The stop to dig vegetables took longer in the snow; so did clearing a campsite and raising the tents. By the time the campfires were lit, several of the children were either whining with hunger or sound asleep. The stop to dig vegetables took longer in the snow; so did clearing a campsite and raising the tents. By the time the campfires were lit, several of the children were either whining with hunger or sound asleep.
Sword’s tent-mates did not seem inclined to speak to him that evening.
On the third day of the journey they began to see other clans in the distance, moving westward toward the cliffs. Sword was walking a little apart from the other young men, so it took him a while to realize that they were discussing which banners they could see. He also failed to notice immediately when the Clan of the Golden Spear unfurled their own banner on the breeze.
He turned his steps closer to the others, and waited for a pause in the conversation before asking, “Why are we flying the banner now, when we didn’t yesterday?”
Whistler looked at him, then turned away without replying. Fist, though, looked at him pityingly and said, “Why would we bother with it yesterday, when no one else could see it? We all know who we are; it’s the other clans who need to see the banner.”
Sword started to say something about showing the banner so ler would know them, then caught himself. No one up here paid any attention to the ler.
It wasn’t that the land had no ler; Sword had been in places that had been stripped of their spirit, dead places, and knew the lifeless, empty feel of them. When he had first ascended the cliffs he had thought the Uplands were dead, but that had been by contrast with the vitality of Barokan; now he had stayed long enough to accustom himself to the feel of the high plains, he could recognize the difference. He knew that even though he could not sense any of the ler directly, this was a living land, one with its own soul, its own ler. He couldn’t feel that life, but all the same, now that he had spent time here, it no longer felt dead; it was as if the ler slept.
But the Uplanders didn’t acknowledge that in any way. They made no demands of the ler, and the ler made no demands of them. There was no contact at all.
That was a mystery to Sword. In Barokan the ler did not sleep, and could not be ignored. They made their presence felt everywhere. In the towns, the locals would have made their accommodations with the spirits of the place, and in the wilderness between the towns, the wild ler were a constant threat, picking at travelers at every opportunity.
On the roads the Wizard Lord had ordered built, the old ler had been uprooted and scrambled, and the new ler that formed spontaneously had been tamed, but even there they weren’t completely ignored. If the roads were not used, if the people using them did not assert that they belonged there, the ler would turn hostile; thanking ler for a safe passage, asking for their cooperation, was a habit so firmly established that it was automatic.
Up here on the plateau, though, there was no communication of any sort between human and ler. No one felt the presence of any spirits. Even the ara hunters did not bother to apologize to their prey; they treated the great birds as if they were soulless, less alive than the sword on Sword’s hip, even though a glance into any of those avian eyes made it very clear that the ara had strong, fierce, inhuman souls.
How such an unnatural state of affairs had ever come about Sword did not know, and none of the Uplanders he had asked during his sojourn had admitted knowing, either, though there were theories. Perhaps the ara themselves were responsible; their feathers blocked magic, blocked ler, so completely that perhaps the hunters couldn’t appease their spirits, and had generalized from that. Certainly, the Uplanders considered dealing with ler to be something Lowlanders did, not something that concerned them. Any Uplander who found his tools uncooperative, or his sleep troubled by dreams, would simply wear a few more ara feathers until the problem went away.
There were old stories, as well, folktales about how people had dealt with ler long ago, only to be betrayed or cheated. The stories always ended with the chastened humans swearing to rely only on themselves in the future, and not listen to ler.
Sword had always taken it for granted that the Uplanders knew their own land better than he did, but there were times such disrespect troubled him.
It did explain why Uplanders stayed in Winterhome in the winter, and were never seen elsewhere in Barokan; they probably couldn’t deal with the omnipresence of ler. In Winterhome the Host People had made them welcome, and had made the ler accept them, but elsewhere they would have found it very unwise to ignore the spirits.
