Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  She cleared her throat. “And I’d also like a full audit of all the counts against me,” she said. “Please.”

  A low growl of irritation from the Judge rattled the screen once more, and even hurt her ears. If the screen had been rigged for it, Tayna imagined that bolts of lightning would probably have lashed out and reduced her to an acrid stain at that very moment. But the Judge managed to contain his rage, mostly. The only sign he gave was the narrowing of his glare into razor slits of malice.

  “Read the charges into the record,” he thundered. And then the image on the screen snapped to black, and an off-stage voice began to recite a pile of legal gibberish. Tayna picked out a few words, like “malfeasance” and “dereliction,” but the Gnome was grabbing at her arm again and wouldn’t leave her alone to listen.

  “Whew!” he said. “Well, that should buy us some time, at least. What’s your name?”

  “What’s my name?” Tayna asked, her voice climbing in disbelief. “You’re my, what, defense lawyer? And you don’t even know my name?”

  The Gnome shrugged. “Well, considering that I wasn’t summoned until his fury-ness popped up into the air there, I think I’m allowed to be fuzzy on a few of the particulars. Got you this far, haven’t I?”

  Tayna wasn’t sure how to answer that. Where was here, exactly? And how far was it from anything else? But it didn’t look like she was surrounded by an army of friends offering to help, so she cut the little guy some slack, and stuck her hand out. “Sorry. I’m Tayna. Now can you tell me where I am and what the hell is going on?”

  The Gnome’s name was Yama, he said, and as far as he’d been able to piece together, Tayna was facing a big pile of very serious charges. Even he didn’t know what it was all about yet, but by having the charges audited and severed, she had bought them time to figure things out and mount some kind of defense. Before anything bad happened.

  “Bad?” Tayna asked, not liking the way Yama had averted his eyes when he’d said the word. He looked up at her sadly.

  “Well, the punishment for any of these charges is pretty severe,” he said. Tayna glared at him, waiting for him to explain. Yama picked idly at the fragmented leather on the arm of her chair.

  “If you’re convicted, the sentence is automatic,” he said. Then he swallowed hard and his voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ll be neverwased.”

  Tayna’s eyes widened. That did not sound good at all.

  * * *

  Eventually, the timid clerical voice reciting the charges ran out of accusations to make, and the screen flashed back into life. The Judge reappeared in mid-glare, staring down his nose at the entire world of clouds, and fixed Tayna in the cross hairs of his contempt.

  “Having severed the charges after entering the plea, the defendant now pleas, post hoc, to each charge in kind. To the charge of treason, she pleads, ‘Not guilty.’” The Judge then proceeded to rattle off a string of apparent legalese and mumbo-jumbo, but again, while he was talking, Yama grabbed at her hand.

  “This is the worst one,” he said. “You’re accused of being an agent of the Dragon Grimorl. They say you’re trying to sneak into the Forest, and that you are bringing a powerful magic here that you intend to use to throw open the rift between worlds and allow the Exile to return.”

  “What?” Tayna sputtered, but her eyes kept darting to the Judge on the screen, who continued to glare at her as he thundered on about due process and rights to appeal. She dragged her attention back to Yama. “I’ve been on the run for weeks! If I’m so powerful, why haven’t I just… I don’t know… vaporized everyone who’s chasing me? Or turned them into guacamole? Hell, I can’t even heal myself.” She held her arms out, showing the bruises and the torn skin of her wrists. Then she turned her face, to highlight the bruising there, and a quick glance down at her knees showed that the unhealed hurts were extensive.

  “That’s good,” Yama said, nodding thoughtfully. “If we can prove it, we can use it.” Then he looked back behind Tayna and gave a quick whistle. When she turned, two figures had formed out of the cloud bank and were walking toward them. One was in the shape of a Djin, the other a Gnome. When the two cloud-folk reached Tayna’s chair, they stood shoulder to shoulder, facing her.

  “All we have to do,” Yama said, “is show that you don’t have the powers you’re accused of having, but we have to be sure this will work, before I say anything to His Angriness. Just reach out and grab both of the v’ou du forms. If you have this completion magic they’re talking about, you should be able to pull power from both of these and use it to heal yourself. Give it a shot.”

