[Meetings 04] - The Oath and the Measure

by Michael Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  The music that evening was almost a relief, rising from the emerald gloom of the copse ahead of them. Leading the mare at a walk behind him, Sturm drew his sword and trudged toward the stand of juniper and aeterna, his mind fixed on the solid and possible.

  * * * * *

  It was not Vertumnus who played, as Sturm had hoped. Nevertheless, the girl who held the flute seemed almost as wild and gifted. Her almond eyes and slanted ears marked her as clearly elven, and the painted designs on her body were those of the Kagonesti.

  It was all Sturm knew of that elusive woodland people. For of all elves, the Kagonesti were the most secretive, and nowadays the most rare. Less organized, with a much less complex civilization than their Silvanesti and Qualinesti cousins, the Wild Elves lived in small bands or traveled alone through the forests and glades of Krynn. Sturm was surprised to see that one of them had settled herself long enough to play. He lowered his sword, crouched behind an aeterna bush, and watched her in wonder.

  The elf maiden sat in a clearing in the middle of the copse, cross-legged on the thatched roof of a little cabin, her dark hair awash in moonlight. She was wrapped in fur against the wind and the cold, but one leg stretched forth, bare of white fox or ermine, painted with green swirls and helixes, brown and provocative. A silver flute was lifted to her lips, and she played a slow, stately melody.

  Hypnotized by green on brown, by the centripetal swirl of the paint, Sturm felt himself grow short of breath.

  Above the girl, the branches of evergreens swayed in the wind, then bent away gracefully, as though allowing the moonlight to shine on her for some mysterious, intricate purpose.

  Soon enough, as though she had called it there with her song, the moon appeared in the gap between the trees, shining directly down on her—or two moons, rather, for white Solinari in its radiant fullness sat overhead, awaiting Lunitari, its red sister, to join it at the sky's absolute zenith. Slowly the red moon sailed into view as the girl played and the music filled the grove.

  Sturm found himself strangely touched in spite of the day's hardship and accidents. There was a fathomless peace to this scene, as though all good things—beauty and health and virtue and purity—danced for a moment to the flute's measure. There was something sad about it, too. Though he had only chanced upon the moment, Sturm knew that it would pass too suddenly and too soon, and that somehow he was not meant to be a part of it in the first place.

  Indeed, he was leaving, putting away his sword and turning back to the road ahead of him, when he saw the spiderweb.

  The strands were finger-thick and twenty feet long, its hub the size of Sturm's shield, spoke and spiral stretching from tree to tree like an enormous fishnet draped over the clearing. Sturm lifted his sword. The spider who could spin such a thing must be dog-sized . . . man-sized . . . horse-sized. His shield high and ready, Sturm spun about, looking for the monster, but the web was empty except for dried leaves and the skeletal remains of ravens and squirrels. Crouching, the lad moved toward the clearing, bent on warning the girl.

  He was almost too late. There was the spider, bulbous and huge and mottled gray and white, its front legs arched above the heedless elf-maiden, who continued to play, her eyes closed, her dark hair swaying. Sturm cried out and sprang into the clearing.

  The music stopped at once. The girl looked at him with alarm. The spider leapt back, scuttling down the side of the cabin, its movements abrupt and blindingly quick. In an instant, it stood between Sturm and the girl, its forelegs raised as though ready to pounce, its long black fangs flashing and clacking.

  The thing was at least seven feet tall. Sturm didn't tarry to measure. Deftly the lad rolled out of the way, crashing into a blue aeterna bush and losing his shield in the process. The spider leapt vainly behind him, its wicked fangs slashing at empty air.

  Behind the monster, the elf maiden leapt from the roof of the cottage and, scrambling and scuttling like a spider herself, vanished into the shadowy door of the hut.

  Bursting through to the other side of the bush, Sturm lifted his sword over his head, then slashed at the hurtling spider. The creature chittered wildly and sprang out of the way, grappling up a bare vallenwood to crouch in the low branches above the dodging boy. Down the spider leapt, and Sturm would have been crushed immediately had he not plunged forward, somersaulted into the side of the vallenwood trunk and, dazed and breathless, scrambled to his feet to paw the underbrush for his dropped sword. The spider approached, rocked back on its hind legs, and pounced forward viciously. But its fangs closed upon Angriff Bright-blade's breastplate, clashing harmlessly against the ornate bronze.

