Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  And with it they unmade everyone who stood in their way.

  “I will help you,” he said, as he reached down to take her by the hand and draw her up to her feet.

  M’Ateliana was soaked wet on one side, and the wind that snapped and snarled around them no doubt chilled her, but there was nothing Sarqi could do about that. They had no other clothes for her to wear and there was no shelter. Now that she was on her feet, they would have to rely on the sun and the wind to dry her. At least the air was warm. Soon she would be as comfortable as any could expect her to be. Even if she would not be aware of it.

  With the Queen seen to, Sarqi returned to examine the White One more closely. He had never seen its like before. It was tall and slender. Taller than most Djin, with a dense coat of white-gray fur over strange, lavender skin. Thick muscles corded across its chest and shoulders, and ran down into long, tapering arms. The legs too were thick and powerful. Sarqi was glad he had not had to fight such a foe, yet he could not imagine why the Gnomes might have brought him along if not to fight. What other purpose could such a companion have served? The creature still stood next to the body of the Gnomileshi Mind Chanter. A small strand of rope bound them together, with one end tied tightly to the creature’s wrist and the other ending in a tight coil wrapped around the hand of the fallen Gnome.

  The White One offered no resistance as Sarqi untied the rope around his wrist and then lifted the large sack down from between his shoulders and looked inside. There were a few small blankets, and some Gnome food, which although unpleasant, might prove useful, so Sarqi left it all in the bag. But there was nothing else. No portable shelters. No cooking gear. These Gnomes had not come far, and they had not expected to be long upon their errand, which meant that there were probably more of them somewhere nearby.

  As he worked, his movements pulled at the muscles of his chest, and reminded him of the fire that still burned there where the Gnome had speared him, but he did not think it was putrefied or poisoned. It burned only in the way that a rock scrape might burn, and it felt clean when he paused to probe at it with a finger. Not as deep as he had feared, but the only cloth he could find to bandage it with was the blanket inside the White One’s pack, and there was no way Sarqi was going to press any part of a putrid Gnome blanket against an open wound. He would just have to be careful to keep it clean and let it heal naturally.

  Turning his attention to the bodies, he was surprised by how little they revealed. The Gnomes themselves had carried no bags, nor did they seem to have any belts or pockets that he could find. The dragon’s legs were vile, of course. Gnome magic, and Sarqi had no use for them. He paused only long enough to snap them into pieces before turning his back on them completely. The stories about how such things were made was something that even he could not believe, but he would risk no further contact with such depravity either.

  It wasn’t until he had finished dealing with the dragon legs that Sarqi remembered the chalice. He had to search for some time before he found it, underneath the body of the Mind Chanter. Sarqi rolled the body to one side and snatched up the metal urn. It was made of bronze and had seen rough usage. The bowl was badly scuffed and scratched, but even that layer of scars could not disguise its origin. It was clearly a product of Kijamon’s forge.

  Despite his best effort however, Sarqi could not get it open. The upper rim of the bowl had been dented in the fight, perhaps when the Gnome had fallen on it, and the lid would no longer turn freely. Sarqi did not know what might be inside, but from the way its weight sloshed and lurched in his hand as he examined it, it held some kind of liquid.

  Tucking the chalice under one arm, Sarqi led the White One back to where the Queen was standing, and managed to press the tall creature down into a sitting position on the low rock that had been the Queen’s only shield. Next he urged the Queen to sit as well, and after a moment’s hesitation, he took out one of the Gnome blankets and wrapped it around her shoulders. Better that she be warm than proud.

  Then he picked up the chalice to examine it more closely.

  Before the attack, he had planned to descend into the Cleft as soon as they reached it, but he had not expected to find Gnomes this far from the Throat. Given recent events, and the likelihood of a Gnome camp down below, he now felt it would be best to wait here, out of sight, and to make their descent by starlight, when the chance of being seen would be least. A risky plan, to be sure, but his choice was among a slim collection of ill-advised options. There was nothing to be done about it.

  Sarqi shook his head as he prodded at the dented metal, testing its resilience with his fingers while his mind wandered. Too much had happened in the world while he had been down in the Throat. He could no longer trust his knowledge of circumstances. To think that the Gnomes had such free run of the Wasketchin lands… It did not bode well. He must get the Queen to safety, as far from the Gnomes as he could manage. As soon as darkness fell, they would descend to the Cleft and go west. Any other path would be foolhardy.

  He would have to risk carrying her down the Stair, hoisted over his shoulder after all, but that could not be helped. Once they were down into the pass, they would need to hurry to the western apron and down into the wilder parts of the Forest. Hopefully that territory had not yet been overrun by the Gnomes. There he would have to find Wasketchin who knew where Malkior had gone, and with their help, he would see the Queen safely back to her King.

  Unfortunately, that meant he would have to leave the White One here. The creature could not even stand or sit without physical coercion, so he was unlikely to be able to climb down a mountain by himself, and there was no time for Sarqi to make two trips down the Stair with piggies on his back. Not if he intended to reach the protective cover of the trees before first light. Perhaps he could find help to send back for the creature. Deep inside, he knew the truth of that. He was very likely condemning the beast to death. But the final decision was still hours away. Maybe he’d think of something later. So with that puzzle set aside for the time, he turned his mind back to the one in his hands.

