The Summer Palace (20 page)

Instead, he wrapped a lush Barokanese blanket around himself, holding it in place with one hand while raising the candle in the other, and headed for the stairs, the stone floor cold and smooth beneath his bare feet.

Then he stopped. He would not wear the forbidden garments, but there were other things he wanted. He crossed to where he had hung his clothing and spread out several other items, and found what he wanted.

His sword belt had no feathers on it anywhere, and was made of good Barokanese leather; he slung it around himself, belting the blanket in place, thereby freeing a hand.

He poked a finger into the pocket of the breeches he had worn the previous day and fished out something small and sharp, letting it fall to the floor. The silver talisman that made him the Swordsman gleamed brightly in the candlelight, perhaps a little more brightly than could be accounted for naturally; he picked it up and clutched it against the candle, feeling it cut into the wax.

In Barokan, if he was ever more than a few yards from the talisman, he would feel ill and weak; in the Uplands, cut off from his magic, that had not been the case. He was still cut off from all the powers of Barokan, but he had connected with
ler
again, and even if
they were entirely different
ler,
he still did not care to take any chances—better to have the talisman and not need it than to suddenly need it after leaving it behind. He had not felt ill lying across the room from it, but now that he held it again he felt stronger, more alert.

Thus equipped, he turned again to the stairs, the candle and talisman in one hand, the other holding a corner of blanket to his shoulder.

When he emerged onto the ground floor, shivering with the cold, and peered out at the windows of the main dining hall, he could see at once why the kitchen had been so totally lightless—the sky outside was still dark, though when he looked to his right he could see a very faint grayness spreading in the east. He had awoken well before dawn.

Ordinarily he might have tried to go back to sleep, but he was thoroughly awake now, after his unexpected contact with
ler,
and saw no point in pretending otherwise.

He also saw no point in freezing; he turned and hurried back down the stairs to his underground retreat.

There he lit a second candle and set both lights on the floor, one on either side, then settled down on his mattress, wrapping a second blanket around himself.

“All right, then,” he said to the empty air. “What do you want of me?”

No one answered.

“I know you're here,” he said. “You spoke to me before; speak to me now.”

Again, nothing.

“I don't have any feathers on me.” He reached out and touched the wall; the stone was alive, he could feel it. The air around him was still, but still vital.

“Speak to me!”

Still, no response.

“What, are you done with me already? Should I get dressed, then?”

You swore an oath. Three days.

The reply was so sudden and so clear that Sword started, dropping
his talisman onto the mattress. He quickly snatched the bit of metal up again.

“All right,” he said. “Three days, then.”

There was no answer. He waited, listening, for several more minutes, then shrugged.

“Fine,” he said. “Three days. I can do that.” He glanced longingly at his clothing, and pulled his blankets tighter.

It was obvious that the
ler
were not ready to speak to him beyond ensuring he would abide by his promise not to shut them out, and he could handle that, he was sure. They would speak when they were ready.

And, he admitted to himself, he did not particularly
want
to wear the hides and feathers again, now that he had experienced the Uplands without them, and had connected with his surroundings. He felt a part of the world once more, as if he belonged again, and was in no hurry to lose that. Quite aside from the fact that it simply felt better, he had begun to wonder whether he might be able to use the
ler
somehow. He was no wizard, nor a priest, but the Upland
ler
had spoken to him, had entered his dreams—he might be able to negotiate with them. They might help him survive the winter.

And they might aid him against the Wizard Lord. After all, wasn't Artil im Salthir an intruder here? Wasn't his summer palace an invasion of territory to which he had no claim, a place where he had no right to be? Sword was an intruder himself, of course, but he had built no structures, dug no cellars, and he would be happy to return forever to the Lowlands once the Wizard Lord was dead.

Just what form such aid might take Sword had no idea, but if the
ler
ever did deign to speak freely with him, he could ask.

Surely, it would do no harm to
ask.

For now, though, he had more immediate concerns. The temperature in the kitchens was dropping, he was fairly certain—presumably the weather outside was turning colder, and that cold air was leaking into the palace. He had survived one night well enough with nothing but blankets, but he thought he really would need to build a fire soon.

Finding something to wear, something not feathered but a little
more convenient than a blanket, would also be good. He knew some of his garments could be made acceptable; he had not sewn feathers into
all
his Hostman garb. The underclothing should be all right, and he was fairly certain he could render the breeches acceptable with just a little judicious trimming. His Uplander trousers, vests, and shirt were hopeless, being made almost entirely of
ara;
his winter coat was stuffed with
ara
down and probably beyond salvage. Removing all the feathers from his Hostman tunic might be possible, but would probably damage the fabric beyond repair, and he doubted he had gotten all the
ara
blood out of it, so that was out.

He glanced down at the sheets he had appropriated from the bed-chambers upstairs, and grimaced. At least he had plenty of fabric to use in making more clothes.

He blew out one candle, picked up the other, and marched to where his clothes hung.

After an hour's work picking at stitches, he was able to dress in breeches and belt, but nothing more; thus attired, he drew his sword and spent his daily hour in practice. There were no
ler
requiring it, so far as he knew; his talisman was no longer lifeless metal, but it did not seem to have its full potency, either. Still, the daily routine was a habit, and he might need the practice when the time came to kill the Wizard Lord.

