The Keeper of Tales

by Jonathon Mast

  Something inside me gave, and I was released as the Kaerun fell back from the strain of pulling at me. It was as if a rope binding us together had snapped. The Kaerun held something in its hands, but it was none of my stories.

  It was Cerulean.

  The elven form shouted words I couldn’t hear, pointing at the rider that had loosed her from me. She glanced about at the other riders, and I saw that she held all their attentions. They moved in on her as one, reaching out with eager hands.

  She spoke again, and one of the Kaerun shied away suddenly as if struck. Its horse whinnied. To another, the elven spirit reached out, drawing the flames away from him, snuffing them out one at a time. Bony claws reached out to grasp and claim, but Cerulean dodged them with ease, moving fluidly between their fingers. She appeared a nimble shade.

  The Blue Riders let out whispered hisses of anger and frustration at one who could avoid their attacks, especially since this one was a story. One of them growled.

  Another grabbed at her back and struck true. Cerulean froze. A second, a third, and then all of them latched on to the elf. Her eyes met mine, and I heard a single word from her: “Go.”

  I didn’t wait to see what would happen. I ran to the woods while I could. Lungs bursting, muscles burning from overwork and heat and cold, I pushed myself as best I could, stumbling where the earth met my feet. Low plants caught and clutched at my legs, but I plunged on. Branches swung for my eyes and tangled in my beard, but I flung them aside. I had to get away from the Kaerun.

  And then I was at the cliff. Below me lay the corpse of the Fabled City. Behind me were the Kaerun. Above was only sky, the stars blotted out by smoke.

  I needed to find escape, some way to get north and prepare my people. I started following the edge of the cliff, hoping to get clear of the battle that was raging in the clearing behind me. I must have been directly above the Library, for the smoke was coming up thickly here. I saw no Spiremen. When they saw their objective had been destroyed, they must have fallen back to a safer position.

  I still heard the strange screams of the Blue Riders. Then, suddenly, silence. I knew what that meant. Cerulean was gone, truly gone. Twice she had sacrificed herself for me.

  Another dead.

  I came into a clearing beyond the column of smoke. No, not just a clearing. The Colonnade. The ancient place of power. None of the words sprang to life. Blood marred the marble floor. Ash started to fall here and there like snow. The remains of the tales that had been held for so long in the caverns under my feet. I held out a hand, letting some ash fall into it. The ash was warm, but I could sense no power, nor could I read a single word upon what had once been paper. I let the white particles fall to the ground.

  The sound of the muffled hoof falls was enough to make me turn. The Blue Riders gathered behind me. The cold came to me again, and the ash might as well have been snow. I brandished Northwind. I wouldn’t even be able to swing it anymore, but I was not yet defeated. If I were to die the defiant hero, at least I would do so in a way befitting a story.

  One of the horses stamped, and they started walking their mounts toward me. The Kaerun would not allow me to escape again.

  My one thought was that Cerulean’s sacrifice had been in vain.

  A white movement caught my eye. A hand reached over the side of the cliff, a pale, gnarled claw of a hand. A face appeared. A white goblin. It shouted some gibberish below, and a reverse waterfall of white came from the side of the cliff. They poured over the edge, scrabbling and scraping their way so very quickly. They surrounded me before the Blue Riders could charge.

  I saw in their hands no weapons but the charred remains of books. Some were in good repair; many were not. They held the books in protective stances, as if the books were more important than their own bodies.

  The horses struck at the group. The white goblins dodged out of the way and raked the flanks of the horses with their claws. One group seized a horse’s legs and toppled the animal. The Blue Rider hurtled to the ground. The other horses were all diverted from me.

  A white goblin near me turned its head. “We keep the tales. We keep the Keeper. We shall not fail, though we seek Her. Find another. Find our mother.”

  The Blue Rider that had fallen stood, and it was angry. White goblins had surrounded it, their books seemingly at the ready. One hurled a codex at it, and the book struck it squarely on the chest. The book did not seem to damage it, but then another book struck it from behind. It turned to face that attacker when a scroll struck it.

