“What’s happened?” a distant voice called from the head of the canyon. “What’s happened?” a distant voice called from the head of the canyon.
The captain turned, and pointed at one of his men. “You, Earflap, go tell them to come down, but not to interfere until we straighten this out. Tell them the Wizard Lord is dead, and we’re discussing what it means.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier saluted, and then trotted quickly up the path.
Sword watched the messenger leave, then looked back at Farash.
“Speaking of dishonor, Farash inith Kerra, I would like to know just how the Council of Immortals ever chose you to bear the ninth talisman.”
“They knew no better,” Farash said. “After all, you had refused to tell them why I was unfit for my role as Leader of the Chosen.”
“But of all the people of Barokan—”
“They didn’t know the people of Barokan, Sword,” Farash interrupted. “They were wizards, outcasts—they didn’t live among normal folk. What’s more, they didn’t trust one another—if one of them had nominated one of his own friends or family, none of the others would have ever agreed. Wizards don’t choose the Chosen, you know that; each of us chooses his own successor.”
“But there never was a ninth before,” Sword objected. “And they must have chosen others sometimes, when one of the Chosen died without naming an heir.”
“Oh, that’s true, and I’m sure they would have found some way to agree eventually if I hadn’t been available, but I was available.” He sighed. “You understand, it was made more difficult because of the nature of my role. The Traitor was to be secret, even from the other Chosen, so they could not let it be known they were seeking volunteers. With that limitation, and the refusal to consider one another’s nominations, there were only three or four people in all Barokan they seriously considered—me, and Merrilin who had been the Thief, and the old Seer, and Blade, the Old Swordsman. We were the ones who knew what it meant to be Chosen, people they had dealt with before, people whom the new Wizard Lord might take an interest in. After all, they needed someone who could get close to Artil.”
Sword nodded reluctantly.
“Blade and Shal Doro Sheth were old and tired,” Farash continued. “So Merrilin and I were their preferred candidates, and Merrilin had refused to join the fight against the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills. That left me as their first choice.”
“Why didn’t they approach one of Artil im Salthir’s friends, though?” the captain asked.
Farash shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “But he was a wizard—perhaps he had no friends. And assuming he did have any friends who weren’t wizards, perhaps the Council feared those friends would side with him against the eight Chosen.”
“What about his guards, then? Why not the captain, here?” Sword gestured at the soldier.
“He scarcely had any guards yet,” Farash pointed out. “And they didn’t know which ones would be close to him. They thought that he would be eager to accept me as an advisor, as his tame expert on the Chosen. They knew I had done a poor job as the Leader, but the Traitor is a very different role.”
Sword could hardly argue with that. “So you accepted the role.”
“Well, of course I did!” Farash snapped. “What else could I do? Everything I had done as an adult had been based on my magic as the Leader of the Chosen. You know what I did to Doublefall; I’m sure poor Zrisha oro Sal told you about it.”
It took Sword a moment to recognize the Leader’s true name. “Yes,” he said. “Some of it.”
“I don’t know,” the captain said.
Sword threw him a glance. “We’ll tell you later,” he said.
Sword turned, sword in hand, then thought better of making threats; the captain was unarmed, and probably nowhere near as good with a sword in any case, but he was the commander of the soldiers that surrounded the two Chosen.
“Captain,” Sword said, “you’ll have all the time you need to hear the details. The essence of it is that this man used magic to enslave the town of Doublefall, and use its people as his personal playthings.”
The captain stared at him for a few seconds, then turned to stare at Farash. “Is this true?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And the Wizard Lord knew you had done this?”
“He knew,” Sword said.
“Not at first,” Farash said. “But yes, he knew.”
“He trusted you.”
“He had to,” Farash said. He sighed, and turned back to Sword. “When I was the Leader, any time I wanted to be worshipped, to have my every whim catered to, I stayed in Doublefall,” he said. “Any time I wearied of the adoration, I could travel anywhere in Barokan and be accepted as an honored guest. Everyone was eager to befriend me, the Leader of the Chosen—not merely because I was one of the Chosen, but because of my magic. I held the Talisman of Command; everyone wanted to please me, even if I did nothing to ask for it.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. And I accepted it as my due. But after you killed the Lord of the Galbek Hills and ordered me to give up the talisman, I knew that was over. I hurried to Doublefall and freed the townspeople from my spell, before anyone else could find out what I had done to them, and I chose Zrisha oro Sal as my successor.”
