The Wizard Lord by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Author:Lawrence Watt-Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2006-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

[18]

The Speaker could speak to anything that lived or had any spiritual existence, but she could not easily command anything; the birds and ler she asked to convey the message did not cooperate. She could have forced them by using their true names, but did not want to, as it would bring protests only she could hear.

At last, though, she found a stray dog that agreed to carry a note tied round its neck, and to find the man with the scent the Speaker described.

“You can describe a person’s scent well enough to identify him?” Breaker marveled, as the dog ran off.

“Only in the languages of dogs,” the Speaker said. “Half their vocabulary—more than half—is about smells. They have no words for color or music, but a thousand shades of acrid, a thousand kinds of sour.”

“And how do you know the Archer’s smell well enough to describe him that way?”

“It’s in his true name,” she said. She hefted her pack. “Shall we go?”

They went.

Two days later the four of them were sitting in a tavern in a town called Seven Sides, talking to some of the locals. The townsfolk had recognized Breaker as the Swordsman immediately—not difficult, given the sword on his belt—and then guessed that the people with him might also be Chosen. They had quickly identified the Seer, and guessed the Speaker; now they were trying to determine which of the Chosen the fourth might be. The travelers had agreed to play along with this guessing game in exchange for bread, ham, gravy, and beer. They sat, eating silently, and listening while the natives argued.

“He doesn’t have a bow or any arrows.”

“I think the Leader would have to be taller.”

“That leaves the Thief and the Scholar.”

“And the Beauty, but I think we can rule that one out.”

That evinced a round of laughter. “How do we know he even is one of the Chosen?” a boy asked as the laughter subsided. “Maybe he’s just a friend of theirs.”

“The lad has a point.”

“But they agreed to our game! They wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t one of them; it wouldn’t be honest.”

“Are the Chosen necessarily honest?”

“I certainly hope so!”

“Then he’s the Thief or the Scholar.”

“Or he left his bow and arrows somewhere else.”

“Look at his arms—he’s not one accustomed to drawing a bow. The Swordsman has the shoulders of a fighting man, but this other one . . .”

“The Scholar or the Thief.”

“The Thief, I’d say.”

“Uh . . . isn’t the present Thief a woman?”

That brought a sudden startled silence, followed by a burst of argument.

“She is! She is, I tell you!”

“Who knows? Would a thief admit to being a thief?”

“Then who’s the woman?”

“She’s just trying to get attention!”

“The real Thief wouldn’t want attention.”

“I don’t think she’s trying for attention.”

As they argued, Breaker finished the food on his plate, gulped the remainder of his beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked around at the crowd.

There were at least a score playing the game, and a score more watching; the tavern’s dining room was packed full.

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