The Ninth Talisman

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Sword watched and listened and took it all in, and when he sat in his mother’s house, watching her run a few yards of fine velvet through her fingers and rave about the fabric’s beauty, he reached a conclusion.

  Even if the Council of Immortals were to come to him and tell him that Artil had violated the rules, even if the Wizard Lord were arbitrarily killing an occasional troublemaker in his campaign to reshape Barokan, even if the new Leader, whoever she was, wanted Artil dead, Sword had no intention of killing him. The man was indeed replacing the old ways with something better, something more popular, something that made life better for everyone.

  Oh, there were things the Wizard Lord might do that would go too far—if he exterminated an entire village as the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills had, for example—but it would take something very drastic indeed to overcome the obvious benefits he had bestowed on Barokan.

  And that meant that Sword’s role as the Chosen Swordsman was not needed.

  Unless something utterly unexpected happened, unless Artil died or went mad, Sword expected to spend the rest of his days as a farmer here in Mad Oak, raising barley and beans.

  He smiled at the thought, but it was an unsteady smile that quickly faded.

  [ 12 ]

  The wind coming over the ridge from the west was cold and damp, and pulled the leaves from the trees into sodden brown heaps. Autumn was well advanced, and as Sword sat in the pavilion looking out at the raw weather and the mostly bare trees he thought that he would not be at all surprised to see the first snow almost any day now—though not today; it was still too warm.

  The moisture in the air, and the heavy clouds building up overhead, made it obvious that it was going to rain soon. Sword assumed the rain would not fall until after dark; after all, the Wizard Lord controlled the weather, when he wasn’t up in his cliff-top retreat, and it had been the custom for centuries to allow rain only at night.

  That custom had suffered somewhat during the summer; Artil might have instructed the weather ler to behave themselves, but they had not entirely obeyed. The summer had been unusually hot, and three or four times rain had fallen in daylight. Some people had found that upsetting; Sword had discovered, to his surprise, that he rather liked it, despite unfortunate past experiences with unnatural rain. The summer rains had been gentle and cooling, nothing like the ferocious, punishing downpours that the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills had unleashed in his attempts to deter the Chosen.

  But then reports arrived that the Wizard Lord had descended the cliff and settled back into Winterhome, and the weather had begun behaving itself again.

  At least, until now. Going by the long streaks of shadow and light the sun was still above the ridge, but those clouds were awfully dark and threatening, the air heavy with moisture. As Sword looked up at the sky through the open shutters, a low rumble sounded.

  He blinked.

  “That’s not right!” he said, to no one in particular. He rose from his chair.

  The rumble sounded again, louder and closer. There could be no mistaking it.

  “That’s thunder!” Sword exclaimed.

  Around him the half-dozen other occupants of the pavilion were stirring nervously.

  “It’s what?” Brokenose asked, stepping up beside Sword.

  “Thunder! The sound a lightning bolt makes!”

  Brokenose stared wildly past the shutters, eyes darting back and forth. “I don’t see any lightning,” he said worriedly.

  “Are you sure, Sword?” Little Weaver asked from her chair ten feet away.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Sword said. “I heard it a hundred times when we were on our way to the Dark Lord’s tower. Sometimes the lightning is hidden up in the clouds, where you can’t see it.”

  “But the Wizard Lord protects us from lightning!” Potter wailed. Sword glanced at her, remembering when she had been a skinny girl known as Mudpie; she had certainly grown up over the last few years, but that unhappy wail was little Mudpie’s voice.

  “He’s supposed to, certainly,” Sword replied.

  “There hasn’t been a thunderstorm in Mad Oak in hundreds of years!”

  “I know.” Sword squinted up at the clouds. “He has to have brought this one here deliberately. I wonder why?”

  “Go ask him!” Potter called.

  Several people laughed at that. Sword replied gently, “I can’t get all the way to Winterhome before this storm breaks, Potter.”

  “Well, how do you know he’s in Winterhome? Maybe he’s here, bringing the storm with him!”

