[20]

 The farmhouse stood well off the road, surrounded by bright yellow flowers of a variety Breaker did not recognize; the five Chosen approached cautiously. "I would have thought a thief would live in town," Breaker said, as the others slipped through the gate he held open. "In the largest town she could find, in fact." "She's here," the Seer said, as she stepped through. Her tone did not allow further argument, and Breaker shrugged as he latched the gate behind her. He turned to see the Archer trotting unhesitatingly up to the door, and hurried to follow.

The others were still hastening along the graveled walk when the Archer rapped loudly on the blue-painted door. No one answered at first, and the five of them had time to cluster around the threshold before the Archer grew impatient and knocked again.

This time Breaker heard a faint voice from within, and the Speaker announced, "She's coming. Her feet are heavy on the floorboards, and the spirits of home and hearth . . . "

She was interrupted by the rattle of the latch, and the door swung open to reveal a rather tired-looking woman in apron and cap. She was of moderate height, taller than the Speaker or the Seer, and thin; the thick curls that escaped her white cap were straw-colored, her skin pale. Her ears appeared oversized to Breaker, but he knew that was exaggerated by the way her tucked-back hair pushed them forward, and by the narrowness of her face. Her dress was a faded blue that did not quite match her eyes, the apron stained a dozen shades of off-white and gray.

She blinked at the five visitors—or perhaps at the bright sunlight—and said, "Yes?"

The Archer started to speak, but Breaker cut him off. "Please pardon us for disturbing you, ma'am, but we're looking for someone . . . "

"It's her," the Seer interrupted. "She's the Thief."

The woman blinked again. "The what?"

"You're the Thief," the Seer said.

The woman stared at her five visitors—the two strong young men and the ordinary older man, the sturdy white-haired woman, and the tiny dark-haired woman who seemed to be whispering silently to herself. "I haven't stolen anything!" she protested. "If you've been listening to that silly redheaded boy and his gossip, I'll have you know that he tells so many lies the ler themselves despair of him! Ask his mother, she'll tell you!"

"We haven't spoken to any redheaded boy," the Seer said, "and we didn't say you'd stolen anything. I said you're the Thief—the world's greatest thief, one of the eight Chosen, one of the heroes who are charged with protecting Varagan from the Wizard Lords."

"I am no such thing," she said. "Now, go away." She tried to close the door.

The Archer thrust his foot in the way. "If the Seer says you are the Thief, then I believe you- are the Thief," he said. "How you might not know that baffles me, though."

   She glared at him, then turned that withering stare on the rest of them. "I am not a thief," she said. "I may have made certain foolish decisions when I was young, and agreed to things I shouldn't have, but that was a long time ago and I know better now, and I am not a thief. I have not kept anything that belongs to another, and I have nothing here that isn't mine by right."

   "No one said you had," Breaker said mildly. "If you'd prefer a more diplomatic phrasing, we believe you are the one chosen to be the best in the world at those skills associated with housebreaking and thievery, just as I am the one chosen to be the best in the world at wielding a sword. That does not mean that you have stolen anything, any more than my own title means I have killed anyone."

   "You know who you are," the Seer said wearily. "Arguing semantics won't change that."

   "I am Merrilin tarak Dolin, wife of Sezen piri Oldrav, mother of Kilila tesh Barag and Garant asa Dorhals," she said defiantly. "I have a name and a place here, and they have nothing to do with any legends about Chosen Heroes."

   "But you are also the bearer of the talisman of thievery," the Seer said. The Thief snorted. "'Bearer'? I have it somewhere, put away in a drawer—I don't carry it around the house with me."

   "But you have it," the Archer said. "That makes you one of the Chosen."

   "It makes me someone who did something foolish when I was seventeen, and was too embarrassed to admit it and pass the silly thing on," Merrilin retorted. "I should have gotten rid of it years ago."

   Breaker remembered his own unpleasant experience back in Mad Oak when he had left his talisman behind, and wondered whether the Thief could get rid of it—had she ever tried? Was the illness he had felt something shared by all the Chosen, or unique to the Swordsman?

   "Your pardon, ma'am," the Scholar said, "but might we take a moment of your time to discuss this, please? It's a matter of some concern to us all. Might we come in?"

"No. Garant's taking his nap."

"Then I'm afraid we'll have to wait out here until you speak with us."

She glared at him, then looked down at the Archer's foot. "When my husband gets home . . . " she began.

"Your husband is not going to interfere," the Seer said. "Not only are there five of us to the two of you, but we include the world's greatest swordsman, and the world's greatest archer! We are equipped to slay the Wizard Lord himself; do you really think your husband frightens us?"

