[2]

                              

 Breaker woke up in his own bed, which was a pleasant surprise; he had no memory of returning home from the pavilion.

He did remember most of the evening, though. He remembered the wizards and the old Swordsman, and his sister Harp chastising him, during a break in the dancing, for even considering their offer. He remembered Brewer rapping his knuckles on the last keg to demonstrate that the summer beer was indeed gone. He remembered Joker being surprisingly subdued the whole evening. He remembered singing along with "The Ballad of the Chosen," or at least the verses he knew, and he had joined in the chorus for that old song about the Wizard Lord of the High Redoubt hunting down the three murderers. He remembered dancing with Curly and Little Weaver and even young Mudpie, and having the distinct feeling that Elder Priestess was watching him as he danced.

But what had happened after the dancing ended was lost, drowned in the summer beer.

   Breaker sat up warily; sometimes the day after such a night found his head aching and his guts troubled. This time, though, the ler had been kind—he felt fine. The morning sun spilling in the window was still tinged with gold and slanting from low in the east, so he had not slept particularly late despite the beer and the dancing.

   And the barley harvest was in. Brewer's boys would be busy for the next several days, starting the next batch of malt, and there were undoubtedly people cleaning the pavilion, but Breaker was in neither group. He could take a day or two to do nothing before starting preparations for winter.

Or he could find those travelers, and ask if they had been serious in suggesting he might become the world's greatest swordsman, one of the Chosen, the eight heroes designated to keep the Wizard Lord in check.

   Not that the present Wizard Lord was in any obvious need of restraint; he had been in power for a few years, and Breaker had heard not the slightest rumor of impropriety. The weather had been as well regulated as ever— sunny days relieved by scattered clouds and cool breezes, the gentle rain falling only late at night, and so on. No rogue wizards had been reported anywhere in Longvale. The wild beasts stayed in their caves and forests, and no travelers had been set upon and eaten. All was right in Barokan.

   Breaker glanced at the sunlit window, trying to remember just how long the present Wizard Lord had been in power. When had news of his predecessor's resignation and the incumbent's ascension reached Mad Oak? Breaker knew he had been old enough to understand the news, and to ask questions until his parents got annoyed enough to send him to bother Elder Priestess instead. It had been spring, he remembered; she had been walking the fields, talking to the ler, asking them to help the crops grow, and he had walked alongside, badgering her with pointless questions about wizards and true names and Chosen Heroes—except then the conversation had drifted to when he would be ready to work in the fields himself, doing more than running errands or gleaning.

   He must have been a few months short of his twelfth birthday, then, so that was almost eight years ago.

   If the Wizard Lord had behaved himself and ruled wisely for eight years, it seemed unlikely he would turn evil now.

   Not that Breaker understood why any Wizard Lord would ever go bad and need to be removed. After all, when all

Barokan's wizards appoint you to hold the power of life and death over them, when you are master of half the magic in the world, when you can control wild animals and even the weather itself, when you can go anywhere and do almost anything, why would you risk it all by breaking the rules?

   He knew from the stories that sometimes a Wizard Lord did go mad, or turn bad, so that the Chosen were summoned to slay him, but it seemed amazingly stupid. Maybe the first one, all those centuries ago, had thought he could somehow get away with it, but the others since then must have been fools.

In most of the stories about Wizard Lords, of course, the Wizard Lord was the hero, protecting people from monsters or evil wizards, or tracking down criminals who fled beyond the boundaries where the priests couldn't reach them, but there were those few Wizard Lords who had gone bad and been slain by the Chosen. Just a few, a handful, out of the dozens of wizards who had held the title.

And of course, as the Swordsman had pointed out, none of them had done anything of the sort in more than a hundred years. The Chosen were still needed, just in case, but they didn't need to do anything. They were like the guard on the cellars—as long as he was there no one tried to sneak in, even though all he did was stand ready.

   So becoming the Chosen Swordsman, or any of the others, wouldn't mean he would actually need to kill a Wizard Lord; he would just need to be ready, and knowing that he was would keep the Wizard Lord from abusing his power.

Would being the Swordsman mean he would meet all the other Chosen? Not that he particularly wanted to meet the Leader, or the Thief, but meeting the Beauty . . . he wouldn't mind that. Or the Seer, who was privy to so many secrets.

But unless they were summoned to slay a Wizard Lord, he supposed they would remain scattered across Barokan.

How were they summoned, if they were needed? Elder hadn't known, when he asked her all those years ago; she had just said she supposed it was magic.

