Oath and the Measure

by Michael Williams

  “I am Vertumnus,” said the intruder, in a voice mild and low. “I am the seasons turning, and I am the home of the past years.”

  “And the belfry for a thousand bats,” Derek muttered, but an icy glance from Lord Gunthar silenced the young man.

  “And what,” Lord Alfred asked, “does … m’lord Vertumnus want of us this Yuletide?” The High Justice was tense, ceremonious, his fingers playing across the gold pommel of his sword.

  “I wish to make a point near and dear to my heart,” Vertumnus announced, seating himself unceremoniously on the floor.

  He removed his helmet, and green fire danced at his temples.

  Sturm frowned nervously. He knew that dark enchanters were wizards of merriment, urging their victims to be less somber, less gloomy. Finally less good. Then, when they had you lost in laughter and song, they would …

  What they would do, he did not know. But it would destroy you.

  “You Solamnics gather like owls in these halls in the dead of the year,” Vertumnus said, “hooting of dark times and times past and how far the world has tumbled from ages of dream and might. Look around you—the Clerist’s Tower is a hall of mirrors. You can see yourselves from all vantages and angles, preening and garnishing and admiring your own importance.”

  “By your leave, Lord Alfred,” Lord Gunthar interrupted, his sword half drawn from its sheath. “By your leave, I shall show this … this pasturage the door, and perhaps the shortest way down the mountain.”

  Vertumnus smiled menacingly, his windburned face crinkling like the bark of an enormous vallenwood. The banners drifted in a warm, unseasonable breeze. “Never let it be said,” he announced calmly, the faint rustle of his voice surprisingly audible even in the farthest corners of the enormous chamber, “that when there is sword or mace or lance available, Lord Gunthar will settle for words or wit or policy.”

  “Mild words will not avail you, Vertumnus,” Gunthar menaced, oblivious to the insult.

  Lord Wilderness only laughed. Rising with a creak of armor and a rustling of leaves, Vertumnus waggled his flute at the foremost table, at the empty chair. It was a clownish gesture, but unsettling, even obscene. The older Knights gasped, and several of the younger ones drew swords. Calm and unhurried, Vertumnus turned gracefully about, brandishing the flute like a saber. It whistled hauntingly as he waved it through the air, and Sturm watched him in fascination.

  “To my point: There is a seat where no one sits,” Vertumnus observed. “Nor guest nor beggar nor orphan nor foreigner—none whom you have sworn by the Oath to guard and to champion. And the chair is empty this night and all others, a seat for the parrot and popinjay.”

  Lord Alfred MarKenin glowered at Vertumnus, who continued serenely.

  “For the Oath you swore in this nest of oaths,” Vertumnus claimed, his wild eyes riveted to the empty chair, “is dark and grim and wise in the depths of the night. But you have no joy in following it. Even this festival shows so.”

  “Who are you, outlander, to tell us of our joys and our festivals?” Lord Alfred boomed. “A thing of leaf and patch and tatters, to speak of Huma’s waiting chair?”

  Gunthar and Stephan turned suddenly toward the shadows, then back again, their faces unreadable in the shifting light. Suddenly Lord Alfred stepped from behind the table and, pointing at the Green Man, addressed him in a voice usually reserved for horses and underlings and untrained or untrainable squires.

  “Who are you to question our customs, the thousand year waiting of our dreams? You—you walking, tooting salad!”

  “Old man!” Vertumnus retorted and lurched, stopping mere inches from the High Justice. “You empty, gilded breastplate! You vacant helmet and flapping banner! You mask of laws and absence of justice! You tally sheet! You plodding ass with a snout for letters, foraging honor in a barren plain! If a prophetic breeze passed by you, you would mistake it for the flatulence of your brothers!”

  Sturm shook his head. The strange name-calling was too fanciful, almost silly, as though it were a duel of bards or, even worse, a quarrel of birds in the rafters. Lord Alfred MarKenin was the High Justice of the Solamnic Order, to be addressed in respect and deference and duty, but the Green Man rained words upon him, and, stunned and spellbound, the High Justice only staggered and fell silent.

  All about Sturm, his comrades fidgeted and coughed, their eyes on the windows and rafters. For a band of lads who delighted in banter and wrangling, they, too, were strangely quiet. Occasionally a nervous laugh burst out of the shadows, but no squire dared to look at another, and certainly none dared to speak.

