Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  Shaleen straightened herself up and began to focus on her breathing. Even if she was to sing the song of their death, it would be sung properly.

  At first she had thought she might bring her bells to play, but in the end, they had opted for the simplest instrument they could conceive. Her voice. When he was ready, she would sing for him. For it. And then they would see what they would see.

  As they had descended the Trail of Sky, he had noticed a brightening of the sparks that played along its surface, and the purple-blue crackle had grown ever brighter as they’d continued their way down into the caverns. Now Kijamon was almost radiant in its purple-blue light. He looked so majestic, standing there, waiting. Shaleen shuddered. She suddenly realized that she didn’t trust this little thing. This object that had lain dormant, sleeping, in the bed chamber of her children for so many years. The quiet crackle of its gleaming. The faint smell of burned metals. Despite its simple, visual beauty, was it actually an ugly thing? A wrong thing? Fear began to gnaw at the back of her mind.

  Kijamon raised the rod a trifle, into what he judged to be the very center of the chamber. Then he took a deep breath and nodded to her.

  “Simply now,” he said. “A scale. Three notes should do. Nothing more for now. And slowly, if you would. Let’s give ourselves time to stop if need be.”

  Shaleen looked at him. He was nervous. Shattered crystals, they were both nervous. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, and then drew in her air, letting the cavity of her lungs fill with the roundness of it.

  “Shaaa-a-a-a-ah,” she sang, letting the note rise slowly to fill the cavern. And then, while that note still reverberated, she offered another, higher tone to blend with it. “Draaa-a-a-a-ah,” she sang, letting this note harmonize with her own echo. And then a third, completing the full clutch, “Zo-o-o-o-oh!”

  The sound was haunting, beautiful, and it echoed throughout the chamber like a chorus of ancestors, filling the room with its power.

  With the third tone added to the previous two, the rod had begun to shake, and Kijamon’s eyes danced with the excitement of seeing a new thing. It shook so badly that it fell from his hands and dropped to the floor where it continued to rattle and shake.

  And then it began to turn.

  Slowly at first, and then faster, and faster again, until it spun itself up on end and began to whirl in a blinding blur of sparks and speed. The last tones of her song faded into silence, but still the rod spun faster and faster, and when at last it seemed it could accelerate no more, the spinning rod rose into the air between them. Sparks flared and danced, lighting the entire space with a blue and vengeful glow. The song was gone utterly now, but still the rod continued to spin.

  Kijamon raised a finger and pointed. There, at the tip of the spinning rod, a blackness formed. And with it, a roar crashed around them, as though a great sea were rushing through the caverns toward them, or as if the mountain itself were bellowing in fury. Or pain.

  The walls began to shake, and suddenly, Shaleen was aware of the wind. It had been rising all the while, but only now did she notice how the air rushed about the room, pulling at her hair and tugging at her shawl. Kijamon pushed her away, back toward the low entrance, and he moved to follow, but the shaking of the cavern was too great, and he could not seem to get a foothold against the floor.

  Shaleen fell backward through the gap, into the tunnel beyond, and before her she could only watch in horror as a hole of air opened wide within the chamber. The mountain screamed and roared around her and the wind clawed like a desperate creature. Again the floor threw her, and again she fell against the rocks. Kijamon was floating now, caught in the air that swirled around the chamber, and behind him, the hole of nothingness stretched wider. It was like a mouth of rushing air, and each time Kijamon’s flailing form completed an orbit, he came closer and closer to its yawning maw.

  Kijamon turned his face toward her, yelling something, trying to be heard above the screaming of the wind and the raging of the mountain. The cavern shook again, and a third time. Each time, Shaleen was flung farther back. With a desperate push, she regained her feet, pressing out against the stone with both hands to steady herself against the quaking of the world around her. She took one step. Then a second. Straining against the banshee of wind and bouncing stone. Trying to reach for her husband.

  In the air in front of her, Kijamon had given up trying to make himself heard. He was tired. And when his eyes fell on hers, she knew.

