The Ninth Talisman

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Then she pulled the bow from her shoulder, pulling it free of her thrashing hair, and knelt as she strung it.

  “Spirits of my homeland, hide me from my enemy,” she said, her words inaudible to human ears over the roar of the wind. “Forgive me lies told in your service. Guide me to strike down your foe.” The string snapped taut, and she drew an arrow from the quiver on her back. “If you feel it just, drive this shaft of wood from your forests through his heart, so that he may never return to trouble us again.”

  She was far more concerned about what he might do to other villages, but a return would be possible if he realized she had been bluffing, and she knew that the ler of this land really did not care at all what might happen elsewhere.

  We forgive your deception.

  No word about her intentions—or theirs—toward the wizard. She grimaced. Then she stood, and turned until the direction felt right; at least one of the spirits was guiding her, but whether accurately or not she could not say. She nocked the arrow, drew it to her ear, aimed it upward, and let fly.

  The wind seemed to snatch the shaft from the bow; it sailed high and far, and vanished into the air.

  And then she heard a brief scream, and the wind abruptly died away as the wizard’s lifeless form plummeted from the sky into old Brewer’s barley field, landing with a hideous thump.

  For a long moment after that the world seemed unnaturally still; then Tanner said, “You killed him.”

  Tala did not bother answering; she was listening to the spirits. Several were speaking at once, telling her that the men were on the way back, that the touch of the wizard’s talismans and bindings upon the field was an abomination that must be removed but that his blood would freshen the earth once they were gone, that she was forgiven her lies.

  She wondered whether they realized how close to the truth her lies had been. She had never really intended to accompany the wizard, to become his property; she had had quite enough of feeling herself to be the property of the entire village, and could not see a single master as an improvement. That speech about the endless demands made on her, though, had come from her heart. She had never asked to be a priestess.

  But then, she had never asked to be born at all, yet she was very glad to be alive. Sometimes she enjoyed the prerogatives of the priesthood, as well.

  She thought for a moment about those talismans the wizard had carried. With those, if she could learn how to use them, she might be able to control the winds as the wizard had, to fly through the sky, or conceal herself from sight. That was tempting.

  But really, what would she do with such powers?

  For all her life she had had her priestly powers, the ability to bargain with the ler, to coax favors from them. What had they gotten her that any other young woman didn’t have, and what had they cost her? What would she do with even more supernatural power? She looked at Tanner’s face, and Chitchat’s, and saw that her own neighbors, her own aunt, were frightened of her.

  And as her arrow had demonstrated, the wizard’s charms would not hide her from the ler.

  Why bother, then? What had the wizard himself gotten out of his magic? He had come here to steal women—what a miserable, lonely existence he must have led to resort to such brutality!

  And with that thought, all temptation to steal the wizard’s magic was gone, and the urge to leave the village as well. Think how lonely life must be for people who could not speak to every rock or tree!

  “I thank you, spirits of my homeland, for your aid and answers,” she said, as she unstrung her bow.

  Then she sighed and marched toward the barley field to deal with the mess.

  Sword straightened up slowly; his back was stiff from the cold.

  “You see?” Younger Priestess said. “We need a Wizard Lord to keep such people away! Deception and rape and murder, from a lone wizard!”

  “This Tala seems to have dealt quite effectively with that one by herself,” Sword said, as he got slowly to his feet. He did not bother pointing out that the long-ago wizard had not managed to rape or murder anyone. “I think that if people organized themselves properly, we wouldn’t need anyone to help us against the wizards.”

  “But think how clever that wizard was, luring away the men! If Tala hadn’t been quick-witted with her lies . . .”

  “But she was,” Sword interrupted.

  “But what if she weren’t? As long as there are wizards, we still need a Wizard Lord. And as long as there is a Wizard Lord, we need the Chosen. We need you.”

  “Maybe,” Sword said. He shivered slightly. “It’s late, and I’m cold. Good night, Priestess—and thank you for that little taste of the distant past; it does give me something to think about.”

  Younger Priestess stared at him for a moment, then gave up. “Good night, then, Sword,” she said.

  As he walked back toward his mother’s house, Sword thought about what he had just experienced, but it was not merely the danger of uncontrolled wizardry he considered. Instead he found himself remembering what it was like to be a woman, with a body that moved differently, always aware that you were vulnerable in ways men were not. And what it was like to be a priestess, bound to the spirits of the land, always surrounded by the inhuman voices of the ler.

  He had spent months in the company of the Speaker of All Tongues, known as Babble, who heard all the ler, not just those who cooperated with the local priests; now he had some inkling of what she lived with constantly, the barrage of voices and demands.

  But he had also experienced the closeness of Tala’s ties to her home. Sword had long felt himself strangely isolated from his fellows; even before he accepted the role of Chosen Swordsman, he had sometimes felt as if he didn’t really fit in here in Mad Oak.

  Now he knew just how well a person could fit in here; Tala had been his opposite in many ways. She had been a part of the town, as he was not—but she had been confined by it, as well as supported.

  Everything had its price, had both benefits and costs. That was simply how the world was. All anyone could do was to try to find the right balance.

