The Ninth Talisman

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The Uplanders did not build multistory buildings right at the cliff edge.

  “I don’t know,” Nicker said. “They started building it two or three years ago; I think it’s finished now.”

  “Who built it? The Uplanders?”

  Nicker shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. The rumor is that it’s another of the Wizard Lord’s projects. I’m pretty sure one of the road crew said it was.”

  “Projects? What sort of project is it?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  Sword did not like that. The Wizard Lord was the mystical overlord of all Barokan and could go anywhere in his realm that he pleased, but the land atop the cliffs was not part of Barokan. The cliffs were the eastern boundary, just as definite as the boundaries of the towns within Barokan. The Wizard Lord had no business doing anything in the Uplands, and certainly shouldn’t be building anything up there; that was intruding into the Uplanders’ territory. Building roads through the wilderness within Barokan was one thing—all Barokan was within the Wizard Lord’s purview—but building something in the Uplands?

  And who knew what the Wizard Lord might be building elsewhere in the Uplands, too far back from the cliff edge to be visible?

  “Did that road-builder say what it is? What it’s for?”

  “Well, he had a name for it,” Nicker said, glancing up at the cliff-top structure. “At least, my niece said he did.”

  “What was that? Did she say?”

  “She said it’s called the Summer Palace.”

  Sword blinked at him, then turned to stare at the building atop the cliffs. “Summer Palace”—just what did that mean? Some Wizard Lords had built palaces and lived in them, probably more than hadn’t, but a Summer Palace?

  And surely the Wizard Lord couldn’t intend to live in it, to dwell outside Barokan!

  He definitely needed to speak to the Wizard Lord!

  [ 4 ]

  As he followed the roads to Winterhome, Sword gradually approached the Summer Palace, watched it grow nearer, then passed it and saw it recede again. It stood a few miles northeast of Winterhome along the cliff edge.

  He could still see it clearly, though, as he passed the boundary stones and saw the immense guesthouses lining the road ahead of him. It was hard to be sure at so great a distance, but he believed it to be two or three stories in height, with broad sloping roofs, and fairly large, perhaps as large as the guesthouses the Host People of Winterhome maintained for the Uplanders.

  The guesthouses, of course, were empty at this time of year. The Uplanders had long since made their annual climb up to the plateau and would not return for months, but their clan banners still flew from each guesthouse that Sword passed, fluttering from a pole at the southeast gable of each, the gable nearest the path that led up from Barokan to the Uplands. Each guesthouse stood three stories high—two stories of massive stone, and a third of wood and plaster, beneath broad, overhanging roofs. The doors and windows were shuttered and barred for the summer; the dormitories were abandoned until autumn.

  Sword knew there were three avenues of these structures, leading into the heart of Winterhome, the streets where the Host People lived year-round; he was coming in along the road that led northwest from that central core. He marched on, seeing no one—but that was to be expected in the late spring.

  But then he came within sight of the great central plaza, and stopped dead.

  He remembered well what the plaza had looked like six years before—a broad open space with five streets radiating out to north, south, west, northwest, and southwest, while the east side ended in the steep stony slope at the foot of the cliffs, the rough road to the plateau winding up from the center of that eastern edge. This was the one spot in all Barokan where enough of the Eastern Cliffs had crumbled that people could climb a path winding its way for several miles across broken stone and jagged outcroppings to the Uplands, and the plaza of Winterhome had been built around the foot of that path.

  The loose, mossy, gray stone had been left untouched for centuries, and the town had been built on the gently rolling land just to the west. The eastern side of the plaza had been open to that steep, rocky wilderness.

  Now, though, the entire eastern side of the plaza was occupied by a palace, and the entrance to the road up the cliffs was a great stone arch that led through that palace.

  The plaza was bustling with people, the vast majority of them in the distinctive all-black garb of the Host People. None of them seemed to be paying any very special attention to the palace—that is, unless one counted the guards at the various entrances, standing comfortably in their places, with their red-and-black uniforms and ornate eight-foot spears. Most people seemed to be huddled around various wagons, but Sword paid those no attention. He focused entirely on the palace.

  Sword had never gotten a very clear understanding of how the local priesthood operated, or whether there was a secular government in Winterhome at all; he had been concerned with other matters when he visited the town before. He was fairly certain that there was no king or archpriest who could have ordered the building of such a palace, though.

  And that presumably meant that the Wizard Lord, the Lord of Winterhome, had built it.

  That was normal enough in itself. Each Wizard Lord was expected to construct, or oversee the construction of, a fortress or mansion of some sort, to indicate his mastery of the land’s resources. Every Wizard Lord for seven hundred years had built himself a castle or palace or tower.

  Sword had never seen one like this, though. It was certainly nothing like the stronghold of the Wizard Lord’s predecessor; that had been a small, crude tower in the Galbek Hills, far to the southwest. This one was larger than any of the ruins or converted palaces Sword had encountered elsewhere. It was, in fact, immense, perhaps the largest single building Sword had ever seen, dwarfing even the temples and pavilions that dominated some towns; it was as big as three or four of the guesthouses put together. Gray stone walls rose to various heights, the central block as high as five stories above the plaza. Broad wooden eaves extended out on all sides, and several elaborate doors and gateways, and dozens of windows, pierced the stone in elegant patterns. The doors and shutters were painted red, the frames black; some were further decorated with painted flowers and carved, gilded rosettes.