  “NOooo!” she cried, her voice tearing a hole through the noise and echoing from the very stones, but it was not enough. Kijamon touched his heart briefly with one hand, and smiled at her, and then his eyes twinkled in delight at the unknown.

  And the vortex claimed him.

  Kijamon, Master of Beauty, Architect of the Wind Forge, thrice declined king of the Djin—her husband—was gone.

  * * *

  The world crawled past her in streaks and smears of color. Sounds reached her only as distant throbs, dim pulses of life that pressed against her shattered senses, trying to get in.

  But Shaleen had not yet seen or heard them.

  How she had found her way out of the caverns she did not know, nor how long she had been gone. The sky above her was bright. Daylight. In some abstract sense, she knew she had found her way back to the city, but she wandered through it now as though a child. Bewildered. Confused. Desperate. Some nodded greetings as she passed, others showed frowns of concern, but none approached. None pressed. None forced her to scream her news in a public place and then collapse upon the stones once its weight had escaped her lips.

  Because her news was the only thing holding her together. She must tell someone. Someone in charge. Someone in authority. But who? Echoes of names rose to suggest themselves in her mind. Zimu. Abeni. But she did not know where her sons would be. And the Trail of Sky was so tall, and the Wind Forge so high above her. She could not climb so much higher today.

  The people she passed were huddled in small groups, talking urgently and quietly among themselves, but they stilled themselves when she approached. They watched her, many with sadness in their eyes. Had they heard? How could they know already? But she saw none she knew well, and her words must not be wasted on strangers.

  A turn, and then another. A small rise. And then she knew where she was, only now realizing that she had been coming here all along.

  The private apartments of Mabundi King. He would know what to do.

  With her grief powering every swing of her fist, she pounded on the King’s door. It was not Mabundi who answered, of course. But nor was it a servant.

  It was Yoliq.

  The Queen stood before Shaleen, eyes red from weeping and her hair frazzled from its normally tight-wrapped bindings. How could she too have heard? It did not matter. Shaleen lurched forward two final steps and fell to her knees.

  “Oh! My Queen!” she cried, gasping for enough air to deliver her message. “All is lost! Kijamon is lost! And more! We’ve killed the Dragon!” And then she collapsed upon the cold, bare floor. “My husband is dead!” It is well that she did not see the expression her news brought to the Queen’s face.

  It was a smile of unexpected delight.

  Chapter 34

  Sarqi was the first to emerge into the light, and he stood there, blinking in the welcome brilliance. Beyond the tip of the Spine, where he now stood, the vast open bowl of the Gnomileshi Throat lay spread out below him. A smudge of gray-brown blurred the air, making it hard for him to discern any actual towns or villages. The great flying crop was thick and plump today, centered lower down in the middle of Gnomileshi territory. It did not reach all the way up to the Lip, leaving that portion of Gnome land plainly visible below him. So plainly that he could easily see the lack of pursuit. No Horde scampering up the slopes. No trackers climbing the flanks of the Spine to recapture the missing Wasketchin Queen. It appeared that they had gotten away.

  The wide and distant view felt like new breath in his l
ungs after such a long, cramped climb up through caverns and tunnels in near-total darkness. But at last, Sarqi turned to where Qhirmaghen’s face poked from the ground, still framed by the crowding gloom of the tunnel mouth.

  “We are clear,” Sarqi announced. Glancing around nervously, Qhirmaghen clambered up out of the tunnel into the light, drawing the Queen along in his wake, still vacant and unresisting.

  Though some disputed the fact, this place where they now stood was properly Wasketchin territory, and Lord Malkior would not likely be pleased to learn that his Gnome neighbors had dug a secret tunnel into his lands. But Sarqi could only hope that he would receive the news with more grace when he learned that it was also the route by which his Lady Wife had been brought to freedom.

  Qhirmaghen ducked back down into the tunnel to retrieve their packs, and for a moment, M’Ateliana seemed to stand alone, in solitary vigil, unconsciously mimicking the great Mourning Dove statue that had been erected in her late daughter’s honor, and which, until recently, had stood upon this very spot.

