Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  Yoliq however, was growing frantic. “Hurry, you fool! The sun has almost risen!” Suddenly, she whipped around to Wijen. “And you! Don’t write that. I was… You misheard me. I said, ‘Hurry, my King.’ Mark it so.” Wijen nodded and bent himself to further scratchings.

  Back at the throne, Mabundi now had both hands wrapped around the silver grip and one foot up on the throne, heaving and tugging like a young boy trying to move his father from the circle in his first play-grapple. But no matter how he twisted or turned, and no matter how he cursed or grunted, the chisel would not so much as wiggle. At last, exhausted and fuming, Mabundi kicked at the massive throne and managed to nudge it back a full fingerwidth. Yoliq stomped over to stand in front of Zimu. Her eyes shone with anger.

  “You have bespelled the tooth!” she spat. Then she turned and called out to Wijen. “Make it known that I name Zimu of House Kijamon a cheat! He has used a cement of some kind, and the chisel cannot now be pulled from its place. Not by any man, nor any five Djin acting together!”

  Zimu’s blood began to boil, and his hearing began to wash out with his rising anger. He strained at the bond rings that still held his hands bound together before him. Mabundi’s time was not yet up, and so he remained in his place and struggled to maintain his composure, breathing slowly, as his mother had often advised Sarqi to do.

  But the Queen barked another ill-spirited laugh. “Where is your righteous anger now, upstart? Even could you win this challenge, still you would not be King. The crown cannot be won through trickery and deceit. It will not bond to you for your honorless frauds.”

  In the silent pause of suppressed rage that followed, all four in attendance heard the metallic click, and suddenly, Zimu’s hands fell free at his sides. The sun had risen. The King had failed to protect his throne.

  And now it was Zimu’s turn.

  “Watch him!” Yoliq shouted, laughing, and pointing at the throne even as Zimu advanced toward it. “Watch as he now feigns surprise at his own strength that planted it there. I tell you now, mark these words upon your scroll, Historian! The tooth will not come out, and the son of Kijamon will deny malfeasance, saying only that it has been sunk more deeply than even he can withdraw. The great Craven Zimu will now give us a show!”

  Anger burned white-hot in his flesh as Zimu took the chisel between his hands. Mabundi stepped back. Zimu pulled.

  “See how the tooth remains fixed—” Yoliq crowed.

  The silver handle cried out in anguished protest, and then slid from the ruined throne, silencing the Queen. Zimu raised it aloft, breathing heavily from his effort and the rage that still burned within him. The world hung in a heartbeat. Mabundi looked up at him with awe, at Zimu’s silver-handled chisel gleaming in his fist, poised in the light.

  And for a moment, Zimu hesitated. This was the Honor Hall. The Anvil Seat. This was the very heartstone of the Djin people. The nexus of all they were and all they believed. It was bigger than any man. Bigger than any king. It was the bond ring of their entire world.

  Mabundi continued to stare up into Zimu’s eyes. But it was not fear Zimu saw there, or cowardice, or rage. It was hope. And in that moment, Zimu knew that Mabundi was trapped in this moment, just as surely as he was himself. Trapped by the forces of history. Trapped by the powers that wrestled throughout the land. And trapped by his wife’s ambitions. Yet both knew that those forces would not let either of them back away from this brink. The Djin needed a king. A strong king. And they needed him now, today, without any dissembling or delay.

  Behind them, the Queen sprang to her feet. “Cravenheart!” she shouted. “You have spoken the words but your own tongue will not swallow them! Zimu of House Kijamon, I name you cowar—”

  A look passed from the one-time teacher to his younger student. A look of pride. Of forgiveness. And Zimu raged that such a good man, whose only failing had been in being too kind for his crown, must become the pawn of history in this way. There was no escape. And with a bellow of rage and despair, Zimu brought his hand down, driving Mabundi back onto the throne and plunging the chisel point deep into his chest, and through it, pinning the man to the great bronze chair.

  “My King!” Wijen shouted, jumping forward, scattering his tools around him.

  “Thank you,” someone whispered.

