbek Hills.”

  “You’re going to visit the Wizard Lord?”

  “Yes. I thought I should meet him.”

  She smiled again. “Well, that’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Breaker said, with a sigh of relief.

  “So you’re just out to see the world, and meet the Wizard Lord, to reassure you that he’s protecting us all properly. And how can we help you in this task?”

  “Well, I . . . I need a place to sleep, and something to eat . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’d be happy to hear anything you can tell me about the Wizard Lord.”

  “Of course. Though it won’t be much beyond the usual songs and stories.”

  “Or about anything else, for that matter. Greenwater is different from Mad Oak, and I’m . . . I’m curious about why, and what all the differences are.”

  “Are you?” She straightened in her chair.

  “Yes, I . . . yes.”

  “Good. You should be.”

  Breaker’s mouth opened, then closed again.

  “You know, young Swordsman, you’re doing quite well for a first-time traveler. I think the spirits did well when they led the Old Swordsman to you. You haven’t stared at my chest or my crotch, though I know my appearance must be a shock to you—women don’t go abroad nude in Mad Oak, do they? Not even the priestesses?”

  “No. No, they don’t. They wear robes.”

  “But you haven’t stared, or made any rude comments. That’s very good. That’s better than many male travelers can manage.”

  “Oh.” That remark somehow made it much harder not to lower his gaze and stare, and Breaker forced himself to focus all his attention on the tip of her nose.