Oath Keeper
Page 36
“Well, worry cracks no rocks,” Kijamon said. It was one of his favorite sayings—a defense against the brooding nature that sometimes threatened to consume him. Although, he’d been saying it far too often in recent days for Shaleen’s liking.
The table they sat at was the small one she’d had brought down to the Wagon Hall. That was the rule between them. He was allowed to work anywhere he liked at all, so long as she was allowed to set a table near him. She’d told him it was so that they could still take their meals together, as husband and wife should. But in truth, she knew he resented having to take any time away from his work, and that if not for her bringing it to him, and then sitting with him while he ate, he would probably not eat at all. Especially now, when the lure of new knowings hung in the mist before his eyes.
Kijamon had insisted on moving his research out of their home level immediately after his discovery in the Hakkar. They knew so little of this Stegma magic, he’d said. It could easily prove to be wild when he finally figured out how to poke and twist at its tail. What if it proved to be a fearsome beast and he unleashed it in the great stone vessel that hung precariously above the entire community? The fact that he could imagine their great soaring home, with its massive arches and supports, carved from the solid flanks of the mountain in one continuous mass, as a danger to those below… Well, that thought alone spoke volumes about the forces he believed he might now be wrestling with. Or trying to.
“The bones yielded nothing?” she asked. At first, Kijamon had experimented with the usual Djin incantations, the magics of oath bonds, the words of metal and of rock, but found nothing. He had tested it with a variety of animals and plants, and even asked a Wasketchin artist to assist him for a time, attempting to tap into the rod with the magics of life and wonder, but all to no avail. Then he had tried a Gnome apprentice and their strange death magics—carcases, skins, horn, and even bone. Again to no result.
“I fear it may be triggered by the powers of the Other Dragon,” he said. The Other Dragon. Grimorl. Few Djin would speak the actual name aloud, but even a replacement name had power if you spoke it too freely. Call him what you would, the being it signified was the same.
“Truly?” Shaleen said, her tone pitched with wonder. “Then that would mean…”
Kijamon nodded. “It would mean that we are stuck. And since we cannot afford to be stuck, it cannot be so.”
Shaleen smiled. “So if it does not draw from our Houses, or from his, what remains?”
Kijamon shrugged. “The music, perhaps? Or perhaps nothing. I had hoped not to risk the music, but perhaps I must.”
Shaleen showed him her best puzzled look. “I don’t understand. Why have you not tried it already? You say it is of the House of Stegma, whatever that might mean, but you have not given it any vim of its House?”
Her husband shook his head. “The House of its Substance is not the same as the House of its Affinity. You know this. We Djin are of the House of Living Things. Nazem. Yet our affinity is for the House of Shezem, the Unliving. Even when the vim was rich in the world, no Djin could draw from any other House.”
Shaleen nodded. “And the Wasketchin, and the Gnomes?”
“They too are of the Living, of course, but only the Wasketchin affine to that House, the Gnomes affine to Mern.”
“And since you have sought affinity for this device of yours from all three of these Houses…”
“Without success. Yes. Then I must now test its affinity to its own House. And this is what worries me.”
“How so?”
Instead of answering her, Kijamon asked an unexpected question. “Of all the stories from old, of the great heroes and the mighty magics, which of them would you deem the greatest? The most powerful?”
Her husband sometimes took these unexpected branchings in his speech, and Shaleen was quite practiced in following after him, although it had taken her many years to suppress the frustrations such darting had once embroiled in her, and to cultivate an air of acceptance instead.
“I suppose Xolile,” she said, in answer to his question. “A mighty Queen who forged the first Houses from among the clans. She was always my favorite.”
Kijamon smiled at her. “Yes, but I’m speaking of the vim now. Which of the hero tales speak of the mightiest magics?”
“Oh. Well that’s easy. Notawhey, who is said to have flung the Judgment above the sky, with nothing but a sparrow for a helper.”
“Do any others come to mind?”
“What are you striding toward, Keej?” But her husband just gazed at her, waiting. “Okay. Um, Perdine, perhaps? Wasn’t she the one who made the rivers run backward for a span of three days? And, let me think… Oh yes. Ushua and his Vanishing Village. But what of them?”
“I agree,” Kijamon said. “Those are the greatest of magics from all the tales we know. Do you not see the obvious? What do each of these three mightiest weavers of charm share with each other?”
“I do not know,” she said. “They were all Wasketchin, but—”
“Exactly!” her husband said. “All of the greatest magics were uttered by beings of the Nazem, drawing from the Nazem.”
“So?”
“And so, my wife, I had hoped to temper the magics of this device as I learn its uses. If it had taken from one of the other Houses, I thought its effects might be less potent, but now I have no choice. No paths remain but the only path there ever truly was. It seems I must give it what it craves, and I fear its craving may be great.”
And then Shaleen understood. The rod would need music to release its full power and so her husband had been striving these long days to find anything else that could awaken a hint of its true purpose, because he feared that if he gave it a taste of what it wanted, that strange, eldritch device might not be satisfied with a mere taste. It might take more, gorging itself to its fill from the vessel that supplied its vim.