Those wizards would undoubtedly know, or the present
Swordsman—and Breaker had the perfect excuse to ask them all the questions he wanted, if he was considering
becoming the Swordsman's replacement.

   Breaker wasn't sure how serious he was about taking the job, but he definitely wanted to talk to those three again, preferably with less of an audience this time.

   He rose and found his drawers and his trews, and a moment later he ambled out to the kitchen to inquire about breakfast.

   His mother was rolling out dough, and did not look up as he entered, nor did she say a word. Breaker paused in the doorway. He knew she had heard him; her ears were sharp, and the occasional thump of the rolling pin would hardly disguise the thump of his footsteps. On any ordinary morning she would have looked up and wished him a good morning.

His two younger sisters, Fidget and Spider, were sitting silently at the table, staring at him. He sighed.

"What did I do?" he asked. "Or not do, if that's the case."

The rolling pin stopped. "Harp told me about the strangers," his mother replied.

That stirred a few memories. His parents had not come to the harvest celebration; his father had reportedly felt ill, as he often did, and his mother had stayed home to make sure it was nothing serious. Fidget had brought the news, and had asked Elder Priestess to look in on Father on her way home, and maybe talk to the ler.

   "Is Father all right?" he asked.

   His mother snapped, "Don't change the subject!"

   "I'm not. . . well, maybe I am, but I'd like to know."

   "Elder says he ate something he shouldn't have, as usual, but he'll be fine. You, on the other hand, seem determined to ruin your life."

   "I'm not determined to do anything, but yes, I'm considering the possibility of becoming the Chosen Swordsman. How would that ruin my life?"

   "You could get called away at any moment to traipse halfway across the world to kill the Wizard Lord! You'd kill the man who lets the crops grow, who sends the spring rain and hunts down killers. And if the call came in the middle of the harvest, or of planting, it wouldn't matter—you'd have to go all the same, even if it meant losing the entire crop. And he might kill you, instead—it's happened, you know. The Chosen don't always all survive. The first Dark Lord killed something like half of them, my grandmother told me."

   "That was what, a thousand years ago? Things are different now, Mother."

   "Six or seven hundred, I think—less than a thousand, at any rate. And who says everything's changed for the better? Maybe the Wizard Lords have gotten smarter again, and found ways around all the precautions!"

   "Mother, there hasn't been a Dark Lord in a hundred years. The current Swordsman has never seen one, and the Swordsman before him didn't, either. The wizards who choose the Wizard Lords have gotten smarter, and they don't pick bad men anymore."

   "How can you be sure of that? And if it's true, then why do they need anyone to be Chosen?"

   "It's just a precaution. A tradition. And I think I'd like being part of the tradition."

   "They don't pay you anything, do they? You'd still need to make your living in the barley fields or some other ordinary place, and do this sword nonsense in your spare time."

   "I suppose," Breaker said. He hadn't really thought about that part—so few people in Mad Oak ever used money that it hadn't occurred to him to worry about it.

   "So why would you want to do it, then? It's extra work and danger, and what do you get in return?"

   "I don't know," Breaker admitted. "It's just. . . well, I'd be famous. I could travel. And it ought to impress the girls, don't you think? Don't you want me to find a good wife, and sire some grandchildren for you?"

His mother snorted derisively. "I don't know what sort of girl would be impressed by foolishness like that." Breaker thought that a good many girls would be, but he didn't say that. Instead he said, "It's a needed role, Mother. Someone has to do it."

"Even if that's true, which I am not convinced of, why should that someone be you?"

"Because I think it. . . oh, I don't know. Because I want to, that's all."

His mother stared at him for a moment, put down the rolling pin, crossed her arms on her chest, and then said, in her flattest and most deadly voice, "You want to be a killer?"

   "No, I do not want to be a killer," Breaker replied. "What are you talking about?"

   "The Swordsman's job, his whole purpose among the Chosen, is to kill the Dark Lord, and anyone else who tries to stop the Chosen from killing the Dark Lord. If you become the Chosen Swordsman, you'll be accepting that role. You'll be agreeing to kill people. You'll be promising to stick a great big knife through someone's chest. Is that what you want?"

"But I won't need to kill anyone! There aren't any more Dark Lords!"

"But you'll have agreed to do it if a Dark Lord happens." "I suppose, but. .." "You'll be a killer."

"I'll be a Chosen Hero, and yes, that might mean killing someone, but only those who deserve to die. What's wrong with that?"

   His mother stared at him for another moment, then threw up her hands with an exasperated "Oooohhhh!" and stamped out of the room.