  Now Lord Stephan stepped forth, his eyes bright with a sudden amusement. Sturm frowned apprehensively, for the old man was half wilderness himself, teasing the young knights from the strictest observance of the Oath and laughing at the far outreaches of the Measure, where grammar and table manners were set in stone for even the youngest Solamnics.

  It was a head wound sixty years back, suffered in some obscure Nerakan pass, that had rendered him oblique and irreverent. He seemed to be enjoying this shrill exchange, and Sturm realized, with rising embarrassment, that the old man was clearing his throat.

  “What, Lord Vertumnus, would you have us do?” the old man asked, his voice still loud and firm after eighty-five years. “What would you have of us, if we are hypocrites and masks of justice? I see no widows, no orphans with you. What have you done for the poor and the outcast and the unfortunate?”

  “I have made you ask that question,” Vertumnus replied with a sly smile. “You are an old fox, Stephan, full of more wisdom than a bloodhound could find in the rest of this roomful of addleheads. And yet the old fox doubles back on his trail, turning on his own stink until he circles the woods and goes nowhere.”

  “Poetry instead of policy, Lord Wilderness?” Stephan asked, his white beard rising like spindrift as he settled himself with a grunt and creaking of knees directly in front of the Green Man, who neither flinched nor backed away.

  “What I do for orphans is not your concern,” Vertumnus answered calmly, “for it does not change the ruinous shires of Solamnia, the vanishing villages and the fires and the famines and the new, unspeakable dragons. No orphan here would question me. No, he would second my outcry.”

  He paused, his dark eyes searching the room.

  “That is, if there were aught of orphans here.”

  You are wrong, Lord Wilderness, Sturm thought, shifting his feet, preparing to step forward.

  But no. “Orphans,” he had said.

  “Besides,” Vertumnus continued, “I have sworn no oaths to protect them.”

  A torch fluttered and gasped in a sconce near Sturm Brightblade, and Vertumnus raised the flute again to his lips.

  His melody hovered, sad and haunted, and within it, Sturm thought he heard something of autumn and dying and an impossibly vanished time. It was a thin, melancholy music, and the dead leaves whirled about the hall like ghosts fleeing an enchanter, yellow and black and hectic red.

  He is an enchanter, Sturm thought. He speaks in double-talk and riddles. Do not listen to him. Do not listen.

  Vertumnus took another step forward. He stood face-to-face with the ancient Solamnic lord, and their eyes met without anger, and words passed between them, so hushed that even Lord Alfred, who stood not two strides away from Lord Stephan, swore later that he could not hear what was said. Then the Green Man rocked back on his heels and laughed, and Lord Stephan Peres unexplainably sprouted foliage.

  Shoots and tendrils and branches flourished in the old man’s armor, so that leaves intertwined with his beard and vines entangled his fingers. Vertumnus stepped back toward the center of the hall and again played his flute, this time a merry summers air, and the elegant old man who had served long years as the steward for the missing High Clerist now blossomed sweetly with a hundred blue flowers, and a navy of yellow butterflies descended from somewhere out of the winter rafters and settled happily on Lord Stephan Peres.

  “ ’Ti
s enough!” Lord Gunthar exclaimed and stepped forward, his fists raised and doubled, but the legs of his table were sprouting, too, and corded roots snaked and tangled about his ankles, slowing his progress toward the center of the room. Stephan gestured, but his meaning was lost among the flowers. Vertumnus whirled from the charging Solamnic lord gracefully as Gunthar crashed into a table where the Jeoffrey brothers were seated, sending glassware and crockery and Jeoffreys scattering in all directions. Young Jack, who had apparently crawled beneath the table in search of better banquet leavings, scrambled to safety as the table collapsed and then began to take root in the floor, its dark boards branching and budding.

  Someone pushed Sturm aside. “For the Oath and Measure!” Lord Boniface shouted, and surged rashly into the center of the room. His sword was drawn and his shield ready, his cold blue eyes as bright as tempered steel with the prospect of battle. Vertumnus spun about, winked at the Knight, then turned to face the onrush of one of the Jeoffrey brothers as Boniface fell facefirst onto the stone floor, his leggings mysteriously fallen about his ankles.

