[Meetings 04] - The Oath and the Measure

by Michael Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  "Oh, Cyren," she marveled. "You have . . . you have returned. Even if—"

  She stopped herself at once, deploring her grief-loosened words. But Cyren smiled and touched her face gently with his damaged hand.

  "Even if only for a while? Yes, Mara. There is a certain . . . Tightness in this form. There is naught I would rather be but Cyren the elf, though he lies indeed at the threshold of death."

  Weeping, Mara cradled his head.

  "The last cruelty," she said, "is that you are yourself again, only to die."

  Cyren chuckled bitterly, his breathing wet and strained.

  "Not the last cruelty, dear Mara, but the last save one. For you see, I am not myself but an enchantment cast over the creature who traveled with you these three years in its natural, accustomed form.

  "I was a spider by nature, Mara, a spider at my birth and destined to die a spider, I suppose. But there have been . . . two brief times of otherness: one in Qualinost, three years back, and the other . . .

  "The other is now."

  Dumbstruck, Mara rested her head against the bole of the tree. The clearing reeled about her, and she struggled for her senses. Meanwhile, the elf—the spider—in her arms continued, a pitiful account of how the sorcerer Calotte had drawn him from his web in the height of a thick, black-leaved oak and imprisoned him until a time when he could work his terrible magic.

  "For you see," Cyren explained, his breathing more shallow, his hair matted and dull, "the enchanter gave me this form to draw you to him. He thought that you would . . . surrender to him to free me, and then . . . well, then I should be a spider, and you . . ."

  "Left with the sorcerer Calotte as husband, or cast from the people forever, to make my way alone and unfriended in wilderness and desolation" Mara concluded weakly, recalling the rigid words of Qualinesti law that enforced the proper behavior of maidens. "But why enchant a spider into you? Why not . . . make himself handsome, so that despite his rotten heart, a maiden's eye might . . . incline his way?"

  "He wanted you, Mara. And he wanted you to come to the ancient, ugly Calotte, knowing full well the creature who stood before you."

  "It was a plan spawned in the Abyss!" Mara muttered, her grief turning slowly to anger.

  "And yet . . . it brought me a world of light and connection, no longer ending at the edge of the web, and for a while, days and time and seasons and words sprang into being."

  Cyren smiled to think of it, but his eyes seemed to focus on a distant point. His voice grew faint and the words faltered.

  Cyren looked at her with surpassing tenderness, and for a moment, the elf maiden recalled the green boats and messages along the River Thon-Thalas.

  "Does . . . does it hurt very much, Cyren?" she asked, meeting his golden gaze. And she held him there as that gaze became glassy and distant, as his almond eyes became round, lidless, and segmented, as he died into the shape he knew best, and she was left in the shadowy clearing holding a crumpled spider, her thoughts halfway between wonderment and sorrow.

  Chapter 18

  Of Shadow and Light

  The two of them sat on horseback overlooking the Vingaard Ford.

  Eight miles south of Vingaard Keep, the ford was the most common passage from the west of Solamnia to the east. The old caravan routes crossed the river at these rocky shallows, and in the oldest Solamnic instructions of geography and survival, it was said that all paths to the mountains, to the castles and towers that guarded the ancient region, passed over the river at this time-honored point.

  It was a dated teaching. There were a dozen fords along the Vingaard, some of them veiled, some forbidden by the Measure for reasons lost deep in the Age of Might. Nonetheless, commerce from Kalaman, Nordmaar, and Sanction still crossed the river at the Vingaard Ford, where sharp eyes at the keep stood vigil against bandits and darker things.

  They must have blinked, those sharp eyes, or the climbing fog off the river and the special darkness of this moonless night must have obscured all view from the towers of the keep, for the two rode unnoticed down to the banks of the ford, the hooves of their horses wrapped in cloth and muffled.

  The smaller of the men leaned forward in the saddle and sneezed, unaccustomed to the long riding and the moist night air.

  "Hist!" the taller one warned, reaching for the reins of his companion's horse. "You'll call down a rain of arrows with that racket, Derek Crownguard!"