And she herself was the musician of the family.
Chapter 31
A gust of wind woke her. It whipped down the narrow channel she lay in, swirling the space full of rock dust and sand that pelted her into consciousness. They had spent the night in the relative safety of this stone slot, far from any open chasms or sudden drops, but it was a bit too claustrophobic for Tayna’s liking. Two tall rock walls faced each other, only an arms length apart. It was a crack in the mountain stone, and a short-cut from the front face to the back of the shoulder they had been climbing. Night had found them even more quickly than Tayna had expected, and by the time they’d reached its safe embrace, she had been too tried for anything but sleep, and had dropped to the ground in exhaustion. But now it was morning, and she stood up stiffly to begin stretching out the night’s cramps.
“So, we still need to have that discu—” Tayna looked around.
Abeni was gone.
Tayna let her arms drop to her sides as she turned a slow circle, but there was no sign of him.
“Abeni!”
The answering silence was almost spooky. Tayna walked back to the front face of the defile and looked down. There were no Djin of any kind climbing below. She placed a hand on the rock to steady herself and then craned around to look up. But that face too was entirely Djin-free. Big Whale?
There was no camp to break, so when Tayna reached the spot where she’d slept, she just kept going, working her way further into the crack, toward the rear face. Maybe he’d gone in search of better food. But she found no sign of him anywhere along the zigs and zags of the narrow track, and finally she reached the other side. Still with no indication of where her guide had disappeared to.
“Oh,” she said, as she emerged out of the dark defile to stand in the brilliant morning light. She was at the top of a spill of rocks and gravel that ran down a narrow V-shaped gully before spilling out into a wider notch. A wider hollow with a scrubby sort of vegetation scattered around the edges. Drab and gray, the low shrubs looked as though the rock itself had seeped into their leaves and branches and was in the
process of turning them to stone. Not a lush mountain glade by any measure, but it was more life than she’d seen anywhere else on the mountain since leaving the Wind Forge, and it had a simple, rugged tenacity that made her feel kind of proud of it, actually. Just for managing to exist here at all.
Again she let her eyes roam the slopes, turning to peer carefully up the slope above her as well, but there wasn’t so much as a shadow or a smudge of dirt to tell her where Abeni might have gone.
Below her, on the more level spill of gravel at the bottom of the notch, a pile of sticks and branches was nestled back against the mountain, where the slope of stone met the scattered rocks and pebbles. There was a dark hole at the front of the stick pile. Not quite a door, but possible an entrance to a hollow space inside.
“So it was a test,” she muttered. “He wanted to see how long it would take me to find him.” Tayna hated tests. Especially pointless ones. It made sense in a classroom, maybe. But here? This was stupid.
“I’m not playing, you big ape!” she called out, as she began to pick her way down the gravel slope. “Get out here and stop hiding. We have some serious—” But she was interrupted by a scream.
The scream of a terrified child.
The sound echoed around her, bouncing from notch wall to cliff face, from mountain slope to gravel slope. It was everywhere around her. But it was loudest from below. It seemed to be coming from the stick hut.
Without even thinking, Tayna jumped down the scree, and instead of stepping carefully, she was now sliding—surfing almost—on the clatter of gravel and stone that shimmered down the notch ahead of her.
“I’m coming!” she yelled. With arms pinwheeling for balance, Tayna managed to keep to her feet, but she had no idea what problem she was going to find when she got there. She needed backup.
“Abeni!” she hollered, hoping to get him to show himself, wherever he was hiding, now that there was a serious crisis unfolding. But a quick glance revealed no dark Djin smile emerging from the rocks around her.
Again the child cried. A girl, by the sound. Young. And absolutely petrified by something. It was a sound that tore through Tayna’s defenses and reminded her of bad things. Bad memories. Old and long forgotten memories, and onward she plunged, trying to will gravity to hurry her along.
Her wave of rock reached the bottom of the little valley, and Tayna leaped clear. Then she turned and ran toward the stick hut. “Hold on!” she called. “I’m coming!”
But just then a figure emerged from the dark interior of the hut and Tayna’s heart lurched into her mouth.
It was a smooth, black figure who stepped calmly from within and turned to look at her. His face was completely featureless, save for two small black horns on either side. The creature from her dream. The one who had held her on the mountain. With Angiron.
And in his arms, another child kicked and screamed against his vice-like grip.
Tayna felt all her fury drain from her, and in its place, terror flooded in. That same helpless terror that had once filled her, as it now filled this new girl in his arms. The smooth, black face twisted into a mocking grin, as though sensing her thoughts. Her paralysis. And then he turned and began to climb the rock face, while the little girl struggled and screamed over his shoulder.
“Abeni!” Tayna screamed, wrenching herself back into motion and wheeling around to search the rocks. This was no game or stupid Djin test. This was an emergency. “Abeni! Help!”
But there was no reply. And above her, the jet-black kiddy napper from her nightmares climbed smoothly away up the mountain face.
“Dammit, not again!” Tayna cursed. And with a sudden blast of fury driving her forward, she ran to the rock face and began to climb after him.