  That actually had some sense to it, and Sword shrugged. “Let me go up on the ridge and take a look around,” he said. “After all, I’m the one person here that lightning can’t strike. If the Wizard Lord is here, maybe he’ll talk to me and explain what’s going on.”

  There was a general chorus of agreement, and Sword turned toward the south door, the one that opened on the trail up to the ridgetop. He had half-expected some of the others to follow him, but they did not; they stayed where they were, seated or standing, and watched him go.

  He wondered, as he walked, what the Wizard Lord was up to. Sword had thought, after seeing the changes that the roads had brought to every town from Mad Oak to Winterhome, that Artil had been sincere in his desire to do nothing but improve life for the people of Barokan, but there could be no question that this storm had the Wizard Lord’s consent, even if it were not actually of his making.

  How could a thunderstorm benefit anyone?

  Sword could not think of anything good that lightning might do. If this really was a deliberate thunderstorm, and not a miscalculation of some kind, it seemed depressingly possible that Artil had gone mad, like his predecessor, or perhaps given in to the evil counsel of that traitor Farash inith Kerra.

  Sword pulled open the pavilion door and stepped out into the wind, which snatched at his jacket and whipped his hair across his face, roaring in his ears. He blinked, brushed the hair away with one hand while the other clutched at his jacket, then took a few steps and looked up.

  The clouds were black and ominous, hanging low over the ridge—but they were not all that large; he could see clear sky in the distance to the north and west, and the setting sun shone orange beneath the over-cast, bathing the whole scene in eerie light.

  And he could also see, hanging motionless beneath the clouds, a human figure, so high above him that he could see almost no details, could not determine its sex or age, let alone identity. It held a staff, and wore a long red cloak that flapped wildly about it, catching the orange sunset.

  That, Sword thought, was almost certainly the Wizard Lord. He was flying there, supported by ler of air and wind, and presumably guiding the storm—but why? He wasn’t directly over the town or pavilion, but a little to the southwest, directly above the ridge, just outside the borders.

  Sword’s gaze fell from the wizard to the ground beneath him, and the immense old tree that stood there, and another piece of the mystery fell into place. The Wizard Lord was hovering directly over the great Mad Oak that gave the town its name, the horrific tree that had created a small zone of death beneath its branches.

  Whatever Artil was doing up there, it was directed at the tree, not the town.

  And then the lightning bolt flashed from sky to earth, blinding Sword for a moment; the crack of thunder deafened him, and the wind seemed to snap at him like a maddened animal for an instant.

  Another smaller, sharper crack sounded, as his ears and eyes cleared, then a crackling, and he saw a limb tear loose from the Mad Oak’s upper branches and smash its way down through the branches below.

  Lightning flashed again, and again thunder rolled over Sword as a second blue-white bolt struck the tree. This time Sword saw flames appear in the oak’s crown. The tree, after the fashion of oaks, still had most of its leaves even this late in the season, though all were dry and yellow or orange-brown; ordinarily they would have fallen a few at a time until well into the winter, before the branches were comple
tely bare.

  Now, though, the remaining leaves were blazing with more than just autumn color. Fire spread from leaf to leaf, branch to branch.

  The Wizard Lord hung in the sky above the burning tree, watching.

  Sword stood at the pavilion door, watching.

  The wind abruptly died, dropping from a gale to a gentle breeze in seconds, and the world suddenly turned quiet. The howling of wind through the trees and around the eaves of the pavilion, and the rustling of leaves, simply vanished. As Sword’s ears adjusted to the relative silence, he could hear the crackling of distant flame as the Mad Oak burned. The fire had spread through the entire tree now, turning it into a gigantic, misshapen torch that sent a column of smoke spiraling upward.

  And above the smoke the clouds were parting, thinning, scattering; the storm had served its purpose, and now the Wizard Lord was dispersing it. No rain had fallen, and Sword was sure that none would until the oak had entirely burned. There had been no flicker of lightning, nor the slightest rumble of thunder, since the tree began to burn. Those two great bolts had been the storm’s entire purpose.

