The Ninth Talisman

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  That clearing, he decided, was Beggar’s Hill, and beyond that was Broadpool, the wide river there faintly reflecting the last light, and he thought he could make out Rock Bridge in the distance. Willowbank and Mad Oak were too far off to be recognized with any certainty, but he was not at all sure they were over the horizon. There was a hazy something on the ridge out at the very limit of visibility. . . .

  From up here the Wizard Lord would unquestionably have a better view of the lands he was charged to protect than he could ever have had from within them—though he might not have the magic he needed to protect them.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” a voice said from behind him.

  Sword was not accustomed to being unaware of anyone’s approach; he whirled, leaping away from the railing. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword. Then, as he saw who had spoken, he froze.

  The Wizard Lord was standing before him, his red robes catching the lanternlight and flapping gently in the breeze. Something about him looked different, though Sword could not identify it immediately, but it was definitely Artil.

  “If you draw that thing, we may have to kill you,” he said, and Sword forced himself to release his grip on his sword. Only then did he notice the four red-and-black-clad guards who stood just behind the Wizard Lord, two on either side.

  “Sorry,” Sword said. “It’s instinct. You startled me.”

  The orange light of the setting sun was striking the Wizard Lord’s face from below, but that was not the only difference, nor was it merely the lack of any magical awareness. Then Sword realized that Artil did not have his staff, and the cord of talismans was gone from his neck.

  “My apologies for that,” the Wizard Lord said. “But it’s quite a view, isn’t it? I love sharing it with people.”

  “Even armed people?” Sword asked wryly.

  “I hadn’t realized you were armed,” Artil said. “I might have approached differently, had I known.”

  “I’m the Swordsman,” Sword said. “I’m almost always armed.” He started to add a comment on the Wizard Lord’s missing staff and talismans, then caught himself. That absence implied that the Wizard Lord had indeed given up his magic to come here, just as much as Sword himself had, but Sword was not yet ready to discuss that. He had not yet thought out what he wanted to say, and admitting that he was no longer necessarily the world’s greatest swordsman might be unwise.

  “I suppose that’s true,” Artil said. “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I see.” The Wizard Lord nodded. “But about the view . . . ?”

  “It’s magnificent,” Sword said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Really magnificent. I can’t wait to see it by daylight.”

  “I saw that earlier; I’m looking forward to seeing it at night, the fire-lights of the towns laid out beneath the stars. If you’ll give your sword to one of my guards, we can look at it together and talk.”

  Sword hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “I’d like that,” he said. He debated unbuckling his sword belt, but instead just drew his sword, tossed it up and caught it by the blade, and proffered it to the nearest guard hilt-first.

  He did not mention, though he thought about it, that ordinarily he could have killed all three men with it, if he wanted to, before they could react. Having left his magic behind, he wondered whether he still could. He had still had all those years of practice, but would that have been enough?

  The man took the weapon gingerly, clearly unsure what to expect.

  “It’s not enchanted,” Sword told him, guessing at the cause of his apprehension. ”I am, but the sword isn’t.”

  He saw no reason to mention that at the moment the enchantment appeared to be broken, or at least suspended.

  “Oh,” the guard said, relaxing slightly and letting the tip of the blade fall to boot-top level.

  Sword nodded to him, then turned back to the west. The Wizard Lord stepped up beside him, and together they leaned on the rail and looked out over Barokan.

  “It’s beautiful,” Sword said.

  “Very,” the Wizard Lord agreed.

  “And that’s the land you’re sworn to protect, spread out down there.”

  “Indeed it is. And your implication is that I should be down there, instead of up here?”

  “It’s a question one might ask, certainly.”

  “I suppose it is.” He fell silent for a moment, staring out over the darkening land below; Sword waited.

  “Don’t you think,” the Wizard Lord said at last, “that we can see it better from up here than we do from down there? Don’t you think we can be fairer from up here, above it all, than we can down there, surrounded by the distractions of everyday life?”

  Sword glanced at Artil, then out across the magnificent landscape.

  “No,” he said. “You can see more from up here, but you can’t see it as clearly. You can’t see the details, and details matter.”

  The Wizard Lord’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I should have known you would not be so easily swayed,” he said. “Well, then, I’ll tell you the truth. You’re quite right that up here, I can’t meddle as directly in matters. That’s a deliberate choice on my part. I told you that I’m trying to change the system, and that’s the truth; I want to set up a new system, one that will unite all Barokan into a single people, connected by safe roads and strong government. I want a government of men, not magic; a government where human justice prevails, rather than the whims of wizards or ler, or the edicts of priests. I want to make the very role of Wizard Lord archaic and unnecessary. But I can’t do that just by ordering it; people don’t change their ways as easily as that. The priests and wizards and ler are all accustomed to their positions of power, limited only by the Wizard Lord’s greater power, and the ordinary folk are accustomed to yielding to the wielders of magic. The traditional balance of power is entirely a balance of magic, priests and wizards and the Wizard Lord and the Chosen each with their own particular magic, their own authority to act in particular ways.”

