[5]

 Breaker's mother was the last to reconcile herself to her son's new calling, but by midwinter even she had finally accepted it, at least to the extent of allowing the Swordsman to move into the family home, so that his trudging through the snow would not delay the daily practices—and so the town's unexpected long-term guest would not impose on Elder Priestess any more than he already had. White Rose knew better than to needlessly aggravate the town's senior interlocutor with ler.

The two wizards who had accompanied the Swordsman had left after just three days in Mad Oak. Once they were certain that the Swordsman had found his successor they had no further business in town, and Mad Oak had little to entertain visitors.

   "Call us when the time comes," the woman had said, handing the Swordsman a talisman, which he quickly pocketed. Then she turned to the guide and said, "To Greenwater, then!"

For the first month after the wizards departed half the village expected Breaker to give up; it became a popular amusement among the townsfolk of all ages to come watch the practice sessions and see an old man with a blunt stick repeatedly embarrass big strong Breaker, regardless of whether the youth was wielding a similar stick, a real sword, or almost anything else that came to hand. Time after time, when the two of them squared off after the day's lessons, the Swordsman demonstrated that he could hit Breaker anywhere he chose, at any time he chose, with either a stick or a sword.

By the end of that first month, however, it sometimes took him two or three tries before he connected, and the townsfolk had largely stopped speculating on how soon Breaker would abandon his pursuit of a role among the Chosen.

In the first few days some of the other young people of Mad Oak had challenged Breaker to mock duels after seeing his poor showing against the old traveler; most of them were startled to discover that in fact Breaker was not slow or clumsy at all, and could match or better most of his opponents from the very first. After a month Breaker could usually fetch any challenger a sound blow on the side of the head within the first minute of combat, and the impromptu stickfights ceased. Some of the village wits began to mockingly call Breaker "the Young Swordsman," rather than using the nickname he had borne for a dozen years.

But as the practice sessions continued, the mockery faded.

By midwinter, when White Rose invited the visitor to sleep in the loft, calling her son the Young Swordsman was no longer a joke at all.

   The Old Swordsman could still reliably defeat the Young, though. The young man who still thought of himself as Breaker could put up a good fight, and hold off his more experienced foe for several minutes, but inevitably every bout still ended with a rap across the back of his hand, a tap on his heart, or some other blow indicating his defeat. No weapon the Young Swordsman might wield ever touched the older man.

That irritated Breaker, but there seemed little he could do about it, and he was definitely improving—just not enough to matter, yet.

   In his more optimistic moments, though, he could imagine a day when he could beat the Old Swordsman and claim a role among the Chosen. He tried to imagine what that would be like, but failed.

   He spent many evenings, after his household chores were done, asking the Old Swordsman about his life as one of the Chosen, getting answers that varied according to the old man's moods. He discovered that the more specific a question, the more likely it was to get a consistent and useful answer—which was hardly a surprise, since that was almost always true everywhere, regardless of the topic of discussion.

   He tried to think of useful, specific questions, but it wasn't always easy.

   "When you travel," he asked, "do people just give you food and shelter, wherever you go, just because you're the Swordsman?"

The Swordsman laughed at that. "No," he said, and because he was in a good mood that night—dinner had been roast ham and chestnut gravy—he went on to explain that sometimes he was treated as an honored guest, sometimes he had to work for his keep, sometimes he had to pay with coin, and there were a few towns where he was shunned no matter what he did.

   "Sometimes," he said, "a little display of fancy bladework and passing the hat will cover my expenses nicely; you'll want to learn some tricks, like slicing through lit candles without blowing them out, for such occasions."

"Like what?"

The Swordsman snorted, fetched his blade, and demonstrated his ability to slice a good beeswax candle in two while leaving the top half still in place and burning, if a little wobbly.

"More!" Fidget called.

   'Tomorrow," the old man replied, and from then on it became a household tradition for him to perform one such trick every evening, to the great amusement of Spider and Fidget—such as slicing a tossed apple into thirds in midair, or spearing the only red grape from among half a dozen green ones flung at him, or first swinging his blade above a cloth spread on a table so fast that the wind of its passage stirred the fabric, then once the cloth moved, passing the blade beneath it without scratching the table, cutting the cloth, or letting the cloth entangle the sword . . .

His repertoire was impressive, but Breaker ceased to find it amusing fairly quickly, as in each case he was set to attempting to imitate the stunt the next morning. Some such tricks were much easier than they looked; most were not. Breaker failed to master most of them—which did not discourage the Old Swordsman at all, but it did discourage Breaker.

"You have no magic helping you," the old man said, after one such failure. "Could you do it without the magic?" Breaker countered.

