“I suppose you’ve guessed that I’m Shilil, the High Priestess of the Lake, and my pact with the spirits, the ler, forbids me to wear any clothing in the warm months. I’m quite sure your guide didn’t bother to mention any of that; Kopol likes to watch his charges make fools of themselves. It’s a particular foible of his; most guides prefer to show off their knowledge, rather than hoard it.”
The guide grunted at that, but did not deny the accusation. Breaker threw him a resentful glance.
“I’m sure you’re tired and hungry from the journey; I’ll have someone find you food and drink, and when you’ve rested and eaten, I’d be pleased to talk with you further—you can tell me about Mad Oak and how you became the Swordsman, and I’ll tell you about Greenwater and what little I know of the Wizard Lord. Would that suit you?”
“Very much indeed.”
“You said your name is Erren?”
“I . . . We . . .” he stammered helplessly.
“They don’t use true names in Mad Oak,” the guide interjected. “Not at all. They just call him Swordsman.”
“Oh? Oh! I’d forgotten that.” She frowned. “But have they always called him that? Did they know he would be the Swordsman?”
“No,” Breaker said. “I was called ‘Breaker’ until I took up the sword.”
“ ‘Breaker’? I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Oh, it’s just from childhood. When I was little I didn’t know my own strength, and didn’t always look where I was going; I broke a lot of dishes and toys and the like.”
“Ah—nothing deliberate, then?”
“Well, no more than any other boy.” He smiled at her.
She smiled back.
“Let us hope you break nothing you shouldn’t here in Greenwater, then.” With that she rose; taking his cue from the guide, Breaker remained seated as she headed for the door.
She did not actually go through the door, however; instead she merely opened it and called, “See that our guests are fed, and given beds!” Without waiting for a reply she closed it again, then turned back to the two men.
“Someone will be with you in a moment. I will be back before sunset.”
And then, to Breaker’s astonishment, she ran across the verandah, sprang over the railing, and plunged into the lake. He leapt from his chair and hurried to the rail.
She was swimming smoothly away, obviously not in any distress.
“They all swim like fish here,” the guide said, coming up beside him. “She more than any of them; she spends more time in the lake than on land.”
“But she just jumped!”
“Yes. I suppose she’s going to confer with the ler and ask what they think of you.” He turned and eyed Breaker. “Can you swim?”
“No—at least, I don’t think so. Most of the river below Mad Oak is shallow and muddy, and the water’s ler don’t speak to our priests, and the bargemen don’t like townspeople intruding in their water, so I never saw any point in swimming. Even if I fell off the dock, it’d be easier and cleaner to wade than to swim.” He had never tumbled off the dock himself, but Digger had once when trying to show off how much he could lift, and had simply walked ashore, cursing the ler at length for allowing his fall. They had rewarded his blasphemy with a cold that lasted for weeks.
“That’s a pity. It would be useful here.”
“Can you swim?”
The guide smiled. “No. A girl here tried to teach me once, but we didn’t get very far in the lessons before I left.”
Breaker had no answer to that; he looked out at the lake again, and at the dwindling figure of the priestess, swimming easily through the greenish water.
And then the door opened and a woman entered with a tray of food—a properly clothed woman, though her dress did have the odd tight half-sleeves. The smell of fried fish pierced the more general fishy odor of their surroundings, and Breaker suddenly realized just how hungry he was.
Their hosts spoke very little, but the supply of food and drink was generous, and kept Breaker’s mouth busy enough without words. He didn’t always know what he was eating or drinking, but all of it seemed tasty enough.
By the time the priestess finally returned, and climbed dripping from the water onto the verandah, Breaker was well stuffed and well rested, and eager to talk.
[12]
Except for old songs about hunting down criminals and stories about saving lost livestock, the High Priestess knew no more about the Wizard Lord than Breaker did—perhaps less, as she had not known he could make a rabbit speak.
“I had heard that he could see through the eyes of birds and beasts, but to speak with their mouths—this is new to me,” she said, when Breaker described the day of the duel.