   Breaker watched her go, genuinely puzzled. Yes, the Swordsman and the other Chosen killed people, when it became necessary, but they were heroes; it was part of the job. His mother knew that; she had certainly told him enough stories about heroes who slew men and monsters right and left. She had told stories about the horrible vengeance Wizard Lords enacted on rogue wizards and other fugitives with great relish, including plenty of gruesome details, and she never seemed to think there was anything wrong with that. How was it any different if her son became the Swordsman?

Then his gaze fell, and he saw that Fidget and Spider were staring at him.

"Oh, shut up," he said.

"I didn't say a word!" Fidget protested.

"I didn't, either," Spider said. "It wasn't us. Are ler talking to you?"

"No," Breaker snapped. "I'm not a priest or a wizard." "Will you be if you become the Swordsman?" Breaker started to say no, then stopped. "I don't know," he admitted.

"Would you really kill people?"

"Only bad wizards," Breaker assured her. "Not real people. No one from Mad Oak."

   Spider nodded a solemn acceptance of this; Fidget looked less certain, but Breaker left the subject at that as he began rummaging through the cupboards for something to break his fast.

   Spider and Fidget managed to maintain a surprising and atypical silence while they ate; their mother did not return, and when Breaker had taken the edge off his appetite he decided that she wasn't going to return while he was there.

He still did not entirely understand the reasons for her anger, but he knew better than to try to dissuade her; he had never been able to talk her out of one of her moods. His father or Harp sometimes could, but Breaker had never quite figured out how. As far as Breaker was concerned, the best thing to do was to simply be somewhere else until his mother had worked through her anger on her own. Accordingly, as soon as his stomach stopped growling he waved a quick farewell to his sisters and headed out of the house and up the slope toward the pavilion.

The Wizard Lord had provided a dry night and a pleasantly cool day, and the sun was still low above the distant eastern cliffs; wisps of morning mist lingered in the trees and fields. Breaker found no reason to hurry. He ambled past the smithy and the carpenters' shops, then took the middle path under the pavilion terrace, stretching his legs to skip every second stone. He called a greeting to the brewmaster and Younger Priestess as he passed the shadowy door to the cellars; he could hear rattling and sloshing, and the priestess speaking to ler in their own language, presumably negotiating with them for all to go well with this new batch of beer.

   No one returned his call, but that was no surprise; they were busy. He emerged from the shadows into the slanting sun and turned to mount the southern steps. At the top he turned again, and slouched into the pavilion itself.

   Last night's debris had largely been cleared away, the floor swept, and he wondered whether some of the villagers had risen early to deal with this, or whether Elder had talked some of the ler into taking care of it. Then he noticed the old woman seated by the flickering hearthfire, and wondered instead whether the wizards had used their magic.

   But a wizard's magic, like a priest's, still depended on the cooperation of ler—wizards just used different ler,

ler not tied to a specific place. A priest could call on the spirits of earth and tree, field and stream, root and

branch, spirits bound to their own corner of the world, while a wizard controlled spirits of wind and fire, light and darkness, spirits that could roam freely wherever their fancy—or the wizard's orders—might take them.

   And of course, priests generally asked the ler for favors, and bargained with them, where wizards were said to bind them and compel them.

   Elder might have summoned the pavilion's own ler, the spirits of plank and stone that dwelt in the structure itself, or the ler of the surrounding trees, or of the mice and insects and other creatures that undoubtedly lived beneath the building; the wizards could have summoned a wind from halfway across the world to blow away the dust and spilled beer. Either way, the floor was swept.

   As he stood there considering this the old woman, the female wizard, looked up and saw him.

   "Ah, boy," she said. "Come here, would you?"

   Breaker hesitated—like most villagers he avoided strangers, and this woman was not merely a stranger, but a wizard. Not only might she unwittingly anger the local ler through ignorance of their ways or her mere presence, but she had ler of her own at her beck and call, strange ler not bound to Mad Oak or its surroundings. But that was all the more reason not to be rude to her, and if he was to become the world's greatest swordsman, one of the Chosen, one of the assigned heroes who would defend Barokan should the Wizard Lord go mad, then he would presumably need to deal with strangers, and even with wizards, regularly. He would need to get over his reluctance. He squared his shoulders and marched across the room to her.

   She gestured at an empty chair, and he sat down beside her. For a moment the two of them sat silently, looking at one another while trying not to stare rudely; then she asked, "I know you don't use true names here in Mad Oak, but what do they call you?"