  "I don't understand this, sir," Derek whispered. "Veiled missions far to the east in the middle of a cold night, the servants sworn to silence at our departure, and you've threatened me from the Wings of Habbakuk to this very spot as if we were bound for battle."

  "Which we may be," Boniface replied, pushing back his hood. "Which we may be, beyond what you have reckoned."

  He was more pale, more furtive than Derek had seen him before, his small eyes haunted and calculating.

  It will serve me better not to argue with him, the boy thought, but he kept at it nonetheless.

  "You said yourself that he was in the Darkwoods, Uncle. Rotting in a druid prison, you said. That when they tired of keeping him—"

  "I know what I said!" Boniface snapped. He rose in the saddle and leaned forward, his breath hot with wine and something animal and fearful.

  "But that is not enough, Derek!" he whispered. "We must be safe beyond my imagining. If he were to escape, by wildest circumstance or through some hidden skill it has taken him years and terrible danger to show . . . why, the roads must be ready for him."

  "This road was made ready a fortnight back," Derek protested, knowing his words went unheard.

  Boniface pushed back his hair nervously.

  "But a fortnight is a year in the memories of . . . of those we employ," Boniface explained, his voice high, a little too loud.

  Derek frowned and leaned away from him, combing the mist for signs of the mercenaries. It had been like this since midmorning, when Boniface had cornered him in the stables.

  "Ready two horses," the Knight had growled, his eyes cold and haunted, his grip tightening on the lad's shoulder.

  "As . . . as you wish, sir," Derek had replied, fumbling at once with the tack. He saddled the horses in silence, knowing by instinct that none of his questions would be answered until they were well on the road to whatever destination figured in Boniface's fevered strategies.

  The gates of the tower had closed behind them and they were well into the Virkhus Hills before Lord Boniface revealed that destination. Even then, only "Vingaard Ford" had passed his lips. The rest were calls and urgings and cursings as they rode the horses briskly over the plains, through the drowned grass and the unseasonably cold air as mist rose off the flanks of the horses and the tower dipped from sight among the mountains.

  Derek shivered. Spring was indeed a long way off, regardless of the calendar and the appointed turn of the season. He would have passed from unkind thoughts to grumbling had he not seen movement by the riverbank, a slight shifting of the shadows.

  "Over there, sir!" he whispered, pointing to where the shadows parted from the deep fog about the river. Three squat forms approached them, hooded and crouched, gliding up the banks quickly like gnarled, stunted wraiths.

  Boniface breathed deeply. By instinct, his hand moved to the hilt of his sword as the horse twitched nervously under him.

  I don't like this, Derek thought, alert for more of them in the tangling mist.

  Boniface raised his hand, and one of those approaching—the tallest one, the one in the middle—raised his in response. The other two hung back a moment, half lost in the thickest part of the river fog.

  "Lord Grimbane, is it?" the approaching one asked. There was something dry in the voice that hinted at centuries of stone and heat. It seemed out of place in these surroundings, and Derek recoiled from it by instinct, wrestling with the reins to keep his panicking horse from galloping madly away.

  Only Boniface held steady. "Grimbane" evidently was the name he had chosen.

  "Not
so loudly," he whispered. "You are in hostile country."

  The assassin—for assassin he was, despite Boniface's softer words for the arrangement—chuckled low and cruelly.

  "Is this not Solamnia?" he asked. "And are you not . . . my friend?"

  "Do you know what to do?" Boniface asked curtly, raising his hood once more.

  "Trust me," the assassin hissed. His hand snaked to the dagger at his belt, and to Derek that hand seemed . . . seemed scaled, of all things, like the back of a reptile. Behind the assassin, a cape switched and billowed unnaturally.

  Surely not, Derek thought, his hand on the withers of his horse, calming the frantic animal. Surely it is some trick of the mist.

  "Trust you?" Boniface asked. 'Tell me what you are to do, and in the order you are to do it. Then we shall talk of trust. We shall talk of payment then, too—of the gold that comes to the trustworthy and the silent."

  "Dam the waters upstream," the assassin began, the monotone of his voice signaling that he repeated memorized instruction. "Post the lookouts. If the occasion comes, it will be one lad—on foot or on horse, no matter—the sign on his shield a red sword against a yellow sun."

