Oathen

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  “Eight of them are fakes. They never happened,” Meena replied, as she pressed on the keel of the large red-hulled ship in the sea battle scene.

  “I’ve lived in Shanal all my life, and I don’t recognize half of these events,” Ahm said, frowning up at a large, braid-bearded king. The Scion cell leader clasped the Dire Tome in his arms, its silvery wrapping catching golden strands of torchlight.

  “That’s the point. These are events from the sealed royal archives,” Meena said, hopping down the scattered row of seal-stamped stones until she got within reach of a painted pearl the size of her palm. Pushing it, she added, “Only royals and certain trusted Queen’s agents, as I was, are supposed to know these events, their order, and that pushing them opens the way to any more than you see here. Though if you kill enough people with trial and error, you’ll eventually figure it out.” She hopped down to the very end of the mural and pushed on a sword blade in the hands of a teenage girl.

  With a grinding sound, a section of the wall next to the mural folded away, revealing a long passage.

  Sanych handed the torch to Meena. The Shanallar led the way into the secret passage. Geret, last in line, took one final look behind them as Meena pushed on a section of the interior wall, closing the secret door.

  His eyes widened. Due to the Crypt’s high ceiling, the Deep Gateway spiral had three ramp levels that lay exposed to view from below; at the topmost of them, his eyes made out the light of a distant torch.

  “Your pet spellcaster is dead, thief,” Oolat’s voice rang out, echoing off the Crypt’s stone walls. A dark blossom from his hand sent a small roundish object high into the air. It fell in a whirl of short white cords and tumbled across the pavestones, setting off a number of various traps before one clapped up on both sides of it, pinning it in place with metal spikes.

  It was Curzon’s head. His braids were lopped off where his neck ended, their ends fraying to fuzziness.

  Geret lurched as if he’d been punched in the gut. Sanych gasped and tried to peer past him as the stone wall slid further closed, but he clapped a hand over her eyes.

  “Oh, Wisdom,” she sobbed, pulling the information from Geret’s emotions.

  “Share?” Salvor asked, his face stern in the light of his flickering blade.

  “Curzon’s dead,” Geret said, turning away from the sight.

  “But that’s impossible,” Sanych protested. The wall pressed shut behind them.

  “He’s only mortal,” Meena said.

  “No, I mean—wait—”

  “Not now, Sanych; they’re coming. Run!” Meena loped away into the enclosed darkness of the low tunnel, torch in hand.

  Geret and the others hurried to keep up with her and the light as she led the way through the twisting corridor; he nearly ran into her as she halted suddenly, holding out her arm to prevent anyone passing her.

  Before her, a wide pit crossed the entirety of the tunnel floor. There was no way across, it seemed, except for a narrow wooden plank. It looked to be a good fifteen paces to the far side, and the plank was rickety.

  “This is new,” Meena said, squinting at the long wooden plank.

  “Looks simple enough,” Salvor commented, his voice impatient.

  “Exactly,” Meena countered. She prodded the wood with a foot. It didn’t shift at all. Fishing a few copper coins from her pouch, she tossed them at the pit.

  “Didn’t expect that,” Ahm said, raising his eyebrows at the result.

  A few of the coins on the far right side of the pit rested in midair, hovering at a level even with the tunnel floor. Others bounced off an invisible wall across the center of the pit; anyone bolting across the plank would run headlong into it and lose their balance. The rest of the coins fell straight down, vanishing from sight.

  “Wisdom’s eyes,” Sanych murmured. “An illusion. How did they do that without magic?”

  “Study it later, Archivist,” Meena said. She took a leap out to the hovering coins, avoiding the plank entirely. The others followed once they saw her standing with firm footing.

  As he passed the halfway point, Geret saw the “invisible” wall was attached only to the ceiling, and was cleverly toned to match the color and viewpoint of the corridor beyond. Last in line, he stopped to pick up the coins, pocketing them.

  “My fee for being first in Oolat’s sights,” he said. “I’d suggest we lurk in wait for him, but he’s probably brought more hordes of his people.”

  “What we’re up against is the Tome,” Meena replied. “Anything else is incidental.”