  “Run now, find the water. Wait no more, stay no longer.” The goblin pointed to the sky over the cliff, and I knew what I had to do to escape the Blue Riders.

  “What about you?”

  “We will rescue what we can. Fly now! You must be our man! Run now! Fly now! Flee now! Live!” He shoved me toward the cliff.

  I used the momentum and ran once more, as hard as I could. I leaped off the cliff.

  I plummeted through the smoke toward the hard stones below. I fell just as Cerulean had. Gravity wrapped its fingers around me and pulled, ever onward, ever toward the flaming pavement below, ever toward my death.

  And then something snatched me out of the air. The breath went out of my lungs. I saw yellowed feathers as the great beating of wings filled my ears. Kae’A had caught me and soared away, cutting through ash and flame and finding cool air again.

  Chapter Seventy

  In the air, Kae’A dropped me from his paws and caught me on his back. He wheeled in the sky and winged north.

  My hands trembled. I couldn’t cling to his neck.

  Kae’A. Not Kree’Ah. Not my mount. Not the one I had ridden for so long. No, he was Yolian’s mount.

  It was so cold. So dark. I felt the light of the fires from below. Ash fluttered up at us. The wind pushed against me. Fires below, stars above.

  My fingers tangled into the yellowed feathers. I clung to him.

  “Where?” I asked. “Where is Yolian?”

  Had I lost another companion? Another elf? Cerulean gave herself for me. Twice. I could not bear the thought of Yolian dying, too. Is that why Kae’A had come to me? Did he have no one to fly with anymore?

  And like that, like a mother waiting for her child to return from his first campaign, I thought of all the ways that Yolian could have been slain. He could have been devoured by the Kaerun before they found me. He would have been such a good meal for them. He could have been taken by the flames around the Library. No. Yolian would die a hero. He was one of the heroic band. Not one would die a meaningless death.

  But the stories were gone now. They couldn’t protect us any longer if they were gone. Yolian wasn’t guaranteed a heroic death.

  But now it was done. The Library was gone. The stories were gone. I didn’t have to decide. I didn’t have to decide what to do with them. It wasn’t up to me to keep them or destroy them or love them or hate them. I would only mourn them.

  But it did mean that Yolian could have died in flames. Perhaps he had slipped and fallen. Or he could be trapped by the flames inside what was left of the Library.

  All those thoughts, so fast, all those emotions, they ripped through me. And then Kae’A answered. “I saw him safe with the others. I am taking you to them now.”

  “No.” I fell forward and buried my face in the feathers. They smelled of clouds and ash. “No. They don’t need me. Take me somewhere else. Please. Take me to Kree’Ah. He can take me where I need to go.”

  Kae’A didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, in a quiet voice, he said, “Kree’Ah has flown above. He longs to see the nest of his hatching before he dies.”

  I closed my eyes. The words came to my lips unbidden. “The nest he lies in is most hallowed. His soul will soar on winds unknown to wings of flesh. And we will honor his memory in flight.”

  Another who had died. I shouldn’t have asked to see him. It was wishful thinking that I could see him again. He was one more death on my conscience. One more death that was my faul
t. Because I wasn’t fast enough. Because I wasn’t strong enough. Because I wasn’t enough.

  Kae’A’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper over the wind. “Well said, human. Well said.” He paused. “Never again will his claws scratch the earth, and never again shall his wings struggle to hold him aloft. No wind shall hold him down, and his food shall be easily hunted.”

  We glided through the night, circling the ruins of Chariis at a distance. Thousands of fires dotted the landscape: cookfires and torches and destruction, impossible to tell which was which from this distance. All except the Library, of course. All except the great flame.

  “Where would you have me fly you?”

  I shook my head. “I want to be alone. Just for a night. Maybe longer. Where do failures go?”

