The Summer Palace (16 page)

By the eighth day the clans no longer pretended to remain distinct; they were all one great migration that would sort itself back out at the foot of the cliff.

Sword found Fist and asked him, “Is it always like this? Every year?”

“No,” Fist replied. “We don't usually bunch up
this
much—the snow rushed some clans. But there's always a gathering.”

On the ninth day some of the Uplanders claimed they could see the smoke rising up from Winterhome; Sword's eyes were not sharp enough, or not trained enough, to make out anything of the sort.

And finally, on the eleventh day, they came within sight of the Summer Palace, and Sword said his farewells.

No one paid much attention; they were more concerned with the long climb they would be making down the cliffs. Despite his new clothing and his spear, Sword had never really been a part of the Clan of the Golden Spear, and his curiosity value had worn off. The closest thing he had to a friend among the Uplanders was Whistler, and that young man had made plain that he didn't approve of Sword's bartering for jerky during their westward migration.

No one called after Sword or waved as he turned aside to march toward the palace, instead of into the defile at the trailhead.

The plain seemed colder away from the crowds of Uplanders, whether because there was no shared body heat, or because there were no neighbors blocking the easterly wind, or because it was actually colder, Sword could not say. He could not be entirely certain he wasn't simply imagining it. He shivered and pulled his vest and coat more tightly around him, glad that he was wearing the winter coat he had made.

When he reached the palace gate he found it locked, the lanterns gone from the hooks—that was no surprise. He could not hear the
burble of the fountains just inside; they had presumably been shut down.

There was no sign of any guards. Sword had wondered whether Artil might have left a few of his soldiers up here to ensure that the Uplanders did not loot the place in his absence, but apparently he had not bothered, or if he had, the guards must already have left.

Or, perhaps, they were inside the walls somewhere, out of the cold.

Sword paused at the gate and looked back at the line of Uplanders, stretching eastward to the horizon. He wondered how Winterhome could accommodate them all. He had seen the immense guesthouses that lined the roads around the town, but he had never really given much thought to just how many people squeezed into those structures. Thousands, obviously—perhaps tens of thousands. How did the Host People
feed
them all?

Well, the system had operated for centuries, so obviously the Host People had ways. Presumably there were storehouses somewhere to supply them.

Some of the Uplanders were staring back at him, he noticed, pointing out the man at the palace to their comrades.

That wouldn't do. He hadn't tried to keep his plans secret from the Clan of the Golden Spear, since that hadn't seemed practical, but they all knew that their patriarch favored Sword's scheme and would not want it spoiled. Other clans, though, knew nothing of it. Sword did not want someone from one of those other clans casually mentioning to the Wizard Lord that some strange man had been seen breaking into the Summer Palace.

Sword turned east, and marched back out onto the open plain. He was not going anywhere in particular; he just did not want to be seen entering the palace. He could not rejoin the Clan of the Golden Spear, which had already gone down the canyon and was on its way down to Winterhome, and did not see any reasonable way to join another clan at this point. Instead he wandered aimlessly through the remainder of the afternoon, and at dusk he settled down at a random spot, within sight of the westernmost of the great birdskin cisterns.

A few hundred yards away to the south the vast encampment of the migrating Uplanders sprawled across the landscape, tents black against the darkening sky, a myriad campfires gleaming orange in the gathering gloom. Sword wondered whether anyone was cooking over those fires, or whether they were all dining on jerky alone, and making fires for light and warmth only. Had the vegetables run out yet?

He considered building a fire of his own, but then decided it would draw too much attention. Instead he simply sat and waited, dozing lightly.

He awoke suddenly to find himself shivering so hard that he had jarred himself out of his doze. With neither fire nor tent to mitigate it, the night air was
cold.
He got to his feet, stamping and flapping his arms to stir his blood, and looked around.

It was very dark; the sun was long gone, an overcast hid the moon and stars, and almost all the fires had been doused.

It was perfect.