“I hadn’t heard of it, either, but the Old Swordsman knew it could happen.” It was odd, Breaker thought, how quickly he had grown accustomed to the lake priestess’s nudity; he only noticed it now when she moved in certain ways.
“Well, he is supposed to have greater magic than a dozen lesser wizards combined, far greater than any priest who ever lived. He can probably do a thousand things we never heard of.”
“I suppose so,” Breaker agreed. He grimaced. “If he did go mad, I don’t know how I could ever hope to kill him.”
“You have your own magic, surely.”
“Yes,” Breaker said, very aware of the talisman in his pocket and the sword on his hip—and the need to get his daily hour of practice before he slept that night; he had been too busy packing and worrying to do it that morning. “But nothing like his!”
“And you wouldn’t be alone; you would have your seven companions.”
“I’ve never met them,” Breaker said. “I don’t know how much help they would be.”
The priestess stared at him for a moment. “You haven’t met them?” she asked at last.
“No. Not yet, at any rate. I suppose I should try to find them.”
“I should say so, yes. Ask them what they know of the Wizard Lord, and what they think of them—surely, they will have given the matter some thought, and they have all held their roles for years, have they not?”
“I suppose so. I don’t really know.”
“You know very little, it seems.”
Breaker started to protest, then stopped. He paused, considering. “That’s true,” he admitted at last. “The Old Swordsman taught me a great deal about the use of the sword, but not as much about the Wizard Lord or the Chosen. He told me a few things, but somehow now it seems as if he missed the most important ones.”
“Then you should find the other Chosen, and talk to them, and ask them about the Wizard Lord, as well as visiting the Wizard Lord himself. Ask anyone who knows the Wizard Lord—there must be men and women who work with him in his tower.”
“Just a few women, I’m told—and in all likelihood, they would not dare to speak ill of him, would they?”
“Perhaps not. You could speak to his friends and family, though, to the people who knew him before he became the Wizard Lord, perhaps even people who knew him before he was any sort of wizard at all. He’s not so very ancient, after all, is he? Not yet ten years in the role? He might have brothers yet alive who would tell you all his secrets, from the name of his first girl to when he stopped wetting his bed.”
“Brothers?” That possibility had never occurred to Breaker, that the Wizard Lord might have family. Wizards were not tied to a single village like ordinary people, nor to a few known roads like a guide; they traveled freely, their magic protecting them from hostile ler. Breaker had never stopped to consider that they must nonetheless have come from somewhere, that they would have parents like anyone else, and homes, but of course they would. They could not, after all, spring full-grown from the forest, as if they were ler. Wizards might have strange powers, and might accomplish wonders, but they were still human. “Does he have brothers?”
“I don’t know.” The priestess shrugged, and her breasts bobbed distractingly; it took Breaker a m
oment to compose his thoughts.
“Where is he from? One of the valleys?”
The priestess glanced at the guide, who shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “His tower is in the southern hills, so maybe that’s his homeland, but I don’t know.”
“His tower is in the Galbek Hills,” Breaker said. “Is that in the south?”
“Yes,” the guide said. “I haven’t been there, but I know that much.”
“I think it would be very strange, to talk to the Wizard Lord’s family,” Breaker said.
“Perhaps,” the priestess acknowledged.
“I think I would like to do that.”
“As you please; you are one of the Chosen, and all in Barokan are obliged to lend you aid, within reason.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Breaker said slowly. He thought for a moment, glanced at the guide, and then said, “I know the Old Swordsman came this way, months ago, and I had thought I might follow his route for a time, in hopes I would catch up to him, so that I could ask him more questions. I didn’t know anyone else outside Mad Oak. But if he wanted to tell me more, he could have done so, couldn’t he? No one compelled him to leave Mad Oak so hastily. If I found him, he might have no more to say than he did at home. But as you say, everyone is supposed to aid the Chosen in their duties, even complete strangers—I don’t need to seek him out to find people who can help me learn what I want to know.”