Chapter 32
They sat on the ledge that, as boys, they had imagined gave them dominion over all of the city below. Situated a little ways above their family home, at the crest of the ridge into which it had been carved, this was the ledge that Kijamon had made for himself in that very first week of his labors. It had served as his kitchen, his workshop, and his sleeping pad for five years, until the very last cube of his great construction had been removed and his wonderwork polished to a high gleam, ready for a young man and his new wife to take up residence. Abeni had come here, at his brother’s urging, so that they might talk in private. There was something bothering the Mizar of House Kijamon, and for some reason, he did not wish their parents to hear them speaking of it.
Below them now, the scurrying of people across the Trail of Sky, and even farther below, in the Mother’s Garden, was no different than on any other day. But on this day, those movements seemed heavier. More ominous. As if every step and stride was filled with portent.
Or perhaps it was the day itself that hung heavy.
“He is no king,” Zimu said. “No leader of Djin. He leads as a carrot might do, or this flake of stone.” Abeni watched his brother pluck a splinter of the mountain from the ledge and squeeze it between his massive fingers, as though throttling the King in effigy.
“What does he do but sit still and listen?” Zimu muttered. “He hears all. But what does he say? Nothing. What does he do? Nothing. He leads nowhere. And that, even a rock could accomplish.”
Abeni sat quietly through his brother’s tirade. In all of his life, he could not remember a time when he had seen Zimu so angered. Perhaps when they had been boys, but certainly not since Zimu had come of age and taken the role of Mizar. Always, this had been the placid brother. Yet now, here he was, returned from only a brief sitting of the Court, and he could scarce contain his spit and temper over what had transpired.
“But surely Mabundi must listen and consider carefully,” Abeni suggested. “Perhaps he will take action soon.”
“Fah!” Zimu spat. “Today, the Gnome did not appear at Court, and what did Mabundi do? He did not pronounce any great decision. He did not continue to hear the complaints of those who stand outside his Hall waiting for the King’s Wisdom. Instead, he Stilled the Court and sent all attendants out in search of the missing Gnome.”
“Is it not proper for the King of All Djin to wish to know the thoughts of his neighbors?” If there was one aspect of Djin life that seemed foreign to Abeni, it was the undecipherable etiquettes and maneuverings of the Anvil Seat. Normally, he rejoiced that such concerns were rightly Zimu’s, but today he felt only sympathy for his troubled brother.
“To hear? Yes,” Zimu spat. “But to Still all talk until he can be found? That is not ‘hearing.’ That is ‘toadying.’ One can smell the rust stains gnawing upon the Seat already. And what of hearing both neighbors? Why does he bend himself to one while neglecting to even invite the other?”
“Perhaps Mabundi fears to offend the Gnome King,” Abeni said, but Zimu shook him off.
“No. It is more. Tongues stretch out from the Throat to lick the Anvil Seat,” Zimu grumbled, “and Mabundi King sees only these attentions. He has closed his eyes to his duty.”
Even Abeni knew what that meant, and it filled him with cold shock. “Zimu would say this to him? Say to all Djin that Mabundi is oathblinded?”
Zimu nodded then and Abeni could feel the weight of his brother’s gaze turn upon him. “It is why I have asked you to sit with me, Binto.”
Abeni smiled. It was the name his brothers had called him when he was little. And for Zimu to remind him of it now meant that he was going to ask Abeni for a great favor. A favor that could only be asked between steadfast brothers.
Zimu lowered his voice. “I have learned of a way by which what must be done might be done,” he said. “But it is best that Mother and Father be absent. So that they can rightly claim no foreknowledge of what I intend.”
Abeni’s eyes went wide. “But surely the Mizar would not bind the House without their knowledge!”
Zimu smiled. “What I intend will not bind our House, Binto. Nor bring disgrace to any, save myself, if I fail.”
“But what then? What thing will Zimu do?”
Abeni could not remember Zimu having ever asked him for a favor. Not once. But if there was something that Warding the Wagon together had taught him, it was that Zimu always knew what he was doing. This was the brother who would never speak a word that he had not considered through a hundred different eyes. So different from Sarqi, who rarely even used his own before giving tongue to thought. In some ways, that bond between them—that of Warders—was even deeper than the blood they shared as brothers.
“Abeni will do as you ask,” he said. “Now Zimu must say. What does the Way Maker wish Abeni to do?”
So Zimu told him.
* * *
Zimu stood in the Hall of Honor, keeping himself near the back, and watched as Mabundi spoke the King’s mind. The search for Quishek had been intense, but brief. And when the Gnome could not be found, the pressure of a hundred supplicants waiting outside the Hall of Wind to seek the King’s Wisdom outweighed any preference Mabundi might have had for keeping the Court Stilled. So reluctantly, he had agreed to resume hearing grievances.
For as long as the Dragon’s Peace had prevailed, most petitions brought forward would have been dealt with by the Wisetongues, representatives of the King, who knew the law and the King’s mind, and could speak in his name on lesser matters. Such a one would investigate the facts of a grievance, interview any who might shed light upon it, and then render a wise and just solution.