Besides, the activity served to keep him from feeling the cold too strongly. Even so, when he finally lowered his blade he was shivering in seconds, and quickly wrapped himself in a blanket again.

Thus attired, he sheathed his weapon on his belt and headed upstairs, where the sky beyond the windows was brightening from gray to gold.

He had been unable to find any proper sewing supplies in the palace, and his
ara
-bone needle had been lost somewhere, but he had found that curtains could be tied into crude cloaks and wraps. Curtains handled more easily than blankets, and would have to do until he could manage something better. His black broadcloth breeches were not enough; the air in the palace was cold enough that he thought frostbite was a real concern. He had never seen real frostbite; he had been considered too young to be allowed to see Black-hand's hand until long after it had healed. He had seen the effects, though, and clearly remembered the ugly stumps where those missing fingers had been. He did not want to risk any firsthand experience with such a phenomenon. He wasn't sure just what it involved, really, what it felt like, how long it took, whether there was any warning he might watch for—Blackhand hadn't exactly liked to talk about it, since it had been his own stupidity that allowed it to happen—but Sword knew his fingers and ears might turn black and die, even if literally falling off was some storyteller's exaggeration.

He had improvised a double-layered velvet cloak out of a set of drapes, and wore it over a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, atop his few acceptable ordinary clothes. He had stripped the
ara-
feather ornaments from his Hostman boots, so that he could wear them and keep his feet protected from the cold, as well.

He had not heard any more
ler
voices, but he did not doubt the reality of his earlier experiences; he could
feel
the
ler
in the air around him, and in any exposed stone he touched. Their presence was much less noticeable in other objects; his clothes, the curtains, the blankets all seemed relatively lifeless—not dead, by any means, but not so
vigorous. He supposed that that was because these manufactured things had been brought up from Barokan, and therefore had no native Uplander
ler.
Their own Barokanese
ler
were still present, but relatively weak here.

Why that should be so, when up until his arrival in the Summer Palace it had been Uplander
ler
that seemed weak and almost imperceptible, he had no idea.

And why the weather had turned so very intensely cold so very quickly, he did not know, either. Surely, it was not like this
every
winter!

Or perhaps it was. That would certainly explain why the Uplanders fled so swiftly and completely to Winterhome every year. If the weather on the plateau regularly changed from cool and dry to snowy and bitterly cold in a matter of two or three days, and stayed cold all winter, that would seem like a very sound reason to get down the cliffs as rapidly as possible once the
ara
left and the weather started to turn.

He was on the top floor stealing curtains when that thought occurred to him, and he took a moment to look out a window to the south. A few Uplanders were still clustered at the head of the trail down the cliff, but only a few, no more than a single clan, and even these were in the process of vanishing down into the canyon, leaving a muddy campsite behind.

That patch of gray mud was the only visible interruption of any size in a vast expanse of white stretching to the south and east. A few scattered trees and cisterns were faintly visible in the distance through the glare of sunlight on snow, but for the most part, when he looked out across the plateau, all the world seemed to be white snow beneath a gray sky, with a band of intense blue separating the two in the east, where the clouds were clearing.

But when he turned to the west the world fell away at the edge of the cliff, and what lay beyond, in the distance, was green and brown; no snow covered Barokan.

At least, not yet. He supposed that winter would reach the Lowlands soon enough.

How strange, though, that the weather could be so very different above and below the cliffs. Sword did not know whether it was simply because of the altitude, or because the
ler
of the two lands were so different, but he found it hard to comprehend. Up here it was winter; down in Barokan it was still autumn. He could step back in time by climbing down the cliffs.

Except, of course, that he did not dare enter Barokan. He was here, in the Summer Palace, for good reason; if he set foot in Barokan, the Wizard Lord would try to find him and kill him.

Of course, once the Wizard Lord found out he was here, Artil would try to have him killed anyway. He wouldn't care that it wasn't Barokan. His magic wouldn't work here, but he would still have his soldiers.

And it wasn't as if Sword could stay hidden in the palace and take the Red Wizard by surprise. There would undoubtedly be servants coming up here at least a few days in advance, bringing supplies and getting the palace ready, and there was no way that Sword could possibly avoid their notice. Even if he managed to hide somewhere, they would see that someone had been here; he realized now that it simply wasn't possible to spend an entire winter here without leaving obvious evidence. He would never be able to get all the curtains and blankets back where they belonged, or replace the candles he had burned.

Especially, he thought, since sooner or later he was going to need to build a fire, and he had gradually come to accept that the only real fuel he had on hand was the palace furnishings. He hated to do it, to destroy these lovely things, but he would almost certainly need to burn
something.
Venturing outside to find fuel—well, there simply wasn't much wood up here, and the grass and dung the Uplanders used were buried under the snow.

No, he wouldn't be able to just hide in the palace until Artil arrived. For one thing, his food supply would run out before that. Once the Uplanders returned from Winterhome, he would try to rejoin the Clan of the Golden Spear, so that he would have food and shelter. And when the Wizard Lord came to the Summer Palace, Sword would need to get back inside the walls somehow to kill him.

Getting back inside when the gates were guarded would be a challenge, but not insuperable, by any means. He could climb the wall late at night, or simply fight his way in. If there were any secret entrances, he had all winter to find them.