The Keeper of Tales

by Jonathon Mast

  It didn’t work.

  But I answered, “The two of us together can take more goblins that all the Garrendai.”

  He laughed. “I’m glad you’re still with us, Adal. We need you. More than ever. Can you walk?”

  And so, between the two of them and some vines tied to secure my arm and shoulder, I was able to stand. Mostly. I leaned heavily on Yolian, and Daragen ran ahead of us to wherever the others were supposed to convene.

  “Did you hear the relief in his voice when he found you?” the elf asked.

  I shook my head. A person can rely on a bad horse. They might love the horse, but that doesn’t mean the horse is a trustworthy one.

  We slipped under the cover of the branches. “How many escaped Chariis?” I asked through clenched teeth. I’d need a distraction if I was going to handle this pain. Every step jarred the shoulder enough that I had to resist crying out.

  “Not enough,” Yolian answered. “Everyone scattered. We’ve made camp with a number of others. There are some dwarves, some Cassuni, a number of both Hadrisar and Fahalla elves. Some Parvians. Over half the people are Northerners and Spiremen. A few hundred. I’m sure there are many other camps like ours in a perimeter around Chariis. We sent the griffins to circle and let us know what was going on, as much as they could.”

  “You’re right. That’s not enough. Even if we all stood together, we don’t stand a chance. If we couldn’t succeed in Chariis, we won’t succeed anywhere else.” We stumbled our way up a small rise.

  “Wait.” Yolian stood very still, his eyes closed. “Do you hear that?”

  I took in my surroundings. A few birds called. The buzzing of insects. The smell of trees and the decay of the forest floor. “No.”

  “Battle.”

  “Leave me. You need to be there to help.”

  “No. You come with me.”

  “I won’t be any help to you,” I said. I struggled against him.

  “Adal, I won’t leave you.”

  “That’s a command! If I’m the Keeper of Tales, then listen to me! Go to the battle!”

  “I am!” Yolian grabbed me around the waist and hauled me up the rest of the rise. “I’m going to the battle. And you’re coming with me!”

  I kicked, but I was too weak to effectively fight him. He went down one shallow hill, across a short level space, and up another rise. Sunlight dappled through the leaves. Finally, I heard it: The sounds of men shouting.

  “Hurry,” I urged.

  “Trying,” the elf answered. And he was.

  “Set me down,” I said. “Let me try to run with you.”

  “I won’t be tricked, Adal.”

  “No trick. Let me try.”

  He set me gingerly on my feet. I was able to walk by leaning on him. We made better time.

  My arm was turning purple. I still couldn’t move my fingers. I would be worse than useless in a battle. I couldn’t even hold a sword, much less use it to defend myself. What was Yolian thinking? I’d only be a liability. But we kept moving.

  What was going to attack? What had the Kaerun sent out as carrion eaters to snatch up the corpses of the armies of the nations?

  Another hill. Another. Would this forest ever end?

  And then a final hill. We topped a rise and saw a shallow valley, still shaded by high branches, but visible from where we stood. The ground was littered with the dead. I spotted the silks of a sword dancer. There was the armor of a dwarf.

  “Where are the enemy’s dead?” I breathed.

  Yolian scanned the area. “There’s fighting over there,” he pointed.

  “No,” I breathed as I too saw what was happening.

  There were no enemies here. No goblins sprang to attack. No behemoths barreled through. No paranai hid among the trees.

  The nations of men had turned on each other. Our armies fought one another.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  “Yolian. Prop me up against a tree. Go. Find out what’s happened.”

  The elf looked at me and back at the battle that raged below. “Adal, I can’t leave you here.”

  “There’s no reason for you to stay. Carrying me through there? I can’t see any protected place. Can you? Is there any fortified location? Anything that looks like someone in command?”

  “No. Not that I can see.”

  “Carrying me would be a death sentence for us both. Go.”

  Yolian looked at me again. “Don’t you dare let someone kill you.”

  “Fine. I’ll fight with all the strength in my left arm.”

  He looked at me a moment and then hauled me to a nearby tree. The broad trunk supported me as I leaned against it. I was heaving for breath; the short walk here had exhausted me. My legs shook, but they didn’t give out.

  “Adal, you’d better be here when I get back.”

  “You’d better go if you’re expecting to come back,” I answered between gasps.

  He took a step backwards, another, and then he spun and dashed down the hill. A soldier spotted him—Cassuni, by the farmer’s clothes that poked out under old leather armor. The soldier cried out, “Another traitor!” and ran after the elf.