  With a cry, Sturm broke free of the spider's grasp and, looking about him, noticed his sword lying only ten feet or so away. He raced for the sword, scooped it up in a swift, acrobatic movement, and rolled over the ground, springing at last to his feet with the blade leveled, pointed toward the spider . . .

  . . . who was no longer where he pointed. For in the midst of Sturm's gymnastics, the spider had moved, clambered to a higher branch of the vallenwood, then hurtled out toward a leaning juniper, which it grasped, apelike, in its front two legs, then darted along a thick, extended branch, and dropped unceremoniously back on the roof of the cabin.

  With a cry, Sturm raced toward the cottage, slipping on undergrowth, stumbling over root and bush and bramble. The spider leapt over his head, landing lightly behind him, a thick viscid spiral raveling from its spinnerets. The lad was quick enough this time, stepping from the path of the silk and lunging toward the creature, sword extended.

  But again the spider was no longer there. Sturm looked about stupidly, then above, barely in time to dodge the monster as it dropped twenty feet in a murderous pounce. Running toward the juniper, the great net of the spider shimmering above him, Sturm raised his sword and slashed once, twice, a third time into the thick ropes of the web until a long strand fell, smooth and tough, into his gloved hand.

  "Now," he muttered, turning to face the charging creature, "since sword and strength will not help me . . ."

  He turned and dove among the twitching legs of the spider, dragging the webbing with him. The fangs clacked over his head, and then he was out beyond the creature, two of its legs entangled in Sturm's weaving. Immediately the lad drew the cord taut around a tree and turned again, scrambling beneath the monster once more. A fang brushed his back harmlessly, and he rolled clear of the spider, tugging the web strand taut behind him.

  Five of its legs mired and tied now, the spider toppled onto the forest floor, scattering dust and leaves as it thrashed angrily. Its cry was like the whir of cicadas, deafening and shrill. Sturm slipped out of his glove, leaving it stuck to the filament, raised his sword, and marched over to the snared beast. Triumphantly he raised the blade . . .

  . . . and the elf maiden poked her head out of the door of the cottage and shrieked in horror.

  "No!" she shouted. "Stay your hand, human!"

  Dumbstruck, Sturm stepped back from the creature, lowering the sword. In fury, the girl slipped from the hut and rushed across the clearing, her dark almond eyes ablaze.

  "Untie the poor thing, you scoundrel!"

  Sturm couldn't believe what he was hearing.

  "Untie him, I said! Or by Branchala . . ."

  She drew her knife. Instinctively Sturm raised his shield, but she was by him in a breath, kneeling by the monster, whittling frantically at the web strands that bound it.

  "I . . . I don't . . ." Sturm began, but the elf flashed him a look of such withering rage and hatred that he stopped trying to explain. He stood above her awkwardly, watching her hack and saw at the web. Finally, reluctantly, he knelt beside her, setting the blade of his broadsword against the coarse and stringy cords.

  After a minute or so, the spider was free. Wobbily it stood, as though just awakening or just being born. Sturm watched it cautiously, sword low and shield raised, but the thing staggered, gibbered, and raced off into the copse, a strange, gulping sound in its cry, almo
st as if it were weeping. Completely confused, Sturm watched as the creature vanished into the cedars and pines and laricks, trailing one damaged leg.

  "What—" he began, but he never finished the sentence.

  The elf maiden's slap caught him utterly, completely off guard.

  "How dare you burst into my clearing with sword and mayhem!" she exclaimed, then raised her hand to strike the lad again. Sturm staggered back from her.

  "I thought you were in danger," he explained, flinching as again the girl moved suddenly. This time, however, she merely brushed back her dark hair, and sorrow vied with anger in her face.

  "You fool of a boy," she said quietly. "You had no idea what you were doing, did you?"

  Sturm said nothing. With a weak, melancholy smile, the elf maiden pointed to the heavens.

  "Look above you," she said. "What do you see?"