   She stared at the Seer for a moment, then glanced back over her shoulder, then looked out at her unwelcome visitors again. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" she asked. "If you speak with us, that may well be explained," the Scholar said.

   "Your children will be safe," the Speaker said, startling everyone with her high-pitched singsong. "Ler will watch over them. Garant will sleep an hour and a moment more, and Kilila's game with her dolls will occupy her even longer. The ler will see to it." The aproned woman stared at her. "Who are you?" she demanded.

   "I am Gliris Tala Danria shul Keredi bav Sedenir, who hears all tongues and answers when I must." The Speaker jerked her head suddenly in the middle of this reply, but completed the sentence without interruption. "The Speaker," the Seer said. "Arid I am the Seer, and he is the Scholar, and he is the Archer, and he is the Swordsman."

   "You're all Chosen?"

   "Yes."

She frowned, glanced back into the house again, then at the Speaker. Then she reached a decision and stepped out onto the path, pushing Breaker and the Archer aside and closing the door behind her.

   "We can speak here," she said.

"Good. We've come because we have learned something terrible. . . "

Merrilin ignored her and asked the Speaker, "How do you know that, about my children and the ler? Are you a priestess?"

   "I am the Chosen Speaker of All Tongues," the Speaker replied. "I can hear the ler, and speak to them—but I have no power over them save the power words give us all over each other. In this case the spirits of your home and hearth were troubled by our presence, and wish our business here resolved quickly, one way or another, and agreed to soothe and guard your children so that we might accomplish that."

   "So you can't make the ler watch over them indefinitely?"

   "No."

   "Then how can you expect me to leave? Who would care for my children?"

   "I am. . . no, no, no. Let me . . . no. I am not the one, Merrilin tarak Dolin kal Toria bal Siris, who expects you to leave."

The Seer and Archer snapped their heads around to stare at the Speaker, but neither Breaker nor the Scholar was surprised to hear this.

   "Good," Merrilin said. Then she turned to the Seer. "So why have you come?"

   The Seer quickly regained her composure, and said, "The Wizard Lord has done something terrible—the Scholar and I realized this a few weeks ago, and we and the Swordsman investigated and saw the proof. While we were there we heard the Wizard Lord confess his guilt through the voice of a crow, so there is no possible doubt. We're gathering all the Chosen, so that we can confront the Wizard Lord and demand his abdication—and if he refuses, we will slay him, as we are bound to do by our oaths."

   "I am bound by oath to stay by my husband and raise our children," Merrilin said. "I think that takes precedence over any oath I swore when I was just a silly girl."

   "But you did swear!"

   "Because I didn't think it meant anything. I thought it would be . . . I don't know, exciting, I suppose, to be one of the Chosen. One of eight in all the world, out of all the millions of people in Barokan—I thought I would be special!"

   "You are special," the Seer insisted.

   "Oh, indeed I am," Merrilin agreed. "If I do not take something that does not belong to me undetected, or open a lock without a key, or enter someone else's home uninvited and unseen, or perform any of a dozen other sordid acts three times each and every day, then I am struck down by headaches and chills and cramps. How very special! Thank all the ler that slipping my children's toys from their places is sufficient thievery, and nothing prevents me from then returning those toys to their rightful owners!"

   "You must practice your skills," the Archer said. "So do we all. I must shoot at a dozen targets a day without a miss, Sword here must put in an hour of practice—your burden is not so great as all that!"

   "And what do I get for my practice? Skills I cannot use! I am no thief; why should I take what isn't mine? You, Archer, you can boast of your skill, and show everyone what you can do—but what can I do? If I admit to being the Chosen Thief, everyone begins to check pockets and purses and locks, and no one will come near me. It doesn't matter if I promise not to steal, no matter how I swear it—I am the world's greatest thief, a master of subterfuge and deception! I cannot be trusted for a moment. And of course, by the time I realized this, my childhood friends all knew who and what I had become, and then all of Turnip Corner knew, and I was an outcast in my own home!" "That's unfortunate . . . " the Scholar began.

"So I left," she said. "I told them I was going to travel, as the Chosen are said to do, and I left, and I came to Quince Market and told them I was an orphan and made a new life for myself, and I met Sezen, and he wooed me and wed me, and I'm happy here!"
"Deceiving your husband?" the Seer asked.

"No!" Merrilin turned to face her. "I told him, before we were married. He knows all about it—and he doesn't care.

He loves me, no matter what silly oaths I may have taken, and that's why I' m staying right here, with him and with our children. You can go kill the Wizard Lord if you want, but you'll have to do it without my help."

   "Why haven't you passed on the role, if you find it unsuitable?" the Scholar asked.