  Yolian put out his hands. “What happened? Why are we fighting each other?”

  The soldier screamed and charged with an old sword. Yolian deftly spun out of the way of the blade and dashed off in the opposite direction. He wasn’t here to fight. He was here to get answers.

  I closed my eyes, expecting the story to take me. I should follow Yolian so I could tell the story later. We had been surprised, and now the storyteller would follow the elf to discover what he could discover.

  The story didn’t take me.

  Had they all abandoned me? Did I not have the ability to follow our story anymore? No more visions?

  I felt another hollowness. I had gotten used to them. I had enjoyed being able to watch my friends. Without the visions, I wouldn’t know that Korah had somehow escaped alive. Without the visions, I wouldn’t know how Lazul had recovered Karen Cordolis.

  I’d failed as Keeper of Tales. I’d allowed the Library to fall. I was no longer worthy to be telling this story, to be participating in it.

  My shoulder. My arm. Oh. I slid down against the trunk of the tree a little. The pain rolled over me. Someone moved around me. Footsteps. Heavy ones. I could do nothing more than feel the pain, though. Blackness crept in at the edges of my vision. More than just the edges.

  As I clenched my jaw, I was able to fight the pain back, little by little. My sight returned. The ringing in my ears faded.

  Four dwarves stood around me. I couldn’t see more, not yet. I couldn’t make out their armor or what nation they came from.

  A gravelly voice said, “Another one. Kill it like the rest?”

  “Not worth it. Look at it. All used up like that? No honor in it.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not concerned with honor, are they, humans? Just go around murdering us like we’re goblins. They think anything that doesn’t look like them must be darkspawn.”

  I blinked away more of the spots in my vision.

  One of the dwarves leaned on a crutch, one leg gone. He frowned. “No, this one is useful yet. They don’t bring old ones onto the battlefield unless they’re kings or something. It might get us something in trade.”

  “Lazul?” I asked.

  “It knows your name!” one of the other dwarves said.

  “Course it does. I’m a mighty chief, aren’t I? Chief of the Jaed, the best dwarves! Who else ever dug down to the Floodgates?”

  “Lazul? What’s going on?” I asked. I was almost lying on the ground now, simply propped up against the tree.

  “What’s going on is that the humans have betrayed the dwarves for the last time. All you people who live without a good stone roof over your head. We want them back. And until we get them back, there won’t be peace.”

  “Want what back?”

  “Our heroes. Their monuments. Our stone warriors.”

 
“The stone warriors?” I asked.

  “Yes. The guardians to our world.”

  “At the entrance to Graz lands? We rode past them together, Lazul.”

  “Hm. Right. This is my first time in Blue Rafters, human.”

  I squinted. My vision was finally fully clearing. “What’s on your eyes?”

  “My eyes? Nothing. I see you fine.”

  “No. There’s something there. Something flowing. Golden. They look like words.”

  “Human. I don’t know what you’re trying to do here,” Lazul growled. “We came here in peace. We thought we’d give you a chance. We thought we’d allow the human nations a chance to explain what they’d done and return the statues.”

  And it clicked. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Your shoulder is worse hurt than I thought, isn’t it? You’re mad with pain.”

  “Answer the question. Please. Give a miserable human an answer.”

  “We met on the plains of Chereken.”

  The words chilled me. I spoke without thinking. “They met on the plains of Chereken, the dwarves and the humans and the elves, for the first time since the Deluge. They each came armed for war. The dwarves sought their monuments to warriors long past. The elves sought the scrolls of stories older than the waters. And men sought their stolen weapons. They each accused the other, until battle broke out.”

  “Aye. You’re remembering. So which nation do you belong to?”

  I licked my lips. I looked back at the words that covered his eyes. The words that covered his ears.

  This happened long ago. So long ago. This wasn’t some civil war that broke out in our camp. They were reliving something that was told to kings to teach us to approach one another carefully. It was used to teach caution. That first war between all the races of the light.

  I read the story in the Library many years ago. I could still feel the parchment under my fingers.

  But now the Library had burned. But this story hadn’t died, had it? It was too strong for a fire to kill it. No. It had escaped its bonds. It had gone wild. It had found people to use. The story had chained the army. They were enslaved to a tale.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  How do you fight a story? We were at a loss as to how to fight the Kaerun because they were unknown to us. But this, this was a story I knew. And if I knew the story, I knew how I could fight it.

  Braden was often scared at night. He would cuddle into me, shivering with fright. He had told himself a story that chilled him.