  “My crown!” Yoliq shrieked, leaping forward to grab at the band of gold still girding her husband’s brow, where it would remain for as long as the King drew breath.

  Zimu glanced at her in disgust.

  “I did not make a very good king, did I?” Mabundi whispered. His words cut into Zimu like a knife. Like a chisel.

  “You only played the fool,” Zimu said, as understanding began to unfold within him.

  Mabundi nodded tightly. “I was the wrong king for this time,” he said. A weak cough shattered his face in pain, but he continued. “I hoped it would be you. But even you were blinded by tradition. These are new days… We need, new traditions…” The smell of blood filled Zimu’s nose, and around them, the shrieking of a vanquished Queen echoed from the walls like the cry of bats returning at dawn.

  “You provoked me.”

  “Had to… make you see,” Mabundi said. A grimace twisted his face. Life was draining quickly from him. “To awaken… something.”

  “Awaken arrogance,” Zimu said.

  The dying King shook his head and opened his mouth in the shape of a reply, but he was wracked by a painful cough, and though he fought to say what was in his mind — “Awaken a kuh! Kuh!” — he could not master breath enough to shape the word. Zimu felt another spasm tighten the body in his grip, and then it slackened. The cough had finally passed. And with it, Mabundi King as well, the whisper of his final word, escaping his lips on the wind of his final breath. “King,” Mabundi whispered. As that word resonated in Zimu’s heart, the band of gold that circled the King’s brow faded, and dulled into the quiet dignity of stone.

  The King of the Djin was dead.

  With tears in his eyes, Zimu sagged against the body of his former teacher, in grief. And shame.

  Then the floor began to quake.

  * * *

  The shaking of the floor seemed right to Zimu. It was appropriate that the mountain should tremble with sorrow at the passing of Mabundi. He had not been a good king, but he had been a good man, and in the end, he had found a way to let the one out-matter the other. Around them, columns of stone wobbled on their bases in woe, and the air was rent with the ancient shriek of a being in agony. Decorations and the oddments of state clattered and fell like grieving attendants. Wijen too had collapsed at Zimu’s side, his old joints made liquid by grief at the falling of his King.

  Zimu squeezed his eyes tight, but he knew he must get up. The time for proper grieving would come. For now, he had new duties to see to. The duties of the new King. Slowly, he pushed himself back from Mabundi’s lifeless form and made to stand up, but an unexpected blow caught him on the back of the head, and Zimu pitched forward to sprawl over the throne as blackness swirled around him.

  Dimly, he could hear shouting. “Help!” someone cried. There was terror in the voice. And glee? “The challenger has broken his vow! He did not wait the full time! He has killed the King before the challenge had expired!”

  “Wha… ?” Zimu muttered as he struggled to stand. “Not correct… Must tell…”

  But then a second blow crashed into the back of his skull, and as lightning jags of pain lit up his mind and then flickered out, they dragged Zimu down with them.

  Down into oblivion.

  Chapter 37

  Sarqi lowered his legs over the edge of the precipice, questing for the first rung in the darkness with his toes. He could hear the urgent shuffle and scrape of skin and fabric sliding over stone below him. The moment the Queen’s eyes had opened, she had bolted away into the night, leaving Sarqi unsure whether she was even truly awake, or whether she was in some new madness of the Gnome spell. Happily, she had not marched blindly off the edge, but s
he hadn’t stopped either. She’d just called out to him, and then begun her descent, with no guide to assist her.

  “Hurry!” she’d cried. “We must cross before they close the pass!”

  “My Lady, wait! The Stairs are dangerous. I—”

  “There’s no time for caution, Friend Sarqi. If I fall, I die. But if I delay, we all die. So I will hurry, and hope that Death is too busy elsewhere to pay us a visit now.”

  Left with no alternative, Sarqi had followed, and he was onto the rungs above her now, moving surely down the Stair, despite the darkness that shrouded everything. The Yeren had not followed, but Sarqi could spare no time to worry after him. The Queen below was his only concern.