  Tayna reached out uncertainly, and felt the strange tingling again as her hands settled on the wispy cloud shapes. They looked insubstantial, but to her inner sense, each form seemed whole, and she could feel their respective powers throbbing under her touch. As she had with Angiron and the Wagon earlier, Tayna reached out from within herself and pulled. She felt the electric snap as the forces connected within her and then she turned her attention to the aches and throbs that peppered her battered extremities. As her attention passed each hurt, the power within her sizzled and moved on, leaving a numb coolness in its wake.

  Yama’s eyes grew wider. “Uh oh,” he said. “That’s not exactly a convincing display of ‘I don’t have any power.’”

  Tayna looked down at her arms and was startled to see that the bruises had all faded, and the cuts and scabs had healed. Even the savagely twisted skin of her wrist was whole and unmarked. “Whoa!”

  Yama flicked a glance at the Judge, who was still reciting relevant case law or something. “Well, we can’t claim lack of power, so we’ll have to see if you can get away with declaring lack of intention. Here—” Yama reached into the stack of papers and drew out a thin plate, flicking it with a finger and listening to it ring. “Dragon scale,” he said. “Place your hand on this and pull power from it. Then, while you’re drawing, simply declare your peaceful intention and promise to uphold the Dragon’s Law, or something. That should be enough.”

  Tayna did as her guide asked, resting her fingertips on the scale that was both frigidly cold and searingly hot at the same time, yet warm to the touch. Again she felt the tingle of power and this time drew it within herself easily. “I, uh, Tayna, promise that I’m not here to wreck the Peace…” She looked at Yama, who nodded at her to continue. “…and that I’ll, er, fight evil throughout the land, wherever it may be hiding. Good enough?”

  Yama blinked in surprise. “You were actually able to do that,” he said. Then he shook himself. “That’s good. We can definitely use that. I thought for sure it would tear your arm off.”

  “What?” Tayna jerked her hand back away from the plate and cradled her fingers protectively with her other hand.

  The Gnome shrugged. “The Dragon’s Peace may have collapsed,” he said, “and maybe folks can lie all they want now, but not when they’re pulling power from a scale. It would either weld your mouth shut, or it would taint the vim. And if it did that, the backwash would rip you apart.” Then he smiled sheepishly. “I’m glad it didn’t though. Anyway, I think that should be enough to get this charge dropped.”

  Then her hairy little public defender stepped forward and began reciting legal gobbledygook at the screen. The Judge, who had seemed ready to conclude his lecture on caterpillar contract disputes, or whatever it had been, stopped talking and looked up from his papers. A moment later, Yama raised the dragon scale, which now glowed a shimmery yellow, and waved it under the Judge’s nose. The man’s eyes widened, and flicked once toward Tayna before returning to Yama and his evidence. Then he scowled and nodded.

  “The charge of treason is hereby dismissed,” the Judge intoned. But before Tayna could breathe even a breath of relief, the old man’s face twisted in savage delight.

  “Next charge!”

  * * *

  “Standing accused of sedition, the defendant has already pleaded, ‘Not guilty.’” the Judge rumbled. “Sedition is defined a
s an intention to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection…”

  “What?” Tayna hissed, as the Judge droned on with his definition. Yama patted her hand.

  “It’s when you try to talk people into rebelling against the government,” he said. “Did you do any of that?”

  The Judge’s monotonous voice filled the air with a low-pitched rumble as he continued his lecture. “…duly designated royal court, or the person of the Dragon, or Dragons…”

  “But I’ve never met the Dragon,” Tayna said. “I don’t even know if he exists. Not really.” Yama rolled his eyes.

  “Let’s not get into charges of heresy too, okay? You’re in enough trouble already. But you don’t have to meet the Dragon to be guilty of sedition. You just have to bad-mouth him where other people can hear you. And it doesn’t have to be the Dragon either. What about kings or queens? Have you complained about any royals in public lately?”