“As a joke on the rest of us, she said,” Sword remarked.
“Well, yes,” Farash admitted. “I was bitter over the loss of everything I had planned, everything I had stolen, everything I had done, and I chose her because I could think of no one less appropriate. But I didn’t intend it to be permanent. I told the two wizards who ensor-celled her talisman for me, the Cormorant and Filri Torn-Ear, as much—that I had chosen her because I had no faith in my own ability to find a fit successor, after my own failure, and that I picked her for her common sense. I didn’t expect her to stay the Leader; I thought that once she was free of my spell she would recognize for herself that she was completely unfit, and that she would find an heir and pass the role along in short order. And after all, even if she didn’t, how likely was it that there would be another Dark Lord in our lifetimes?”
Sword did not entirely believe this excuse, but neither could he rule it out. And really, given that Farash had utterly misjudged his successor, what did it matter? “Go on,” he said.
“Filri and the Cormorant seemed impressed by my reasoning—but I sometimes think all wizards are fools, by their very nature.”
“I think that may be something we can agree on,” Sword replied dryly. “So did they offer you the new role on the spot?”
“No.” Farash shook his head. “And if they had, I might well have turned it down. No, I wandered off on my own, planning to start a new life as an ordinary man. I did not dare stay in Doublefall; there were too many memories there, both mine and others, and too many ways my deceptions might be exposed and my past brought to light. No, I headed eastward. I had always liked Winterhome, and I knew Artil was building his palace there; I thought I might find work as a carpenter.”
“Did you?”
“No. I didn’t find work. I found something else. I found myself, Sword. I visited inns and taverns all across the Midlands, the same places where a year before I would have been greeted as a hero, and I discovered that without my magic, people didn’t much like me. Even when they knew I had been one of the Chosen who had brought down a Dark Lord, and had no idea that I had not done my share, they didn’t like me once they got to know me. No one wanted to hear my stories; they all sounded like empty bragging or shallow whining. No one thought me good company. No one would buy me a drink; innkeepers who would have kept my mug brimming full before would now pour more foam than beer. Women scorned me—oh, I was still handsome enough, with a good strong form, but I had the manners of a mule, and invariably said the wrong thing, too blunt or too timid, when I tried to lure them to my bed. No one liked me—and I found, Sword, that I didn’t like myself. I was alone often, and had time to think about what I had done, and to look at the people around me whom I had treated with such contempt, and I realized that I had been a beast, and that it was time to be a man.”
Sword frowned.
“I told you I had reformed when we spoke in the Winter Palace years ago,” Farash said. “I don’t think you believed me.”
“I’m not sure I believe you now, either.”
Farash sighed. “I’m not surprised. But at any rate, I arrived in Winterhome determined to be a better man, and that was when three wizards approached me about taking on the role of the Chosen Traitor.” He shook his head. “They didn’t know I had already been a traitor among the Chosen, and I didn’t tell them, but I accepted their offer. I thought that perhaps I could atone for one betrayal with another—though I did not really expect Artil to ever deserve such a betrayal. He seemed to be doing a fine job as Wizard Lord.”
“He did,” Sword agreed. “He did seem to be.”
“Once I had the Talisman of Treachery, becoming his advisor was easy. He trusted me. He believed everything I told him about myself.”
“And did you, then, drive him mad with fantasies about the Chosen plotting against him, so that you would have someone you could betray?”
“No!”
For the first time, Farash seemed genuinely upset.