Still shivering slightly, he got his bearings, largely from the fading embers of the Uplander fires that had not yet been completely extinguished, and headed back toward the Summer Palace.

This time he did not stop at the gate, but made his way along the eastern side and clambered over the outer wall, moving as quietly as he could—which wasn't very, unfortunately, since he could not see well enough to avoid stumbling over rocks and other obstacles, and ascending the wall was not something he could do silently. He hoped that anyone hearing the racket would attribute it to normal nocturnal activities. The distance was such that he doubted anyone would be able to recognize the sound's exact nature.

Topping the wall was not particularly difficult, despite the darkness; it had not been intended as a serious barrier to invasion, but only to keep
ara
and straying Uplander children out of the gardens, and to provide a little privacy. There were no spikes or pickets to discourage climbers; he merely had to jump onto a convenient rock and then up, throw his arms across the top of the wall, catch himself there, and swing a leg up. He managed as much by feel as by sight,
but he managed it. If he hadn't had his pack, sword, and spear, he could have done it in seconds, and almost silently; as it was it took just a moment or two, and required only a moderate amount of scraping and thumping.

Once he got inside the walls the night was so utterly black that he decided trying to find his way into the palace itself would be a mistake; instead he took shelter in a corner of the garden wall, wrapped himself in his winter coat, and waited for morning, dozing occasionally and hoping he wouldn't freeze to death.

He awoke, shivering, in the gray light of early morning, to find snow falling; the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a speckling of white on the backs of his hands, specks that quickly melted away. He shook the flakes from his hands and got stiffly to his feet, struggling to remember where he was and why he was so cold. He looked around.

The scene was nothing like the green and welcoming view he remembered. The palace gardens were brown turning to white, the dead stalks and bare earth gradually vanishing beneath the thickening snow. The skeletal trellises, with their meager burden of lifeless vines, seemed to slump beneath the weight of the leaden sky and white flakes. He shivered anew, and stumbled past the dry, snow-speckled fountains and dead planters to the gate, where he put his eye to a crack and peered cautiously out at the distant Uplanders.

They were still coming, moving across the plain and making their way carefully down the steep trail, but the throng had lessened somewhat. He could see few details through the swirling snow, and the wind that blew through or over the locked gate chilled him, so he turned away and headed for the palace itself, seeking shelter.

The doors were locked, of course—he tried every one on the south side, and the first few around the corner on the west, before concluding he would not find one left open. He didn't let that trouble him—he had known he would probably need to break in. Although he thought he might regret it later, he was too cold to bother with latches or hinges in prying open a locked door; instead he used his sheathed sword as a club to smash in a many-paned window
overlooking the terrace, breaking out mullions as well as glass, then clambered in through the hole.

Getting in out of the wind and snow helped; he was still cold, but was able to stop shivering, to stop his teeth from chattering, and to think a little more clearly.

He recognized where he was. He had spent a few days in this palace the first year the Wizard Lord had occupied it, and at that time he had learned his way around. This was a small dining salon, designed for those occasions when the Wizard Lord wanted to be able to wander out onto the terrace overlooking Barokan at a moment's notice. A small table stood in the center, with four chairs set atop it for the winter; against the far wall stood a finely carved sideboard between two doors, and two tall matching cupboards in either corner.

Sword doubted he would be using this room much during his stay here; he hurried across and tried the left-hand door.

That led into a narrow, unadorned, windowless corridor, obviously meant for the palace staff rather than for the Wizard Lord or his guests; since he had been one of those guests, Sword had never seen this passage before. He could not tell how far it ran; the only light came from the salon windows behind him. Those windows faced west, and it was early morning, with clouds and snow obscuring the sky and dimming the sun; the dull gray glow reached barely ten feet past the door.

He had tinder in his pack, but Sword was not inclined to waste it; instead he stepped back into the salon and tried the right-hand door. That opened into a sitting room where several tall windows to the south let in what daylight could penetrate the growing storm; Sword stepped in and closed the door behind him, shutting out the mounting howl of the wind.