  Tayna’s face fell. “Oh crap!” she said. “Angiron! I haven’t shut up about what a gutter rat he is. And lots of people have heard me say it. Is that bad?”

  Yama’s eyes had widened when she’d mentioned the Gnome King. “You don’t like to pick easy fights, do you?” he muttered. “Why couldn’t you have insulted Malkior or spilled soup on Mabundi? They’re pretty easy going. But Angiron?” The Gnome shook his head sadly.

  “But he’s only been King for, like, a couple of days! And I’ve been… away since then. On the Cold Shoulder. Nobody out there could have heard what I said after he got crowned.”

  A glimmer of hope lit Yama’s expression. “You were alone? That might be enough.” But Tayna was shaking her head.

  “No, I was with Abeni, but he’d never—”

  The hope in Yama’s eyes went out and he frowned. “Doesn’t matter. Sedition isn’t about whether the people agree with you, or even if they’ll tell anyone. It’s about whether anyone heard you.”

  “And it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t in the Forest when I said it?”

  Yama shrugged. “You might be able to make an argument on that—if you had been talking to someone from out there. But you were talking to a Djin. And not just any Djin either, but one connected to a powerful family on the Anvil. You really want to drag them into all of this? The court might decide that it was a conspiracy and charge them too.”

  “Forget it,” Tayna said, waving her Gnome lawyer away with her hand. “Abeni is the only friend I have left. I’m not going to get him and his family into trouble just to save my skin. What’s the punishment for sedition?” But Yama didn’t have to answer her.

  “…punishable by torture, public humiliation, execution, and neverwasing,” the Judge continued, and then he went on to describe the ways in which those sentences could be carried out.

  Yama held silent for a moment, as the list of punishments reverberated in Tayna’s ears. Then he sighed. “Well, what did you say, exactly. Can you remember?”

  Tayna threw up her hands, exasperated. “What didn’t I say? My stupid husband is a scum-sucking, child-snatching son of a—”

  Yama’s hand flashed out, slapping over Tayna’s mouth so quickly that it produced a loud popping sound as he clamped down. “Are you insane?” he hissed. Then he paused to listen, with his head cocked to one side, but the Judge hadn’t broken rhythm, and was still reciting in gleeful detail all the ways in which the court was permitted to torture the guilty. The Gnome breathed a sigh of relief.

  “The court hears everything,” he said. “Even if the Judge doesn’t. So anything you say here can and will be used against you. Got it?” When she nodded her understanding, Yama removed his hand.

  “I suppose we could beg for leniency,” the Gnome said, but even Tayna knew how likely that was.

  “Where I come from, kids can’t be charged with serious crimes,” Tayna said.

  “It’s the same here,” Yama replied. “But you’re not a kid.”

  “But I’m only thirteen,” Tayna said.

  Yama shrugged. “Do you know right from wrong?” Tayna nodded. “And you’ve already flowered, or you wouldn’t have any powers. And in this world, that means you’re an adult. Old enough to know it’s wrong means old enough to punish.”

  “So you’re just going to give up? That’s it? Case closed?” Tayna pressed herself back into the leather padding of the chair, angry at her spineless lawyer. But after a breath or two, she realized she had no right being angry with him. This was all her fault. She’d been talking trash about the King. It wasn’t Yama’s fault that she didn’t know— “Wait a minute,” she said, turning to face her furry little adviser.

  “When I said all those things about him, I didn’t know he was King then. I thought he was still the First Prince.”

  Yama’s whole body brightened, and he stood taller. “Say, that might work,” he said. “Wouldn’t matter if you didn’t know it was against the law, but not knowing that the man you’re speaking ill of is the King… Well, it’s never been tried before, because most everybody knows who the Kings are, but with your special circumstances, that might…” The little Gnome turned away in mid-sentence and scuttled forward to address the screen, just as the Judge was finishing his lengthy explanation of the manner in which toenails could be pried off.

  “The defense presents an argument based on ignorance of fact,” Yama declared, fitting his words in elegantly, as the Judge drew another breath, and thereby not quite interrupting him.

