The Summer Palace

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Just what form such aid might take Sword had no idea, but if the ler ever did deign to speak freely with him, he could ask.

  Surely, it would do no harm to ask.

  For now, though, he had more immediate concerns. The temperature in the kitchens was dropping, he was fairly certain—presumably the weather outside was turning colder, and that cold air was leaking into the palace. He had survived one night well enough with nothing but blankets, but he thought he really would need to build a fire soon.

  Finding something to wear, something not feathered but a little more convenient than a blanket, would also be good. He knew some of his garments could be made acceptable; he had not sewn feathers into all his Hostman garb. The underclothing should be all right, and he was fairly certain he could render the breeches acceptable with just a little judicious trimming. His Uplander trousers, vests, and shirt were hopeless, being made almost entirely of ara; his winter coat was stuffed with ara down and probably beyond salvage. Removing all the feathers from his Hostman tunic might be possible, but would probably damage the fabric beyond repair, and he doubted he had gotten all the ara blood out of it, so that was out.

  He glanced down at the sheets he had appropriated from the bed-chambers upstairs, and grimaced. At least he had plenty of fabric to use in making more clothes.

  He blew out one candle, picked up the other, and marched to where his clothes hung.

  After an hour’s work picking at stitches, he was able to dress in breeches and belt, but nothing more; thus attired, he drew his sword and spent his daily hour in practice. There were no ler requiring it, so far as he knew; his talisman was no longer lifeless metal, but it did not seem to have its full potency, either. Still, the daily routine was a habit, and he might need the practice when the time came to kill the Wizard Lord.

  Besides, the activity served to keep him from feeling the cold too strongly. Even so, when he finally lowered his blade he was shivering in seconds, and quickly wrapped himself in a blanket again.

  Thus attired, he sheathed his weapon on his belt and headed upstairs, where the sky beyond the windows was brightening from gray to gold.

  [ 12 ]

  He had been unable to find any proper sewing supplies in the palace, and his ara-bone needle had been lost somewhere, but he had found that curtains could be tied into crude cloaks and wraps. Curtains handled more easily than blankets, and would have to do until he could manage something better. His black broadcloth breeches were not enough; the air in the palace was cold enough that he thought frostbite was a real concern. He had never seen real frostbite; he had been considered too young to be allowed to see Black-hand’s hand until long after it had healed. He had seen the effects, though, and clearly remembered the ugly stumps where those missing fingers had been. He did not want to risk any firsthand experience with such a phenomenon. He wasn’t sure just what it involved, really, what it felt like, how long it took, whether there was any warning he might watch for—Blackhand hadn’t exactly liked to talk about it, since it had been his own stupidity that allowed it to happen—but Sword knew his fingers and ears might turn black and die, even if literally falling off was some storyteller’s exaggeration.

  He had improvised a double-layered velvet cloak out of a set of drapes, and wore it over a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, atop his few acceptable ordinary clothes. He had stripped the ara-feather ornaments from his Hostman boots, so that he could wear them and keep his feet protected from the cold, as well.

  He had not heard any more ler voices, but he did not doubt the reality of his earlier experiences; he could feel the ler in the air around him, and in any exposed stone he touched. Their presence was much less noticeable in other objects; his clothes, the curtains, the blankets all seemed relatively lifeless—not dead, by any means, but not so vigorous. He supposed that that was because these manufactured things had been brought up from Barokan, and therefore had no native Uplander ler. Their own Barokanese ler were still present, but relatively weak here.

  Why that should be so, when up until his arrival in the Summer Palace it had been Uplander ler that seemed weak and almost imperceptible, he had no idea.

  And why the weather had turned so very intensely cold so very quickly, he did not know, either. Surely, it was not like this every winter!

  Or perhaps it was. That would certainly explain why the Uplanders fled so swiftly and completely to Winterhome every year. If the weather on the plateau regularly changed from cool and dry to snowy and bitterly cold in a matter of two or three days, and stayed cold all winter, that would seem like a very sound reason to get down the cliffs as rapidly as possible once the ara left and the weather started to turn.

  He was on the top floor stealing curtains when that thought occurred to him, and he took a moment to look out a window to the south. A few Uplanders were still clustered at the head of the trail down the cliff, but only a few, no more than a single clan, and even these were in the process of vanishing down into the canyon, leaving a muddy campsite behind.

  That patch of gray mud was the only visible interruption of any size in a vast expanse of white stretching to the south and east. A few scattered trees and cisterns were faintly visible in the distance through the glare of sunlight on snow, but for the most part, when he looked out across the plateau, all the world seemed to be white snow beneath a gray sky, with a band of intense blue separating the two in the east, where the clouds were clearing.

  But when he turned to the west the world fell away at the edge of the cliff, and what lay beyond, in the distance, was green and brown; no snow covered Barokan.

  At least, not yet. He supposed that winter would reach the Lowlands soon enough.

  How strange, though, that the weather could be so very different above and below the cliffs. Sword did not know whether it was simply because of the altitude, or because the ler of the two lands were so different, but he found it hard to comprehend. Up here it was winter; down in Barokan it was still autumn. He could step back in time by climbing down the cliffs.

