The Ninth Talisman by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page A

wooden table, in a grand dining hall hung, for reasons Sword could only guess at, with the banners of various Uplander clans; Sword recognized several he had seen flying over the great guesthouses to the west of Winterhome’s heart. Sword sat on Artil’s left; to the Wizard Lord’s right was Lore, and beyond him sat Farash inith Kerra. Various other courtiers and officials were seated to either side of this central party, as well as along the far side of the table; all in all, Sword estimated there were about thirty diners present, with at least a dozen young women in the Wizard Lord’s red-and-black livery waiting on them, and guards standing at every door.
    â€œOf course!” the Wizard Lord said. “The eight of you have some amazing magical talents that could be put to good use in improving life in Barokan, but because of the traditional separation you don’t
use
them for anything except removing Dark Lords, on those unfortunate occasions when they arise.” He picked up his own beer and took a sip before continuing, “I mean, think about it. Lore, here, remembers
every true thing he has ever been told!
He’s better than a thousand-volume library!And the Archer—he can put an arrow in any target he can see, more or less. That could be used to send messages or documents across rivers, or to carry small objects from one place to another faster than a man can run. The Leader is supernaturally persuasive—she could be of great use in questioning outlaws, don’t you think?”
    Sword was too distracted by the pronoun “she” to respond coherently, and the Wizard Lord continued, “I haven’t quite arrived at any constructive use for
your
particular talents, unfortunately—well, not unless you wanted to be captain of my guard, and I suspect that wouldn’t fit well with your ordained duties as one of the Chosen. I admit it would make
me
nervous!” He laughed.
    Sword smiled reflexively, but he did not really think it was funny; in his present mood he did not think he would find
anything
funny.
    It was not that the Wizard Lord was doing anything
wrong,
exactly; it was just that he was doing everything
differently.
A person in Barokan had a role to fill, a place in the world, a way to fit into the great intricate pattern of life that the
ler
created; people knew what to expect from one another. But this Wizard Lord was not doing
anything
in the way Sword expected a Wizard Lord to act.
    He had mentioned several times now, first in the throne room and then again here at the supper table, that he was trying to minimize his use of magic, and that baffled Sword. Why would the man who controlled more than half of all the wizardly magic in Barokan be reluctant to use it? And he was constantly talking about ways to
improve
Barokan. The Wizard Lord’s role had traditionally been to protect and
preserve
Barokan, not improve it.
    And now he referred to the Leader of the Chosen as “she.” Sword had not known the new Leader, Farash’s replacement, was female; that, too, hardly seemed traditional. The Leader was supposed to
lead
the Chosen against the Dark Lords, and that was traditionally a man’s role. Half of the Chosen could be either sex—there was no reason to restrict the Scholar, the Seer, the Thief, and the Speaker to either sex. The Beauty had to be female, of course, and the Swordsman and the Archer had to be male to be strong enough for their roles, and Sword had always thought that the Leader, too, should be male.
    But he could not say why, really. He had great respect for femaleleaders—Elder Priestess back in Mad Oak, the high priestess who ruled Greenwater, and others—but he had still assumed that the Leader of the Chosen should be male.
    He was not sure whether he was more bothered by the new Leader’s sex, or by his own reaction to learning of it.
    And he could not help wondering if this determinedly untraditional