The clan made camp that night within sight of three other Uplander camps, and the Patriarch sent envoys to each of them to ensure there would be no unpleasantness as they neared the defile leading down off the plateau, no arguments about who would go first. Fist was sent to the Clan of the Five Stars, amid some laughter and nudging.
“He has a girl there,” Whistler explained to Sword. “Or at any rate, he’d like her to be his girl.”
“So the Patriarch chose him for that? So he could see his beloved?”
“Probably,” Whistler acknowledged grudgingly. “I don’t care to say why the Patriarch does anything; I won’t pretend to his wisdom. And Fist isn’t the only one who likes a Five Stars girl.”
Sword nodded. “You said you do your courting in the winter?”
“Of course,” Whistler replied, startled. “Our own women . . .” He bit off his sentence unfinished, as if realizing he had been about to say something disloyal.
“You want a greater choice,” Sword said.
Whistler didn’t reply; he turned away.
By the end of the fourth day they were traveling in close company with other groups, to the point that Sword could not tell which of half a dozen clans an unfamiliar face belonged to. There was some confusion as guards kept the marchers from trampling various gardens, but in general the migration was peaceful.
There was one unpleasant incident when a slave, now the property of the Three Hawks clan, was recognized by his family in the Crescent Moon clan as a young fool who had run away the previous spring. Since he had run away on his own, and not been exiled, his mother argued that the Hawks had had no right to enslave him; the Hawk patriarch retorted that if they believed every exile who claimed to be an innocent, not only would there be no slaves to deal with the offal, but the Uplands would be overrun with unpunished thieves and bullies.
In the end an agreement was grudgingly reached, so that there would be no violence where so many clans were gathered; the Moons bought their youth back for a hundredweight of bones and feathers, and a promise to let the Hawks’ unbetrothed young men, of whom they had a surplus, visit the Moon women’s quarters in the guesthouse in Winterhome—properly chaperoned, of course.
Sword watched this with interest, and noticed that even while the negotiations were going on, everyone involved kept moving toward the cliffs. Clouds were gathering in the east, the temperature, chilly to begin with, was dropping, and more snow seemed likely; no one wanted to wait for it to arrive. That earlier inch or so had largely vanished in the sun and the dry air, and what had not evaporated had been trampled into mud by the passing nomads, but everyone knew that once the snows began in earnest the plateau was not a safe place to be.
That night the camps were so close together that they merged into one sprawling city of tents. It occurred to Sword that this was probably the only time all year that the clans lived in such proximity; the guesthouses in Winterhome were more widely spaced. He was not surprised, therefore, to see many animated conversations as members of the various clans swapped news and gossip, or boasted to one another of their accomplishments over the course of the year. Some children seemed to be playing happily with the children of other clans, while others hung back, shy or even frightened by these strangers. Older children, and young men and women, were clearly taking an interest in members of the opposite sex, regardless of clan.
There were flurries that night, but not enough snow to matter, and in the morning the Clan of the Golden Spear marched on—as did the other clans around it.
By the eighth day the clans no longer pretended to remain distinct; they were all one great migration that would sort itself back out at the foot of the cliff.
Sword found Fist and asked him, “Is it always like this? Every year?”
“No,” Fist replied. “We don’t usually bunch up this much—the snow rushed some clans. But there’s always a gathering.”
On the ninth day some of the Uplanders claimed they could see the smoke rising up from Winterhome; Sword’s eyes were not sharp enough, or not trained enough, to make out anything of the sort.
And finally, on the eleventh day, they came within sight of the Summer Palace, and Sword said his farewells.
No one paid much attention; they were more concerned with the long climb they would be making down the cliffs. Despite his new clothing and his spear, Sword had never really been a part of the Clan of the Golden Spear, and his curiosity value had worn off. The closest thing he had to a friend among the Uplanders was Whistler, and that young man had made plain that he didn’t approve of Sword’s bartering for jerky during their westward migration.
No one called after Sword or waved as he turned aside to march toward the palace, instead of into the defile at the trailhead.