“I suppose not,” the priestess agreed.
“I’ll want to find the Wizard Lord’s home village, if I can; surely, the people there can tell me whether he is a good and trustworthy man, or not.”
“I’m sure he is,” the priestess said. “Otherwise, why would the wizards and their ler have accepted him as the Wizard Lord?”
“They could have made a mistake; it has happened before,” the guide pointed out.
“Not for a century,” the priestess replied.
“Then perhaps we’re due.”
Breaker grimaced, his eyes meeting the priestess’s, and the two of them shared a moment of silent derision at the guide’s suggestion that Dark Lords happened on a schedule.
“How will you find his home?” the priestess asked.
“I’ll ask, until I find someone who knows where it is. I’ll start in the southern hills.”
“That’s a long walk, out of the valleys and across the Midlands.”
“Then I should get started as soon as possible.”
And with that, the conversation came to its close. Breaker excused himself and set about his required hour of practice, leaving the guide and the priestess to chat.
As he went through a familiar routine of thrust and counterthrust against an imaginary opponent, he mentally reviewed the day’s events, and found himself pleased. He had left his home for the wider world, and so far the adventure was going well. The incident with the oak was unfortunate, but educational, and his stay in Greenwater was proving entertaining, as well. He was interested to notice that while he felt just as disconnected from this town as he had from his own, it bothered him less here, because he was not expected to feel at home in Greenwater. Mad Oak was still nominally his home, the place where he should fit in, but he no longer felt at home there, or in his proper place; here in Green-water he was a stranger made welcome, and he felt like a stranger made welcome. It was oddly comforting to no longer have that disjunction between expectation and reality.
Late that night, as he lay drowsing but not yet asleep upon the bed they had given him, the door opened silently and a figure slipped in. He held his breath and tried to see who it was, but the darkness was too complete; his hand slid toward the hilt of his sword, lying close by the bed.
“The spirits command me to attend upon worthy visitors,” a familiar alto voice said. “As their High Priestess I am forbidden a husband, but must instead be wife to the lake itself—but the lake cannot easily get a child on me, and my line must continue if Greenwater is to thrive.”
Breaker withdrew his hand and began to breathe. As with her nudity, Breaker had heard tales of such things, but had never entirely believed them.
“Besides,” she said, “the rumors say that the spirits give you superhuman skill with both your swords, not just the steel one, and your predecessor lived up to that legend, despite his age. Shall we see whether you do as well?”
Certain remarks he had heard among the women back home suddenly made sense; Breaker had never heard such rumors himself, but obviously they had reached female ears in Mad Oak, just as the tales of naked priestesses seducing strangers had come to his own. Magical speed, strength, coordination, endurance, the ability to anticipate another person’s actions and respond appropriately—perhaps his newfound talents did have another use.
“I make no promises,” he said, sitting up, “but I’ll do my best.”
And his best was apparently good enough; Breaker had never heard a woman squeal so, certainly not any of the few girls he had bedded back home. He worried that some listener might think her cries needed investigation, but no one interrupted them.
And as he fell into an exhausted slumber at last he found himself thinking that, quite contrary to what he had been told since infancy and his own initial expectations, he liked traveling.
In the morning, at first light, he awoke as Shilil left his bed, and he looked out his window just in time to see the priestess leap into the lake again. A few moments later Kopol appeared at the door of his room, eager to hustle Breaker through his preparations for departure—“It’s farther to Hartridge than to Mad Oak,” he explained. “We need to get an early start if we want to be sure of arriving before sundown.”
And scarcely an hour after dawn the two passed a wooden fence carved with prayers, and were out of Greenwater and in the wild again, making their way south along the slopes above the Greenvale River.
The Longvale River flowed south to north, and Breaker found it mildly disorienting that the Greenvale did the opposite, but he adjusted to it readily enough.
The sun was indeed skimming the western ridgetop when they reached Hartridge, where the priests were all men who had seen eighty summers and the ler respected only age. Although the guide showed him to a guesthouse, no one there seemed interested in speaking with him, nor admitted to any knowledge of the present Wizard Lord or his origins.
