Paladin's Oath

by M. H. Johnson

  "A mere three stories, nothing!" she said triumphantly to the house guard and gardener who had witnessed her crashing to the loamy soil. Moments later, she felt Twilight drop with perfect poise upon her shoulder.

  "Moderately stupid stunt, but understandable considering the circumstances, I suppose. Come, Jess. Quit admiring the half-naked gardener, young as he is, and focus! Through the trees, and towards the back gates!"

  “Right!” Jess nodded, sparing the startled gardener one last admiring glance before tearing off at a sprint sufficient to leave a royal runner openmouthed with awe. Despite the anxiety roiling through her, Jess found herself reveling in the moment, enjoying the sheer beauty of the carefully kept grounds before her, hearing the gentle bleating of grazing sheep while smelling the rich floral scents of rose gardens and the wondrous enchanted Jopple tree towering over the manor entire, providing shade to all.

  Jess gloried in her own grace and power, in the exhilaration of running. She felt as if she could race across the countryside forever, her legs launching her forward like the wildest stallion's gallop; always fresh, always potent, fatigue a long distant memory the other side of a Delver's blossoming power, golden sunlight gently warming her back as she ran on. "I see the main road ahead, Twilight! Success! From there, Highrock is just a couple day's good gallop away!"

  Jess’s gut suddenly roiled with foreboding, even as Twilight hissed. “Get under cover, Jess, now! Don’t go on the main road, back away!”

  But it was too late. She had already broken through the row of elms gently swaying in the breeze. Beautiful, graceful, their presence all along the main road as it passed the Turnsby Estates, gently underscoring the family's wealth and prestige. However, Jess cared not a whit for that, much as she loved trees. Rather it was her brother's surprised glance, his declaration of "Jess! By the gods, is that you?" That stopped her cold in her tracks. Freezing her solid. She felt the chains of obligation and doom crash upon her as she stumbled to the ground, her mad sprint abruptly halted.

  Looking princely in an elegant crimson doublet, golden blond locks teased by the breeze, astride one of her family's well-trained war stallions, her brother looked every inch the ideal noble's son. Even now, his care-filled gaze was like an angel's tender mercy gazing down upon her as he gracefully leaped off his horse and came to her side. "Jess! Is that you? Oh by Justice, it is! Thank the gods."

  He smiled warmly as he lowered his hand to help her to her feet, and a furiously blushing Jess allowed the gesture, though it was her growing sense of dread that had thrown her off balance, and no physical weakness at all. Her brother seemed not to notice that, his gaze instead focused upon her armaments, eyes lost in wonder, even as his voice reverberated with awe. "By all the saints, Jess. It looks like you have a full suit of mithril armor! I have never seen such an exquisitely forged helmet. And your gauntlets, they fit you perfectly. I can hardly believe they are of metal!" He shook his head. "Incredible, dear sister. Incredible. Truly, you look more a figure out of legends than even the bards with their fancy tales credit you." He then turned around to the other figure approaching them at a rapid pace.

  Leaping off his own destrier with the grace of a much younger man, handsome face hardly showing his years, save for the slightest trace of crow's feet from seasons under the sun, Jess’s father raced forward to clasp his daughter in his arms. “By the gods, Jess. I had thought you lost to us! For three months you were gone. For three months, no trace of you at all. We had feared you lost to the realm of dreams. There in flesh, as well as spirit.”

  Jess's anxiety and frustration at having been caught soon melted to a bittersweet ache, and she clasped her father close as well. She felt the hot prickle of salty tears, despite her best efforts, and felt her voice hitch into a sobbing sort of laughter, so touched and overjoyed she was to see her father in this moment, never mind her anxieties of but seconds ago.

  "Oh Father, I so missed you!" It was true. She did. It was a sweet, sweet moment, her brother and father there to greet her, however unexpected their appearance was.

  Her father held her close, unfastening her helmet with a smile, squeezing her gently and stroking her hair. His eyes shimmering with love and pride even as his own golden locks, not yet touched by gray, shimmered with the setting sun.

  “I thought you lost to us, Jessica. And by all the gods, I am grateful to see you here, alive and well, though for some reason I cannot fathom, racing through the tree line like a startled deer!”