The plain seemed colder away from the crowds of Uplanders, whether because there was no shared body heat, or because there were no neighbors blocking the easterly wind, or because it was actually colder, Sword could not say. He could not be entirely certain he wasn’t simply imagining it. He shivered and pulled his vest and coat more tightly around him, glad that he was wearing the winter coat he had made.
When he reached the palace gate he found it locked, the lanterns gone from the hooks—that was no surprise. He could not hear the burble of the fountains just inside; they had presumably been shut down.
There was no sign of any guards. Sword had wondered whether Artil might have left a few of his soldiers up here to ensure that the Uplanders did not loot the place in his absence, but apparently he had not bothered, or if he had, the guards must already have left.
Or, perhaps, they were inside the walls somewhere, out of the cold.
Sword paused at the gate and looked back at the line of Uplanders, stretching eastward to the horizon. He wondered how Winterhome could accommodate them all. He had seen the immense guesthouses that lined the roads around the town, but he had never really given much thought to just how many people squeezed into those structures. Thousands, obviously—perhaps tens of thousands. How did the Host People feed them all?
Well, the system had operated for centuries, so obviously the Host People had ways. Presumably there were storehouses somewhere to supply them.
Some of the Uplanders were staring back at him, he noticed, pointing out the man at the palace to their comrades.
That wouldn’t do. He hadn’t tried to keep his plans secret from the Clan of the Golden Spear, since that hadn’t seemed practical, but they all knew that their patriarch favored Sword’s scheme and would not want it spoiled. Other clans, though, knew nothing of it. Sword did not want someone from one of those other clans casually mentioning to the Wizard Lord that some strange man had been seen breaking into the Summer Palace.
Sword turned east, and marched back out onto the open plain. He was not going anywhere in particular; he just did not want to be seen entering the palace. He could not rejoin the Clan of the Golden Spear, which had already gone down the canyon and was on its way down to Winterhome, and did not see any reasonable way to join another clan at this point. Instead he wandered aimlessly through the remainder of the afternoon, and at dusk he settled down at a random spot, within sight of the westernmost of the great birdskin cisterns.
A few hundred yards away to the south the vast encampment of the migrating Uplanders sprawled across the landscape, tents black against the darkening sky, a myriad campfires gleaming orange in the gathering gloom. Sword wondered whether anyone was cooking over those fires, or whether they were all dining on jerky alone, and making fires for light and warmth only. Had the vegetables run out yet?
He considered building a fire of his own, but then decided it would draw too much attention. Instead he simply sat and waited, dozing lightly.
He awoke suddenly to find himself shivering so hard that he had jarred himself out of his doze. With neither fire nor tent to mitigate it, the night air was cold. He got to his feet, stamping and flapping his arms to stir his blood, and looked around.
It was very dark; the sun was long gone, an overcast hid the moon and stars, and almost all the fires had been doused.
It was perfect.
Still shivering slightly, he got his bearings, largely from the fading embers of the Uplander fires that had not yet been completely extinguished, and headed back toward the Summer Palace.
This time he did not stop at the gate, but made his way along the eastern side and clambered over the outer wall, moving as quietly as he could—which wasn’t very, unfortunately, since he could not see well enough to avoid stumbling over rocks and other obstacles, and ascending the wall was not something he could do silently. He hoped that anyone hearing the racket would attribute it to normal nocturnal activities. The distance was such that he doubted anyone would be able to recognize the sound’s exact nature.
Topping the wall was not particularly difficult, despite the darkness; it had not been intended as a serious barrier to invasion, but only to keep ara and straying Uplander children out of the gardens, and to provide a little privacy. There were no spikes or pickets to discourage climbers; he merely had to jump onto a convenient rock and then up, throw his arms across the top of the wall, catch himself there, and swing a leg up. He managed as much by feel as by sight, but he managed it. If he hadn’t had his pack, sword, and spear, he could have done it in seconds, and almost silently; as it was it took just a moment or two, and required only a moderate amount of scraping and thumping.