  A gap in the trees," Sturm replied uncertainly. "The night sky. The two moons . . ."

  His head reeled as she slapped him again.

  " 'The two moons' is right, you dolt! You rash, callow, dwarf-brained excuse for a swordsman!"

  The elf reeled, clutching against the bark of a vallenwood for support.

  "Two moons," she said more calmly, "who join in the winter sky under the sign of Mishakal . . . how often, would you say?"

  "I am no astronomer, lady," Sturm confessed. "I know not how often."

  "Oh, only every five years or so," the girl said, her teeth clenched and her glittering eyes fixed on the lad in scarcely controllable anger. "Every five years, at which time a specific tune, in the ninth mode of Branchalan harmonies, played by a musician three years in the learning of its intricacies, may be used to undo the magic of druids and wizards."

  "I don't understand," Sturm said, backing away as the girl took one aggressive stride toward him.

  "You don't understand," she repeated coldly, flipping the knife in her hand, blade to hilt to blade. "The song undoes enchantment, lifts curses, restores the transmogrified."

  "Transmogrified?"

  "Those who have been changed into spiders!" the girl bellowed and launched the knife past Sturm's ear. He stood confounded, motionless, the dagger trembling in a bare oak some twenty feet behind him. Strands of hair, neatly sliced from below his ear, settled on his shoulder.

  "At the one worst moment in five years," the elf said, "you came upon this clearing. And in doing so, you have assured that Cyren of the House Royal in Silvanost, descendant of kings and lord of my heart, shall scramble alone in webs, eight-legged and six-eyed, eating vermin and offal for the next half a decade until white Solinari and red Lunitari, each on its separate path, sail through the whole forsaken sky, past fixed and movable stars, and converge again!"

  "I'm . . . I'm . . ." Sturm began, but the words had fled to the treetops.

  "No apologies," the girl said, her smile glittering and crooked as Solinari drifted behind the swaying junipers and the clearing was left in the red, ominous light of Lunitari. "No apologies, please, for I've still half a mind to kill you."

  Chapter 9

  Of Mara and the Spider

  Sturm settled thee elf maiden after a few minutes, plying her with apologies and admitting that, yes, he was the most foolish boy on the continent and that to find a greater fool one would have to venture among the goblins in Throt. That apparently satisfied her for the moment. She sighed and nodded, then looked about her in dismay, as though the clearing in which she had lived for two months awaiting the convergence of the moons had suddenly become a real nest of spiders.

  "I can't stay here," she announced and ducked into the cabin. Sturm stood outside, shifting his weight from foot to foot, trying to appear useful. Off among the larick bushes, there was a slight movement, a shift in the underbrush, but when he turned to inspect it, whatever was moving and shifting had vanished.

  "Spiders," he muttered. "I'll wager everything turns to spiders, the girl and myself as well."

  But she emerged most unspiderlike a moment later, her belongings bundled in a packet of cloth and vine and cobweb almost twice her size and slung across her shoulders like something unwieldy and wounded.

  "Well, you'll be taking us home, then," she asserted, her knees buckling beneath the weight of the bundle. Sturm reached out to help her, but she waved him away with a stagger.

  "Never you mind. I'll set this upon the horse," she ordered with a nod toward Luin, who stood cautiously at the edge of the clearing, still skittish from the commotion with the spider.

  "B-But you can't, m'lady. You simply can't," Sturm protested. "She's thrown a shoe and I can't burden her."

  In dismay, the elf girl dropped her bundle.

  "You mean we shall have to travel to Silvanost on foot?"

  Sturm swallowed hard. Though his bearings were none too good, he knew the larger geographies of the continent. Silvanost was five hundred miles away if it was a stone's throw, and such a journey seemed impossibly long and arduous.

  "But I am bound only for the Southern Darkwoods," he protested.

  She shook her head. "No longer. Now we are bound for Silvanost, to throw myself on the mercies of Master Calotte."

  Sturm frowned in puzzlement.

  "The enchanter," she explained dryly. "As you may recall, boy, my true love is still a spider."

  They stood and stared at one another.

