[30]

 

 The Thief's home stood in a broad brownish green lake; the constant rain had flooded the low-lying surrounding yard three or four inches deep, so that the gardens and grasses brushed the water's surface from below, and a few yellow flowers still thrust up defiant blossoms. Rather than force the oxen down into the water the party settled the wagon into a secure and level position on the road above, the wheels firmly in ruts so that it could not slip sideways from its place, before debarking.

   From there, a delegation emerged, wrapped in their cloaks—the Seer to locate her, the Leader to persuade her, the Speaker to consult the local ler, and the Swordsman to defend them from any physical threats. The Archer, the Beauty, and the Scholar remained with the wagon as the chosen four splashed down the path toward the door. The low step at the threshold was awash; Breaker looked down at it and judged that the entire house must be on the verge of flooding; water would already be seeping in under the door. "Are you sure she's still here?" he asked the Seer. "She's here," the Seer replied grimly. Breaker shrugged, then knocked on the door—loudly, so as to be heard over the rain. Beside him the Leader straightened his cloak and lifted each foot in turn to drain some of the water from his boots, then stood ready.

"Your magic won't really work on her, you know," the Seer said, glancing at him.

   "Oh, I know that," the Leader said, "but I was a persuasive fellow even before I got my talisman."

   Breaker looked from the door to the Leader, and was turning back to the door, preparing to knock again, when a movement caught his eye. He looked up.

   A raccoon was perched on the thatched roof, leaning over the edge and peering down at him. "Yes, it's him," the Seer said, before Breaker could speak. "He possessed the raccoon a few minutes ago. I knew he would want to be here."

   "You might have mentioned it sooner," the Leader said.

   "I thought it was obvious," she replied.

   Before the Leader could respond the latch rattled, and the door opened. The Thief stood there, staring at them, her cap askew and tangled blond hair spilling out; she wore the same apron, though it had been washed at least once, and the dress beneath it this time was brown. Behind her Breaker could hear a child crying.

   "What?" Merrilin demanded. "What is it? What do you want?"

   "I am the Leader of the Chosen," the Leader said, bowing, "and you, I presume, are Merrilin tarak Dolin, the world's greatest thief?"

   "I'm not a thief!"

   "We have come to attempt once again to persuade you to join us in our assigned task, and aid us in ridding the world of this madman, this Dark Lord, who slaughters innocents and drowns our lands in this unnatural rain."

   "The Wizard Lord is doing this? He is?'

   "Yes, of course. To try to stop us from doing what we must. Will you help? Will you help us stop him from drowning the fields and washing away the crops?"

   "If you want to stop the rain," a high-pitched, nasal voice interjected, "just go home and leave me alone."

   "What?" Merrilin twisted her neck, trying to see where the voice was coming from, and barely caught her cap before it slid from her head.

   "Don't listen to him," the Leader said. "He's possessed an innocent raccoon so that he can spy on us . . . "

   "If I just wanted to spy, I'd have used a mouse or a roach," the raccoon protested. "I'm trying to talk some sense

   into you!"

   "What?" The expression of utter confusion and despair on Merrilin's face almost broke Breaker's heart, and he wished he could comfort her, but the Leader was speaking—and besides, Breaker was keeping an eye on the raccoon and his hand on his sword.

"These people are on their way to kill me," the raccoon said, "and I am using the rain and lightning and beasts to try to stop them, to convince them to just give it up and go home. I don't want any trouble, but I'm not going to just sit here and wait for them to walk in my front door and cut me down."

"Then resign!" the Leader barked. "That's all it would take to send us home."

   "I am not going to resign!" the raccoon barked back. "I am the Wizard Lord, I was chosen to be the Wizard Lord, and I will be the Wizard Lord until I die! It's my role in this world, and I am not going to forsake it to appease a bunch of bloodthirsty, overeager idiots!"

   "You slaughtered an entire town, you killed our guide, you set beasts upon us, and you call us bloodthirsty? We are doing our duty, fulfilling our roles by removing a power that menaces all of Barokan!"

   "I don't understand," Merrilin said, leaning out to look up at the raccoon's face and shifting her feet as she tried to find a dry spot. "A talking raccoon that says it's the Wizard Lord? Is he a shapeshifter?"

   "No, he's possessed it," the Leader said. "It's just a raccoon, but the Wizard Lord is speaking through it. He's possessed dogs and deer and squirrels and birds and so on to talk to us, or attack us."

   "I don't want to hurt you," the raccoon said. "I just want you to turn back."

   "Well, your threats aren't going to convince us!"

   "They've convinced me," Merrilin said. "Go away, all of you! I'm not going anywhere—not unless this rain floods us out."