He forced himself to calm somewhat, and said, “No. I didn’t, I swear to you by all the ler of Barokan—at least, not as you mean. After he turned on us, when Babble and the Seer had been killed, when he had Bow hunted down, only then, I did try to keep him worried, to make him see threats everywhere, so that he would be too distracted to do any more harm. I used the threat of your return to keep him from ruling as fiercely as he wanted—he had intended, once you were gone, to track down the last few wizards, to depose priests wherever they weren’t absolutely necessary, to force his beliefs on all Barokan, and I dissuaded him by telling him how that would make allies for you. I warned him of nonexistent plots and conspiracies against him. Yes, I did that then, and I don’t apologize for it, but when all the Chosen were still alive, I tried to guide him wisely. I told him that the Chosen wouldn’t act against him without reason. I tried to convince him the Chosen could be his friends. He believed that I sincerely meant every word I said, because he trusted me—but he thought I was simply wrong. The magic that forced him to trust me did not let me control him; that would hardly suit the Council of Immortals, to have one of the Chosen ordering the Wizard Lord about.”
Much as he wanted to disbelieve Farash, Sword had to admit that the Council probably would have put exactly that restriction on their spell.
“I tried to tell him not to worry about the Chosen, but he dismissed it as foolish loyalty to my old friends,” Farash continued. He shook his head. “I don’t know why he was so certain we would turn on him; yes, we killed Galbek Hills, but how many Wizard Lords had served out their lives without any trouble? I wanted to help him with his plans to make Barokan a better place. I thought he was right in wanting to do away with magic as the means of governing. I advised him to build roads and bridges and canals, and to find work for bored young men, and to remove hazards on the roads—but I thought the Summer Palace was a bad idea, intruding on the Uplanders, and I tried very hard to make him see that the Chosen could be his willing allies, and he never truly accepted that. Oh, sometimes he seemed to; he accepted Lore as an advisor, and tried to befriend you all, but he never trusted any of you. Anything less than wild enthusiasm for his every project he took for a warning that you were going to kill him. And then there was the ninth talisman—my talisman. No one could tell him what it meant, or how it worked, or who held it, because by its very nature that would defeat its purpose, and that, more than anything else, convinced him that the Council and the Chosen were both out to destroy him.”
Sword stared at Farash for a moment, then said, “You know, I can see why he would think that.”
“So can I,” Farash said. “But what could we do? The spell was cast, and could not be changed.”
“It was a stupid spell,” the captain interjected. “If it really worked as you describe, it was stupid.”
“I can’t argue with you,” Farash said.
“I can,” Sword said. “Creating a traitor was clever. All of it was clever—except letting him know that there were nine Chosen.”
“How could they avoid it?” Farash asked. “He had to have the Talisman of Trust in his possession.”
“Did he? I wonder. What if your talisman hadn’t been linked to anything?”
Farash paused, startled.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Could they do that? I don’t know enough about magic to know whether it’s possible.”
“I doubt they ever considered it,” Sword said. “They had always given the Chosen linked talismans; it wouldn’t occur to them to use an unlinked one.”
Farash nodded. “They were traditionalists. Unlike Artil.” He glanced down at the corpse.
“They were wizards,” Sword said. “And they thought like wizards. Look at what they made you! The captain here said something about honorable behavior—what kind of people would deliberately create a traitor?”
“Wizards,” Farash said.
“Wizards,” Sword agreed. “People who could not trust each other, so they created the Wizard Lord to force themselves to behave. People who could not trust the Wizard Lord, so they created the Chosen to control him. People who would not fight their own battles, but relied on the Chosen to do all their fighting for them. The Council knew the Lord of the Galbek Hills had gone mad, but did nothing to aid us when we went to stop him. They knew the Lord of Winterhome was murdering wizards, but did they join forces to defeat him? No, they left it to the Chosen, while they fled and hid. Cowardice and treachery come naturally to wizards. Look at some of the roles they give the Chosen! The Thief? The Beauty, whose role is to seduce and betray? They had no honor; they trusted no one. No wonder so many became Dark Lords! The whole system they created was wrong.”
Startled by Sword’s vehemence, Farash looked away, and Artil’s corpse caught his eye.
“So the Wizard Lord is dead,” he said. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Sword said. “You killed him; what were you expecting?”
“I thought you would have a plan,” Farash said. “I hadn’t thought past this.” He gestured at the soldiers. “I didn’t expect to survive.”
Sword grimaced. “I can understand that. Neither did I.” He turned to the captain. “What do you intend?”
“We need to clear the trail,” a soldier called before the captain could reply.