  Darkness forced him to move by feel as much as by sight, which was fine enough for a Djin. They were at home on the bare stony slopes of the higher places. But M’Ateliana was not Djin. How was she moving so quickly? How had she not already fallen to her death in the dark? But that was not a question he wanted to ask aloud just now. Calling the night’s attention to an impossibility that had escaped its notice seemed unwise.

  “Why do we climb with such haste, my Lady?” Sarqi called down to her, as his hands moved in alternating rhythm with his feet. “Who comes? And where do we go that we must get there first?” By keeping her talking, he would be better able to judge how far below him she was, and maybe he could keep himself from kicking her off the Stair with a misplaced foot.

  “We must cross to the northern Spine,” she called. “My Lord Husband rallies our people there. It is a place we can defend.”

  “So, you do resist. That is good. But why the mad rush? Can we not arrive tomorrow more safely than tonight?”

  “The Horde has learned of our plan,” she replied. “And they converge on the Cleft even now.” The stone and the cold night air between them muffled the Queen’s voice, making it sound as though she were far away. “They have nearly reached the approaches to the Cleft from the Forest below, both to the east and to the west. They will fill the pass in little more than an hour. And I intend to be on the northern ridge when they do.”

  Sarqi paused. How could she know this? She’d been ensnared in vacant dreams for days, and had only awaken ten minutes earlier. Were some tendrils of dream still with her, leading her to her death, chasing half-remembered fears?

  “Are you sure you—?” he started to ask, but she cut him off.

  “The Yeren. Halar. He spoke to me, as he speaks to his kin. His folk are among the Gnome Hordelets and they sent warning. The Horde is coming. Now. They converge on the Cleft.”

  Sarqi could sense the tension rising in her voice at the mention of Gnomes. The other topic seemed… safer. But Yeren? The creatures of fable? Sarqi forced himself to keep moving, climbing steadily down and edging left with each step, following the angled path of the rungs. “Yeren, my Lady?”

  “The white-haired ones,” M’Ateliana replied. “Those Who Wait. They speak together in their minds. Halar was able to speak to me as well, when we were… quieted. Angiron thinks he’s so devious, placing one of them with each of his Hordelets. By linking to the Yeren, his captains can report to him from wherever they are, or receive instructions from him, but he is an idiot. He does not understand even the least bit of the magics he employs.”

  “How so, my Lady?” A flutter of sound, a scraping, sliding sound came to him from below, along with a quiet gasp of air. Sarqi froze. “My Lady?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, after a moment. “My hand slipped.”

  Sarqi breathed out slowly. What could he do? If he were below her, he could perhaps set the pace, hold her back from the furthest extremes of recklessness. But instead, he was above her, where all he could do was follow along and listen for the final slip that would come before the shriek of her plunging demise. If it were day, he might be able to leave the Stair and climb down the stone itself to get below her, but not on damp stone at night. All he could do was keep her talking and try to keep her calm.

  “So the Yeren spoke to you?” he asked. A moment later he heard her move her feet and continue her descent.

  “Yes,” she said. “His people live deep within the mountain, caring for the Dragon, tending to his needs. But they have been taken from that duty and they fear for his safety. They want only to return to their home and resume their duties.”

  Sarqi nodded to himself as he climbed, remembering the stories of his childhood. Among the Djin, there was talk of the darkwalkers, monstrous beings who moved through the unlit tunnels and deep chambers. It was said they could walk through the stone itself, and that they served some ancient power. But they were just stories, told to children, to keep them from exploring too deeply on their—“

  “Oh no!”

  Sarqi froze. “What is wrong, my Lady?” But she made no reply. Sarqi strained his ears, listening for the slightest sounds, but he could hear nothing above the wind. Heartbeat piled upon heartbeat and slowly his panic grew. Had she fallen? Had he failed her already? But then she spoke.