  A sunset-hued light reached Geret’s eyes, shining from around a final bend in the tunnel. He turned the corner behind Sanych and the others, then stopped before a small, worn-looking metal portcullis with a central handle. Beyond it lay a natural cavern large enough to swallow an entire village. Its roof was supported by dozens of elaborately carved pillars of enormous girth, stretching hundreds of feet up to the fungus-covered ceiling.

  “Like Salience,” Salvor commented.

  On the far side of the cavern lay a gathering of elaborate stone mausoleums carved out of the living rock, stacking up behind one another as they climbed higher up the angled cavern wall.

  “Whoa,” Geret breathed, taking in the sight of the fungus-lit city of the dead hidden within the bowels of the ancient volcano.

  “The portcullis handle’s a trap; no one touch anything. Belts, please,” Meena said, holding out her hands. She collected everyone’s leather belts and knotted them in a line, then hooked one over the portcullis’ central handle, which immediately spiked out a crown of prongs that punctured the belt clean through. “Stand behind me,” she ordered, and leaned into her pull.

  The apex of the portcullis leaned toward her, hinting at unseen hinges at its bottom. As the heavy grating squeaked toward her, every single crossbar sprouted a series of razor-sharp spikes which dug into the floor or bristled in the air.

  Holding the belt-rope taut, Meena said, “Geret, Sanych, go across into the cavern and turn around. You’ll see two carved Queen’s Men to the sides of this tunnel. Their wrist guards have small hidden buttons; push them in at the same moment.”

  Geret took Sanych’s hand and helped her cross the horizontal portcullis, careful to step between the long, razor-sharp spikes. Just past the gate-trap, they turned and found the old carved soldiers. The detail on the stonework was impressive; had the carvings been colored, they might have been mistaken for real men resting against the wall.

  Together, they found the diamond-shaped buttons in the carvings, and with a shared look, they pressed them inward.

  The spikes retracted into the portcullis’ crossbars. Meena and the others joined Geret and Sanych at the entrance to the enormous cavern. Meena waited until the trap reset, then snaked a hand through a hole in the grating and retrieved everyone’s hole-punched belts.

  “Which mausoleum do we want?” Sanych asked as she put hers back on. Her fingers flinched away from its inch-wide puncture marks.

  Meena stalked through the forest of enormous pillars toward the small, ornate buildings, and her companions followed her. The pillar bases were carved with Shanallese soldiers—every one a Queen’s Man—who looked real enough to step out from the basalt pillars and engage them in battle. “It’s on the right, a row above Arisson,” Meena replied.

  “A-Arisson?” Sanych stuttered.

  “He’s here?” Ahm asked, shocked.

  Meena looked over her shoulder. A ghost of old pain haunted the lines of her face. “I had to get the key out of Shanal before Dzur i’Oth found me again. I couldn’t abandon Arisson in the Heart of the Dragon, though. The tombs of royalty were a necessary compromise.” She turned and led the way at a trot toward a set of narrow stairs that ascended among the tombs.

  “Many of the structures up there are decoys,” she continued. “They look like they hold copies of the royal histories, priceless artwork and the like, but they’re just covers for rooms carved below them or back into the c
avern wall, where the royals would hide out. They’re also more littered with traps than Salvor’s stories are with lies,” she added.

  Salvor gave her a lazy smile as he jogged by her side. “One woman’s lie is another man’s subtle misdirection.”

  Sanych looked down. A flash of embarrassment and anger hummed into Geret’s mind, and he ground his teeth in memory of her treatment at Salvor’s hands. He scooped her hand into his and held it, reassuring her that he couldn’t possibly lie to her; she’d know it through the Oath. She smiled at his distracting humor and squeezed his hand.

  They reached the base of the mausoleum city, where a single staircase wiggled its way up to the first row of buildings—though ‘row’ was a generous term. The structures followed no set layout whatsoever. Their organization had an organic sense about it; the buildings grew from the stone wherever there was space along the angled cliff. With a wary glance up and ahead, Geret followed the others up the winding stairs.