They stayed the night before continuing on to Bent Peak, where the half-dozen priests and priestesses were as ordinary as those in Mad Oak but the brightly clad farmers had a custom of gathering in their odd, dirt-floored pavilion and telling tales in the evening. He heard a score of fine stories about the Wizard Lord, none of which he believed; somehow he doubted even a Wizard Lord could fly to the moon and challenge the sun to a game of riddles, or build a tower of nothing but ara feathers to hide his sea-sprite mistress from other wizards. Alas, as Breaker had no good tales to tell in exchange, his welcome wore thin quickly.
The next day they headed for Valleymouth, the walled city at the edge of the Midlands, where the numerous priestesses attending to the ler in the gigantic stone temple and the dozens of scattered shrines were all young girls—the ler there would treat only with female virgins—whom he was forbidden to approach or address, or even to look at for more than a heartbeat or two. Other townsfolk were friendly enough, but greeted almost every question with “I’d need to ask a priestess,” and considered it bad luck to mention the Wizard Lord at all, lest he think them rude and punish them with bad weather.
The guide greeted people in each town as old friends, and always knew where they could find food and shelter—the lake pavilion in Greenwater, the guesthouse in Hartridge, the bachelor barracks in Bent Peak, an upstairs room at the trading post in Valleymouth—but did not provide a great deal of assistance beyond that. With each new town Breaker had to adjust to the local accent; by the time he reached Valley-mouth he sometimes had to ask for words to be repeated, but with a little coaching from his guide he picked up the differences readily. He also had to learn new customs, an
d cope with new ler—while he never felt as unwelcome in any town as he did in the wild, each community had its own feel, its own rules, its own prayers and attitudes.
The guide—despite the habits of the people in the towns of Greenvale, Breaker could not bring himself to call the man Kopol—helped him out a little, but as the priestess Shilil had warned him back in Green-water, Kopol liked to keep his secrets and took mild pleasure in watching his charge’s discomfiture as he learned the differences for himself.
He discovered that visible ler of the sort that sometimes manifested in Mad Oak as lights or shadows were unusual, as was the constant coddling and coaxing Mad Oak’s priestesses used to make the ler cooperate with humans. Styles of prayer, styles of clothing, and styles of speech all varied more than he had imagined, almost more than he had thought possible—and this was all just in Greenvale.
No one in any of these towns seemed to know much about the Wizard Lord beyond the same stories he had grown up with and the absurd fancies of the Bent Peak farmers, but in Valleymouth he began to hear new stories about one of the Chosen.
The Leader—“Boss,” he called himself, as the Old Swordsman had said—had come through there once or twice; he was reported to be tall and handsome, as might be expected, with a thick black beard and dark eyes. Several of the priestesses seemed smitten with him, though of course none had succumbed to his charms, since anyone who had would no longer be a priestess. There were rumors that two young women had indeed given up the ler for the sake of the Boss at some point in the past, but no one was willing to give Breaker any details; he suspected they thought he might use them as his model in seducing a priestess or two himself. Most of the girls were too young to be much of a temptation, but there were a few he glimpsed fleetingly who might have been worth the effort.
Breaker was hesitant to leave Valleymouth, even though he could see other towns from atop the town’s ramparts; the flat open plain of the Midlands made him nervous. He had lived his entire life between two forested ridges, with the Eastern Cliffs guarding one side of his world, but here the cliffs were so far distant they appeared little more than a gray line on the horizon, and there were no ridges at all, nor forests, just flat land for as far as the eye could see, land covered with fields and farms, villages and towns, boundary shrines or fences or walls scattered everywhere. Actual roads—like streets, but between towns instead of inside them—crossed the landscape in the distance; the towns here were not all on rivers or lakes, and the land was flat enough to make wheeled vehicles practical, so a great deal of trade was conducted overland, hauling goods not on barges, but in giant carts called “wagons” that were pulled by oxen.
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