   "And inflict it on someone else? Anyone who can be trusted with it wouldn't want it, and anyone who wants it shouldn't have it. And there are times—do you have any children?"

"Not that I know of," the Scholar replied.

   "Well, there are times when it is useful for a mother to know how to open things, how to take things from their owners, and so on. But when the children are grown, then I will find a wizard and choose someone else, and free myself of this curse."

"The Wizard Lord slaughtered an entire town," the Seer said angrily. "Men, women, and children, down to the babes in their cradles. Your so-called curse can help us avenge them, and prevent him from ever doing it again."
Merrilin hesitated.

"He did?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Stoneslope, in the Galbek Hills." "I never heard of it."

No one had an immediate response to that, and after a moment Merrilin added, "It isn't any of my business. I never heard of this place. It's all a long way off."

"But you're one of the Chosen," the Archer said. "We're supposed to protect everyone from the Wizard Lord."

"You said he already destroyed this town."

The Archer looked to Breaker for support.

   "He did," Breaker said. "And we need to avenge them and make sure he never does it again somewhere else. Next time it might be my home, or yours."

"There's no reason for him to hurt anyone here," Merrilin said. "We never bothered him. I've never even seen him. Why would he bother us?"

"Because he's mad," the Archer said. "There's no telling what he'll do!" "Who says so?" "We do!"

"And why should I believe you?"

"Because we're the Chosen! And so are you!"

"I don't want to be, anymore."

"Then you should pass the talisman on," the Seer said. "Find a wizard and arrange it."

" 'Find a wizard'? Where? I haven't seen a wizard since I first accepted that thing! And I can't go looking for one; I have a family to care for."

That caught Breaker's attention—she hadn't seen a wizard in all those years? While it was true that wizards seemed to be very scarce in the Midlands, hadn't the Old Swordsman said that wizards checked on the Chosen every so often?

If so, they presumably must have missed one.

   And Breaker hadn't seen a wizard since the day after he became the Chosen Swordsman; was that significant? Wizards seemed less common than he had expected.

   But that had nothing to do with the Thief's reluctance to join them. For a moment the five of them stared at her; then the Scholar said, "The next time we meet a wizard, we'll tell him you'd like to hand on the responsibility. I'm sure the Council will send someone to attend to it."

   "I. . . " Merrilin hesitated, looking from one to the next, then shrugged. "Good. Do that, then. But I'm not coming with you."

"Fair enough," the Scholar said.

"No, it isn't!" the Archer protested. "She has an obligation! A role to fill!"

"I think we can manage without her," the Scholar replied. "The Chosen have before, after all."

The Archer had opened his mouth to argue, but then stopped. "They have?" he said.

"Three times," the Scholar said. "The first two Dark Lords were deposed before the first Thief was chosen, and in the three hundred and fifth year of the Wizard Lords, the Dark Lord of Kamith t'Daru killed the Thief before the Chosen had gathered to oppose him." "He did?"

   "You see? I can't risk it!" Merrilin said. "Now, go away, all of you!" She turned to go inside. "You knew this might happen when you first agreed," the Seer called angrily.

   "No, I did not," Merrilin retorted over her shoulder. "We had a wise and honorable Wizard Lord, and there hadn't been a bad one in a hundred years! I didn't think there would ever be another Dark Lord. If I had, I'd never have let myself be talked into anything—and I am not letting myself be talked into anything now. Now, go away, all of you!" She stamped into her house and slammed the door.

The five of them stood for a moment; then the Archer asked, "Should I go in after her?" The Scholar, rather than replying, asked the Seer, "Where is Boss?"

The Seer blinked, then looked at him, and pointed to the east. "That way," she said. "Near Winterhome." "Is he with the Beauty, then?"

   The Seer shook her head. "No. But they're not far apart."

   "Then perhaps we should just go find Boss, and if he thinks we need the Thief, we can stop here on the way to the Galbek Hills. It is almost on the way, isn't it?"

The Seer glanced to the southwest—toward the Wizard Lord, Breaker was sure—and then to the east. She nodded.

"Almost," she agreed. "I think you're right. Let Boss decide."

"Then I shouldn't go in?" the Archer asked, audibly disappointed.

   "No, of course not," Breaker said. "It's her home. She has children in there—you'd scare them half to death. And we can't force her to help—how would that work? She'd probably just get some of us killed." He nodded at the others. "Seer's right. Let the Leader decide what to do about her."

   "I don't like it," the Archer said.

"I thought you were the one who said the two of us should go kill the Wizard Lord by ourselves!"

   "I.. . well, you . . . Urn." The Archer considered that for a moment. He grimaced. "Fine, then. Let's go to Winterhome. Where do we find a guide for the next leg?"