  Kae’A twisted his neck to try and see me. “Young griffins that fail often dash themselves on stones so they are unable to fly.”

  I closed my eyes. “Perhaps. But I think exile would be worse for me. How fast can you fly?”

  “As fast as I must.”

  “Take me home, then. Take me to the North. I want to see my home before the news reaches them that the world is falling. Before they know how great a failure their king is.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  I wasn’t even granted the chance to fly home. Soon my legs shook. It was so, so cold. Even laying against Kae’A’s neck, even clinging to him with all I had, I slipped. The feathers slid beneath my fingers, and then the sky embraced me.

  And I didn’t care.

  Griffins dashed themselves when they failed themselves or the expectations of their clutch. Me? I had failed the world. I had failed to protect the Library. Now nothing protected us. Nothing.

  I looked at the stars. I wondered. Did the stars tell stories about us? Did they look down from the sky and cobble together tales? Did the tales bind them, too? Did the stars stay in the sky simply because we said they should? Now that the Library was gone, would the stars fall?

  I looked down. Hills covered in trees rushed to reach me. Did trees resent being rooted to the ground as much as I had resented the stories rooting us to certain paths?

  The ground came closer, and I waited patiently for it.

  Paws grabbed my shoulders. The weight of my body, the weight of gravity, took me again. Something pulled in my right shoulder. Something gave. I think I cried out in pain.

  It would happen this way, wouldn’t it? The unlikely hero survives battle after battle. His friends sacrifice themselves so he can survive. And where does his first great injury come? Falling off his legendary steed.

  We set down in a clearing on the side of a hill. Thick green grass cushioned me as I fell over. I still shook. With every tremble, fire burned in my shoulder and up and down my right arm. I cradled my arm, clenching my jaw against the pain.

  Kae’A tilted his head at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I was tired.” I bit back a moan. In short little puffs, I said, “I think… I think the stories, they were helping me before. An old man shouldn’t be able to ride for that many days. Shouldn’t be able to survive so many battles. Before this journey, I’d get sore from sleeping a night on the ground. But then I went weeks with barely a bruise. But now. Now the stories aren’t here to help. And my age. Kae’A, I’m an old man. I shouldn’t be on any adventures.”

  “So you can no longer ride?”

  “I think my muscles won’t let me ride for a long time. Not anymore. And now my arm. When you caught me, my shoulder gave. Something’s wrong.”

  The griffin knelt on the ground in front of me. “So now what?”

  “I don’t know.” I leaned back in the grass and closed my eyes. It was the right question. Now what? What could an injured old man and a griffin do? I couldn’t even tie myself onto his back in this condition, couldn’t even draw my sword. A few days ago, I faced down countless goblins. Tonight, I had faced down countless goblins. But now? It wouldn’t even take one goblin to kill me.

  Old men don’t go on adventures. This is why the old man was never the unlikely hero. It was always the cowardly stable boy or the daring princess or the thieving orphan. People that generally could receive some abuse and come back from it.

  Me? I couldn’t handle anything.

  Kae’A couldn’t carry me long in his paws. Griffins weren’t designed for that. And we couldn’t stay here. How long had we flown? An hour? It probably wasn’t much more than that. It meant that we were almost certainly outside of immediate danger, but we couldn’t stay here.

  The griffin continued to kneel near me. He preened some of his feathers. He looked up at the sky. He waited.

  He waited for a useless old man.

  “Go,” I said. “Just go. Return to Yolian. He will need you.”

  “You need me,” he answered.

  “But no one needs me.” I closed my eyes against the pain. “Please. Go. Yolian is smart. He may figure out some way to fight against the Kaerun. Or Abani. She’s fought so many things. Maybe she can find a weakness. I can’t do anything. Go.”

  I heard the rustle of grass. The flapping of great wings.

  When I opened my eyes, I was alone.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Stars make good companions.