  Boniface nodded. "And if the occasion comes . . . ?"

  "Open the dam when the boy approaches midcurrent," the assassin intoned, shifting from foot to foot with a strange, padding sound. "Let the Vingaard Drift do the rest."

  "And then?"

  "Let no word pass of our doings, of our dealings," was the answer, and then in Old Solamnic, the ancient tongue surprising and corrupt on the lips of this hooded conspirator, "and dispose of my accomplices."

  "Dividing the gold will be far easier," Boniface joked in the time-honored language of ceremony and song, and Derek found himself recoiling from his knightly master as well as the gnarled monstrosities with which he dealt.

  What is this? the lad thought, his thickheaded arrogance sliding from him like a layer of dirt under a heavy rain. Where does your honor take you, Lord Boniface of Foghaven?

  But he said nothing, and Derek Crownguard sat in the saddle as gold—half of the gold in question—passed between Knight and assassin, with the promise that the rest would follow when the boy's body was fished from the river. In silence, the squire followed his Knight up the sloping rise of the riverbank and north toward the keep, where they would shelter the rest of the night by innocent fires, talking Oath and Measure with the garrison.

  "What if . . ." Derek began, but Boniface waved away the words, his arm batlike under the dark canopy of his cape.

  "Who would believe them?" he asked, his voice steady and sinister. "Who among honorable folk would trust the likes of them against the word of a Knight of the Sword?"

  He turned in the saddle, regarding his squire with a cold and level gaze.

  "Be thankful 'tis an orphaned brat, without the uncles and cousins sniffing the blood of every Crownguard after the deed is done. If that were the case, you'd not be clean of this, nephew"

  He shot Derek a withering stare. "What is more, I shall trust in your silence on this matter, as you shall trust that, given circumstance and the reason to do so, I am fully capable of dealing with . . . inconvenient witnesses. Indeed, I have done so before."

  His gaze became distant, abstract. Derek liked it even less.

  Lord Boniface shook his head, suddenly and fiercely, as though wrestling himself away from attending to an obscure music. He rose in the saddle and blinked stupidly.

  'Tomorrow we return to the Tower, to gather the last . . . contingencies."

  On the plains of Solamnia, the ancient Vingaard Keep in sight, Derek Crownguard received his own instruction. And learned what would befall him if he did not follow the lessons.

  * * * * *

  In the early evening, Sturm awoke to music, to the touch of soft hands. Two beautiful women hovered over him, perched like tiny impossible birds in the thick branches of the oak. Red-haired and pale they were, and almond-eyed like elves, though smaller by far. Both were dressed in thin silver tunics.

  "Dryads!" Sturm gasped, recalling the legends of enchantment and imprisonment. He started to his feet. Quickly and firmly, the two restrained him.

  "Hist!" one whispered, pinching his lips with her delicate fingers. She smelled of mint and rosemary. 'Tell the Master, Evanthe!"

  Vainly Sturm tried to slip away from the dryad, but her grip tightened, as did the grip of the roots about his legs. He couldn't move. Then, awakened by his struggles, the greater pain returned, rushing over his chest and shoulder. He remembered the wound he had taken, the black thorn in his shoulder.

  The pain returned, but with it came the music, tumbling from the branches like a sweet and silvery rain. Sturm looked around him for Mara, but in vain. Then softly, melodiously, the bewitching creatures at his side began to sing.

  Their voices twined with the sharp descant of the flute, which sported through the words like an otter through silver water. Despite his confusion and precarious balance, Sturm found himself smiling, and he propped himself up on an elbow, searching again for the elf maiden.

  Vertumnus mused at the foot of a holly not ten yards away, his leafy face uplifted, a brace of owls at his shoulder.

  Sturm groped about for his sword, scattering dryads and roots and fallen leaves. The Green Man continued to play, his expression serious and unfathomable. Slipping, wincing with pain, Sturm touched the hilt of the weapon, but it didn't budge from its home in the fire-blackened heart of the tree, and his fingers slid uselessly over the shining metal.