  The urn felt heavy in his hand as he held it up to the light, turning it slowly to inspect the lid from the sides. The light revealed a slight dimple on the rim. A subtle flattening of the vessel’s roundness. This was probably what had jammed the lid tight. Fortunately, it did not appear to be a difficult repair. The dimple was not deep, and there was just the one. Still, Sarqi did not want to risk damaging the vessel either, so he worked at it slowly, pushing the dent back out by small degrees, turning it slowly in his hands, inch by inch, as he pressed the metal rim back into shape with the tip of a smooth, triangular stone. He worked diligently as the sun lowered over the trees in the west and their shadow skeletons marched their daily assault across the field toward the Spine. Normally, the colors of the forest soothed him, but today, all Sarqi could see were the reds and deep oranges of blood and fire, so he kept his eyes on the chalice and worked at freeing its mysteries instead.

  Finally, as the sun touched the distant horizon, Sarqi hefted his prize and turned it slowly, eying the sheen along the upper rim. There was now scarcely any wobble at all when the light played across the once-crimped corner. So, with more than just a little curiosity, Sarqi placed his big Djin hand over the lid and twisted.

  There was a gritting resistance, but it turned. Slowly. After twisting it through one quarter circle, the lid flopped, dipping down into the chalice on one side as the other side came up. Only a quarter turn? That seemed odd, as though it had been designed for quick access instead of a tight seal. Sarqi set the lid down carefully on the stone beside him and turned his attention to the cup itself.

  It was faint, and by day he might not even have noticed, but in the growing twilight, there seemed to be a pale orange glow to the liquid that swirled happily around the bottom of the container. There was no smell that he could discern, nor was it either hot or cold. With some trepidation, Sarqi extended the tip of his finger into the cup and poked the surface of the fluid. It
felt… wet. Withdrawing his hand, Sarqi touched his fingertip to the outside of the chalice, but saw nothing unusual. Several times he wetted his finger and then repeated his test, touching a slight droplet of moisture to the rocks around him, to the leather of his vest, to a patch of moss. Nothing shriveled up. Nothing died. Nothing broke into tendrils of acrid smoke, or changed colors, or melted. It seemed to be exactly what it appeared to be. Water. Glowing water, granted, but water, just the same.

  On a whim, Sarqi reached his finger to his mouth and let a little taste of the fluid moisten the tip of his tongue. It was flat, and almost sweet. Like rain water that had been left standing in the sun, but with the barest echo of melon juice.

  For several long minutes, Sarqi stared down into the chalice, trying to imagine how stupid he was about to be, but it couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? The tall creature had been tied to one Gnome. That Gnome had sung the Mind Chant that misted over Sarqi’s self, nearly emptying him into the same hollow vacancy of the tall creature, and of the Queen, who now slumbered quietly at his side. That Gnome had carried only one thing, foregoing even the traditional weapon of his people—their cherished dragon’s leg—in order to hold onto that single object. The chalice. It could not be a coincidence. It simply could not.

  Sarqi tipped his head back and drank from the great cup.

  * * *

  When the water flooded his mouth, Sarqi knew that he’d been wrong. It was not water. But he was not afraid either. The taste of melon seemed to ebb into the flesh of his tongue and lips, seeping outward through bone and muscle and skin. He held the liquid there in his mouth, wondering if his face now glowed with that same pale orange shimmer. He swallowed. It had only been enough for the one swallow, but even that much felt like he’d devoured a hurricane. He hadn’t swallowed the liquid—it had swallowed him. And its glow radiated into the air around him as he was filled with a sense of power. And of strangeness. Strange words and images rippled through his mind. Towering structures of stone and glass, vast machineries of metal. Great, pounding fires, and brilliant screaming lights.

  There were sounds too. Thundering, towering storms of noise, and explosions, violent concussions, and music. All jumbled together, with no edge between them. The music was a screaming thunder. The explosions had melody. The storms held rhythm. Without knowing how he possibly could, Sarqi knew this place. It was the world of the Dragon Grimorl. Astounding. Terrifying. And everything he sensed seemed to have but one purpose, to convey one jubilant, trumpeting message.

  The Dragon Grimorl was coming home.

  When the water that was not water finally reached his stomach, the visions subsided, and Sarqi was left shaking and uncertain. He set the chalice down on the stone beside him and then carefully placed the lid back on top, turning it the one quarter turn to seal its contents away once more. What it was, he could not say. Some essence harvested from another world. Some elixir of all things not of here, but of there. Not of Methilien, but of Grimorl.

  Not of our Dragon, but of theirs.

  And into his body, this elixir of another world now released its vim. But this was not the weak and paltry vim of his fathers. He knew that in an instant. This was raw, and angry. This was power beyond telling, and ability beyond the sun and the stars.