Once he got inside the walls the night was so utterly black that he decided trying to find his way into the palace itself would be a mistake; instead he took shelter in a corner of the garden wall, wrapped himself in his winter coat, and waited for morning, dozing occasionally and hoping he wouldn’t freeze to death.
He awoke, shivering, in the gray light of early morning, to find snow falling; the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a speckling of white on the backs of his hands, specks that quickly melted away. He shook the flakes from his hands and got stiffly to his feet, struggling to remember where he was and why he was so cold. He looked around.
The scene was nothing like the green and welcoming view he remembered. The palace gardens were brown turning to white, the dead stalks and bare earth gradually vanishing beneath the thickening snow. The skeletal trellises, with their meager burden of lifeless vines, seemed to slump beneath the weight of the leaden sky and white flakes. He shivered anew, and stumbled past the dry, snow-speckled fountains and dead planters to the gate, where he put his eye to a crack and peered cautiously out at the distant Uplanders.
They were still coming, moving across the plain and making their way carefully down the steep trail, but the throng had lessened somewhat. He could see few details through the swirling snow, and the wind that blew through or over the locked gate chilled him, so he turned away and headed for the palace itself, seeking shelter.
The doors were locked, of course—he tried every one on the south side, and the first few around the corner on the west, before concluding he would not find one left open. He didn’t let that trouble him—he had known he would probably need to break in. Although he thought he might regret it later, he was too cold to bother with latches or hinges in prying open a locked door; instead he used his sheathed sword as a club to smash in a many-paned window overlooking the terrace, breaking out mullions as well as glass, then clambered in through the hole.
Getting in out of the wind and snow helped; he was still cold, but was able to stop shivering, to stop his teeth from chattering, and to think a little more clearly.
He recognized where he was. He had spent a few days in this palace the first year the Wizard Lord had occupied it, and at that time he had learned his way around. This was a small dining salon, designed for those occasions when the Wizard Lord wanted to be able to wander out onto the terrace overlooking Barokan at a moment’s notice. A small table stood in the center, with four chairs set atop it for the winter; against the far wall stood a finely carved sideboard between two doors, and two tall matching cupboards in either corner.
Sword doubted he would be using this room much during his stay here; he hurried across and tried the left-hand door.
That led into a narrow, unadorned, windowless corridor, obviously meant for the palace staff rather than for the Wizard Lord or his guests; since he had been one of those guests, Sword had never seen this passage before. He could not tell how far it ran; the only light came from the salon windows behind him. Those windows faced west, and it was early morning, with clouds and snow obscuring the sky and dimming the sun; the dull gray glow reached barely ten feet past the door.
He had tinder in his pack, but Sword was not inclined to waste it; instead he stepped back into the salon and tried the right-hand door. That opened into a sitting room where several tall windows to the south let in what daylight could penetrate the growing storm; Sword stepped in and closed the door behind him, shutting out the mounting howl of the wind.
It was still cold, but just the common chill of an unheated room in winter, not the biting cold he had faced outside; Sword set his spear against the wall, then unslung his pack and dropped it beside the spear, before sinking into one of the richly upholstered chairs. He looked around the room.
The floor was reddish brown tile; a carpet had been rolled up and set against one wall, to stay clean for next summer, while chairs, tables, and settees had been pushed up against the opposite wall, out of the way, leaving the room bare and unwelcoming.
There was no hearth, no stove, no fireplace, and the half-dozen windows that made up most of the south wall were designed to be stood open to catch the breeze. The awnings that would keep the sun out were rolled up and stowed away for the season, leaving just a thin layer of glass and frame to keep out winter’s chill.
That was better than nothing, certainly, and probably better than the tents the Uplanders used, but it wasn’t much.
Sword thought back over his previous stay, trying to remember whether he had ever seen a hearth or stove of any kind anywhere in the building. There had been candles, of course, and oil lamps, but he could not recall any other flames. This was, after all, the Summer Palace—any time heat was called for, the Wizard Lord would be down in Barokan, not up here at all.