  Except, of course, that he did not dare enter Barokan. He was here, in the Summer Palace, for good reason; if he set foot in Barokan, the Wizard Lord would try to find him and kill him.

  Of course, once the Wizard Lord found out he was here, Artil would try to have him killed anyway. He wouldn’t care that it wasn’t Barokan. His magic wouldn’t work here, but he would still have his soldiers.

  And it wasn’t as if Sword could stay hidden in the palace and take the Red Wizard by surprise. There would undoubtedly be servants coming up here at least a few days in advance, bringing supplies and getting the palace ready, and there was no way that Sword could possibly avoid their notice. Even if he managed to hide somewhere, they would see that someone had been here; he realized now that it simply wasn’t possible to spend an entire winter here without leaving obvious evidence. He would never be able to get all the curtains and blankets back where they belonged, or replace the candles he had burned.

  Especially, he thought, since sooner or later he was going to need to build a fire, and he had gradually come to accept that the only real fuel he had on hand was the palace furnishings. He hated to do it, to destroy these lovely things, but he would almost certainly need to burn something. Venturing outside to find fuel—well, there simply wasn’t much wood up here, and the grass and dung the Uplanders used were buried under the snow.

  No, he wouldn’t be able to just hide in the palace until Artil arrived. For one thing, his food supply would run out before that. Once the Uplanders returned from Winterhome, he would try to rejoin the Clan of the Golden Spear, so that he would have food and shelter. And when the Wizard Lord came to the Summer Palace, Sword would need to get back inside the walls somehow to kill him.

  Getting back inside when the gates were guarded would be a challenge, but not insuperable, by any means. He could climb the wall late at night, or simply fight his way in. If there were any secret entrances, he had all winter to find them.

&nbs
p; Or, he realized, to make them.

  He looked thoughtfully out at the snowy plain.

  He was going to be trapped in this palace for months, without much to do—he had his food supply, scanty as it was, and his only fuel would be the furniture, and for water he would collect and melt snow, so his needs were largely met. He would probably want to rework his wardrobe, if the Upland ler continued to speak to him, but that shouldn’t take very long. Arranging some surprise for the Wizard Lord would be a good way to fill the long hours. Not only would he see about finding or creating a secret entrance, so that he could slip back inside unseen, but he could also rig traps—though, of course, he’d need to be careful not to set them off himself.

  But on the other hand, traps might well wind up injuring or killing innocent servants, rather than harming the Wizard Lord himself. That needed more thought. A secret entrance, though, would be very welcome.

  There might already be one, as it seemed like the sort of thing Artil would do. So far, though, Sword had found no evidence of one.

  The local ler would know, though. If Sword could speak to them somehow and ask, they might tell him. Perhaps in his dreams?

  Or even openly?

  “O ler of the Uplands,” he said aloud, “I beseech you to aid me.”

  Though nothing spoke, he felt the air stir; the spirits were listening, then.

  “I need to know if there are hidden ways in and out of this palace,” he continued. “A tunnel, perhaps? A secret door?”

  He could feel them listening.

  “Tell me what you would have of me. Let us bargain. Aid me, and I will do what I may to please you in return.”

  The curtains he had not taken down fluttered, though he felt no wind.

  “Tonight when I sleep, then, perhaps you will speak to me in my dreams?”

  Perhaps.

  Although he had hoped for a response, he started. “You can talk to me when I’m awake,” he said.

  Yes.

  That had been foolish of him; something had spoken to him that morning. He had known that they could speak to him at any time—but they didn’t. “But you don’t want to?” He hesitated, then shrugged. “As you will, then. I will wait.”

  There was no reply to that—and why should there be? He smiled at himself. He was no wizard, to force ler to speak, or a priest, to plead or bargain with them; getting any response was more than he had any right to expect.

  It would make his life easier, though, if he could convince them to answer his questions, and perhaps even to do a little more. They might conceivably help him survive the cold somehow. He knew he didn’t have the talent, experience, or knowledge to work real weather magic, but just diverting the worst of the winds around the palace might be useful.

  He shivered. It was cold up here. The snow might have stopped, the clouds might be thinning, but the wind was still howling around the eaves, and was still, judging by the ice thickening on the windows, bitterly cold.

  How odd, he thought again, that the temperature had plummeted so swiftly! Just a few days ago, it seemed, he had not even needed a coat out on the open plain, yet now he was worried about freezing to death even in the cozy palace cellars, well out of the wind.

  He had heard Uplanders talk about how much more extreme the weather was on the plateau than down in Barokan, but he had just put that down to the Wizard Lord’s regulation of the skies of Barokan. Now, though, he was not so sure. Perhaps the thinner air was responsible somehow? Or the lack of trees to break the wind and hold in the warmth? Or the drier air?

  Or all of those, and more?

  That was something else he could ask the ler. He doubted there was anything to be done about it, or that knowledge of the reasons would do anything more than alleviate his curiosity, but he was curious, and asking could do no harm.