  Tayna watched intently as the Judge thundered his rebuttals. Each time, Yama waited patiently for the long-winded Judge to complete his replies, before launching into a riposte of his own. But eventually the words spiraled down, and with each rebuffed argument, Yama’s shoulders dropped lower, until, at last, the Judge ended the conversation.

  “Defense rejected. It is not credible that the defendant did not know the identity of the King. The defendant is hereby found guilty as charged and will now be sentenced.”

  Tayna’s jaw flopped open, and her heart stopped beating in her chest. What? Guilty? Just like that? She stood up and stepped forward, looking up at the great Judge face hanging in the air above her.

  “That’s it? I don’t get to say anything else? I don’t get to call any witnesses? Ask Abeni! He was there! He didn’t know Angiron had been crowned either! He’ll tell—”

  “SILENCE!” roared the Judge. The thunder of his shout rocked Tayna backward, where she stumbled and flopped back into the chair behind her.

  “The defendant is permitted one defense, and one defense only. The defense of ignorance has been entered and overruled. The verdict stands.” There comes a time when you realize that you just can’t win—that the deck is stacked against you, the odds too great. A time like now.

  Tayna had lost.

  “This court rules that the defendant, Tayna, is guilty of sedition against the ruling house of Angiron, King of the Gnomileshi Horde. She is hereby sentenced to neverwas. Sentence to be carried out at the setting of the sun. All remaining, lesser charges are hereby dropped. This court is now concluded.”

  Then the view screen went black, and shapes of burly guards stepped out of the clouds around them and began to close in.

  * * *

  “Well, that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”

  The cloud guards had advanced until they’d formed an unbroken ring around her, but they’d come no closer. Apparently, their only concern was seeing that Tayna stayed put until her sentence was carried out. That left her sitting in her chair in the middle of the circle, with Yama leaning casually against the arm of the chair, at her side.

  She was too weary to even turn her head to face him, though. All she could do was slouch her eyes to the side and glare at him through the hair that now hung over her face. Other than that, she said nothing. What did it matter?

  Yama shrugged. “Sorry. I really thought we had him.”

  Tayna felt drained. “So that’s all? At sundown, I’ll just cease to exist?” The Gnome nodded. “And then what?”r />
  “Well, the path of time will be unwound, and you will be removed from it. Then it will be wound forward again, and all will be as though you had never existed.” At least he had the decency to sound sad about it.

  “Pretty extreme punishment, isn’t it? I mean, got kidnapped? That’s too bad. Raised in hell by evil harpies? That’s all fine. But say one word about the creep who did it to you and, ‘Off with her head!’ Does that sound fair to you?”

  “Is that really what happened?”

  Tayna flopped a hand at him in dismissal. “What do you care? I’m just another unlucky defendant. A tick mark in the ‘cases lost’ column. But so what if I mouthed off? Angiron’s an evil, sadistic creep and he should be on trial, not me. But is that going to happen? No. Of course not. He’s a king now. But we’ll take care of that girl he’s been victimizing. Oh yeah. She’s trouble. And when I get neverwased, and all those mean things I said about His High and Ugliness get undone, who’s going to be left to help my friends, huh? They’re still going to have crappy lives, because that nose-monster is still out there, still in charge, still doing sick things to helpless people.”

  “And that really matters to you?”

  Tayna rolled her eyes. “Of course it matters!” she shouted. “This used to be a pretty nice place, from what I can tell, but ever since the Peace collapsed, it’s been getting worse and worse and worse, and I’d bet my butt that Angiron’s behind every minute of it. Everything he touches turns to crap. For everyone except him. And now he’s taking his diseased road-show into Grimorl too. Like there aren’t enough pathetic orphans here to pick on.”

  Yama looked at her curiously. “So with all he’s done, and there you are with all that power you’re carrying… Yet you’d just ignore it? You’re not tempted to use it to get rid of that kind of evil? Kill him? Or turn his Horde into a sticky puddle of goo?”

  “Power? I don’t have any power. You think fixing a few bruises gives me the power to heal the world? Don’t be stupid.”