  The Jeoffrey reconsidered, then fainted, and wordlessly Vertumnus leapt atop another table, hurdling the grasp of the other Jeoffrey, who suddenly found himself rooted to the floor like a sapling. The young Knight cried out, and the room fell to an ominous stillness, a dozen men poised for attack, their single adversary dancing on one foot atop the table, flute raised to play again.

  It is an indignity! Sturm thought. An indignity past the telling and enduring. He caught Derek’s eye as he stepped forward, scarcely thinking about what he was doing, and drew his shortsword. Aside from that of the thoroughly embarrassed Boniface, it was the only bare blade in the room. It had never even been blooded.

  Vertumnus twirled to face the lad, then ceased his dance. A mournful shadow passed over his face, and he nodded. As though in reluctant agreement, he stepped down, set aside his flute, drew his own enormous sword, and moved to the center of the great hall. The Knights of Solamnia stood rooted and helpless amid the green thicket of broken tables. Peering through the leaves and shadows, they watched the swordsmen circle each other, Green Man and green lad.

  Sturm knew at once and too late that he was overmatched. Vertumnus had the thoughtless grace of an expert swordsman, and the blade took life in his hand. He spoke to the lad as they circled each other, his words as soft and insinuating as the wind, his eyes locked on Sturm’s.

  “Set it aside, boy,” Vertumnus whispered, the dark eyes flickering. “For you know not the forest you’re bordering … where the blade fails against darkness and thorn.…”

  “Enough poetry!” Sturm muttered. “My sword for Brightblade and the Order!” He would at least make a good show of it.

  But his thrust was tentative and slow. Vertumnus brushed it lightly away.

  “For Brightblade and the Order?” the wild man hissed, suddenly behind the lad, who stumbled as he wheeled to face him. “For the Order gone bad in the teeth and botched? For a father … your father … who had no business with Solamnic honor?”

  “No business?” Sturm’s hand wavered with his voice. Vertumnus backed away from him, eyes on the main entrance to the council hall, to the stairway and the winter night. He thought he heard Derek snicker. “No business? Wh-what do you …”

  Lord Wilderness’s dark stare returned, fierce and almost predatory. With a swift turn of the wrist, as bright and elusive as summer lightning, Vertumnus’s sword flashed by Sturm’s uncertain guard and plunged deep into his left shoulder.

  Dazed, breathless, Sturm fell to his knees. His shoulder, his chest, his heart blazed with green fire and lancing pain. The air hummed about his ears like a choir of insistent gnats, their song mournful and menacing.

  So this is dying I am dying dying, his thoughts tumbled, and suddenly the pain subsided, no longer unbearable but dull and insistent as, to Sturm’s consternation, the wound in his shoulder closed swiftly and cleanly, the fresh blood fading from his white ceremonial tunic. Yet the pain burrowed and seared, as insistent as the humming in the air.

  “Look about you, boy,” Vertumnus said scornfully. “Where is a place for a man like your father among the likes of these?”

  Sturm forgot his wound at once. He shouted and surged to his feet, his young voice cracking with emotion. He rushed toward Vertumnus blindly, both hands bracing the shortsword. Calmly his opponent stepped aside, and the blade lodged deeply in an oaken limb, recently sprung from the heart of Huma’s chair.

  The lad tugged at the sword and tugged again, glancing frantically over his throbbing shoulder as Vertumnus stepped menacingly forward. Then slowly Vertumnus lowered his sword. He measured Sturm as the boy labored his blade from the hard wood and smiled when the young man whirled awkwardly to face him.

  Vertumnus’s grin was baffling, as unreadable as the edge of the wilderness. It angered Sturm even more than his words. With another cry, he lunged at his adversary, and Vertumnus’s knees buckled as the lad’s blade drove cleanly into his chest.

  Chapter 2

  The Call of the Measure

  ———

  The flute clattered to the floor and lay still. Instantly the chill of winter returned and settled painfully about the Knights’ feet. The hall lay silent, as if the air were frozen.

  “Sturm …” Lord Stephan began in astonishment. The young man staggered, wrenched free the sword, and Vertumnus fell forward solidly and quite lifelessly. Gunthar rushed toward the Green Man, and Sturm winced as the strong hand of Lord Alfred clutched his shoulder.