“So we can get back to Barokan,” added another.
“We don’t belong up here!”
“Yes, right,” the captain said. The other body of guards had arrived as they spoke, and he gestured to them. “All of you, we’re clearing this path. You, Redhair, run back to the palace and make sure everyone’s out—not just our men, but the kitchen staff the Wizard Lord brought, the bearers, everybody. I want us all safely back in Winterhome by nightfall. You four, start over there. And you, you, you men here, line up and step forward.”
Sword and Farash watched as the soldiers did as directed, the messenger dashing back up the canyon, most of the others heading for the fallen rocks.
About a dozen had been selected out and lined up, though—all new arrivals, none of the handful who had been there when the Wizard Lord died. The captain beckoned these forward, then pointed at the two Chosen. “You men, take these two prisoner! We’ll take them down to Winterhome for trial.”
Farash and Sword exchanged glances; then Sword whirled, and the blade that had been at the Traitor’s throat a moment before was at the captain’s throat.
The soldiers froze, staring at this tableau. No one moved to interfere, but from the corner of his eye Sword could see hands closing on sword hilts or tightening on spearshafts.
“By whose authority do you order this?” Sword demanded. “We are two of the Chosen, and we have slain a Dark Lord—what right do you have to interfere with us?”
“You killed the Wizard Lord!” the captain protested.
“I didn’t kill him,” Sword pointed out. “He did.”
“But the Wizard Lord had already sentenced you to death for killing those soldiers!”
“Soldiers who had just slain two of the Chosen. You know the old law, Captain—the Wizard Lord is forbidden to harm the Chosen. And his edict died with him; you have no claim on me.”
Frustrated, the captain shouted, “Well, then what about him?” and pointed at Farash.
“Tempting as it might be to let you kill him,” Sword said, “he, too, is one of the Chosen, carrying out his assigned duties. Furthermore, Captain, your power comes to you entirely from the Wizard Lord, and extends only so far as the Wizard Lord’s rule; well, right now there is no Wizard Lord, and even if there were, you aren’t in Barokan. You have no authority here.”
“Besides,” Farash added mildly, “if you did take us down to Winterhome, who would try us? The priests? The Wizard Lord is dead, and the Council of Immortals destroyed.”
“Captain,” a soldier called. “Why bother fighting? He’s dead. There’s nothing we can do about it, and I don’t want to fight the Chosen Swordsman.”
The captain frowned, and looked around at his men.
Their lack of enthusiasm was obvious. Their lord was dead, their road home was blocked, and the sun was well down the western sky. No one was in the mood for starting further trouble.
“All right,” the captain said, giving in. “Let them go for now, then.” He turned away from the two Chosen, ignoring the blade that still lingered by his neck. “Let’s just get this rubble cleared away. You three, take that big stone there; Stubtoe, you and Nosebleed work on that pile over there.”
Sword and Farash exchanged glances, then stepped aside, Sword lowering his blade. There might be peace for the moment, but neither man felt sure enough of his welcome to join in the digging. Instead, they ambled to one side and continued their conversation as the soldiers worked.
“Will you go back down to Winterhome?” Farash asked.
“I think so,” Sword said.
“What will you do there?”
“Go home to Mad Oak, I suppose,” Sword replied. “Grow barley.”
“Sounds exciting.”
Sword did not bother to respond to this bit of sarcasm.
“I meant,” Farash said, “what are you going to do about the Wizard Lord?”
Sword threw him a startled glance. “Nothing,” he said. “What is there to do?”
“Well, traditionally, at this point the Council of Immortals would gather, reclaim the dead man’s talismans, and choose his successor. I wondered whether you intended to be involved in that.”
“There isn’t any Council of Immortals,” Sword said. “If there were, they wouldn’t even know he’s dead—we’re outside Barokan, beyond the limits of their magic. His talismans are just harmless trinkets.”
“Here, perhaps. Carry them past that rockpile, though, and everything changes.”
Sword shrugged. “Then let us not carry them past that rockpile.”
“He didn’t kill all the wizards, you know,” Farash remarked. “We could find the survivors and make a new Wizard Lord.”