  “So, are these being constructed or torn apart?” Ahm asked in a strained voice as he nodded to a group of incomplete mausoleums.

  Meena gave him a sharp look, then stepped down beside him. She handed the torch to Geret and took the Dire Tome from Ahm, setting it on a roughly carved plinth on the outer wall of a mausoleum. Ahm exhaled in relief under her healing touch.

  “I didn’t realize it was getting to me already,” he confessed, eyeing the wrapped book; it gleamed orange in the fungal sunset.

  “It’s all right. Curzon said the anti-magic wouldn’t last for long against its chaotic powers. I’ll carry the Tome, but we must hurry now. As for your question, I’d guess that Dzur i’Oth has taken them apart, looking for the passageway out of the dead zone, to where the Tome used to be hidden.”

  As the Shanallar scooped up the book, Geret eyed the open doorways of the dozens of structures around and above him. He was even with the lowest row of them now; the path that led to them was riddled with half-staircases and narrow bridges over gullies that reached to the cavern floor. The carved balustrades and lintels and winged dragon architecture spoke of wealth and power within, yet those doorways watched him hollowly, even hungrily. Seeing some of the buildings torn apart by the cult didn’t help; they seemed victimized and vengeful now.

  Sanych squeezed his hand, startling him out of his reverie. “Meena’s heading up; you think we should tag along?”

  Geret looked up the spastic arrangement of stairs and saw that Meena was already a dozen paces ahead, moving at a fast lope.

  “Time to go save the world,” he said. Still holding her hand, he ran up the stairs after Meena and the others. To keep up without falling, Sanych had to leap three steps at a time. He sent her his amusement, and she replied with a burst of mock irritation.

  “You keep forgetting you’re so much taller than I am, don’t you?” she panted.

  A distant voice caught everyone’s attention. As they turned to look back at the cavern floor, Meena shouted, “Down, everyone!”

  Geret grabbed Sanych around the waist and spun her behind a wide mausoleum. He stumbled, and they fell together. She landed atop him in a narrow alley, both of them scuffing knees and elbows against the constrictive rock walls. A hail of arrows clattered against nearby roofs and steps.

  Silently assuring each other that they were all right, the pair got to their feet and peeked around the corner. In the orange light, they could make out a few dozen cultists just outside the distant tunnel.

  “Fast,” Geret breathed.

  Sanych wordlessly agreed. “And numerous.”

  She held out her hand to Geret, and he clasped it. The enemy began streaming across the floor toward the stairs.

  Just as they darted out onto the steps again, another few arrows clattered on the nearby roofs. One caught Geret high in the thigh, causing him to stumble and fall onto the steps.

  “Folly,” he cursed, pushing himself to his knees. “Yank it out, Sanych!”

  With a swift jerk, she did so. Geret hissed with the pain of the arrow leaving his flesh. “That’ll leave a mark,” he said.

  “Not with Meena around,” Sanych replied. “Besides, it didn’t even sink in past the arrowhead.”

  Salvor and Ahm descended to the pair and grasped the prince under his arms, hauling him to his feet and half-dragging him up the steps to where Meena waited, determination and fear playing across her features.

  “Which way?” Ahm grated, as she dropped the torch and pressed a hand on Geret’s wound.

  “I’m never going to have any interesting scars,” Geret complained.

  Meena gave him a sharp look. “Be careful what you wish for, princeling. Follow me.”

  She headed up the steep stairs again. At the next junction she bolted to the right, then darted behind and over a series of mausoleums covered in dragon carvings. Geret, tingling from the recent healing, scampered behind her as best he could.

  Below them, Dzur i’Oth had taken up an ululating war cry. More arrows clattered around the fleeing group.

  A few moments later, while the arrows still rained down, Meena crouched in the shadowy lee of one of the tombs in the row below her. She rested two fingers on her lips, while pressing her other hand to the stone at her back. “Even now you shelter me,” she murmured, eyes closed.

  The arrow storm let up. Her eyes opened, staring across the uneven path. “They’ve dismantled the whole building!” she blurted. “Used to be full of traps, too.”

  “Well that makes it easier,” Salvor said.