  “Sword, what’s happening?” a woman’s voice called from somewhere behind him, and for the first time Sword realized that he had left the door open. He turned.

  Several faces were gathered in the doorway, looking out at him.

  “The Wizard Lord blasted the Mad Oak,” he said. “That’s what the storm was for.” He pointed, then began walking up the ridge.

  “What?” Three or four people pushed their way out of the crowd and followed Sword up toward the ridgetop, to where they, too, could see the burning tree.

  The little group stood, silently watching, as the flames ate away the last lingering leaves, sending a black mist of ash coiling upward. The branches were now solidly ablaze as well, the great twisted trunk blackened and starting to scorch.

  The Wizard Lord had moved aside, to avoid the smoke, and now he seemed to notice his little audience. He turned and swooped downward toward them like some great red bird.

  Sword stood calmly waiting, but the others backed away. Potter turned and ran, but Brokenose, Little Weaver, and Coldfoot stood their ground just a few feet behind the Swordsman.

  The flying figure came nearer and nearer, and Sword could see that it was indeed Artil, with his embroidered red robes and black hair flapping, the familiar cord of talismans around his throat, his staff in his hand.

  He had not carried staff or talismans when Sword had last seen him, up at the Summer Palace, but here he was working magic, so of course he had them.

  “Hello, good people!” the airborne figure called.

  “Hello, Artil,” Sword called back.

  “Sword! What a pleasure!” The Wizard Lord waved a greeting. “I knew you lived in Mad Oak, of course, but I hadn’t thought I would be fortunate enough to see you here tonight.” His descent halted a foot or two above the ground, perhaps six feet away from Sword. Sword could not believe that Mad Oak’s ler would still refuse him admission, now that he was the Wizard Lord, but perhaps he simply didn’t care to press the issue.

  “And I had not expected to ever find you in Mad Oak,” Sword replied. “What brings you here?”

  “That tree, of course,” Artil replied, gesturing with his staff toward the burning oak. “It was blocking the route of the planned road connecting Greenwater and Mad Oak, not to mention being a hazard in its own right. It should have been removed long ago; the ground beneath it is covered with the bones of its victims!”

  While Sword knew that to be true, he was not particularly impressed; most of those victims had been deer or squirrels. No human being had been foolish enough to be caught in the oak’s spell in years.

  In fact, the last person that foolish had been Sword, when he first dared venture outside his hometown seven years before, and he had been saved by the Greenwater Guide and his own magic, keeping his bones safely inside his flesh.

  “You’re building a road from Greenwater?” Sword asked.

  “Well, I’m not, but my men are,” Artil said. “I do need to keep them busy, and a western route into Longvale would be helpful for the merchants from the coast, wouldn’t it?”

  “I hadn’t given it any thought,” Sword said. “The road from Willowbank seems to serve fairly well.”

  “Oh, but another, shorter route will be even better! You’ll see. In any case, I see no reason to leave anything as malevolent as that tree alive, anywhere in Barokan. I know my duties officially only require me to remove human outlaws, but I don’t mind expanding my role a little, if it makes life a little better for everyone.”

  “So now you’re eliminating any menaces you can find, regardless of where and what they are?” Sword asked.

  “More or less, yes. I’m just one man, of course, even with all my magic, so I’m limited in what I can do, but I’m taking them on one at a time, as my schedule permits. I’m determined to leave Barokan a better place than I found it, Sword!”

  “I see.” Sword heard Little Weaver murmuring something behind him, but he could not make out her words and did not turn around. “That’s admirable.”

  “Thank you,” Artil replied.

  “Thank you, Wizard Lord!” Little Weaver called.

  “You’re very welcome, my dear.” He turned, arms folded across his chest, to watch the tree burn.

  Sword stood a few feet away, watching the conflagration.