  “The stairs have ended! I cannot find the next foothold!” Sarqi was so relieved to hear her voice that he almost laughed aloud. He was about to tell her happily that she had simply reached the first switchback, and that she would find the next step waiting below her on her right side, but then he realized that this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

  “Do not fear, my Lady. Hold your place for a moment and I will investigate.” As he spoke, Sarqi slipped his toes from the secure notches of the Stair carved into the rock, and quested down lower, seeking the natural knobs and cracks that would let him descend straight down. With M’Ateliana safely halted at the end of the first zig, he should have no trouble descending a few feet of open rock to reach the zag that doubled back below her. Then he would be in the lead, and would be better positioned to keep her safe. Or as safe as anyone could be while descending the Jalmin Stair in the dark.

  A few moments later, Sarqi’s toes found the next set of rungs on the lower span and he called out. “As I thought, you need not worry, my Lady. You have only reached the first switchback. You will find your next step below and to your right.” Sarqi listened as the Queen’s foot scraped at the rocks to the left of his own face, seeking her next step, and he sighed in relief. Now he felt like a guide.

  “Found it,” she called out, and Sarqi waited, listening to her next movements as she shifted her weight and reached out with her hand, and then adjusted her other foot. Satisfied that she was once again on track, he moved to his own next step, staying far enough ahead of the Wasketchin Queen that she would not accidentally strike him and startle herself off the Stair, but close enough that he could reach out and grab her if it became necessary.

  “It seems a crooked Stair is more dangerous,” M’Ateliana said, as she reached for her next foothold. “More likely for a climber to miss her grip. Especially in the dark.”

  “Indeed, my Lady, each climber is perhaps a trifle less safe, but the increased danger buys much greater safety for the group.” While he spoke, Sarqi brushed chips of rock and dust from the notch next to his face before moving on.

  “How so?” she asked, as her toes probed and then settled into the notch he had just cleared.

  “On a reversing stair,” the Djin replied, “when a climber falls, he will not strike all those who climb below him.”

  The regular sounds of M’Ateliana’s movements stopped. “Oh,” she said. A moment later, she resumed her climb, but from that point on there was no further talking.

  * * *

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Arin said. “You are needed up above. I am not, and I would just slow you down.”

  Lan’ia Sha looked at the old woman, and then beyond at the narrow handholds cut into the damp rock of the wall behind her. She let her gaze follow their angled path up the rock face to where they vanished behind a twisting jut of stone. The rest of their little group stood huddled against the wind, near the foot of the Stair. As leader of their party, they waited for her to d
ecide how they would proceed. Her pride told her that she herself should be the last one up—that she had brought her people this far, and that it was her duty to see that every one of them made it to the end of the trail up above. Especially now that they were so close.

  But in her stomach, she knew that plan was silly. Arin was right, of course. The old woman had surprised everyone by keeping up over the last five days, but with the Gnomes pressing close behind them, they could not afford to dally on this last leg of their journey. And climbing the Zalmin Stair was not an easy thing—no simple trudge through the Forest. The ascent was going to be difficult, dangerous and slow—troublesome even for the fittest among them. She had held them here as long as she could after their night-time ascent from the Forest below, up here to Cleft. She’d been waiting, hoping for just a little more light, but they could not afford the luxury of waiting any longer. As spry as Arin might be for her age, she would hold them all up if she went first. And if she fell… Well, on top of dying herself, she’d be a danger to every single person who climbed behind her.

  “Alright,” Lan’ia said, nodding her head. “You’re right, of course. The King awaits me, and I must not delay.” Then she turned to look at young Winry, who was crouching in the rubble behind her grandmother’s kirfa, apparently playing some kind of game, stacking little handfuls of stones into vaguely human shapes. It was a shame to have to seperate them. The four-year-old had been so good for Arin on the hike, keeping the old woman’s spirits up, and helping her in a dozen little ways. Arin was a proud woman, and the child seemed to have the knack for helping without tweaking the old woman’s nose with the fact of it. Lan’ia had watched with pride as the bond between grandmother and granddaughter had strengthened during the march, each providing what the other needed, without asking. But there was no way a child of Winry’s age could handle the Stair. Even if her temperament was more mature, the girl simply wasn’t tall enough to reach the hand-holds. Someone would have to carry her. Someone younger, with more energy. Story Uncle Keshlin, perhaps. He had taken a bit of a liking to the girl.