[15]

 Their progress was uneven; the Seer knew where their destination lay, but not how to get there, and the guides they hired along the way only knew routes between towns. The Seer would indicate a direction and distance, and the guide would do his best to deliver them to the town farthest along that line, but sometimes that town would prove a dead end, forcing them to double back or veer miles off their intended path.

   As summer neared its end the weather began to turn cooler—but not as fast as Breaker felt it should have. When he remarked on this the Seer and the Scholar stared at him blankly for a moment; then the Seer said gently, "Swordsman, we're more than a hundred miles south of your homeland, perhaps more than two hundred. Winters are milder and arrive later here."

   "Oh," Breaker said. He did vaguely recall hearing that the sun's path across the sky passed more closely over the southern lands, and that the South was therefore warmer, but he had never expected to experience this firsthand; he had somehow assumed that those warmer lands lay thousands upon thousands of miles away, perhaps not in Barokan at all.

The journey itself was fairly uneventful; the guides knew their work, and in any case these hills seemed to harbor less danger, fewer hostile ler, than the northern lands—or perhaps the presence of three of the Chosen traveling together cowed the troublesome spirits with their partial immunity to magic.

The towns in which they stopped varied immensely in detail, but in time they all began to seem basically alike to Breaker. There would be a small priesthood that dealt with the local ler, a few tradespeople and shops clustered around the center, and dozens, or even a few hundred, of farm families working the land the priests had declared safe. The larger towns often had an inn, but the smaller ones made do with families willing to rent out extra beds.

And everywhere the three of them were quickly recognized as Chosen, regardless of whether any of them had ever before set foot within the borders. Breaker wondered just what made it so obvious—were travelers so very scarce that any group of strangers with no clear purpose was assumed to be the Chosen?

   But then he recalled that he wore a sword on his belt and made no attempt to conceal it, and that the Scholar (whom Breaker was learning to call Lore) and Seer did not look as if they had any legitimate business that would send them traveling about. He wondered what would happen if they actually denied their identity, or hid the sword and pretended to be traders of some sort.

   But there was no reason to do so; the one person they might have wished could not locate them, the Wizard Lord himself, would always be able to find them magically, no matter what they did to hide or disguise themselves. Trying to conceal their true nature would most likely simply arouse suspicion.

Furthermore, performing sword tricks was the most convenient way to raise a little extra money along the way, to pay for bed and board and guides, and he could hardly hope that his audience would not realize he was the Swordsman when he demonstrated his superhuman skill with a blade.

Of course, this meant that he found himself answering the same questions over and over, responding to the same requests. Had he ever killed a man with his sword? Had he met the Wizard Lord in person? Could he outfight two men at once? Three? Four? Where did he get the sword he carried— had he made it himself? And he would be asked for lessons in swordsmanship—both skill with a steel blade, and skill with what nature had provided.

   Not all the questions came up every time, and some required some thought. Even some of the common ones could take a new slant, on occasion.

In a village called Cat's Whisker, in the town's one public house, a boy not much younger than Breaker himself asked, "How did you come to be chosen to be the Swordsman?

Were you born with some mark on your skin, or under a particular sign in the heavens?"

"No," Breaker replied, as he had a hundred times before. "When the Old Swordsman asked who wanted the job, I said yes; that's all."

"But that can't be," the lad protested.

"Why not?" Breaker asked, amused.

"Well, because how would the ler know you were worthy, without some sign marking you? What if a cripple had spoken up, or an old man, or a woman in disguise?"

   "The Old Swordsman did not ask any cripples or old men or women," Breaker said. "He asked the young men of the village as we drank to celebrate the harvest. He could see we were fit and strong by the barley we had brought in. He saw me drink and dance that night, and he taught me the basics of wielding a blade in th e days that followed, and if he had found me wanting he would have said so and moved on to the next town. There were no signs or portents; he offered me the role, and I accepted."

"But that isn't right" the youth insisted.

   Up to that point the conversation had been similar to a dozen others, but the boy's persistence was new. "In what way isn't it right?" Breaker asked.

   "The Swordsman is one of the Chosen," the youth said. "But you said you weren't chosen! You volunteered!"

   "I chose myself, perhaps."