  The existence of the Wizard Lord and the Chosen was a part of the system that had kept Barokan peaceful for centuries, and whether he liked it or not, the system was in place. It was something he had to accept.

  At least, as long as there were wizards. If they someday died out, then everything would change.

  And there were only about eighteen or nineteen wizards left in all of Barokan. They were dying out, slowly.

  There might yet be an end to wizards and wizardry and Wizard Lords someday, and no more need for the Chosen.

  Someday.

  But not today. Not yet.

  [ 1 ]

  Sword paused on the path below the pavilion, an empty jug in his hand. Standing a few yards past the brewer’s house that marked the end of the village’s central cluster of homes, he leaned forward, listening.

  He thought at first it might just be an echo of someone speaking up in the pavilion, that rambling ridgetop structure that served as the village’s communal storehouse and gathering place, but the direction was wrong even for an echo. In all the years he had lived here, all the hundreds of times he had walked this path, he had never before encountered such an auditory illusion.

  Then he thought he might be imagining it, or hearing spirit voices rather than anything physical, but no, he could definitely hear something happening far ahead, off to the left, in the trees—not in the pavilion or anywhere else in the village lands, but in the trees beyond the edge of town. It wasn’t birds, he was sure, nor squirrels chittering. There were several voices speaking, real ones, human ones, and much rustling and thrashing.

  He frowned, wondering what that was about. There weren’t any homes or fields down that way; the town of Mad Oak ended at the boundary shrine a hundred yards ahead, and the sounds were coming from somewhere well beyond that, in the wilderness.

  The voices were human and male, but he had no idea what men would be doing out
there. The old path to Willowbank ran through that general area, but no one used it anymore, not since the guide had retired. Even when the Willowbank Guide had been working, no one would have been thrashing about like that. The local ler, the spirits of that particular bit of forest, were not likely to appreciate such a disturbance. Ler that had made their accommodation with humanity would tolerate it, and a man could generally rattle about in town without worrying about angering the spirit of each branch he brushed aside, or each blade of grass he trod upon, but out in the wild beyond the border the spirits were not so forgiving. Anyone venturing out there was likely to find thorns embedding themselves in his legs, branches lashing at his eyes, and the entire natural world in general trying to kill him.

  So who was making all that noise?

  Sword looked down at the jug in his hand, and at his empty belt. If he had been wearing his sword he might have decided to investigate, but he had just been going up to Brewer’s storeroom under the pavilion to fetch a gallon of beer. He hadn’t seen any reason to go armed. He had his silver talisman in his pocket, as he always did, but had not his sword, nor any ara feathers to ward off hostile magic; he could almost certainly survive a little jaunt into the wilderness, but it might be unpleasant.

  “What’s happening?” someone asked from behind him. “Sword, do you know?”

  “No,” Sword replied. “I don’t think it’s anything to do with me.” He turned to discover that half a dozen townsfolk had heard the commotion as he had, and had emerged from their homes to peer into the underbrush beyond the boundary, trying to make out what was going on.

  “They’re coming closer.” Sword knew the woman who said that as Curly.

  “Yes, they are,” he agreed. He realized that the others were all watching him expectantly, and he sighed. He knew that they thought that exploring this phenomenon was somehow his responsibility.

  Being one of the Chosen, the eight magical defenders of Barokan, was not supposed to mean that he had to check out every potentially dangerous oddity that might happen along, but convincing his fellow townsfolk of that seemed to be impossible. They seemed to feel that if they had a hero living among them, they were entitled to see heroics.

  “I’ll get my sword,” he said. He resisted the temptation to say anything about the beer; after all, he could fetch that any time.

  He turned and trotted back through the village to the little house he shared with his mother and younger sisters, where he set the still-empty jug on the kitchen table and fetched his sword belt from the peg by the door. He buckled it in place, making sure the blade was loose in its sheath, then hurried back out, through the village square and along the path below the pavilion.

  A score of the townsfolk had gathered at the boundary stone and were staring out into the forest, though none set so much as a toe beyond the marker. Much rustling, thumping, and unintelligible conversation could still be heard out in the wild. Whatever was making the noise seemed to have come a little closer.

  As Sword neared the group one of his childhood friends, a big fellow called Brokenose, said, “They’ve been calling, but we haven’t answered. We were waiting for you.”

  “Thank you,” Sword said sourly, and not at all sincerely. He remembered why he and Brokenose didn’t spend much time together anymore as he peered out into the trees. Sword was fairly certain he glimpsed movement, though he was not sure what he was seeing. “Has anyone told Priest or the priestesses?”

  “Younger Priestess is fetching Elder Priestess from the northern fields,” said a man called Flute. “Priest is still ill.”

  “Ill” was a euphemism. Old Priest was dying, and everyone in Mad Oak knew it, though not all were willing to admit it. “I know he’s ill,” Sword said. “He should still be told.”

  “Won’t the ler tell him?” Curly asked.

  “Maybe,” Sword acknowledged.

  “Ho, the village!” came a distant cry. “Can’t you hear us?”

  Several people turned expectant faces toward Sword, who raised his hands to either side of his mouth. “We hear you!” he shouted back. “Who are you?”