It was still cold, but just the common chill of an unheated room in winter, not the biting cold he had faced outside; Sword set his spear against the wall, then unslung his pack and dropped it beside the spear, before sinking into one of the richly upholstered chairs. He looked around the room.

The floor was reddish brown tile; a carpet had been rolled up and set against one wall, to stay clean for next summer, while chairs, tables, and settees had been pushed up against the opposite wall, out of the way, leaving the room bare and unwelcoming.

There was no hearth, no stove, no fireplace, and the half-dozen windows that made up most of the south wall were designed to be stood open to catch the breeze. The awnings that would keep the sun out were rolled up and stowed away for the season, leaving just a thin layer of glass and frame to keep out winter's chill.

That was better than nothing, certainly, and probably better than the tents the Uplanders used, but it wasn't much.

Sword thought back over his previous stay, trying to remember whether he had ever seen a hearth or stove of any kind anywhere in the building. There had been candles, of course, and oil lamps, but he could not recall any other flames. This was, after all, the
Summer
Palace—any time heat was called for, the Wizard Lord would be down in Barokan, not up here at all.

But there were other uses for fire besides light and heat; food had to be cooked somewhere. The kitchens would surely have stoves and ovens and hearths.

That was where he would set up housekeeping for the winter—in the palace kitchens. He merely needed to
find
them. As a guest he had had no business there, so he had never set foot in them, but obviously they existed. That passage from the dining salon undoubtedly led to the kitchens eventually, but he preferred to use what little daylight he had, rather than wasting tinder—especially since he saw no lamps or candles, and he had not brought any of his own.

He would need to do some exploring, he decided.

He glanced at his pack and spear, debating whether or not to bring them along; they must weigh at least sixty pounds, he thought, probably more, with all that jerky in addition to his clothing and other gear, and he had been carrying them almost constantly for the past eleven days. He was alone in the palace; precious as they were, what harm would it do to leave them here, and come back once he had found what he sought?

None at all, he told himself. It wasn't as if anyone else would stumble across his belongings.

But then he paused.
He
was here, after all; how could he be sure no one else was? He knew that the Wizard Lord did not leave guards here over the winter, since it was universally accepted that no one could survive a winter in the Uplands, but what if he had posted a guard or two to stay here just until the Uplanders were gone? Sword had never heard of such a precaution, but it wasn't an absurd speculation. This was not the first time he had considered the possibility, and he had no reason to rule it out.

And for that matter, what if some of the Uplanders out there on the plateau decided to break in and take shelter here from the storm before attempting the long climb down to Winterhome?
He
certainly wouldn't want to try to get down the cliff in this storm.

But if an Uplander, or even an entire clan, did break in here, they would surely find better things to steal than his pack, and they
certainly
wouldn't casually steal another man's spear. At least in the Clan of the Golden Spear, spears were almost sacred—and Uplanders in general seemed to be very honest people. Even though they had no
ler
ordering their lives other than their own souls and the souls of those around them, they maintained their codes of behavior well. He had seen that in his time with the Clan of the Golden Spear. Also, this wasn't the first winter that the palace had stood here, yet he had never heard of any Uplander intruding, or disturbing it in any way. That was the sort of thing that would have been all over gossip-loving Winterhome, had it ever occurred.

Of course, most years the snows didn't start this early, and the migration down to Winterhome didn't usually take place in a snowstorm. Sword didn't think this had happened in any previous year since the palace was built.

He wondered whether the Wizard Lord had any control over the weather up here; could he have prevented this storm if he wanted to? Or could he have
created
it? His magic did not extend beyond the borders of Barokan, but wind and weather paid little heed to borders; if Artil had assembled this storm just west of the cliffs and
then pushed it eastward, wouldn't it have arrived here just like this? Previous storms had seemed to come from the east, Sword knew, but this one had arrived in the pre-dawn darkness and could have come from anywhere.