"Breaker," he said.

She grimaced. "And what do you break?" she asked. "Not heads, I hope."

   Breaker smiled. "No," he said. "My mother's dishes, the poles for the beans, that sort of thing. I was clumsy as a child; my father said it was because I was growing so fast that my body had to keep relearning how to move."

   "I'm not sure that's much better," the wizard said. "A head-breaking temper would be a bad thing in a swordsman, but a clumsy swordsman might be even worse."

   "I'm not clumsy now," Breaker said. "Ask Little Weaver, or Curly."

   "Who are they?"

"The girls I danced with last night. They'll tell you that I've caught up with my growth." "So you remember last night, then?" "Most of it."

"The beer hasn't washed it all away? You remember the dancing—do you remember what you spoke of with
my companions before the music began?"
"You mean about becoming the Swordsman? Yes, I remember."
"And do you still want to take on the role?"

Breaker hesitated, remembering his mother's words, her hostile face. "I'm not sure," he said. "I don't want to be a killer."

   "Well, that's all right, then," the wizard said. "We don't want you running off and putting a blade through the Wizard Lord on a whim; killing a man is serious business, killing a wizard even more so, killing the Wizard Lord most of all. We want a swordsman who is reluctant to act, who will give even the darkest Lord a fair chance to depart in peace—but who is ready to do what is necessary if the Lord will not yield."

   Breaker blinked at her. "Depart in peace?" he said. "Is that possible?"

   "Certainly!" She smiled at him, and he noticed a tooth was missing on one side. "As long as a corrupt Wizard Lord is removed from power, why would anyone care how? In all the centuries of the Wizard Lords' rule, there have been five slain by the Chosen—and three who left of their own free will rather than face the Chosen, giving their talismans and oaths over to the Council of Immortals and allowing a new Wizard Lord to take power." Breaker gazed silently at her for a long moment, then said, "I'm sorry; I thought I understood the system and knew about the Dark Lords, but it seems I was mistaken. Eight Dark Lords? I had only heard of four, I think. And who or what is the Council of Immortals? I heard it mentioned last night, but I admit I don't know what it is." He grimaced. "I begin to think I was far too hasty in saying I might want to be one of the Chosen."

   The smile vanished, and the wizard sighed.

   "There is a great deal of history involved," she said. "And far too many complicated rules have accumulated. It all started out very simple, but of course it couldn't stay simple."

"But why not?"

   "Because it's done by people," the wizard said. "We can never leave anything alone; we always meddle, and adjust, and repair." She straightened in her chair. "So then, Breaker," she said, "what do you know of the Wizard Lords, and the Chosen Heroes?"

   Breaker hesitated. He had heard the stories as a child, but told in childish terms, and he did not want to sound childish to this woman. She seemed to be treating him as an adult, and he did not want to lose that respect. He would tell the story as he remembered it, but not necessarily in the same words.

"More than six hundred years ago," he began, "a group of wizards decided that Barokan would be a happier land if a single person ruled it all, from the Eastern Cliffs to the Western Isles, to put an end to destructive disputes between wizards—wicked wizards and magical duels had laid waste to large areas and killed many innocent people, and everyone agreed it had to be stopped, and these wizards thought that setting up a single ruler was the best way to stop it. They chose one of their number to be this ruler, the first Wizard Lord, and bestowed upon him much of their combined magic, binding to him the most powerful ler known to humanity, including mastery of the skies and wind.

   "With so much magic at his disposal none could stand against the Wizard Lord, and he brought peace to all the lands from cliffs to sea, and reigned well for many years. He hunted down and slew any wizard who preyed on the innocent, and arbitrated disputes to prevent magical duels. In time he grew old and tired, and he gave up his power and withdrew from the world, and named another wizard his successor as Wizard Lord. He, too, reigned long and well before going peacefully into retirement.

   "But the third Wizard Lord, although he had feigned otherwise, had an evil heart, and once he was in power he began to kill his enemies and to steal whatever he saw that caught his fancy, and to hunt down and slaughter

all other wizards so that they could not threaten his rule, rather than just the few who made trouble. But a few of the surviving wizards, although they could not face the Wizard Lord's overwhelming magic directly, devised a scheme to bring him down. They chose a few ordinary people and granted them magical abilities that the evil Lord could not counter, and these Chosen Heroes were able to confront and slay the Wizard Lord, though most of them died in the process. And when it was all over, a new Wizard Lord was chosen—but the surviving heroes also found successors, for themselves and their slain comrades, and let it be known that henceforth any Wizard Lord who violated the trust of the people of Barokan would be slain, as the third one, now called the Dark Lord of the Midlands, was.