"I don't know," the Swordsman said. "I might; I've been practicing a long, long time."

Breaker grimaced silently in reply. He continued to ask questions, though.

"What are the other Chosen like?" he asked one very cold night, as the family huddled by the hearth, as much to silence his father's grumbling about the weather the Wizard Lord had sent them as because he really wanted to talk.

"I haven't met all of them," the old man said.

That startled Breaker, and he turned his attention from the fire to the Old Swordsman. "You haven't?"

   "No," the old man said, rubbing his hands together. "I've never met the current Beauty or the current Thief, so far as I know. They keep to themselves."

   All three of Breaker's sisters had turned to listen now, while their parents kept their faces toward the fire.

"Why?" Fidget asked.

   "I can't say for certain," the Swordsman said, "but if you think about it, thieves don't generally like advertising themselves. And the new Beauty lives in Winterhome, where the women keep themselves secluded—I've only been there once, and I didn't meet her. I didn't like it much—it's right under the cliffs, you know, and it feels closed in and unbalanced, as if half the sky is ready to fall on you. And the whole society there is strange, with the division between Host People and Uplanders; half the year it's too crowded, and half the year it's half-empty. It's not comfortable. Or at least, I didn't find it so."

   "You said the new Beauty lives there," Breaker said. The Swordsman snorted. "I did, didn't I? Foolish of me. She's been the Beauty for more than twenty years now—in fact, I wonder how much longer she can last at it. That's hardly new. But what I meant was that I did know a Beauty, who retired in favor of the present one because her husband-to-be got jealous and she decided having a family was more important than serving the Council of Immortals. And yet another held the post when I first joined the Chosen, though only for a year or two; I never met her, either."

   "Tell me about all of them!"

   And to Breaker's surprise, the old man obliged—though not immediately. He waited until the younger girls had been sent to bed before continuing.

The Beauty was a role intended as a distraction more than anything else, he explained; just as the Chosen Swordsman was by definition the greatest swordsman in Barokan, the Beauty was by definition the most beautiful woman in Barokan, which meant that her mere appearance was often enough to make grown men forget whatever they were supposed to be doing. Her original purpose among the Chosen had been simply to make the Wizard Lord's servants and guards—and perhaps even the Wizard Lord himself— abandon their duties, so that the other Chosen would meet less resistance.

The Beauty did not need to practice anything, as the Swordsman did, nor do anything special to preserve her beauty; ler took care of her appearance with no effort on her part. This did not mean that her role came without a price, though; she was constantly barraged with the attentions of men, and inevitably drew the envy of other women. How the Chosen Beauty handled this varied from one to the next, but for all of them it was wearing. The Swordsman had held his role for forty-four years; no Beauty had ever lasted that long, and he doubted any ever would. Whether even magic could keep a woman supernaturally beautiful for several decades was an open question, and one that showed no sign of being answered any time soon.

   "I don't know much about the woman who was the Beauty when I was first chosen," the old man said. "She had held the post about a dozen years, I think, and had had enough of it. She did no traveling anymore, and resigned the role before I had gotten around to meeting her. Her successor made a point of finding me, though— and bedding me, as I was young and handsome then, not the battered ruin you see now."

   "Bedding you?" Harp asked, startled.

   "Oh, yes. And if you're thinking that might have become complicated, such a relationship between two of the Chosen, you should consider that human nature is such that the woman universally acknowledged to be the most beautiful in the world cannot be visibly pregnant; therefore, the ler of her talisman would not allow her to conceive. That was a part of her magic. That was one reason she gave up the role later."

   "But. . . She tracked you down in order to bed you?" Harp persisted. "But she didn't know you." "Yes, well, she was . . . a little odd, perhaps. But also, she wanted a man her magic didn't affect. I think she wanted to prove she could seduce a man without magic. Not that that was at all difficult in my case, back then."

   "Her magic didn't affect you?" Breaker asked.

   "No, of course not—haven't I told you about that?"

   "No."

   "Oh." The old man looked slightly embarrassed, for the first time since Breaker had met him in the pavilion the night of the harvest dance. "That's part of being Chosen. We're . . . well, not immune to magic, exactly, but almost. None of us are affected by each other's magic, nor can the Wizard Lord's magic harm us directly. In general, the ler bound to us protect us—didn't you notice I had no ara feathers on my cloak when I arrived?"

"I did," Breaker admitted. "I had heard that the Chosen had magical protections of their own, stronger than

ara feathers, but I hadn't known you were immune to each other's magic."

   "We are. So Boss is persuasive but can't order us to do something suicidal, and the Beauty is beautiful but not irresistible, and so on."

   "Boss?"