  It would seem the Wizard Lord of Winterhome did many things on a grand scale, not just build roads.

  And it would appear that Sword would not need to ask directions if he wanted to visit the Wizard Lord; that palace was hard to miss. Sword picked up his pace and marched down the last few yards of street and across the great plaza, dodging the crowds and wagons, aiming his steps toward the largest and most ornate of the several doors.

  Heads began to turn and eyes to follow him as he made his way toward the palace gate. He was not the only foreigner in sight, by any means, and his white shirt and brown leather pants were not especially distinctive, but he was the only man around with a sword on his hip, and the only man marching alone toward the palace.

  Two guards were waiting with lowered spears when he reached the door, and a dozen or more of the Host People were staring. “Hello,” he said cheerfully to the guards. “I’m the Chosen Swordsman, and I’d like to speak to the Wizard Lord, if I might. Is he in?”

  The guards exchanged glances. “He’s here, but I don’t know if he’ll want to see you right now,” one of them said.

  “I believe he’s expecting me. Could you tell him I’m here?”

  The guards looked at one another again, and then the one on the right said, “Wait here.” He opened a door and stepped inside—not the big, ornate door, but a small, very plain one to one side. He had to maneuver carefully to get his spear through the opening, and he left the door slightly ajar behind him.

  Sword waited, and in a moment the guard reemerged, once again angling his spear carefully.

  “I’ve sent a messenger,” he said. “We should have word soon.”


  “Thank you,” Sword replied. He looked around.

  Several Host People were still staring at him. The heavily bearded men wore baggy black tunics and long, loose breeches, tied tight at wrists and ankles, while the women were hidden in huge tentlike garments, with scarves wrapped around their faces; that made it hard to tell one from another, and Sword was not sure whether he had ever seen any of these people before.

  He probably had not. He had not been in Winterhome for years, and had met few of the Host People even then.

  The weather was warmer than when Sword had been here before, much warmer, so many of the men did not have their hoods pulled up to hide their hair and faces, and the women wore gauzy summer scarves rather than the heavy woolen winter ones, but they were still all covered from head to toe in black fabric. Telling the local men apart could be challenging. Identifying the women was impossible, and that was quite deliberately. The garments were designed to hide the women from the visiting Uplanders in the winter, so as to pose as little temptation as possible for their bored young men.

  The Uplanders were not here, but up on the plateau, far away; Sword was mildly surprised to see that the Host People women still hid their faces so carefully. He wondered whether they stayed so thoroughly covered in summer’s full heat. Judging by the thinner scarves, he guessed they made some concessions to the climate but remained largely concealed.

  The palace guards wore uniforms cut much like the Hostmen’s clothing—loose-fitting garments with baggy sleeves and legs, but bound tight at wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles to keep the excess fabric from getting in the way. The difference was that their tunics were bright red, rather than black—though the breeches and garters were all black.

  There were a lot of guards, Sword thought. He had only seen one Wizard Lord’s home before, and the Lord of the Galbek Hills had only had half a dozen serving maids staffing his tower, no guards at all—but the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills had been dangerously insane. He had feared that any male servants would be seduced by the Beauty into turning on him, and had instead relied on magic and treachery for his defense, rather than guards.

  Sword knew that previous Wizard Lords had had guards; he had just never heard any clear numbers. Perhaps it was perfectly normal for a Wizard Lord to have a dozen guards at the doors to his palace.

  The small door opened, and a short man leaned out. “Swordsman?” he said.

  “I’m here,” Sword replied, straightening.

  “Come in, then. The Wizard Lord is eager to speak with you.”

  The guards stepped aside, and Sword followed the man inside.

  The little door opened into one corner of a broad hall. The grand entrance that Sword had originally headed for also opened into it, but was barred tight at the moment. Woven rush mats covered the stone floor; a few tapestries broke up the monotony of the long white plaster walls. Light came from a few scattered windows, and much of the hall was in shadow. The interior was pleasantly cool after the uncomfortably warm square.

  “This way,” the man said, beckoning. He was short and thin, with brown hair and a loose white tunic bound at wrists and elbows with black garters, and Sword wondered whether that was his usual garb, or whether he was a Hostman who wore a white tunic at the Wizard Lord’s insistence, or whether he had taken up the garters after arriving here, in an attempt to adopt local custom.

  He led Sword around a corner into a corridor, then through a gallery, and into an antechamber where more guards waited. There they paused.

  “You’ll have to leave your sword here,” the short man said apologetically. “And any other blades or weapons you may be carrying.”

  “I haven’t come to kill him,” Sword protested.

  “Nonetheless, I’m afraid we must insist,” the man said. “You are a man appointed by the Council of Immortals to hold the power of life and death over the Wizard Lord; surely, you’ll understand that he prefers to take a few precautions before meeting with you.”

  Sword hesitated.