   "Nonetheless, every so often a Wizard Lord has thought he found a way to defeat the Chosen, or was simply overcome by madness or evil, so that three more times the Chosen had to leave their ordinary lives and find their way into the Wizard Lord's stronghold, wherever it might be, and kill the corrupt ruler. The most recent was a little over a hundred years ago, when the Dark Lord of Goln Vleys was defeated, and the eight Chosen—the Swordsman, the Beauty, the Leader, the Scholar, the Thief, the Seer, and . . . I don't remember the others just now."

   "The Archer and the Speaker."

   "Oh, that's right. Anyway, the eight are still Chosen, but don't really need to do anything but stand ready, since our modern Wizard Lords are good, well-chosen rulers—"

   "Well, that's what we always hope for, certainly."

   "I don't know of any Council of Immortals, though."

"Oh, but you do! You mentioned us. You just don't know the name."

Breaker frowned. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The group of wizards who set up the Wizard Lords in the first place. That's us, the Council of Immortals."

   Breaker stared at her for a moment. "Are you claiming to be six hundred years old?" he said. He knew priests and wizards could do amazing things, but he was not sure whether he was willing to believe that—she was obviously elderly, but six hundred years?

   "No, no," she said. "We aren't literally immortals. And I certainly wasn't born until centuries after the first Wizard Lord was appointed. But the group of wizards that set him up in power, and that created the Chosen, didn't disband; they admitted new members as the old died off, including any Wizard Lord who retired honorably, and continued on, keeping an eye on matters from behind the scenes. It's the Council of Immortals that chooses each new Wizard Lord, and that picks the Chosen, and sometimes it's the Council of Immortals that tells the Chosen when the time has come to remove a Wizard Lord who has become a danger and refused to resign willingly. You see?"

Breaker thought about that for a moment, then said, "So the Wizard Lord does not actually rule Barokan? He's merely a figurehead for this council?"

   "No, no, no," the wizard said, shaking her head vigorously. "We don't rule anything; the Wizard Lord does. He has the magic, the eight Great Talismans. He controls the weather and the wild beasts. He has the authority to hunt down and kill rogue wizards—any wizard who disturbs the peace, even if he's a member of the Council. All we do is choose who will be given the power, and decide if and when it must be removed. And giving the command to the Chosen, as we have just a handful of times over the past seven hundred years, requires a nearly unanimous vote—if just three of us believe the Wizard Lord's misbehavior does not require his death, then the Chosen are not called."

   "But you could decide to remove him at any time."

   "Well. . . yes."

   "So you really have the final authority."

   "Collectively, I suppose we do. But we don't use it."

Breaker considered that for a long moment, then asked, "Why not? Why bother with this system of controlling the Wizard Lord? Why doesn't the Council rule directly?" The wizard grimaced. "We don't control him. I just told you that."

   "You have the power to kill him ..." "Only if we almost all agree! And believe me, lad, we don't often agree on anything."

   "But why did you—or your ancestors—set this up? Why didn't you just rule Barokan yourselves? Why don't you now?"

"Because we don't want to—don't you understand? We're the descendants of the rogue wizards you hear horror stories of at your mother's knee—and most of the stories are true,

Breaker; have you ever heard about the Siege of Blue-flower?"

   "I know the song . .." "The song is true, Breaker. That really happened. If there's no greater power to rein us in we wizards run rampant across Barokan, pillaging and plundering and smashing anything we please, and fighting among ourselves. You must have heard how the old wizard wars laid waste to entire areas—you just said it happened, so I know you heard about it! Well, the only thing that prevents that sort of chaos now is the Wizard Lord, the one man with the power to smash us all. There's a reason we vested the means to destroy him in ordinary men and women, rather than keeping it for ourselves and our fellow wizards—we know we can't be trusted with it." Breaker thought about that for a moment. He thought about the Siege of Blueflower, famed in song and story, where according to legend three rogue wizards had joined forces to enslave an entire town, and had ordered the men of the town to defend them against the Wizard Lord, on pain of seeing their wives and daughters tortured to death should they fail to do their utmost.

The men had done their best, for the most part, and out of pity the Wizard Lord had done his best to see that neither they nor their loved ones died—but the song's last three verses were a mournful recitation, horrifyingly detailed, of how the victorious Wizard Lord and the freed townsfolk had found the mangled remains of a dozen young women in the dead wizards' stronghold, and how the Wizard Lord had grieved over his failure to save them all.

