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about all the
ler?”
Younger Priestess asked. Her hand reached up to rub at her forehead.
    Sword shrugged. “The men don’t appear to be having any real problems. A few cuts and scratches. They’re wearing protective clothing and carrying
ara
feathers.”
    â€œThey
are
disturbing the
ler,
though,” Elder said. “Many, many
ler.
We can hear them.”
    â€œAnd feel them,” Younger added.
    Sword glanced over his shoulder at the flashing machetes and thumping shovels. “They don’t seem to care.”
    â€œWell, they don’t need to live here!” Younger exclaimed. “Those are
our ler
 . . .”
    â€œNo,” Elder said thoughtfully. “They aren’t.” She looked at Sword. “They’ll stop at the border?”
    â€œI assume so. One of them said something about dancing in our pavilion tonight. I don’t think they mean
us
any harm, nor anything in Mad Oak.”
    â€œThey’re disrupting many spirits, though—earth and leaf and tree. And those won’t just quietly vanish.”
    The light and movement in those mounds alongside the road had told Sword as much. “What
will
they do?” he asked, genuinely curious. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
    The priestess frowned. “Well, they’ll dissipate
eventually
—a
ler
likethat without a home, without a solid object to bind it to our world, fades away in time.”
    â€œNot all
ler
are tied to objects, though,” Sword protested, looking down at the sword in his hand.
    â€œThe
ler
of the land are,” Elder said. “Any
ler
a priest can deal with is. The so-called higher
ler,
the abstract
ler,
they’re the domain of wizards, not priests, and I doubt they’re being disturbed by this. These men aren’t defying wind or fire or strength or warmth or any of those, they’re uprooting branch and stalk, and turning earth.”
    â€œSo the disturbed
ler
will dissipate . . .”
    â€œEventually. But until then they’ll strike out in any way they can. They’ll form into misshapen ghosts to strike at their attackers, they’ll look for things they can possess, new homes they can claim.”
    â€œBut the men are protected,” Sword said. “They’re wearing
ara
feathers, and good sturdy clothes.”
    â€œThen they may be safe enough, but I won’t walk that road they’re building any time soon. And I think we may want to keep a close watch on the livestock and the children for the next few days, and be wary of bad dreams.” She looked Sword in the eye. “Did they say who began this? Whose idea it was, to battle the natural order in this way?”
    â€œThe Wizard Lord,” Sword said. “The Lord of Winterhome.”
    â€œAh,” Elder said. For a moment no one spoke; then she added, “Do you think you may need to kill him?”
    The question was not as bizarre as it might seem, and Sword took it very seriously. The Wizard Lord was selected by the other wizards of Barokan, the so-called Council of Immortals, to rule over all the land from the Eastern Cliffs to the Western Isles, and was given great magical power to do so. The Wizard Lord controlled the weather, and had power over wind and fire, over disease, and over many of the beasts of the wilderness. He was empowered to serve as judge and executioner of any wizard who misbehaved, and any criminal who fled from the towns into the wild.
    And as a check on the dangers of such great power, eight ordinary people were chosen to take up special roles and receive limited magicalpowers of their own, and it was the duty of these eight to remove any Wizard Lord who proved himself unfit for his high office.
    Sword, the Swordsman, was one of the Chosen. The silver talisman he always carried in his pocket bound him to the
ler
of muscle and steel and ensured that he was the world’s greatest swordsman,