  There was a mutter of what might have been cheering, and then a voice called, “We’ll explain when we get there!”

  That triggered a round of murmuring, and Sword sighed again.

  “Are you sure we should let them get here?” Curly asked.

  “I’ll go see who they are,” Sword said, and with a hand on his sword hilt he marched down the slope.

  He paused at the boundary shrine, knelt briefly, and said, “I thank you, spirits of my homeland, and pray that I may return safely to your protection.” Then he rose and stepped past, into the wilderness.

  He could feel the change instantly as he left behind the familiar, accepting ler of his village and stepped into the territory of the wild ler that dwelt outside human bounds. The air seemed suddenly hot and hostile, rather than warm and comforting. The gentle breeze turned harsh. Weeds tore at his trousers.

  Most people in Mad Oak would never have dared to set foot beyond the shrine without a guide and the protection of ara feathers, but Sword, as one of the Chosen, was immune to most magic. Wild ler might harass him, but were unlikely to do him any serious harm. Except for the bloodthirsty Mad Oak itself, up on the ridgetop to the southwest, he did not think anything near the village posed a real threat to him, and even that terrible old tree had failed to lure him in the one time he had gotten close to it. Putting his hand on the hilt of his sword had been enough to alert the ler that protected him and break the oak’s spell.

  He kept a hand on his sword’s hilt, just in case, as he marched boldly down into the birch grove.

  He did not have to go far; as soon as he passed the first line of undergrowth that bordered the grove he could see the strangers, fifty yards away among the birches. There were at least a dozen of them, all big men in matching attire. They wore broad-brimmed, cloth-covered helmets crowned with ara feathers, and despite the heat they were clad in thick quilted jackets and leggings striped with dense rows of ara feathers—jackets and leggings that showed signs of hard use, with hundreds of little slashes and tears, patches of mud and smears of green, thorns and briars everywhere. The feathers were crumpled and broken in many places.

  Clearly, these men were not appeasing the wild ler, nor dodging them, as a guide might, but were simply bulling their way through, relying on their strange clothing to protect them from lashing branches, stabbing thorns, and the claws and teeth of small animals. Heavy leather gloves held sticks and shovels and machetes, and the men were hacking and digging their way through the undergrowth. The damage to their protective clothing made it clear that the undergrowth and its ler had not yielded without a fight.

  Sword had never seen anything like this before, nor heard of such a thing. The people of Barokan had always respected ler, always tried to cooperate with the spirits of the land and sky and forest. Every town and village had made accommodations with its own ler, usually through a priesthood that negotiated with them, and the land between the scattered communities had been left alone.

  Until now. These men were clearly not leaving the wilderness alone.

  Sword kept walking into the birch grove, watching the men intently. He didn’t recognize any of them. None were from Mad Oak, nor were any of them guides he knew.

  This whole scene was unspeakably bizarre. Whole gangs of men simply did not venture into the wilderness like this, and ordinarily nobody would tear up the natural landscape in such a brutal fashion, so utterly heedless of the ler. The normal thing to do would be to either try to slip through without disturbing the ler, or to appease them as best one could, but these men appeared to be deliberately antagonizing the wilderness spirits.

  “Who are you?” Sword demanded, as soon as the strangers noticed his approach.

  The slashing, chopping, and shoveling stopped as the entire party turned to look at him. “The Wizard Lord’s road crew,” one of them called back. “Who are you, coming out her
e unguarded?”

  “I’m called Sword,” Sword replied. “What do you mean, road crew?”

  “Sword? The Swordsman? Really?” Several voices spoke at once, as the entire party lowered their tools and turned to stare.

  “The Swordsman, yes.” Sword drew his weapon and let it hang loosely in his hand. “Now, who are you people, and what are you doing here?”

  “He told you, we’re a road crew,” a man called. He reached up and doffed his helmet, revealing sweat-matted hair and a long, half-healed slash across his forehead that seemed to indicate that at least one ler had put up resistance. “We’re cutting a road through from Willowbank to Mad Oak.”

  Sword blinked and lowered his blade further. “Cutting a road?”

  “That’s right. You don’t have a guide for this route anymore, so we’re cutting a road, and if it’s properly maintained you won’t need a guide, ever again.”

  Sword struggled for a moment with this concept.

  He knew that in the Midlands the towns were often so close together that they were connected by broad roads, wide enough for two carts to pass, where no guide was needed to protect travelers from the untamed ler of the wilderness; he had been there, and seen it for himself. But that was in the Midlands, where one town was only rarely separated from the next by more than a mile, and where the land between was as likely to be open grassland as forest. There were no open roads in Longvale, where a good ten miles of thick woods and marshland divided Mad Oak from Willowbank; there were only narrow, winding paths that required a skilled guide to navigate safely.

  Or rather, there had been only narrow, dangerous paths until now. Looking past the self-proclaimed “road crew,” Sword could see that they had indeed cut a broad, straight path through the forest—a strip of bare, sun-dappled brown earth stretching away as far as he could see, with mounds of chopped greenery lining either side. He could smell the rich scent of fresh soil, an odor he associated with fields, rather than forests.