  Her father and brother both chuckled at that, and Jess savored the moment, the warmth, for all she feared what was to come. Jess spent a few moments reassuring them that she was indeed quite well, having just awoken from the realm of dreams that very morning, feeling as strong and vigorous as she ever had in her life. Her strength itself was almost like a dream, she confided with a gentle laugh.

  Her father's solemn gaze locked with her own, and he sighed softly, though his smile was gentle, as he stroked her hair. As much to reassure himself of her presence as to comfort her. "And that is one thing that worries me, daughter mine. I have taken it upon myself to make a study of the Guild, adventurers, and Delving, while you were lost to us, body and soul." He chuckled softly. "The Guild had some reservations at first, not used to explaining themselves to others, and holding considerable power themselves, both directly and behind the scenes. Fortunately then, for them and myself, at least some of the bards there are personally familiar and sympathetic with your story, Jessica. They taught me much of the lore of the Delver." He smiled ruefully then. "Of course, fair is fair. They were very curious about your own childhood, daughter mine, and took no small pleasure hearing about your various adventures growing up on our estates."

  Geoffrey laughed, even as Jess felt her face grow warm. "And boy did we have stories to tell, sister mine! Which is a good thing. No matter how big your britches get, glorious adventurer skirting the realms between dream and reality that you now are, you will always be my eleven-year-old sis, proudly declaring her triumph over forces of evil, even while you were stuck in the pig slop!" He laughed then, eyes crinkling in amusement. "It took the servants and Mother days to get the stench completely free from your hair!"

  “I hardly remember,” a blushing Jess mumbled, even though she recalled the event with perfect, awful clarity. She shuddered, dreading the thought of the world knowing all about her childhood misadventures. Angels knew there were enough of those.

  Her father grinned even as a gentle hand on shoulder silenced her brother. “There are many tales of adventurers kept in the Guild's various libraries, Jess. Noble Delvers who once were famous and renowned, the world reveling in their heroic deeds and exploits, until they were suddenly forgotten, completely, as if they never were more than faerie tales in a favorite book of children's stories. For, as always happens when an adventurer passes from the realm of life to that of dreams and fails to return, memories of his heroism and valor also fade from the minds of the living, and his saga fades to legend.”

  Her father's eyes fastened upon Jess, even as his tone turned solemn and sad. "The bard's careful transcribing and faithful retelling of the great tales assures that their exploits at least have a place in our culture, fantastic tales told by the campfire to while away an hour with one's companions, heroic exploits seen as no more than fascinating yarns, tales of spun fancy, no more real than a particularly vivid dream, stories told to children every night from their family's only tome, bardic accounts relegated to faerie tale and fantasy, for all that these men and women once lived and breathed as do you and I."

  Jess couldn’t bear to meet her father’s painfully direct gaze, looking down instead at the intricate play of the last rays of the sun flashing brilliantly against her armor. “But the tales are true, Father. The Delvers who live those legends, as well as the treasures they find. Just look at my armor! Artifacts pulled straight from the bedrock of legend. No steel can scratch its surface! It's real. As real as anything that ever was.”

  Her
father nodded solemnly. "Yes, it is. It is real. But at what cost?"

  Jess blinked. “What do you mean?”

  "You do indeed have artifacts of wonder, my child, that protect you better than any mundane steel. But were they constructs of a forgotten age pulled out of living memories and echoes of faded glory from some ancient civilization's golden era? Or are they figments of dreams made real at terrible cost to yourself, to your soul, in some way we mortals cannot fathom? I fear to think what burdens you place upon your own immortal spirit, walking the paths through darkest Shadow and nightmare that you do."

  Jess felt slightly chilled at her father's foreboding tone, and forced herself to meet his troubled gaze. "No, Father. For all that I have little understanding of arcane metaphysics or magical theory, I can tell you this. These items are real. I felt the weight of them in the realm of dreams, and I feel the weight of them now, here, in the realm of daylight. They are intrinsic in and of themselves. I did not give them existence at the cost of my own soul." Jess grinned. "Though the memories of my journeys themselves fade like dreams with the dawn of my awakening, the taste of victories achieved and power accrued, that stays with me."