  “Yes, of course,” Sword agreed. “I don’t see . . .”

  “I wasn’t finished,” Artil said, cutting him off.

  “My apologies.”

  “Accepted. Now, as I was saying, for at least seven hundred years, and probably far longer, all power has rested upon the ability to wield magic, to make ler do one’s will. I want to change that. I want to make people the final authority, not ler. I want to have a society so strong and confident that when some ler says, no, you cannot do that, even the lowliest farmer or housewife, even just a child at play, can tell that ler that we will do as we please, and that if it does not yield it will be rooted out and destroyed, like the ler that once filled the wilderness where we have now built roads. Ler have nature on their side, beasts and plants and earth and sky, but we have our minds, our will, our numbers and organization! A lone man crossing the wilderness is taking his life in his hands, but my road crews, because they have numbers and tools and organization, can cut their way through the wilderness with impunity, driving out any ler that try to stop them.”

  “I see,” Sword said.

  “But you don’t yet see what this has to do with my palace here,” Artil said. “Do you?”

  “I don’t,” Sword admitted.

  “It’s because we must not rely on magic. We must stop organizing our lives around cooperative ler. We need to make our own rules, without ler, without magic. I want to show everyone that people don’t need magic; we don’t need to wheedle and cajole the ler, or trick them or trap them, or bind them with oaths, or pay them off with sacrifices. We can make our way without them; we can reshape them. I want to be master of Barokan because the people want me as their master, not because I hold the eight Great Talismans and have a thousand ler at my beck and call. I want to show everyone that I don’t need magic to rule Barokan.”

  “And so you came here, where . . .” He hesitated; neither of them had yet said this openly. Then he fin
ished, “Where your magic doesn’t work.”

  The Wizard Lord smiled at him. “Exactly. I can look down and see that the land is at peace. If there are catastrophes I’ll see them, or messengers will bring me word, and I’ll deal with them—if possible without magic, but should it be necessary I can go back down to the boundary on the trail.” He gave no sign of surprise that Sword had known his magic did not work outside Barokan, and presumably that meant he knew that Sword’s magic did not work here, either.

  That was probably why he was willing to speak to one of the Chosen at such close quarters, without forcing Sword to strip bare and be searched. Handing over his sword was enough; here Sword was just an ordinary man.

  At least, so the Wizard Lord thought; he did not consider, might not even know, that Sword was a man who had practiced swordplay for an hour or more every day of the past seven years. That acquired expertise had not entirely vanished with his magic.

  And he was a man who still had questions. “What about criminals fleeing into the wilderness, or rogue wizards?”

  “There have been no rogue wizards in more than a century,” Artil replied. “You know that. And I know all my seventeen remaining compatriots in the Council of Immortals; I doubt any of them would ever run amok. If one of them should, though, or if a murderer should escape justice somewhere, then word will be brought to me and the matter will be attended to. In fact, I hope I will get a chance to demonstrate that such things can be handled by ordinary men, with a modicum of courage and a sound organization, without resorting to magic.”

  Sword considered that, looking out at the fading colors in the western sky. “What about the weather?” he asked.

  “I have left bindings and instructions upon the relevant ler, and matters should proceed quite well without me. The weather may not be quite as perfectly regulated as it would be were I minding it, but it should be good enough. After all, our ancestors got by for centuries before Wizard Lords learned to control the weather.”

  “So you’re trying to demonstrate that we don’t need a Wizard Lord.”

  “Yes! Just as you said, all those years ago in the Galbek Hills, just before I was chosen for the job. I want to be the last Wizard Lord Barokan will ever see.”

  Sword stared out at the darkening western horizon, trying to decide what he should think of this. He had said that perhaps the time had come to abandon the system of Wizard Lords, but this was not how he had envisioned it happening. He had not really had any clear idea of how it might work, of what could replace the existing system; he had merely been tired and angry at the waste and death and destruction the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills had spread across Barokan, and certain that there had to be a better alternative.

  And now the new Wizard Lord, the only person in a position to deliver it, was offering him exactly what he had said he wanted. Logically, he should be overjoyed, but he wasn’t. Perhaps he had changed in the intervening years, or perhaps he had merely had time to recover from his anger and betrayal and realize that the old system had indeed worked for seven hundred years.

  He wasn’t overjoyed, but he was not sure what he did feel.

  “You can’t stay up here all year,” he said.

  “No, of course not,” Artil agreed. “This is the Summer Palace, and I will indeed return to the Winter Palace, and my magic, in the autumn. But spending months up here will show everyone that it’s possible to run Barokan without the Wizard Lord’s magic.”

  Sword nodded, and did not say what he was thinking—that this might also demonstrate that it was possible for Barokan to function without a Wizard Lord, or any other ruler, and that Artil might someday find himself deposed without the intervention of the Chosen.