   "But don't you see how much damage he's doing?" Breaker said. "We can't leave him in power, knocking down trees and flooding farms!"

   "It's not my problem. Go away!" she shrieked, stepping back and starting to close the door.

   "Wait!" the Leader said, thrusting out a hand to catch the door. "Hear us out!"

"No! Go away!" She leaned on the door, but the Leader was solidly braced.

   "Merri? What's going on?" a new voice asked from somewhere in the house—a deep voice, a human voice, a man's voice.

"It's . . . it's crazy people," the Thief said, still pushing the door.

   "Maybe they can help." Breaker heard footsteps—the last few splashing, as the rain was over the threshold now. Then the door swung open, and a man stepped up beside Merrilin.

   He was fairly tall but narrow-shouldered; he wore his black hair long and his beard trimmed short, with just a few gray hairs starting to show. A dark woolen tunic with rolled-up sleeves covered his chest, and Breaker could see that those sleeves were soaked—as were his hair, and his well-worn boots.

   "Sezen piri Oldrav, I take it?" the Leader said, holding out an open hand. "I am Farash inith Kerra, known as Boss, the Leader of the Chosen."

"What?" The man blinked in astonishment.

   "I am the Leader of the Chosen. These are the Speaker of All Tongues, the world's greatest swordsman, and the Seer of the Chosen."

   "You . . . are you serious?"

"Go away, please!" Merrilin wailed hopelessly.

"Don't listen to them!" the raccoon squealed, in its unnatural voice. "Send them away, as she says!"

"What?!" Sezen said. "What was that?" "It's the Wizard Lord," the Seer said. "Speaking through a raccoon on your roof."

"What?" Sezen leaned out into the rain, blinking, trying to see the animal.

   "Please, Sezen, come inside and close the door," Merrilin pleaded. "Don't get involved. It's none of our business."

   "But—but you're the Thief?" He pulled his head back and turned to look at her. "You really are?"

Merrilin stopped pulling at his arm and stared at her husband.

"I told you what happened," she said. "Yes, you did, and I . . . well, I wasn't sure." 

"Weren't sure of what?'

"Whether it was true. Whether it really happened, or whether maybe someone played a trick on you . . . " 

"It wasn't a trick."

   "She is the world's greatest thief, and one of the Chosen," the Seer said. Sezen turned to the Seer. "My wife is really one of the Chosen? The heroes who guard Barokan? My wife?" "She is."

"And that raccoon is the Wizard Lord?"

"No, it's a raccoon—but the Wizard Lord is controlling its actions and speaking through it."

   "The raccoon's true name is . . . " The Speaker completed her statement with an untranscribable chittering. "It is not Laquar kellin Harrio, known as the Wizard Lord, now the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills, though he guides its thoughts at the moment."

The raccoon suddenly turned and scrabbled up the wet thatch, then stopped, shivered for a moment, then came inching back, claws extended. Breaker only realized that he had drawn his sword when he saw it in his hand, ready to thrust upward.

"Don't say the names," the raccoon said. "You broke my hold, and I am not done speaking."

   "This is insane," Sezen said, staring at the raccoon.

   "No, it's . . . yes, it's insane," Merrilin replied. "It's not our business. Send them on their way; we have work to do."

"If you're the Wizard Lord," Sezen said, ignoring his wife, "then do you know why it's raining?"

"Does the rain trouble you? Then I'll stop it." A roll of thunder sounded, and the rain began to let up.

"You see?" said the raccoon. "I am who I claim to be."

   "Why was it raining like that in the first place?" Merrilin demanded. "We don't want anything to do with this, Sezen; they're dangerous, all of them."

"I can hardly deny that," the Leader said. "And really, who isn't dangerous, under the right circumstances?" He smiled at Sezen.

Sezen paid no attention; he was staring up at the sky.

"You did it," he said. "You made it stop."

Breaker looked up as well, past the possessed raccoon; the skies were still gray, but the rain had indeed ceased, though water still ran from the eaves and dripped from the trees.

"And I can make it start again," the raccoon said. "I can summon the lightning and the storm, the wind and the rain; I can shake the earth and drive beasts mad, haunt your dreams and break your sleep. I am the Wizard Lord, protector of all Barokan, master of all that lies between the Eastern Cliffs and the Western Sea. Do not defy me."

   "He is all that," the Leader said, in a conversational tone that seemed eerily loud in the rainless semi-silence, "but he's also as mad as a ferret, drunk with power, and a murderer many times over, and as the Chosen, we are sworn to remove him for his crimes."

   Sezen's gaze fell abruptly from the sky to the Leader's face.

"Can you do that?" he said.