  “You are free to refuse, of course, but in that case I’m afraid the Wizard Lord will not speak to you in person. If you feel you must speak with him while armed, he can arrange to converse through a proxy—perhaps a cat?”

  Sword remembered the miserable whimpering of the hound in Beggar’s Hill after the Wizard Lord had released it. “That won’t be necessary,” he said, reaching down to unbuckle his sword belt.

  Besides the recent exchange with the present Wizard Lord through the innkeeper’s dog, Sword had spoken with the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills through animal intermediaries several times—a rabbit, a raccoon, an ox, a crow, and others, including a cat. The memories were not pleasant ones, and besides, he knew that serving as the Wizard Lord’s proxy was not a pleasant experience for the animals involved, either. Their throats were not designed to produce human language, and their ler were not meant to be constrained in such a fashion. He therefore preferred not to deal with this new Wizard Lord that way.

  Giving up the sword was not really a problem; after all, the sword wasn’t magic; he was. He had the talisman of his office, the Talisman of Blades, safely tucked away in a hidden pocket, and as long as he had that, he could wield any swordlike weapon better than anyone else alive—a stick or knife would serve, if no sword was available. He was never truly unarmed.

  He wasn’t foolish enough to say that, though. He tugged the sword belt free.

  One of the guards stepped forward to accept the sword as he removed it. “Handle it carefully,” Sword said.

  “Of course,” the guard said, bowing.

  The little man bowed as well, then opened another door and gestured for Sword to precede him.

  Beyond the door was the Wizard Lord’s throne room.

  Sword had seen throne rooms before, in various temples, although the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills had not bothered with one. He had not, however, seen anything as elaborate as this. Gilt and red enamel were everywhere, and every vertical surface seemed to have been carved, painted, or both, the bright colors gleaming in the sunlight that poured in through two high rows of clerestory windows.

  Sword looked up at the windows far above, then around at the ornate furnishings in amazement, until his gaze fell on the dais at the far right end of the room. The man formerly known as the Red Wizard, now the Wizard Lord, sat in an absurdly elaborate red-and-gilt throne on that dais, smiling happily at Sword.

  Sword recognized him immediately. His face was unchanged by the six years since they had last met, his straight black hair was still worn long and loose, and he was attired in similarly gaudy red robes, trimmed with green and gold embroidery. His ears were still adorned with gold rings, his throat with a cord bearing several talismans, and the same staff he had carried when he first visited Mad Oak stood propped against the side of the throne.

  There were several guards and clerks scattered around, but only three men on the dais. The Wizard Lord was on the throne at the center, the other two standing to either side and slightly behind—and to his astonishment, Sword recognized both of them.

  Just behind the Wizard Lord, at his right hand, stood Lore, the Chosen Scholar, in his usual garb of brown leather and white linen.

  And behind the Wizard Lord’s left shoulder stood a third man Sword knew instantly—the former Leader of the Chosen, the man who had betrayed the Chosen in a conspiracy with the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills, the man Sword had ordered to pass on his talisman and title or die.

  “What are . . .” Sword began, as he stopped dead in his tracks. Then the words stopped, as well, as he realized he did not know what he wanted to say first.

  “Sword!” the Wizard Lord called. “How good to see you! Come over here where we can talk without shouting!”

  It took a surprising effort to force himself to move, but Sword managed to put one foot in front of the other and approach the throne. At last he stood before the dais, on a vividly red carpet at the foot of two low steps.

  “Wizard Lord,” he said. />
  “Call me Artil,” the Wizard Lord said.

  Sword’s mouth opened, then closed.

  “I understand you wanted to speak with me,” the Wizard Lord said.

  “I . . .” For a moment, Sword struggled to make sense of what he saw, to find words to express his confusion, but then he gave up and resorted to his original plan. “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to ask about some of these projects of yours.”

  “Which ones?”

  Sword was still too discomposed for subtlety. “The roads. And the Summer Palace.”

  The Wizard Lord smiled brightly at him. “Do you like them? How are the roads working out up in Longvale? I haven’t heard much from that direction yet. Are there many traders out there?”

  “I . . . am not sure yet. I have heard of caravans, but not seen any. And I have some doubts about the wisdom of disrupting the natural order.”

  Artil’s smile broadened. “The old natural order, you mean. We’re making a new one, but it’s just as natural, or it will be when it’s done. Really, there’s nothing untouchable about the old ways; we’ve been meddling with ler for centuries with our priests and magic. I’m just doing it faster, and in a more organized and useful fashion.”

  This response threw Sword even further off his stride, and his next words were chosen almost at random. “I suppose you are putting the guides out of work.”

  The Wizard Lord waved that aside. “Not really,” he said. “They just don’t need to work as hard. They can still carry messages and merchandise, much as they always have.”

  “And it’s been hard on some of the priests.”

  The smile dimmed. “I hope not too hard; I know there were some headaches and the like, and I do regret causing anyone such discomfort. Has there been anything worse up in Mad Oak?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  The faded smile abruptly vanished, replaced with a look of honest concern. “What’s happened?” the Wizard Lord asked.