  Nor did he mention that one reason the Wizard Lord’s scheme made him uneasy was that it removed one of the major holds the Chosen had over him. Traditionally, no Wizard Lord dared to kill any of the Chosen because each of the eight was tied to one-eighth of his own magic; killing any of the Chosen would reduce the Wizard Lord’s own magical ability by that eighth. But this was a Wizard Lord who did not want to use his magic in the first place; he might well have no compunctions about killing the Chosen, should they threaten him or his power. The loss of a part of his magic might not matter to him.

  This was, in fact, the strangest Wizard Lord Sword had ever heard of. There was nothing in any of the old songs or stories he knew that suggested any other Wizard Lord had been reluctant to use his magic, or had ever considered setting foot outside Barokan.

  It didn’t even seem entirely consistent with what little Sword knew of Artil im Salthir’s personal history. The first time Sword had ever seen the Red Wizard he had been flying, which was hardly something one would expect of someone who didn’t like magic. He had been flamboyantly dressed even then, carrying a staff strung with dozens of talismans. . . .

  But then Sword realized he had never seen the Red Wizard perform any magic other than flying; maybe those talismans and fancy clothes had just been for show. He remembered that the ler of Mad Oak had not initially allowed Artil to land in the town; his feet had been held in the air until a priestess asked the ler to let him land. Did that have any connection with his present attitudes?

  Did it matter?

  Really, all that mattered was whether the Wizard Lord was doing more good than harm as ruler of Barokan. If he was a benefit to the land, when all was said and done, then Sword had no business with him; if he was a danger, then it was Sword’s duty to remove him. Other than that, his actions were no concern of the Chosen.

  And his reasons, his moods and motives, were never any of Sword’s business. All that mattered were his actions.

  And right now, Sword could not decide whether the Wizard Lord’s actions would do more good than harm. His plans were so different from everything Sword had ever thought about that Sword could not judge them.

  He would have to wait and see what came of them; that was all there was to it.

  “So?” the Wizard Lord said.

  Startled, Sword looked up, and realized he had been staring silently over the cliff for several minutes. The landscape below was mostly dark now, the rich colors faded to blacks and grays, though several orange pinpricks showed here and there where people had lit fires and lanterns.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “So—what do you think of my plan? I want to say, ‘Isn’t it magnificent?’ but for all I know you think it’s some sort of ghastly violation of the rules, and you’ll try to whack my head off if you can’t talk me out of it.”

  “No, I don’t think it’s ghastly,” Sword said. “I don’t know what to think of it.”

  Artil smiled at him. “It is different, isn’t it? But I think it’s the right thing to do. You know as well as I do that things have changed since our ancestors created the first Wizard Lord. The wilderness is less wild than it once was, the ler of field and town far tamer than before, and instead of hundreds of wizards roaming about wreaking havoc there are only eighteen of us left. Magic is fading, or at least changing, and we no longer need it to live in Barokan—so why not discard it entirely? Eighteen wizards—and did you know only one of us has an apprentice? We’ve given ourselves such a bad reputation, put so many restraints on ourselves these past seven centuries, that no sensible youth would want to be a wizard. Oh, we still get a few applicants, but for the most part they’re clearly unsuited. They want to be wizards for the sake of petty revenge, or to impress the girls in their villages.”

  Sword could not help remembering that the man he had killed six years before, the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills, had been one of those who became a wizard for the sake of revenge. Apparently wizards were not always as careful as they should be about who they accepted as apprentices.

  Or perhaps Laquar kellin Hario had just been very good at hiding his true nature.

  “We do need to be careful, since we don’t want any more rogues or Dark Lords,” Artil continued. “We made one mistake that you and your comrades had to remove; we
really don’t want another. But that means that in another hundred years, even if I don’t change a thing, there may not be any wizards; the last member of the Council of Immortals will appoint himself the final Wizard Lord, and what will happen when he dies? Better to change the system now, and remove the wizards from power peacefully, while a few of us are still around to oversee the transition.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Sword said, startled.

  “Neither had most of my compatriots on the Council, so far as I can tell,” Artil said, looking out over the rail as if he expected to see other wizards there. “When we were discussing who would be the new Wizard Lord I tried to bring it up, but no one else seemed concerned.”

  “I suppose most people don’t worry much about things that can only happen after they’re dead,” Sword replied.

  “Perhaps that’s it.” He stared out into the darkness a moment longer, then clapped Sword on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go in and see if my people have managed to put together any sort of supper. You must be hungry after the long climb.”

  “I am,” Sword acknowledged. He turned away from the rail, and accompanied the Wizard Lord into the Summer Palace.

  It was only later, when the tables had been cleared and the Wizard Lord departed, that a guard finally returned his sword.

  [ 11 ]

  Sword remained at the Summer Palace for four days, and with each day he felt the emptiness in his heart grow. With each day he wondered why Lore and Artil were not similarly afflicted. He did not ask them; finding the energy to speak about it, in the thin air and his enervated condition, was beyond him.