  “That’s what it hid,” Meena said, indicating the narrow corridor that squeezed between two buildings and headed back into the cliff, appearing to take a right turn in the dimness. “The portal out of the dead zone. Now listen,” Meena said in a rushed voice, her eyes looking past them for approaching Enforcers. “Put your left hands on the wall and walk straight ahead. Keep your eyes closed. That back wall isn’t real, and the things you might see if you peeked…well…just don’t. Walk until I tell you it’s safe to stop.”

  She crawled across the path, standing only when she was safe from arrows. Ahm followed her in, fingers trailing along the left wall. Salvor went next.

  Geret heard voices coming from the main stairs below. He darted across the dusty stone path and into the corridor, pulling Sanych with him. He tilted her face to his and whispered, “You’re my Oathen, Sanych. I’m totally incapable of letting you fend for yourself now, magic or no. You’re not alone. You have me at your back. And you always will.”

  Her pupils wide in the dimness of the corridor, she gazed up at him, chest heaving. She slid a hand onto Geret’s cheek and brought his face down to hers, giving him a warm kiss. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “Now before we test our Oath further,” he murmured, placing her left hand next to his on the wall, “let’s get you your magic again.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Eighty years ago

  The lumpy wizard woman cackled with glee. “Of course one lives there! There’s one everywhere that’s got space for them! You think the name is coincidence?”

  Her young, blonde guest squinted in disbelief, handle-less teacup pausing on its way to her mouth. “You’re quite mad, aren’t you?” Tyana asked of the older woman.

  “Bah!” the gnarled octogenarian grumbled, waving a hand in the general direction of the alpine buildings clustered across the snowy mesa. “Don’t believe them. They have not the wit to see the truth! You, now,” she waggled a knobby finger mere inches from the younger woman’s nose, “might be an exception. If you want to be.”

  “See what truth, exactly?” Tyana asked, looking around the small tearoom in the wizard’s four-room hut.

  The wizard snorted, then peered at her guest, raising a wispy white eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

  “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

  The wizard cackled again and rose from her knees at the tea table. She donned a thick parka and deerskin mittens, then picked up a hefty walking stick.
Tyana pulled on her own cold-weather gear, and they stepped out into the snow.

  The chubby old woman led her guest away from the buildings of Ocula Senmei and through a narrow valley. The trail led back into the rugged, snow-blanketed spires of the highest mountain in the south of Eirant. The track that comprised the flat bottom was gravelly under a thin layer of snow.

  After stamping through a maze of slushy canyons, they emerged into a rounded hollow, hundreds of paces across. A massive, spiraling hole gaped ahead of them, like the home of an enormous funnelweb, descending into the earth at a shallow angle. Faint white billows of steam rose from its inner walls, curling and twining together before dissipating in the warm sunlight above the peaks’ shadows.

  “What is this?” Tyana asked. “Why are we here?”

  The wizard turned to her, panting, leaning on her staff. “It used to live here.”

  Tyana raised her eyebrows. “Not the poshest accommodations.”

  “They need the earth to sustain them. The legends about their past are true.”

  The young woman sighed. “You’ve brought me out to an empty steam vent, with no proof to back up any of the mad stories you’ve told me. Why should I believe you over the other wizards back at the Ocula?”

  The old woman put her chubby fists on her ample hips and glared. “You don’t have to believe me. But—if you can do what you say—at least have the courage to go see for yourself!”

  “See for myself? You said it’s gone!”

  “No, O Deaf One,” she said, holding a hand to her ear. “I said, it used to live there. When I was seventeen, I came out on the Spring Equinox to sing it into wakefulness…” The old woman paused, sighing. “The earth just couldn’t keep it alive any longer. Its remains are within, still.” She lowered her head, feeling fresh tears for an old loss edge her eyes.

  The young woman remained silent.

  The old wizard raised her hooded head. “It told me about the others, back when we would commune. It told me everything, from the greatest gift they ever bestowed to the reason they are no longer with us. But you do what you want out here. I’m going back to my hut. I’m not going to stand here and be mocked by yet another myopic idiot.” She waved her arms in irritation, then turned and stumped away.