   "The Leader. The other nicknames change, but I think the Leader is always called Boss. Certainly the two I've known were both called Boss."

   "You've known two?"

   The old man sighed. "Breaker, I've known at least two of all the Chosen—I'm the oldest of the eight by more than a decade. Seer is next, then Lore . . ."

   "Lore?"

   "The current Scholar. His predecessor was an old man called Tales—I'm not sure what happened to him after he retired, but he must be long dead by now. But you know, I'm wrong—Lore wasn't next after Seer, the Beauty was. Since I've never met her, I forgot for a moment. So it was Seer, Beauty, Lore, and then I think it must have been the Thief."

"Does he have a nickname, like Boss and Lore?"

"The Thief? I don't know—I told you, I've never met her."

"Her?"

"Yes. This time. The one before was a man." Breaker nodded. "How long has she been the Thief, then?"

   "A long time, but she was very young when she took the role." He sighed. "The Speaker would be next—poor little Babble! And then the new Boss, and finally Bow, taking over from Arrow as the Archer. I only met Bow once—he made a point of coming to find me and introduce himself, and show me some of his archery. That was just a few years ago. He could do amazing things, just as I can with a sword, but I can't say I was impressed with

him." "Tell me about all of them!" The old man sighed again, and kept talking.

For some time after that, every night after Spider and Fidget had retired the Old Swordsman told Breaker and sometimes Harp a great deal of what amounted to gossip about the Chosen, and later about some of the wizards he had known in his dealings with the Council of Immortals, and even the Wizard Lords themselves that the old man had known, the present one and his two immediate predecessors. The old man seemed to think this chatter was foolishness, but Breaker justified it to himself by saying that he might someday need to work closely with the seven other Chosen, and to consult with the Council, and perhaps to confront the Wizard Lord, so the more he knew about them in advance, the better the chances for harmonious cooperation.

   Harp didn't bother trying to justify her curiosity; she simply shrugged and said there was little else to do on nights when her fingers were too cold to play the harp decently.

   Breaker took a special interest in the descriptions of the current Wizard Lord, looking for reassurance that the man was sane and good, and there would be no call for the Chosen to remove him. Alas, the present holder of the office was apparently something of a hermit; the Swordsman had only met him once, years before. No one seemed to know much about him. He came from the south, and was reported to spend all his time in a lonely tower in the Galbek Hills, well away from the nearest village, though the old man did not know whether this was because he did not wish to trouble anyone, or because he sought privacy to work his magic, or what. The previous Wizard Lord, a friendly and well-liked man, had done well enough living in a mansion amid the hustle and bustle of Spilled Basket, one of the trading towns in the Midlands, and the Old Swordsman had anecdotes about him that kept Breaker and Harp entertained for a night or two. The Lord of Spilled Basket had apparently had a sense of humor, as well as justice, and some of the punishments he visited on fleeing criminals had been amusing— rapists receiving the unwanted attention of amorous hogs, thieves having their clothes stolen by raccoons, and the like.

That was the evenings; by day there were still household chores to be performed, ice to be fetched for melting, wood brought in for burning, cleaning and cooking to be done, and of course at least an hour every day of practice in swordsmanship.

   And every day, Breaker spent that hour being hit, and growing ever more frustrated by his inability to hit the old man in return.

   One chilly, overcast day, when the Young Swordsman had taken a whack on the ear as well as a jab in the chest in quick succession, he flung his stick down in the trampled snow and exclaimed, "I still haven't ever beaten you! Not even once!"

   "Well, no," the older man said, mildly surprised by his outburst. "And you won't, until you're ready to take on my role. Lest you forget, I am not merely a very good swordsman; I am the world's greatest swordsman, magically guaranteed by all the ler of muscle and steel. By definition, I can't be beaten in a fair fight."

   "Then what's the use of these endless practice bouts?"

   "I need to practice for an hour a day," the Old Swordsman said calmly. "You know that. You'll have to do the same, once I'm free of it. You might as well get in the habit. Believe me, practicing against a live opponent is far more entertaining than thrashing a dummy or a tree. Furthermore, lad, you will beat me eventually—and when you do, when you draw first blood with a real blade, the magic can then be passed from me to you, and it will be too late to change your mind. You're learning quickly, and improving steadily, whether you know it or not—so quickly I suspect some magic at work, though whether it's the doing of the wizards, or your town's ler, or something in yourself, I couldn't say."

   "But if you're the world's greatest, how can I ever defeat you? The magic won't allow it!"

   "But / will. I said I can't be beaten in a fair fight; who ever said we would always fight fairly?"

   "Then why don't we just do it now, and get it over with? I'm tired of being publicly humiliated."