  But that statue had been seen as an affront by the Gnome people, and by destroying it, Qhirmaghen had taken a bold stand in his recent bid to become King of the Gnomileshi Horde.

  Happily, neither the Wasketchin nor Gnomileshi Kings knew of this tunnel’s existence. Angiron did not know that it might be used as a means of escape from the Throat, and Malkior did not know that it might be used by Gnomes as a hidden path into his territories. So neither King had set a watch here. By all portents, it would seem their escape had succeeded.

  With two packs in hand, the Gnome climbed up out of the tunnel and came forward. Sarqi took the burden from him with a nod of thanks.

  “The Horde will be looking for you down along the rim of the Throat,” Qhirmaghen said. “They won’t be on your trail. You should have no trouble reaching safety from here.”

  “So you’ve made your decision then?”

  Qhirmaghen nodded. “King Angiron tells me little of his plans,” he said. “My value as an informant to Lord Malkior would be empty. I’m just an administrator. I keep things running while Angiron plays his games of war and conquest. I can be of much better help working from within his Court. If I have not been discovered.”

  Sarqi nodded. “And you have remembered nothing more that might assist me in undoing this wickedness?” He raised his hand, and the Queen’s with it. When Sarqi had finally caught up to them, just as they were disappearing into Ishig’s Book, he had taken her hand then and sworn a new oath upon that spot. At the time, he thought he had felt a slight squeeze of thanks from his absent Lady, but since then, there had been nothing. Only the empty staring eyes and this infernal shambling listlessness, but he knew she was still in there, and he was determined not to present her back to her Lord husband still in this… distant condition.

  Qhirmaghen shrugged. “Only what I have said. The vim Angiron uses is not of this world. It is carried in a water that arises in some other place. Some say it comes from the River of Death itself. I know only that this is what each of his Hordelets carries with them into battle. But I do not know the charms of its magic, nor how to break them. You will have to discover that for yourself.”

  Sarqi’s face twisted in a grimace of annoyance. “And you are certain I will recognize the craft of these death chalices that you speak of? The ones that carry the vim water?”

  “You will,” Qhirmaghen said, nodding rapidly. “Brilliant gold in color. They were made by your father.”

  The Djin’s sour expression deepened. He had no reason to disbelieve the claim, which he had heard several times already, but he still resisted the possibility of any association between House Kijamon and the vile magic of King Angiron’s war. Had his father known? Sarqi shook his head in annoyance. Of course not.

  Sarqi reached his free hand out and placed it in firm thanks upon the Gnome’s shoulder, squeezing only a little. A grip of camaraderie. “Well, safe journey to you then, my friend. Go back to your darkness and work whatever mischiefs you can to disrupt the coming battle. I will see her Ladyship to safety.” Then he let his face beam with the brightest smile he could muster, filling it with all the warmth he felt for his absent brothers and letting it wash over the little Gnome. “Spend that wisely,” he said.

  Qhirmaghen nodded his thanks, and then turned away, scuttling back into the blackness of his dark road home.

  “I hope they do not lie in wait for you,” Sarqi mumbled, then he too turned from the spot and lead the Queen away along the crest of the Spine.

  They still had a long journey ahead of them.

  * * *

  Water was everywhere on the Spine, though little of it was usable. It seeped directly from the stone itself, beginning as a thin sheen of surface dampness near the central ridge, and then flowing outward from there, but it seldom collected deeply enough to be useful—not before it had plunged down the sides to collect at the base of the Spine, anyway. It was a trifle deeper out on the sloped flanks, but anyone who ventured out that far to collect it risked slipping on the water-polished stone and a quick plunge to their death, several hundred paces below. The waters shimmering down the flanks of the Spine gave rise to the rivers and streams that sustained all life throughout the Forest. Ironically though, all that water was of precious little aid to those who walked upon the Spinetop itself. Only a very few places on the upper surface were cracked or scalloped enough to allow the flow to collect to a useful depth.