   "You say he asked the young men of your village—what if one of the others had said yes, instead of you?"

   "Then he would be the Swordsman now, talking to you here, and I would be at home—or dancing with Little Weaver in the pavilion, perhaps."

   "But. . . but..."

   "He would have been chosen, and I would not. And if none of us had spoken up—and that might well have happened, had I not been in the mood I was in—then the Old Swordsman would have gone on to the next town, and the next, until someone agreed."

   "What if two of you had volunteered at once? Or three?"

   "Then I suppose the Old Swordsman would have chosen between us, and picked the one he thought more promising. I don't think I take your point, lad."

   "You're supposed to be the Chosen, the people fated to protect us from any Dark Lord! You're supposed to have a destiny.'"

Breaker blinked silently at him before answering.

   "We are the Chosen," he said, gesturing to take in himself and his two companions. "We were chosen by our predecessors, and chose to accept the roles they offered. The Chosen were created by wizards, boy, not by some mysterious destiny."

   "But then how do you know you were chosen rightly? What if you're the wrong people for your roles?"

   "Then you had better hope no Dark Lords arise," the Seer said before Breaker could respond.

   "I took the job," Breaker said, "and I'll do it the best I can. I do have the wizards' magic to help me, and the ler they bound to me, and that's all the destiny any Swordsman has ever had."

   "But you're the Swordsman. You're one of the Chosen. You're supposed to be someone special, something more than an ordinary man!"

"I am," Breaker said. "I am the world's greatest swordsman; the wizards of the Council of Immortals have bestowed that upon me with their magic."

"But you should have been special before!"
Breaker started to ask why, then stopped, thinking back to that evening in the pavilion when Elder Priestess had brought in the wizards and the Old Swordsman.

"I was," he said. "I was willing."

"That's not special!"

"No one else in my town was," Breaker said. "And I don't think it was the first town he'd asked in." "But it's not enough!" "But it is."

   "Just because you were willing? Because you said yes? That can't be all. "Would you have said yes?" Breaker interrupted. The youth stopped in midsentence and stared at him.

   "If I were to have second thoughts—and believe me, I have—and decided that I did not care to be the world's greatest swordsman anymore, that someone else should take the honor from me, and if I came and asked you whether you would do it—would you? And do not answer hastily, because I may well be serious in this. Would you accept the role, knowing that it would mean you would be forever set apart from ordinary folk, and that you might be called upon at any time to fight your way into the Wizard Lord's stronghold and drive your blade through his living flesh and kill him?" Breaker had given that far too much thought of late, the image of the steel of his sword stabbing into a human body; he remembered what it had felt like to jab the Old Swordsman's shoulder, and he had exaggerated that memory and imagined what it would be like to kill the Wizard Lord.

   It was not a pleasant thought.

"I. . ." The youth looked at him uncertainly.

"Would you?"

By this time the entire room had fallen silent, and all eyes were upon the two of them. For a moment no one spoke. Then the youth's gaze fell. "No," he admitted.

   "Then do not chide me for being born without a caul, on a day of no astronomical distinction, to an ordinary mother and father."

   "But you didn't do anything to earn it," the boy said.

   "Oh, yes, I did. I practiced for months."

   "But you didn't go on a quest or have any adventures . . ."

   "I worked long and hard. That's more useful."

The boy shook his head, but said nothing more; while he was plainly not yet convinced, he had run out of arguments that he could put into words.

Breaker turned away as someone else asked, "Do you need to use a particular sword, or could you fight with another one?"

Breaker answered that, and a dozen other questions, but while he did a thought nagged at the back of his mind. The boy seemed dissatisfied because Breaker had not proven himself worthy by mystical means—but in fact, he had done exactly that by defeating the Old Swordsman in their staged duel. Why had he not mentioned that to the lad?

   Because, he decided, it hadn't seemed important. What was important was that he had spoken up, saying he would take on the role, and that he had worked hard to learn it. The actual ritual conflict that convinced the ler to transfer their magical aid had been a mere formality.

   He thought perhaps he should explain this to the boy, but when he looked around during a lull in the questioning the youth had gone.

And the following morning the three of them, Seer, Scholar, and Swordsman, accompanied by a local guide, continued on their southward journey.