That had been five hundred years ago—but this wizard was acknowledging that she was one of the heirs to those three rogues.

   "But then why doesn't the Wizard Lord just kill you all, so you can't go rogue? And then you couldn't unleash the Chosen."

   "Because that would unleash the Chosen—the Chosen have instructions to kill the Wizard Lord if the Council fails to reassure them every year or so that everything is running smoothly. Our ancestors weren't suicidal—we

like being wizards, even if we know we can't be trusted."

   "So the Wizard Lord is required to defend Barokan against the wizards, and defend the wizards against themselves, without killing you all? And the Chosen are there to ensure that works?"

   "Yes."

   "It sounds complicated."

   "It is. I told you earlier that it was. We don't claim it's a perfect system; it's just the best our ancestors could come up with, and it's worked well enough since then that we haven't tried to change it much. If anything, we've made it even more complicated, adding new rules and more Chosen over the years—and we haven't had to kill a Dark Lord in over a century, so it seems to be about right." -

   "I suppose."

   "And now you have a chance to be a vital part of it all."

   "By promising to kill the Wizard Lord if he . . . what? If he displeases this Council of yours? His fellow wizards?"

The wizard let out an exasperated sigh.

   "More than displeases us," she said. "He has to start killing or raping or robbing innocent people—and not just one or two, either—before we'll summon the Chosen. Either that, or breaking the rules."

"See? If he breaks your rules!"

   "Breaker, the rules are all there to make sure he's not trying to destroy the system and make himself invulnerable. The rules mostly say that he can't kill the Chosen, that he can't interfere with them or with anything else that's designed to keep him in check, that he can't try to acquire magic that would let him defeat the Chosen. That's all. He can do what he pleases otherwise; he can kill members of the Council and we probably won't try to stop him—past Wizard Lords have done just that. After all, the whole point of the Wizard Lord is to keep all the other wizards under control, and that includes us. And remember that we don't control the Chosen; we can tell them we want the Wizard

Lord dead, and why, but if they think our reasons insufficient, they won't go."

Breaker blinked in surprise. "You can't make them do it?"
"The whole point of the Chosen is to dispose of Wizard Lords gone bad; of course wizards can't control
them!"

Up to that point Breaker had been convincing himself that the whole system was corrupt, that he and everyone he knew had been deceived about how Barokan was ruled, that the Chosen and the Wizard Lord were just tools of this mysterious Council of Immortals, and that his mother was right and he should take no part in it, but this suddenly changed everything . . .

If it was true.

   But if it was true, then in a way the Chosen were the ultimate power in all Barokan. He wasn't just being offered a ceremonial position that would give him magical abilities with weapons that he could use to impress girls; in a way, he was being entrusted with the final authority over. . . well, over everything. He would be the one to decide whether the Wizard Lord lived or died. Yes, the Swordsman was supposed to obey the Leader, and listen to the other Chosen, and apparently to this Council of Immortals that he had never heard of by name until yesterday, but it was the Swordsman who was ultimately expected to kill any Wizard Lord who might turn to evil—and he could make up his own mind about it. He could decide! He, Breaker of Mad Oak, could determine the course of history.

   "What if the Chosen decided to act without your Council's urging?" The wizard shrugged. "Then they would act. They have that right, indeed, that obligation, as part of their role—and sometimes the Seer knows things the rest of us don't; it's part of his or her magic to know certain things about the Wizard Lord without being told, so it might well happen. If the Seer and the Leader decide the Wizard Lord must be removed, then the Wizard Lord must be removed."

   "Even if the Council didn't agree?"

   She shrugged again. "We couldn't stop them. At least, I don't think we could. But why would that happen? If the

Wizard Lord is bad enough to make the Chosen risk their lives to slay him, then the Council should be happy to see him removed, and probably would be urging them on."

   "But what if you weren't? What if the Wizard Lord subverted your Council somehow?"

   "Well, that's another reason we don't control the Chosen. Yes, they could act on their own."

   "Then I'll do it," Breaker said, rising from his chair. "Go ahead and cast your spell."

The wizard blinked at him, and brushed at the ara feather she wore in her hair.

"It's not that simple," she said.

Breaker sighed. "Nothing ever is," he said. "What do I have to do?"

'Talk to the Swordsman," the wizard told him. "At least, that's how you begin."

Breaker tried to coax more from her without success, and at last, with a bow to the wizard and another to the

ler of the pavilion, he took his leave.