  So as they made their way northward, Sarqi kept his eyes open for a suitable place to make camp, and it wasn’t until night was nearly upon them that he found what he was looking for. A shallow pool of water glinted only a few dozen strides from a large thrust of rock that jutted from the Spine, a break against the winds that constantly shrilled and swirled around them. Upon finding it, Sarqi ushered the Queen forward quickly, pleased that he was able to offer her shelter from the constant buffeting. Perhaps he would be able to get her to take some tea.

  There were no trees to speak of growing on the barren ridge, but there were a great many mosses at hand, and some few tiny shrubs, all fed by the constant sheen of moisture. Sarqi was able to gather enough of this humble fuel to make a small fire. If he could keep it burning, the warmth of the blaze would keep the worst of the night’s chill from M’Ateliana’s bones.

  While he worked to establish their simple camp, Sarqi worried. The Wasketchin Queen still had not awakened from the Gnome spell that robbed her of her awareness, and he was beginning to fear that the charm might never be broken. Certainly not by him. He was neither a loremaster, nor was he especially talented in any uses of vim that did not relate to the shaping of stone or the Warding of the Wagon. Those thoughts teased at him as he worked, ducking in and out around his own logic, until finally, with an effort of self-mastery, he banished these unproductive worries to the back recesses of his mind, and focused on establishing camp. The job of healing the Queen’s condition must be left to the actual loremasters and vim experts. Sarqi’s job was merely to deliver her to them.

  Darkness had fallen swiftly on the exposed ridge, and with it, the winds had slackened somewhat. Sarqi was pleased that, for the first time since leaving the tunnel, he could hear the simpler sounds. Once again, he could hear the rustling of his clothes as he moved his arms, the gentle “duff” when he tossed a handful of moss onto the flames. He heard it sizzle and pop as the green bits heated rapidly and burst from within. When the dry clump at the center of the moss caught, it did so with a satisfying whoosh, and threw a brighter light onto the rocky slab that hung over them. But M’Ateliana seemed to take no satisfaction from any of it. She just sat there, with her back against the stone, her features flickering and dancing in the shifting light. It was the closest thing to a lively expression he’d seen on her face since he’d first spotted her in the Gnome prisoner march. But rather than take heart, this only worried him more. Would her face ever dance with a light of its own again? Sarqi sighed. Worrying about such questions solved nothing.
There was still work to be done.

  Now that the fire was crackling, he rooted about in the pack and found the small supply of dried meat that Qhirmaghen had given him. It had obviously come from some Wasketchin supplier, since the Gnomes themselves did not like their meat in solid form, but even so, he had not been able to get the Queen to eat any. He’d tried earlier, hoping that its familiarity might ignite her interest in other foods, but even though she hadn’t shown any interest then, he dug out another small piece now and set it in her hand. Perhaps the day’s continued exertions might have awakened a more demanding hunger within her.

  His next task was water. After watching M’Ateliana for a moment to see if she might eat, or move, Sarqi sighed in disappointment. She’d be safe enough for a moment, it seemed, so he left her huddled there beneath the stone sentinel and walked back to the shallow pool to fill his water skin. It was a bladder of some kind, fashioned from the hollowed out organ leathers of some unknown creature and provided by Qhirmaghen, but Sarqi didn’t really want to know more. Those with empty hands did not shrug their shoulders at any gifts placed in them.

  He unrolled the stiffened bladder and plunged its neck into the chill water, then waited for it to fill. While M’Ateliana may not eat, at least she would take water readily enough, by some vacant reflex. All he had to do was spill it into her mouth, and her body would do the rest, as though it knew enough to keep itself alive, even when its owner did not.

  A burp of air bubbled up out of the skin and then it began to fill in earnest. When it had bubbled its last bubble, Sarqi hefted it over his shoulders and carried it back to the fire.

  “Any thought for where I shall take you, my Lady?” The Djin Ambassador settled himself at the fire once more and pulled a small metal cup from the sack. “The time of our deciding is almost upon us,” he said, making simple conversation to mask the sorrow that the Queen’s silence fostered within him.