   "I certainly hope so," the Leader said cheerfully. "And after all, the Chosen have removed Dark Lords before, half a dozen of them."

   "You four?"

   "No—we weren't even born the last time a Dark Lord was loose. Our predecessors. But we have the same magic they did. And there are eight of us, counting your wife—not four."

   "And she alone, of the eight of you, has the sense not to defy me!" the raccoon squeaked. "Do you all want to die?"

   "But. . . " Sezen glanced at his wife, then up at the raccoon, then at Merrilin again. "You're the Thief." It wasn't a question.

"You've always known that."

   "But. . . I knew you had said so, but I. . . it didn't mean anything. Now it does. You have a duty, Merrilin, a role to fill."

   "I have children and a home to care for," she replied, glaring at him.

   "I can take care of the children. You're one of the Chosen!"

"You knew that."

"I. . . well, but it didn't matter; we didn't know the Wizard Lord had turned dark."

"You mean you never really believed me."

"I did believe you! But it didn't matter!"

   "And now it does, and you think I should go off with these strangers to try to murder the Wizard Lord, and maybe get killed in the process, because of some foolish promise I made as a girl?"

   "It's . . . you're one of the Chosen!"

   "You keep saying that! What if I don't want to be?"

   "But you are!"

"So you'd send her to her death?" the raccoon said. "I don't want to kill her—I would lose a part of my magic if I did that. But if she comes against me, perhaps I'll kill you, foolish man!"

Sezen's mouth fell open, and he stared up at the animal; then his jaw snapped shut and he said, "Well, then, if that's my part in it, then I'll die. We all must die someday."

"Sezen, you're being ridiculous," Merrilin said. "None of us need to die!"

   "You've no fear for your own life, then?" the raccoon demanded. "What about your son and your daughter? Will you sacrifice them to this madness of sending your wife to slay me?"

"I. . . " Sezen hesitated. "You wouldn't do that. They're innocents, they have no part in this."

"If you harm her children, don't you think Merrilin would want revenge?" the Leader asked. "No one needs to die!" Merrilin insisted. "No one needs to be hurt!"

"I regret to say, dear lady, that unless the Wizard Lord resigns, someone does indeed need to die," the Leader said.

   "But it won't be me!" the raccoon said. Thunder rumbled in the distance. "I warn you, Thief, and you, husband, do not defy me. Do not aid these fools. If you do not go inside right now, and lock the door, I will give you a foretaste of what I can do to those who defy me."

   "He can't really hurt you," the Leader said. "Not directly. It's a part of the magic of the Chosen—we are immune to the Wizard Lord's magic. He can strike at us in various ways, but he cannot simply turn his magic against us. He cannot use our true names, or send ler against us. And if he does manage to kill one of us, he loses a portion of his own power. He won't do that."

"But he . . . Sezen . . . "

   "Oh, he can hurt your husband, yes—but do you really think he would risk angering you so? His threats are empty . . . "

"Empty?" The raccoon's voice broke in an unnatural squeal. "Yes, empty!" the Leader shouted back. "I will show you how empty my words are!" the raccoon said—and then it shivered, and something changed indefinably, and no one needed the Seer to tell them that the Wizard Lord had released his hold over the animal. The raccoon shook itself, backed two careful steps away from the roof's edge, then turned and scampered up toward the ridgepole.

Thunder rumbled anew, and the sky darkened.
"I think he's going to make it rain again," the Leader said, squinting at the clouds. 'That hardly seems like a really
convincing demonstration of anything, at this point."

"Is that all?" Sezen looked over his four visitors, then his wife, "Merrilin . . . "

   "I'm going," she said with a sigh. "I think you're all mad, but I don't want to argue about it any more, and really, Sezen, if you never even believed me when I told you I was the Thief . . . "

"I did believe you, truly I did, but I. . ."

The first fat raindrops began to patter on the flooded garden and soaked thatch, and Sezen and Merrilin ducked back inside; there they both paused, looking out at the travelers.

   "You'll want to pack," the Leader said. "We can wait in the wagon . . . "

   And then the flash blinded them all and the world seemed to vanish for an instant in blue-white light and an earshattering roar.

   Breaker blinked, and for a moment seemed to see two or three doorways instead of one, in eerie afterimage; his ears rang, but then he seemed to hear crackling.

   And then he heard screaming, and after a second or two it resolved into words, shrieked in a little girl's voice.

"Mama! Mama, help! Help, the roof's on fire! Mama!"

   "Oh, my soul," Breaker said, as he charged forward, past the Seer and the Speaker, who stood frozen in astonishment.