  It appeared Artil had found another way to improve Barokan, and this one did not bother Sword at all. The Wizard Lord was using his magic, rather than abandoning it, and was not interfering in anyone else’s business; he was simply removing existing problems.

  That seemed very much in keeping with his role, where organizing work crews and building roads did not. More than ever, Sword hoped Artil would not overstep his bounds; a Wizard Lord with the imagination to do this sort of thing was a treasure.

  “So have you destroyed many such menaces?” Sword asked.

  “Oh, two or three dozen, I suppose,” Artil answered, turning back. “A whirlpool here, a monster boar there, and the like. Killer trees are unusual, though, and I think this was the worst I’ve found.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Sword said. “And I’m sure the new road will be useful.”

  “Wizard Lord,” Little Weaver called, “where are you going next?”

  “Back to Winterhome for supper and a good night’s sleep, my dear,” he replied. “And before anyone makes any flattering offers I would have to refuse, let me say that I want to get home before true nightfall, as flying is far more dangerous in the dark and I have a busy day planned for tomorrow.”

  “What are you doing tomorrow, then?” Brokenose asked, startling Sword.

  “Discussing matters with my officers, for the most part,” Artil said. “Making some changes in my organization. Nothing as exciting as destroying an insane oak tree, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah.” Brokenose nodded knowingly.

  The talk about his “organization” dampened Sword’s enthusiasm somewhat. “We won’t keep you, then,” he said.

  “Thank you. And Sword, feel free to come and visit me again someday. I know you feel it’s your responsibility to keep an eye on me.”

  “Thank you,” Sword said. “I’ll do that.”

  The Wizard Lord smiled, then gestured with his staff. He rose swiftly, and this time did not hover, but soared off to the southeast.

  For a moment the four townsfolk simply stood, watching the red-clad figure recede; then Sword shivered and turned back toward the pavilion.

  “That was the Wizard Lord!” Little Weaver said. “We met the actual Wizard Lord!”

  “Yes,” Sword agreed.

  “He spoke to us!”

  “Yes.”

  “And he knew you,” Brokenose said, pointing at Sword.

  “Well, yes. We’ve spoken before.”

  “He killed the oak,” Coldfoot said, staring at the tree, which had lost most of its branches by this point. Just
then one of the major limbs cracked, and a large chunk crashed burning to the ground.

  “Yes, he did,” Sword agreed, glancing at the blazing oak. It occurred to him that it would be a very bad thing if the fire spread to any of the surrounding trees—but presumably that was why the wind had dropped.

  Still, it was careless of Artil, he thought, to not stay and watch until he was sure the fire did not get out of control. Perhaps he had some sort of magical monitor in place, or had ordered the local ler to see that nothing untoward happened. Perhaps he should have had some of his “organization” standing by to prevent the fire from spreading.

  But the fire wasn’t spreading, so maybe Artil had known exactly what he was doing.

  “Will we have to change the town’s name, do you think?” Brokenose asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sword replied.

  “He killed the oak!” Coldfoot repeated.

  “He’s wonderful!” Little Weaver said, clasping her hands over her breast.

  Sword glanced at the woman, then at the dwindling speck that was the Wizard Lord.

  “Yes, on balance, I suppose he is,” Sword said thoughtfully.

  [ 13 ]

  A little over a year after his return from Winterhome, a few months less than a year after the burning of the Mad Oak, Sword was plowing a recently harvested bean field in the river bottom, hoping the unusually warm weather might hold long enough to get a second crop in, when the stranger came marching up.

  The new arrival was a rather slender young man of moderate height, scarcely more than a boy, clad in a flowing green-and-gold silk cloak that was absurdly out of place out here. His long black hair was swept back in a ponytail and adorned with three long ara plumes, and he strode along boldly as he emerged from the patch of boggy woods that separated this field from the heart of Mad Oak.

  “Ho, farmer!” he called, raising a hand in salute. “I seek Erren Zal Tuyo, the Chosen Swordsman!”