But there were other uses for fire besides light and heat; food had to be cooked somewhere. The kitchens would surely have stoves and ovens and hearths.
That was where he would set up housekeeping for the winter—in the palace kitchens. He merely needed to find them. As a guest he had had no business there, so he had never set foot in them, but obviously they existed. That passage from the dining salon undoubtedly led to the kitchens eventually, but he preferred to use what little daylight he had, rather than wasting tinder—especially since he saw no lamps or candles, and he had not brought any of his own.
He would need to do some exploring, he decided.
He glanced at his pack and spear, debating whether or not to bring them along; they must weigh at least sixty pounds, he thought, probably more, with all that jerky in addition to his clothing and other gear, and he had been carrying them almost constantly for the past eleven days. He was alone in the palace; precious as they were, what harm would it do to leave them here, and come back once he had found what he sought?
None at all, he told himself. It wasn’t as if anyone else would stumble across his belongings.
But then he paused. He was here, after all; how could he be sure no one else was? He knew that the Wizard Lord did not leave guards here over the winter, since it was universally accepted that no one could survive a winter in the Uplands, but what if he had posted a guard or two to stay here just until the Uplanders were gone? Sword had never heard of such a precaution, but it wasn’t an absurd speculation. This was not the first time he had considered the possibility, and he had no reason to rule it out.
And for that matter, what if some of the Uplanders out there on the plateau decided to break in and take shelter here from the storm before attempting the long climb down to Winterhome? He certainly wouldn’t want to try to get down the cliff in this storm.
But if an Uplander, or even an entire clan, did break in here, they would surely find better things to steal than his pack, and they certainly wouldn’t casually steal another man’s spear. At least in the Clan of the Golden Spear, spears were almost sacred—and Uplanders in general seemed to be very honest people. Even though they had no ler ordering their lives other than their own souls and the souls of those around them, they maintained their codes of behavior well. He had seen that in his time with the Clan of the Golden Spear. Also, this wasn’t the first winter that the palace had stood here, yet he had never heard of any Uplander intruding, or disturbing it in any way. That was the sort of thing that would have been all over gossip-loving Winterhome, had it ever occurred.
Of course, most years the snows didn’t start this early, and the migration down to Winterhome didn’t usually take place in a snowstorm. Sword didn’t think this had happened in any previous year since the palace was built.
He wondered whether the Wizard Lord had any control over the weather up here; could he have prevented this storm if he wanted to? Or could he have created it? His magic did not extend beyond the borders of Barokan, but wind and weather paid little heed to borders; if Artil had assembled this storm just west of the cliffs and then pushed it eastward, wouldn’t it have arrived here just like this? Previous storms had seemed to come from the east, Sword knew, but this one had arrived in the pre-dawn darkness and could have come from anywhere.
But sending it would have been insane, even by Artil’s standards. Surely, he did not want to make life more difficult for the Uplanders! In fact, had he been in the Wizard Lord’s position, and seen this storm hindering the Uplander migration, Sword would have sent the strongest winds he could to blow it away and keep the trail clear.
But Artil was trying to break magic’s hold on Barokan, trying to teach the Barokanese to live without wizardry of any kind. He had presumably let this storm happen naturally.
If any clan did break into the palace to take shelter, it was Artil’s own fault, for building it where he had and allowing these early snows—but Sword didn’t think it would happen. The Uplanders would follow their traditions and obey their laws. They had probably had to travel in the snow before, and probably had rules and customs to deal with it, as they did for every other part of their lives.
The possibility of guards seemed significantly more likely, really, but Sword had seen no sign of any, and surely, if the place were guarded, wouldn’t someone have seen him approach the gate yesterday? Wouldn’t someone have seen him huddled in the garden this morning?
If Artil had posted guards, they had probably left for Winterhome the minute the first snow fell. No Barokanese would want to risk being snowbound up here.
Well, no Barokanese except himself.
His pack and spear would be safe, he was sure. He left them where they were as he rose and started his search for access to the palace kitchens.