  For now, though, he would put all those questions aside. He had come upstairs to find fuel and clothing, and to take a good look at what was happening outside the Summer Palace, not to interrogate a bunch of whimsical spirits. He had his improvised cloak, and he had seen the last of the Uplanders descending into the canyon, and that left fuel. He wanted to find things that he could burn, if he had to. He looked around the bedroom he was in.

  The gilding on the vanity table would not burn well, but the chest of drawers ought to be fine once he broke it up into pieces that would fit into a fireplace. The bedframe would probably serve, as well, but it was big and awkward, and could wait. The bureau he would take right now.

  He dumped its meager contents on the floor, drawer by drawer, then stopped as he pulled out the fourth, final, fullest drawer.

  The half-dozen light cotton shirts and linen girdles in the drawer would probably burn just fine, he realized. There was no reason to dump them; they were potential fuel, just as much as the wooden bureau itself was, and what’s more, some of them might fit him. They were intended for summer wear, of course—that was probably why their owner had left them here—but they would still be better than nothing. He might not need to improvise so much as he had thought in making up his new wardrobe.

  Carrying the entire bureau down the stairs would be awkward, but he could carry two drawers at a time easily enough, and make a third trip for the frame.

  When he started down the stairs to the kitchen with the first two drawers in his arms, he felt the nearness of the Uplander ler; here at the entrance into the earth itself they were much stronger than up in the man-made heights above. He had not felt this when he had been wearing his feather-filled coat and ara-hide clothing, but now it was obvious. He was unsure whether the absence of his protective garments was the only difference, or whether he had been sensitized by his dreams, or whether the ler were somehow growing stronger—or perhaps some combination of those.

  Whatever the reason, the intense presence of ler was unmistakable, and he responded as he had been taught all his life. He said, “I ask your pardon, O spirits, for intruding into your home, and I hope you will make me welcome.” He bowed his head in respect as he descended into the darkness.

  He did not venture far into the gloom, but set the drawers to one side at the foot of the stairs, then turned to go back for the others.

  “Thank you for allowing me here,” he said as he set his foot on the first step.

  The air stirred, but he heard no words.

  He shrugged, and headed up.

  After his third trip he took a break and ate a candlelight lunch consisting of a strip of jerky, a few ounces of dirty ice water, and a sliver of cheese.

  The remaining unfrozen water from the cistern was getting nasty, he thought, so instead of returning to the third floor, he found himself a few pots and a ladle, wrapped more blankets under his makeshift cloak, and ventured out onto the terrace to collect snow.

  The wind whipped his cloak around, and blew his hair across his eyes; he knelt on the paving stones and said, “O ler of the wind, spare me your wrath, and let me gather the snow you have given me. Do not pull the warmth from my skin, I pray.”

  The wind dropped as he rose again, but whether in response to his entreaty or merely by coincidence he could not tell. He didn’t worry about it; the important thing was that it had dropped. He quickly ladled snow into the pots.

  The snow wasn’t deep enough to simply scoop it up with the pots themselves; there wasn’t much more than an inch on the terrace. The ladle worked fairly well, though.

  He was aware that even if he filled every pot and packed the snow in as tightly as he could, it would melt down to a small fraction of its volume. He didn’t really see any better alternative, though.

  As he shoveled snow into the pots he looked out across the terrace—and across the world; beyond the terrace rail was a vast emptiness, and beyond that he could see blue green hills in the distance, somewhere far to the west, down in Barokan.

  Down there his countrymen were bringing in the last of the harvest, clearing the fields, and preparing for winter.

  If he had had any sense, he told h
imself, he would have doubled back to the Summer Palace sooner and laid in supplies, rather than staying with the Clan of the Golden Spear until the last minute. He would have found a way to refill the cistern. He would have stored firewood, or at least a heap of dried dung. Instead here he was, snow already covering the ground, a bitter wind tearing at his cloak, trying to scrape up enough water to get through the next two or three days.

  Though the wind was not so bitter as it had been, certainly.

  “Thank you, spirits of the air,” he said. “You are being kind to me.”

  And of course, he hadn’t realized how sudden the onset of winter would be. He had thought he would have time, a few days at the very least.

  Why, he wondered again, had the cold come so suddenly? Was it only because there was no Wizard Lord moderating the weather here? Did the sheer altitude have something to do with it? The thinner air, perhaps?

  “O spirits of the Uplands,” he said, “help me understand your land better. Tell me why the winter came so quickly.”

  The wind gusted at that, snow swirling up in white spirals on either side of him, but he heard no voice; no words or images formed in his mind.

  Well, he was no priest, and despite centuries of human habitation, the Uplands were still effectively a wilderness, their ler untamed. He couldn’t expect open communication. Really, it was amazing the ler had been as attentive and cooperative as they had. Even in Barokan, even as one of the Chosen, he had only rarely gotten such direct responses to entreaties as he had received here, today.

  He supposed it was because he had no other humans competing for their attention; he was probably the only creature larger than a rabbit left in this part of the plateau. In fact, he might be the only human on the entire plain; there might not be a single person for a thousand miles or more to the east, north, and south.