  When I told stories in my throne room to the blackbeards, they always answered with smiles. Not smiles that seize the enjoyment of a story. Smiles that say, The old man has to do this, so we might as well humor him. They were too old for stories, they thought. Really, they were too young for them, but I told the stories anyway.

  When I told stories to my council, they nodded sagely. I knew what they were thinking, because I almost always thought the same thing when I heard someone else tell a story. They were thinking about how they could tell the story so much better. I understood why. We all have our favorite ways of telling a tale, just as we all like our stew seasoned differently. There’s no right way; it’s all preference. But we old men; we think our preferences are obviously superior.

  When I told stories to Braden…

  When I told stories to Braden, to my son, he was still so young. And he loved the stories. Oh, how his eyes shone. But a child can so seldom just listen to a story; they must ask questions. I loved his curiosity, his driving questions, his quest to know more and more and more. But yes, the questions did interrupt the flow of words.

  And when I told stories to Gayala, well… We have a saying in the North: women must correct their husbands’ stories. Gayala believes in that rule. If we sat around the fire and I told the story of Northane taming the fire-spirits, I might mention that he wore red. And Gayala would shake her head and tell me he wore brown. “You think he’d travel that far and keep his clothes that clean? Of course he couldn’t! They’d be all brown from the dust of the road and the mud of the fields!”

  I guessed I wouldn’t be able to see her again.

  Every audience was a joy to tell stories to, but every audience had drawbacks. But stars? They made the best companions. You could tell them anything, and they would sit and listen without judgment. And tonight, I told them stories. Through my pain, it was all I could do.

  “You. Star, up in the sky. I see you twinkling like that, like you don’t need to worry about anything ever. Do you know who you are? We named you Tetano, the Child who Follows. You are so little, but so bright. And the star next to you? It is Perago, the Father who Leads. So large and so dim.

  “Tetano asked his father so many questions. ‘Why are we stars? Why must I shine? Why is the world down there and not up here?’ And his father answered every question so patiently. ‘Because that is what we are. Because that is what stars do. Because if the world was up here, we stars could not shine on it.’ And they traveled the sky every night, from one end to the other, looking down on our world.”

  My pain receded as I closed my eyes and remembered the words. “Tetano was so curious, though. He wanted to see everything. So, one day, when his father slept below the rim of the world in the sea of stars tha
t no man can visit, he snuck away. He came on pointed feet over the edge of the world and gazed at the land. It was so bright under the sun.

  “But that day, the moon had not yet gone to sleep. She called out to him, ‘Tetano! Tetano, you curious child, what are you doing here?’

  “‘I am learning!’ he answered.

  “‘And what do you learn?’

  “‘What men do when they are awake. What the land looks like when it is not sleeping. Do mountains go to war? Do oceans dance?’

  “And the moon laughed at the little star. ‘And all those are good questions. But I see that there is something more you wonder.’

  “And the little star looked at his pointed feet and then back up at the sky. ‘I see that children here have mothers and fathers. I see that lions have mothers and fathers. Even birds have mothers and fathers! But I have only a father.’

  “‘Oh, you also have a mother, little Tetano.’

  “‘Then, where is she?’

  “‘You are talking with her, my child.’

  “‘But why are you here? Why are you not with us at the sea below the rim of the world?’

  “‘Because I take care of so many things. And so does your father.’”

  And I stopped. The pain had vanished in the telling of the tale, but a new pain bloomed in my heart. “‘But a father’s job is to protect his child. That is why you must follow him. I will always love you. And I am often in the night sky with you. But your father is the one who will lead you, little Tetano.’”

  A father’s job is to protect his child.

  “And so, Tetano thanked his mother and returned home. Perago awaited him. ‘Where have you been, little star?’ the father asked.

  “‘Visiting mother.’

  “‘Oh! And what did you do that for?’

  “‘Because mothers answer the questions that fathers never know children want to ask.’ And Tetano went to sleep with a smile on his face. And his father,” I paused. “His father watched over him every night. Because that’s what fathers… That’s what fathers do.”