The Old Swordsman cocked his head and gazed thoughtfully at his student; then he took a moment to look around. The surrounding yard and the village streets were empty of life, since anyone with any sense was staying inside, out of the cold wind.

   "Whether it's done publicly, you can judge for yourself," he said. "As for humiliation, I don't think anyone considers you to be humiliated—not after they saw what you could do against someone who isn't the world's greatest swordsman."

"/ consider myself humiliated," the Young Swordsman replied. "I'm not as concerned with the opinions of
others as I am with my own self-respect, and that's taken a beating with every unanswered blow you've laid on
my skin these past three months."
The Old Swordsman once again gazed at Breaker thoughtfully.

"You may have a point," he said.

   "You say it's the magic that makes you unbeatable, and that we'll cheat to let me defeat you," Breaker said. "Then why do we need to wait? Why continue these practice bouts? Let me win, get it over with, and you can have the rest you say you want."

The Old Swordsman took his time before replying. "The simple answer to that is that you need to be good enough to make your victory convincing; the ler must believe my defeat is genuine. When I first came, you couldn't have fooled them for a moment. But the simple answer isn't always the best. You still aren't one-tenth the swordsman I am, or that you might someday be even without magic—it takes years to master the blade—but you have come a surprisingly long way in a short time. Perhaps you are good enough." "I think I am." The older man snorted. "Of course you do," he said. "Then shall we summon the wizards, and say you are ready to challenge me for the title of world's greatest swordsman?"

   "Yes!" the Young Swordsman said, but then his enthusiasm faltered. "That is, I think . . . Just how were you planning to cheat?"

   "The easiest way would be to slip or stumble, giving you an opening. Or I might contrive to break my blade at an inopportune moment. We'll be fighting with blades, not sticks—we can use either wood or steel, but they must have points and edges. The magic requires the fight be to first blood—well, or worse, but I am not interested in a fight to the death, and since I would not care to lose such a battle, I assume you would be at least equally reluctant. It's easier to draw blood with steel, but of course it's also easier to slip and do some serious damage."

   "Oh," the younger man said.

   "I'll need to beseech the ler of blades and steel not to aid me, but that can be done easily enough, especially since we'll have a wizard or two present."

"Do we really need an audience?"
The Old Swordsman hesitated. "You know, I'm not entirely sure," he said. "It's traditional, certainly; there
was an audience when I took the title, quite a large one. We'll need a wizard afterward, to transfer the binding
upon the talisman, but I'm not. . . "

"The what?"

"The binding of the talisman."

   The Young Swordsman did not repeat the question, but his expression made it clear that he wanted further explanation.

"Haven't I explained this? Or didn't the wizards, while they were here?"

"Not that I recall just now."

"Well, of course, there's a talisman. All the magic that makes me the Chosen Swordsman is bound up in it."

"I knew that part, that there are talismans."

   "Yes, well, there's one essential talisman, the one that holds the ler of swordsmanship, and then I have a few others that help out in lesser ways. That first one, though, is bound to my soul, and that binding will need to be broken, and a new one made to your soul. And the wizards will want to make sure that the link to the corresponding Great Talisman is transferred securely."

"That's a part I don't quite understand. What link?"

   "The link that keeps the Wizard Lord from just killing me if I go up against him; my talisman, the Talisman of Blades, is bound to one of his, the Talisman of Strength— it's one of the eight Great Talismans that provide most of his magic. If I die, if the Wizard Lord kills me, the link between my soul and my talisman will break, and the ler of my talisman will know, and because they know the ler of the Great Talisman will know, and the knowledge will free them of the oaths that hold them, and the Wizard Lord will lose one-eighth of his power. We eight Chosen each have one. If he kills four of the Chosen, then half his magic would be lost, and so on. If he were to kill all eight he would be nothing but an ordinary wizard, if that, and the Council or perhaps even just local priests would be able to deal with him."

   Breaker considered this for a long moment, then said, "Perhaps I am not as ready as I thought. I knew there was a talisman and that I would need to take ownership of it by some magical means, but I hadn't realized that would mean binding my soul, or tying me to the Wizard Lord through a series of talismans . . . " He shuddered. "Are you thinking you might not want the job at all, then?"

Breaker took a deep breath, then said, "No. I want it. I just want to absorb all this. If you call the wizards, though, how long until they arrive?" The Old Swordsman shrugged. "Who knows? They're wizards."

   "Call them," the young man said. "I'll be ready soon, probably by the time they get here."

   "Good," the older man said. "Very good." He cast an oddly troubled look at the younger man, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Enough for today," he said. "Let us go find someplace warm!"