Parental instinct had ensured that Sezen and Merrilin had not frozen; they had whirled and run in at the first scream. The Leader, too, had reacted quickly, and he and Breaker collided in the doorway before bouncing side by side into the interior of the Thief's home.

The stone-paved floor was awash, Breaker saw, but there were no rugs and little furniture—but then he saw where the rugs and smaller furnishings had been put, to escape the rising water. They lined the narrow staircase leading up to a loft.

And the children's screams—both children were screaming now, the girl calling for her mother, the baby wailing wordlessly—were coming from that loft. Sezen and Merrilin were squeezing their way up the stairs, past rolled rugs and precariously balanced tables.

And above them Breaker could see an orange glow, and rolling smoke, and dancing sparks. The thatch, despite the long rain, was ablaze—the outer layer might be saturated, but the straw beneath was still tinder-dry. He hesitated, unsure what to do—crowding a third adult up the stairs would merely make it that much harder to get everyone safely down again. A pole of some sort, to knock away burning thatch, might be helpful, or a ladder so that someone could reach the flames directly . . .

   Then the girl screamed again. "Mama! My hair's on fire! Mama!" And she came running out of the loft to the stair, arms flailing, and ran directly into her father on the top step.

   Sezen staggered, swung his arms wildly, and managed to grab the back of a chair; he fell sideways rather than down, and caught himself just one step below his previous position.

The girl, though, rebounded from her father's belly and folded at the waist as she fell backward; her head struck the narrow stair rail, but then tucked down to her chest, and she tumbled under the rail and off the side of the step. The snap when she hit the stone floor was clearly audible to everyone in the house, and Breaker knew where to go—he ran to the little girl.

Merrilin was screaming and hurrying back down the stairs; Sezen, seeing how matters stood, had pressed on into the loft to find the baby. The Leader was standing aside, taking in the extent of the fire, the fall of the sparks and burning straw, the rising wind and thickening rain outside the open door, the Seer and Speaker standing helplessly outside.

Then Breaker was at the little girl's side, where the first thing he did was to quickly stroke her long hair out on the wet stone and splash floodwater on it—her hair had been burning, and extinguishing that seemed the most urgent priority, as whatever other injuries she might have sustained had already happened and would get no worse. Then he looked her over.

   She had landed on her side, and her eyes and mouth were open, but she was no longer saying anything—the ongoing screaming came from her mother and baby brother. She was breathing heavily—that was good, that meant she was unquestionably still alive.

   "Seer, get the Beauty!" the Leader shouted. "Speaker, get in here!" "Where does it hurt?" Breaker asked. "Do you know what happened?"

"My arm," she said. Then her eyes focused. "Who are you?"

"My name is . . . is Erren," Breaker said. "I'm here to help."

Then Merrilin was there, and started to scoop up her daughter, but Breaker held her back.

   "I think her arm is broken," he said. "Move her very carefully—we don't want to shift the pieces." He had known a man with a twisted arm once, back in Mad Oak, an old man who had broken his arm falling out of a tree as a boy; the break had healed, but healed crooked, and Elder Priestess had said it was because he had moved his arm wrong, trying to stop the pain, and moved the broken ends out of line. Breaker did not want this girl—Kilila, was it?—to grow up similarly crippled.

Merrilin sobbed, and nodded, and together the two of them carefully lifted Kilila to a sitting position.

"It's all wet," she said, with surprise. "My skirt is wet."

   "We know," Merrilin said. "That's why we were moving everything upstairs, remember? The Wizard Lord is flooding everything—he's gone mad."

   "The Wizard Lord?" The girl began crying. "My arm hurts so much!" Then with a splash Sezen was standing there beside them with a baby in his arms, asking, "Is she all right?" The baby had stopped screaming, and was whimpering quietly as he clutched at his father's shirt.

"We think her arm is broken," Breaker replied.
Breaker thought the expression of helplessness on Sezen's face was somehow more dismaying than Kilila's ob
vious agony.

Then there was more splashing, and the Beauty was beside them, her face and figure still hidden in cloak and scarf as she knelt by the girl. Breaker heard her sharp intake of breath as she felt the broken bone.

"The break is high on her arm, but it feels clean, and young bones heal well," the Beauty said; Sezen started at the sound of her voice, its purity and musicality, and little Garant stopped sniffling, his eyes widening.

"Sword, if you're done there, I could use a hand," the Leader called.

"What?" Breaker looked up.

The Leader was at the top of the stair, leaning over. Now he pointed up.

"I think you might be able to cut away the burning thatch with that blade of yours, and we can keep this place from burning down."

   "Oh!" Breaker started to rise, then realized he was still holding Kilila's shoulder. Carefully, he moved aside and let the Beauty take his place.

   Then he stood and hurried up the stairs.