  Meanwhile, an unlikely company had joined with Lord Wilderness. From concealment in the surrounding woods, a deer emerged, then a badger. Three ravens circled about the oak and perched amid the high branches, joined incongruously by a small brown lark, and all around Sturm the branches seemed to blossom with squirrels. Finally, out of the shadows came a white lynx, who curled at Vertumnus's feet and regarded Sturm with gold, translucent eyes.

  The lad tried to speak, but words and breath eluded him. The dark pain from his wound passed through him once more, and he saw and felt no more.

  * * * * *

  "Evanthe. Diona," Vertumnus ordered. "Untie the lad." "And after, sir?" Evanthe asked. "Set him in the heart of this tree?"

  "Water the floor of the forest with his human blood?" Diona asked eagerly.

  "No more imprisonment," Vertumnus declared. "And no more death. By the turn of the night, he will have passed through both."

  "You'll give him to her!" Diona hissed. "To that incanting hag with her roots and potions!"

  "She'll herbalize him!" Evanthe protested. "No fun for us in vegetables!"

  Vertumnus smiled mockingly. He held the flute in the outstretched palm of his hand and breathed over it softly. The instrument vanished, and in the face of such quiet and powerful magic, the dryads ceased their clamor.

  Luin and Acorn shambled placidly into the clearing, hitched to a green covered wagon, bound to the traces by vine and woven rope. At the reins of the vehicle sat Jack Derry, his eyes intent on the lad in the tree. With a quick, respectful nod and smile, he acknowledged the presence of Vertumnus.

  "Welcome back, my son," Vertumnus said. The dryads bowed to Jack, and from the smoldering branches of the oak, the lark descended, alighting on his shoulder.

  "How is he, Father?" Jack asked, guiding the wagon to a place beside Vertumnus.

  "Ebbing," Diona replied, her hand shifting to Sturm's neck, the white fingers gently searching for his pulse. "He has endured much and suffered the wound. His life is low and dwindling even further."

  "Untangle him, Jack," Vertumnus ordered.

  "As you wish, Father," Jack replied dutifully, with a theatrical wink at the dryads, who blushed and turned away. "Though I cannot see what you'll make of him. Nobility and idiocy war within him, and I'm pressed to tell you which has the upper hand."

  "You move through the two worlds like water, Jack Derry," Vertumnus scolded indulgently. 'You know nothing of the divided heart."
r />   "It appears that this . . . arboreal monster nearly divided his heart for him," Jack observed dryly, touching the wound at Sturm's shoulder.

  'The treant knows neither good intent nor evil, neither human nor elf nor ogre, neither friend nor trespasser," Vertumnus explained impatiently. "And yet it is one of us, no monster. You have known that since your infancy, Jack. It has not changed since you left."

  Vertumnus said nothing more. While he watched as Jack lifted Sturm from the charred ground, he gestured idly, almost absently, and the flute reappeared in his hand.

  "I suppose," Jack said, hoisting the Solamnic lad to his shoulders, "it would not be too bad having Sturm here among us. There would be much I would have to teach him, though."

  Vertumnus snorted. "And much he could teach you, Jack Derry, of things formal and stately and abstruse. You've grown like a weed, boy, but five summers in the growing makes for a green tree and a green lad."

  "At five years old in the court of Solamnia," Jack teased, "I would be toddling and toying and weeping at slights, like this one did, no doubt."

  "He did no such things," Vertumnus said quietly. "Even at five years old."

  "Even then you knew him?" Jack asked. "Then no doubt you knew this . . . celebrated father of his."

  "It was another life, another country," Vertumnus replied dreamily, twirling the flute on his finger. The ravens alighted at his feet, hopping alertly and staring curiously at the bright glittering thing in the Green Man's hand. "But I knew Angriff Brightblade. Served under him in Neraka, all the way up to the siege of his castle."

  "What happened to Angriff Brightblade?" Jack Derry asked. "Has the boy a prayer of finding him?"

  "I don't know and I don't know," Vertumnus said, lifting the flute.

  "Then why bring him among us, tugging him by his green wound?" Jack asked in exasperation. "You've no news of his father, and—"

  "But news of his father's undoing I do have," Vertumnus said. "Why Agion Pathwarden and the reinforcing army never reached Castle Brightblade is old history to the Solamnics, but who it was that arranged the ambush . . ."