  Jess laughed then. "I hardly feel like a weakened shade, tithing his very essence to some dark master as a mark of obeisance. No, Father. I feel strong. Fierce like the lion. If anything, my power, my essence, my very soul has grown from my adventures!" Her gaze burned with a near feverish intensity and despite himself, her father stepped back, looking oddly hesitant. Heedless, Jess spoke on.

  “As for a warrior’s endurance, I feel as if I could run all day alongside stallions, father! As for strength?” She shuddered. “It scares me to think how strong I am. I must always have a care when I am with someone, lest I move too suddenly, too forcefully, and perhaps cause injury where none was intended. Or at least, such is my fear.”

  Her father looked on with sympathy even as Jess's luminous gaze turned wistful. "I feel as though I thrum with power, Father, when I open myself up to it. This must be what the greatest of wizards and warlords felt, when the world itself seemed to rise up and follow their bidding." Jess's sighed softly then, as she gazed at the gently blowing elms lining both sides of the road. “And I have never felt such a connection to the trees that sway about us, to the grass ever growing upward to embrace the warming touch of sunlight. I have never sensed their wants and needs with such clarity as I do now.” Jess smiled. “Truly, it is a wonder! A grand adventure! To dance in the realms of dream and living, one grand song of existence, and never have I felt the instrument that is myself play so beautifully as when I hear the bards regaling me with tales of wondrous adventure! To know that some of those tales are my own!”

  Jess smiled, gazing at the wondrous Jopple tree, strong and stately, visible for miles. "Already I miss it. Already I would love to be out on some further grand quest, to capture those sweet memories of adventure and power that I know are just on the tip of my mind, if only I could remember them for myself! That is what is so frustrating, Father. To know you've lived tales of triumph, to feel them resonate and sing within you, but to only be able recall them vicariously through a bard's melodic recounting of your tale, or reading a tome you don't recall ever having dictated, yet being credited with the work, and desperately wanting to capture the memory of its creation, somehow. It's like a wondrous dream that would change your life, if only you remembered!" She sighed then, feeling suddenly forlorn.

  Her father nodded, hands gently gripping Jess’s shoulders, forcing her gaze to meet his own. “And that is what troubles me so much, my daughter. Do you not realize you almost didn’t make it? Do you not realize you spent a full season’s turn with your spirit trapped between reality and dream?”

  Jess wanted to look away, but her father's piercing gaze would not allow it. "Jess, listen to me," her father implored. "I have read the accounts! It is true. Adventurers do profit from their exploits. Delving into the realm of dreams can reward the lucky few who survive with lost talents, grand powers, and strength and resiliency to rival that of the most renowned of royal athletes. But Jessica, there is a cost! Like a moth to flame, the more you dance with the fire, the more likely you are to be burned. You have Delved three times that I know of, my child. Three times committing brave acts to save your companions, rescue fair maidens, even saving these very estates from slipping into eternal nightmare."

  Arthur smiled with pride then, hugging his daughter close. “Indeed, I am proud of you, my child. Terribly so. But each time you Delve, it seems that you sink deeper into that terrible realm. Closer to passing from life entire!” Her father sighed. “I have read the accounts. Most adventurers who survive their first journey into the Shadowlands are lost from the land of living only for a handful of days. Not months!”

  Geoffrey nodded. "And those who delve too deep, too often, face a further peril." He shared a look with his father who sighed and nodded. "The Shadowlands call to them, Jess. And they miss it. They crave the danger, the terror, the adventure. To them, those adventures in the realm of dreams, for all that they only remember the wonder they felt, becomes more real to them, more important than life itself! They crave it like a poor drunkard craves wine, reveling in its bliss, even as it robs the man of all that he is and was, till he is nothing but a desperate beggar on the streets and soon after, a walking corpse with yellowed eyes and a bloated belly, still craving the drink which has poisoned him."

  "I am no drunkard craving wine!" Jess snapped, pulling herself away from her father's embrace to stare daggers at her brother. "Even my own thirst for brandy has abated. I am not some broken, pathetic excuse of a woman who would sell out her loved ones to soothe her own desperate needs!" Unbidden, Recollections of Sissela Turnsby came to the fore, so addicted to tincture of poppy, so in swoon to Lessel Turnsby's wiles, that she had opened both her realm and her body to his desires, nearly costing Onnika her life, as well as the lives of everyone within the Turnsby Estates.