  The smear on Sturm’s blade was clear and wet, and the resinous smell of evergreen rose from its blood gutter. He turned wildly, marking the puzzlement of Alfred, of Gunthar, Lord Stephan’s strange wounded stare, and, by the sundered table, the anger of Lord Boniface, who glared incredulously and jealously at the lad, then stooped to wrench up his leggings.

  “What have you done, lad?” Alfred bellowed. “What have you …” The question rang in the hall, again and again, the only sound in the abject, cavernous silence.

  Then Vertumnus sprang up and pushed the astonished Lord Gunthar aside. Throughout the hall rushed an enormous intake of breath, as though the room itself had gasped. As Lord Wilderness touched the wound in his chest, it puckered and closed like a scar in living wood. Serenely his eyes sought Sturm’s.

  “It has come to this, young Brightblade. You have made your point and mine,” Vertumnus announced, and the stones at his feet grew over with thick moss.

  “The rest is your own foolishness. You have entered my game. Which, alas, you must now play to its end, as your shoulder will tell you daily and nightly.”

  Outside the window, the songbirds choired again. Wide-eyed, Sturm looked from the Green Man to his unwiped sword, from the sword back to Vertumnus. In great perplexity, with controlled focus, the young man touched his blade. It was dry and clean.

  “Meet me on the first day of spring,” Vertumnus ordered, again with a strange smile. “In my stronghold amid the Southern Darkwoods. Come there alone, and we shall settle this—sword to sword, knight to knight, man to man. You have defended your father’s honor, and now I challenge yours. For now I owe you a stroke, as you owe me a life. For it is written in your cherished Measure that any man who returns a blow must stay the course of battle.”

  Sturm looked about him in confusion. Gunthar and Alfred stood frozen on the dais, and Lord Stephan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth.

  Hawk-eyed, expectant, Lord Boniface nodded. What Vertumnus said concerning returning blow was indeed enshrined in the Measure. Sturm was trapped in an ancient statute by his impulsive deed.

  “I will lead you to that place when the time comes,” Vertumnus announced. “And you might learn something of your father in that place and time. However, you must make your own way. If you fail to meet me at the appointed place, on the appointed night, your honor is forever forfeit.

  “Nor is your honor alone in jeopardy,” Lord Wilderness continued with a
mysterious smile. “For indeed, you owe me a life, Sturm Brightblade, and you will pay it whether or not you arrive at the appointed time.”

  Dramatically he gestured at the lad’s shoulder.

  “You can come like a child of the Order and meet my challenge,” he pronounced, “or you can cower in the halls of this fortress and await the greening of your wound. For the deeds of my sword bloom forth in the spring, and their blossoms are dreadful and fatal.”

  The hall filled with more leaves and vines and tendrils, with briars and roots and branches enough to take a week to clear. The Green Man closed his eyes, bowed his head, and vanished amid the rustle as the torches on the walls burst suddenly into a cold white flame. Astonished, Sturm squinted through the shadowy thicket, but Vertumnus was truly gone, leaving behind mist and woodsmoke and the watery, metallic smell of the woods after lightning.

  “Of all the trouble you might have uprooted, lad,” Lord Alfred proclaimed sorrowfully, “of all you might have done or left undone, this indeed was the worst of things.”

  “The worst of things?” Sturm asked. “I … I don’t …”

  Already, with their sober efficiency, the young knights were clearing the hall of foliage and brambles. Sturm stood in the midst of the razing and repair, looking up at the assembly of Knights who had gathered beside the empty throne of Huma. The young man shook his head, trying to banish the night as he would a confusing dream.

  “Will you follow me, Sturm Brightblade?” Lord Alfred asked, this time in a softer voice. Gunthar and Stephan closed ranks behind him, their ceremonial armor glittering almost blindingly. From their places amid the wreckage of Vertumnus’s visit, Lord Adamant and Lord Boniface joined the formidable triad.

  Like suns, the lad thought. Like suns and meteors. I cannot approach them, and it is hard even to look at them.

  “I thought …” Sturm began, but in the echoing hall, his voice was thin and weak. He couldn’t say what he had thought. He could no longer think of it.