  "I'm . . . I'm sorry, m'lady," Sturm muttered. "And more sorry still, in that my path lies only to the Southern Darkwoods. The far reaches of Silvanost are, I fear, beyond my . . . my resources. I have not the time. I may even be followed."

  He coughed and cleared his throat.

  "Nonsense," she said, her voice cold and flat. "Silvanost could be across the world, and you would still have to take me there. So your honor tells you. What is it your people say? 'Est Sularus oth Mithas'?"

  Sturm nodded reluctantly. " 'My honor is my life.' But how did you know—"

  She laughed bitterly. "That you were of the Order? When it comes to the sword, nobody is as heedless as a Solamnic youngling. You may go to your Darkwoods and do what you will, but I shall be with you. And afterward, you will take me to Silvanost. It is that simple. You are bound by your silly Oath and Measure."

  'Tis a test! Sturm thought, with a rising fear. The elf maiden glared at him, angrily but innocently. After all, if Lord Wilderness can play so readily with the seasons and their changes, why would he not have allies—outlandish folk among the elves and the gods know what other folk—who would do his bidding readily?

  Doesn't this creature also play a flute?

  And how would an elf know of the Solamnic Oath, which the Measure interprets in the light of helping the weak and the helpless?

  He glanced balefully at the girl, whose stare had not wavered. She seemed anything but weak and helpless.

  And yet Vertumnus would know, would hold me to the Oath and my honor, would test me further. . . .

  He shook his head. After all, what did Lord Wilderness know or care of honor? It was ridiculous to think such entangled thoughts, to see a green design behind this accident.

  "I'm sorry," Sturm began.

  And his shoulder exploded in a ragged, knifing pain, next to which all of the other pains had been a slight twinge, a tingle.

  This is dying, he thought again, falling to his knees in front of the elf maiden, this is my delay, my cowardice, my dishonor. . . . And he thought nothing more.

  * * * * *

  The elf maiden rousted him none too gently, shaking him until he wakened.

  Blearily Sturm looked up at the girl and remembered it all: the fight with the spider, the girl's outrage, her story and plea, his refusal . . .

  And the pain that had followed, lancing and riveting and white-hot in his damaged shoulder.

  "Very well," he muttered, his mouth dry and his throat prickling. "To Silvanost it is. But after the Southern Darkwoods, mind you!"

  Before the girl could reply, Sturm was on his feet, and with a swift, athletic turn, he ha
d hoisted her bundled belongings onto his back.

  The pain in his shoulder had vanished, mysteriously and entirely. He wasn't surprised. The hand of Vertumnus had touched everything about this wooded encounter, this evening of battle and music and promises and moonlight.

  Sturm grunted uncomfortably at the weight of the bundle. All of a sudden, his burden was five times as heavy, the road five times as long. He thought of Silvanost, there in the midst of the evergreen grove. He thought of the long trek over the KhalkistMountains, through the DoomRange to Sanction along the Nerakan border, then down into Blode and south to the great forest. A passage through bandits and ogres, he had heard. Sturm almost hoped that Vertumnus would slay him on the first day of spring.

  * * * * *

  Mara was her name, and the story she told was pure Kagonesti, full of magic and forbidden love and doom. "It started four years ago," she explained, framing her answer to Sturm's question as the two of them emerged from the evergreen copse. It was early morning, and the sun peeking over the eastern horizon was their guidepost.

  Sturm shifted the weight of the baggage on his back. Though it was barely sunrise, he was already weary, having wandered the groves all night, burdened by the gods knew what belongings. Mara followed him, leading Luin by the reins, and once or twice in the near distance, he had heard the unsettling sound of the spider, clambering from branch to branch.

  "Four years ago?" he asked idly. Fatigue warred with politeness. It was hard to attend to another story.

  "Down in Silvanost," Mara continued, "where the High Elves rule, with their fairness and hazel eyes. Cyren was of the Calamons, scion to the noblest of families, while I was but a handmaiden to his cousin."

  "I see," Sturm said. He wasn't sure he did see.

  "Obstacles right from the start. The course that never runs straight," Mara explained.

  She paused, as though remembering. Sturm heard birds rising from the junipers behind him, rousted by the approach of something—no doubt the scion in question.