  Sarqi stood up and felt his eyes brush the tops of the atmosphere. He felt his toes stretching down into the bowels of the mountain and the soil even deeper below. He felt his lungs draw in air like a great bellows, firing the furnace of the world, and he felt the blood of his veins circling through the land about him, carrying his ebbing power to the shattered remnants of the world that had been. Some little trickle of what once he had commanded. Reaching out with his thoughts, he touched everywhere and nowhere. He felt the racing of a stag’s heart, and the fear of Wasketchin children. He even touched the mind of his own mother, for a moment, sharing his joy and feeling her own echoed back.

  And then the expansion of his senses collapsed into a focus and he was back. No longer weeping over shattered oaths. No longer yearning for a world that had ceased to be. He was powerful again. Creaking at the seams with the need to reach out, and to change.

  So he did.

  With a cool breath, Sarqi threw back his head and began to sing. It was a familiar, low, sorrowful lament, but deeper now. Despair had edged its way into his song. A despair born of violence done. Not the violence that had been shown to him in his vision of music, but the violence he remembered, still burning in the bones of his hands. Hands that had flung the rocks. Hands that had killed.

  But he knew what to do now. He recognized how the Mind Chant was akin to the Chant of the Wagon, and he of all people understood that song. It had been the core of his identity, the one thing that he had clung to, that he did better than either of his brothers. Among the Djin of the Anvil, there were none better suited to the Wagon than the sons of Kijamon, and among those three sons, there was none so well-versed in the currents of its Song as Sarqi himself. His brothers had never even guessed that the soul of the Wagon was a plurality. Only Sarqi had ever touched the aching that lay within it. The eternal longing of those drifting souls. In them, Sarqi recognized the same empty draw, the same lure of confusion and timelessness that he had felt during that moment when he had been clouded by the Gnome Chant.

  With a confident vibrato, Sarqi sang the Way Chanter’s song, but he turned it anew. Instead of lifting up the great mass of the Wagon with the vim flowing through him, he reached forward instead, into the crawling grayness of their realm. The Fields of Forever. He called out, gathering them to him, like a lantern in their night. He could see them then, so many souls, wandering, drifting, alone. A great many. But as he sang, calling to them all, only two curls of being broke away and came floating toward him. Two pulses of existence, of thought, of mind. And when they pressed their wispy selves against him, Sarqi gathered them together in arms as long as the years and huddled eternity around them.

  Then he opened his eyes.

  For a long time, he could only sit there, uncertain what had happened. Frightened that it had been just a dream. Terrified that it had not. And then, in the darkness, a voice broke the stillness of the air.

  “They’re coming.”

  The Wasketchin Queen had returned.

  Chapter 36

  They came to him in the trembling hour, when the sun still threatened to take to the sky, but had not yet found the courage. The first to enter was Wijen, who, as Master of Histories, would act as official witness to record the event. Zimu watched the old man approach across the floor of the Hall. The old Djin’s eyes flicked up once to meet Zimu’s own briefly, but quickly fled, and the man hastily busied himself in organizing the stylus and scroll with which he would record his official observations.

  The King and Queen arrived together, some few moments later, Yoliq striding imperiously over the cold morning floor to take her place beside the throne, while Mabundi did his best to keep pace. As he stepped up to the Anvil Seat, the King stumbled, and had to raise a hand to keep the crown from slipping from his brow. Zimu smiled at the portent.

  The Queen too, noticed her husband’s slip, and it burned her face into a rigid glare. “You intend to continue in this outrage?” she barked, glaring at Zimu with all the fury she could muster.

  “I do,” Zimu said, bowing slightly, with his hands still crossed neatly over his chest, fused together by the iron bands on his wrists.

  “Then let us have it done,” she declared. “Mabundi! Take up that chisel and kill this fool. A King has better things to do than to parade around his court for the amusement of some trifling oaf and his delusions of honor.”

  Mabundi glanced quickly at Zimu, as though noting for the first time just how large the son of Kijamon was, and then he quickly looked away, turning his attention to the ruined arm of his throne. The silver handled chisel still gleamed from its place, rising up out of the fist-shaped crater Zimu had pounded into it.

  “I do this, not with joy, but wi
th sorrow,” Mabundi intoned, with the even, uninflected pace of a well-practiced speech. “For the good of the Djin and for the security of the Crown, I hereby accept the Challenge of the Tooth.” And then, with a single jerk of his hand, Mabundi snatched the chisel from the arm of the throne and raised it triumphantly above his head.

  Or rather, he raised his hand in triumph. The chisel was still firmly rooted in the wreckage.

  Wijen looked up from where he had been scratching down the King’s majestic speech and then hastily wrote an additional note. The Queen just rolled her eyes.

  Mabundi smiled at her weakly, and then returned his attentions to his task, grabbing the chisel firmly in his hand. Then he pulled again. But again the silver shaft did not budge, and the King could only strain there for a long moment before giving up with an abrupt release of breath. The veins on his neck throbbed and his face was flushed from the effort. Mabundi’s eye came up to meet Zimu’s then, and the King seemed to appraise his challenger with newfound respect.