IT WAS THREE towns, two guides, and four days later that they found themselves in a village so small it had no agreed-upon name, where the Seer's inquiries about finding a guide to lead them just a little farther into the Galbek Hills encountered worried silence.

   "That way," she said, pointing. "Perhaps half a day's walk."

   "Oh, we know where you mean," the village's one priest replied. "You mean Stoneslope. That's the only town there. But you can't get there anymore."

"Why not?" the Seer asked.

"Because there aren't any guides," the priest explained. "The last one died five years ago."

"Five years?" Breaker looked at the Seer. "How did he die?"

   "She. She died in childbirth. Had the child lived . . . but it did not. Her family's secrets are lost, and there are no more guides."

"Then how do the people of Stoneslope trade with the rest of Barokan?" the Scholar asked. "They don't." "Is there another route around the other side, perhaps?" Breaker suggested.

"No. They no longer have any contact with the outside world. To the best of our knowledge no one has entered or left Stoneslope for five years now."

The three Chosen looked at one another.

"What do we do now?" Breaker asked.

"We go there without a guide," the Seer replied.

"But the ler\ We don't know the path, don't know the dangers!"

"We'll just have to find our way. And our magic will protect us."

"Not from everything."

"From most ordinary dangers. And we know the path can be found," the Seer said, "because it was, once."

   "After all," the Scholar said, "someone had to find the safe paths in the first place; no one is born knowing the route to another town."

"I suppose, but I'm no explorer. .."

   "We were chosen to be heroes," the Seer said, and the rebuke in her tone was unmistakable. "A hero does what he must."

   Breaker sighed. "As you say," he agreed.

   "Does this have something to do with the Wizard Lord?" the priest asked, looking from. Breaker to the Seer.

   "Not everything the Chosen do need be in connection with the Wizard Lord," the Seer said—which Breaker knew was true, but irrelevant.

"Well, yes, but Stoneslope—the Chosen wanting to go to Stoneslope . . ."

   "And what does Stoneslope have to do with the Wizard Lord?" the Scholar asked. The priest looked startled. "Why, I assumed you knew. He was born and raised there. Back then he was sometimes called Feather, because he was so thin and frail—his father had said he was as light as a feather, you see. He was called other names as well, less pleasant ones—he wasn't a popular child. He left home to learn wizardry when he was just a boy, younger than the Swordsman is now, and we never saw him again, but we would hear about him sometimes; when news came that he had been chosen as the Wizard Lord we were all quite excited, and wondered whether he might build a stronghold here." He sighed. "But he built it all the way over near Split Reed, at the other end of the Galbek Hills. He never even visited us here. I know there were some in Stoneslope who wanted to apologize to him for not treating him better, but they never had the chance." Breaker stood silent for a moment, absorbing this information.

   Somehow he had always had trouble with the thought of the Wizard Lord growing up somewhere. Obviously wizards started out as human as anyone, they weren't born with talismans in hand and spells in their heads, but he never pictured them as children, growing up like anyone else. The Wizard Lord had had parents and neighbors, perhaps siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and apparently enemies . . .

He found it difficult to picture.

   And the Wizard Lord had killed people in or near Stoneslope, his old hometown—why? Who were they, and what had they done to deserve his wrath? Were they some of those people who had never had a chance to apologize? And was the guide's death merely a coincidence, or had the Wizard Lord arranged that, as well, so that the rest of Barokan would not hear what he had done?

No—surely, no Wizard Lord could be so petty as to kill a woman in childbirth just to keep a secret. Still, Breaker felt a certain foreboding; fie hoped it was merely because he was among unfamiliar ler.

   "Well, now we know why no word got out," the Seer said.

   "We don't know," the Scholar said. "We merely assume."

   "But his own townsfolk? Perhaps his own kin? Could it really be?" Breaker asked.

   "We'll find out," the Seer said. "Tomorrow."

"Well, we will set out for Stoneslope tomorrow," the Scholar corrected. "We may not get there for some time, if the way is difficult, and we may not learn the truth of what happened there immediately upon arrival. The natives may be reluctant to speak to us—after five years of isolation they may view any stranger as an invader."

"Or a savior," the Seer suggested.

"Indeed," the Scholar agreed.

"Tomorrow, then," Breaker agreed.