“No. I’ve had enough of Wizard Lords. Artil was right about them—their time is past. Magic is fading, and good riddance to it. Magic gave us Dark Lords, and Bone Garden, and Redfield, and Drumhead, and your rule in Doublefall, and your role as the Chosen Traitor. Let it fade, and let us be done with it.”
“You really think it’s fading?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely.” Sword hesitated, then added, “I even know why it’s fading.”
Farash cocked his head. “How could you know that?”
“Ler explained it to me.”
“Which ler?”
“The ler of the Summer Palace.”
“You talked to Upland ler?”
“Yes.”
Farash considered that for a long moment, then asked, “That earthquake—you did that?”
“I asked for it. The ler were kind enough to oblige me.”
“They do what you ask?”
“Sometimes.”
“How did that happen?”
Sword shrugged. “I don’t really know. Apparently simply staying here through the winter was enough. They don’t . . .” He stopped. Did he really want to tell Farash anything about the Uplands?
No, he decided, he did not. Instead he asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” Farash said. He glanced at the laboring soldiers; they had already cleared a path several yards into the debris. “I don’t think I’d be welcome anywhere in Barokan—I betrayed and killed the Wizard Lord, after all. People loved him.”
Sword studied Farash’s face for a moment, then asked, “Why did you kill him?”
Startled, Farash looked Sword in the eye. “What?”
“Why did you kill him? No one would have known you were the Traitor if you had simply stayed out of it, and let me kill or be killed. Now you’re going to be hated and reviled—and you knew it. I thought at first that you had believed you would be greeted as a hero for killing him, but no, you knew better than that. You could have gone on as his advisor if he defeated me, or if I slew him, you could have had me killed in his name and declared yourself his heir after he and I were both dead. So why did you kill him?”
“Because it was my duty,” Farash said, meeting Sword’s gaze. “When I was younger and foolish, I betrayed the Chosen and aided a Dark Lord. I did not want to do that again. I did nothing when the Lord of the Galbek Hills slaughtered everyone in Stoneslope, and I enslaved the people of Doublefall, but Sword, while I know it sounds stupid, I never wanted to hurt anyone. I wanted what I wanted, power and women and pleasure, but I took no delight in anyone’s suffering.”
“Never? I remember hearing you say once that you wanted to gut every priest in Deepwell.”
Farash blushed. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “I was just boasting, making empty threats, trying to make myself feel like a man.”
Sword was not entirely convinced. “Go on,” he said.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Farash said. “I didn’t! I wanted to help. When I advised Artil to build roads and kill monsters, I did so because I genuinely wanted to make life better for Barokan—that my role as his advisor gave me power and prestige certainly didn’t hurt me, but I enjoyed helping others. Remember, when I convinced the people of Doublefall to serve me, they enjoyed it—oh, not of their own will, and I’m not defending what I did, but I never saw them suffering, never felt their pain. When I heard about Stoneslope, I told myself it was too late, they were already dead, and there was nothing to be done; unlike you, I didn’t visit there and hear their ghosts in anguish. But when those wizards were murdered, I knew it was wrong. When Babble and the new Seer were cut to pieces in the street, there was no way to lie to myself about it. When I saw Lore and the new Boss languishing in the dungeons, I could see their pain. Artil im Salthir was a Dark Lord, and I had sworn to slay any Dark Lord. I had broken that oath once, yes, but then I knowingly swore it anew, in a new role, and I could not live with myself if I broke it again. When you came here—you, the man who had spared my life once, against all reason—and I saw you were determined to kill the Dark Lord even if you died in the process, I could not refuse to do my job. Either there would be a battle in which some of these soldiers would die, along with you or Artil or both, or Artil alone would die, at the cost of my own place in Winterhome. I could choose which it would be. That wasn’t a hard choice, not really. It might have been once, but not today.”
Sword met his gaze for a moment more, then nodded. “I’m very glad now that I didn’t kill you nine years ago,” he said.
Farash smiled wryly. “I am, too,” he said. “You gave me a chance to redeem myself.”
“And you took it. Thank you.”
Farash glanced at the laboring soldiers. “Perhaps we should give these fellows a hand.”
Sword nodded, and the two men turned to join the soldiers in clearing the road.