  The very idea that Jess would be compared to such a tragic, pathetic figure filled her with a hot flush of fury that faded as soon as she caught her brother's gaze. Her wrath froze instantly, so chilled and sickened was she by the sudden fear she saw in Geoffrey's eyes as he stumbled back, for all that he blinked it away and laughed it off even as Jess turned her gaze away, suddenly humbled and ashamed.

  "My, what a fierce look, sister mine!" Geoffrey forced a chuckle. "It seems you are indeed in full health, for all that Father and I feared you at death's door. By the angels, Jess, were you a wizard in truth, I fear I'd be a toad on the spot!"

  Jess flashed him a sheepish smile. "You'd think I'd have learned to master my temper after three years under Highrock discipline, no, brother mine? Still seems I've a ways to go."

  Geoffrey winked. “Oh, you’ve improved beyond measure, sis. There was a time when that look would result in someone stumbling to the ground with a gushing nose! I still remember that merchant who tried to swindle Father. I don’t know how you spotted it, but boy you looked ready to kill that man!”

  “I could just tell,” Jess mumbled, shrugging. “I could sense the malevolence behind his wiles. He was a malicious maggot, and wouldn’t have cared if those raiders he had hired had killed our family entire, should we have personally been traveling with our goods. It didn't matter that our servitors were the ones whose lives would have been truly at risk. To his mind, it was we who would have perished, and he reveled in the thought! He hated us for having wealth and prestige he did not, and savored the chance to bring us low. It is good Father stayed my hand, for surely I would have challenged and killed that merchant where he stood, had Father not intervened.”

  Geoffrey nodded. "I don't disagree. Fortunately, as their targets were no mere merchants but rather nobility, Father was able to call in the Royal Investigators, much less corrupt than the local constabulary, and the evidence they found of his schemes resulted in a conviction of guilt, and a most gruesome execution that your hands are clean of, while his cohorts got
to spend the rest of their days in the royal copper mines. A fitting punishment, for ones such as they!"

  Jess’s father nodded. “And as fierce and noble a warrior as you have blossomed into, my beloved daughter, I am glad you held back. Just or no, the blood of a man’s life is a heavy weight to bear at fifteen summers.”

  “But I have killed, Father. In defending Raphael and my other friends, Malek and I must have sent near a score of corrupt guardsmen and mercenaries hurtling to the afterlife in the mad fury of battle, to say nothing of all those horrors my shieldbrother and I are credited with slaying in the Dreamrealms.” Jess’s voice was solemn, gaze locking upon her father's own. “To say nothing of what it means to be a Squire, Father, and things I must never speak of aloud.”

  Her father nodded, his smile gentle. "You have indeed defeated many foes in your adventures, dear Jess. Vile creatures well deserving of final rest. And yes, much to your credit, you put your own life in peril, taking on mad odds in defense of Duke diOnni and his son, who have since sworn their undying gratitude to the Calenbry clan. Thus, you have gifted our family with the wealthiest and most savvy of allies and trade partners we could hope to have. It is a solace, for all that I shudder to think too closely of the terrible risks you took that day, or the risks you take every time you dare Delve into the depths of Shadow."

  Her father blinked away what Jess shuddered to realize were tears, stepping forward to hold a surprised Jess close. “I will speak candidly, my daughter. The thought of you constantly putting your life in terrible peril, chasing the most seductive of dreams even as they invite your very destruction, is perhaps what I dread most of all.”

  Jess nodded. “I won’t lie, Father. I miss the glory of adventure. Performing noble acts, deeds of valor and renown. And I do crave it. To savor that wondrous living dream once more. But Father? Do not worry. I will not let it control me.” She favored her father with a bemused smile. “It was you who coaxed me out of my cocoon in the first place, Father. Telling me not to blame myself for acts I may or may not have committed in the Shadowlands. Rather, to take solace in knowing that I saved my friends, and to always have the courage to do what needs be done, even if the path is a difficult one to follow. And indeed, by following that code, I managed to save the Turnsby lands from sinking into the most terrible of nightmares, as well as saving Onnika from a very, very bad man.”