  “There was a man. But instead of hands, he had goose’s heads. And he bit people all the time with his hands. He was behind the door to my room. He was going to attack me. Dad, it was a man, with the head of a man. He could think, but he could bite like a goose with his hands.”

  And for him, there was nothing worse. Nothing could be worse than a man with goose heads at the end of his arms. Granted, such a sight would probably unnerve me, too.

  And what did I do for him?

  Once I tried telling a different story. I told him about how Northane braved dangers to discover the North. I told him about heroes who had fought Garethen and outwitted him. I told him so many stories.

  He was still scared, though. He still couldn’t sleep.

  So, I finally went back to the tale that terrified him so. And I told him the ending. “Do you know what’s worse than a man with goose-head-hands? A wolf that grows grass instead of fur. Can you imagine? The goose-man would try to nest, and discover he had tried settling in on top of the green wolf. And the wolf would snap-snap-snap up the goose-man. But you don’t have to worry. The green wolf lives far south in Fahalla and only comes to the North to hunt goose-men. You’re safe here. I think one of my patrols said they saw a green wolf not far from here, within a day’s ride. And green wolves will snatch up any goose-men nearby.”

  And Braden smiled at me and toddled off to bed. He wanted more stories about the brave green wolves, but at least he went to bed.

  That’s how you fight a story: You tell it to the end. You make it resolve.

  “Lazul, do you know what happened on the plains of Chereken?” I asked the dwarf looming over me. “The dwarves suffered a terrible loss when the statues of their heroes were stolen. Such craft, such skill being stolen is a loss to every nation. And it made sense to blame men. They were a crafty lot, weren’t they?”

  “Aye,” Lazul said. “They’d rather steal than dig.”

  “But they were fooled by a craftier one. Garethen hungered for the lands of light. And he had sent hagri in the night, dwarves that had been twisted into great beasts. And these hagri had removed the monuments in the darkness and left behind the inferior blades of men.”

  The words in Lazul’s eyes flashed. The story knew what I was doing. Of course it did.

  Lazul growled. “We don’t have time for this. If these false mines are the worst you can throw at us, you’re no threat.”

  “No, mighty chief! I’m no threat. I can’t even stand up. But you know what is a threat? The hagri that lurk. And I’m sure the mighty dwarves will defend their nation and every race that keeps to the light!”

  The dwarf turned away, and his companions followed suit.

  “And that’s what they did on the plains of Chereken! The dwarves knew that men could never steal so many monuments away, after they saw how weak men were. They returned and found the hagri destroying their homes. So the dwarves released the men from their guilt!”

  I was skipping ahead in the story. Years of war had ravaged the surface while Garethen had ravaged the mountains. The dwarves had never fully recovered their population from that decimation.

  But when it was time to end a story, it was time to end a story. And once a story reached its end, well, what power could it have?

  All four of the dwarves stumbled to a stop. Lazul rubbed his eyes and turned slowly. Finally, his eyes landed on me. “Adal?”

  There were words in his eyes no longer.

  “Adal! You’re alive!” He whooped in the air and hobbled to me on his crutch. He crushed me in his embrace.

  I howled in pain.

  “Adal! You’re weaker than I remember!” he guffawed. Then he saw my shoulder. “What’s happened? Where have you been?” He spun and saw the dead around us. “Who attacked us? We need to form up ranks!”

  “No, Lazul. The army’s been set on by a wild story. And if we have any hope of rescuing our friends, we need to find a way to fight it. A better way than how I just reclaimed you. I can’t tell the story that many times to all the people.”

  He frowned. “You’re going to have to explain that to me better, Adal.”

  I explained the situation to the four dwarves. I explained how the story was using our army to tell itself. “And my guess is that it’s reveling in its power. Maybe the Library chained it for years, and now it’s doing whatever it can to just, well, use us. But there’s one way to fight off its influence, and that’s to tell it. To finish the tale, like I did with you.”

  Lazul’s face fell. “We don’t have the Colonnade anymore to put you in front of all the troops.”

  “No,” I sighed. “We need something else.”

  One of the other dwarves was keeping watch over our little war council. “What if we could gather everyone? Think you could shout?” he asked.

  “I’m not good for much else,” I said.

  He smiled at his companions. “Well, I think we might find a way to do that. What do you think?”

  Lazul grinned back. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. Adal, if we lean you against a tree, think you can hold on long enough for us to bring everyone to you?”

  I grimaced in pain but nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  And so, I was propped against a tree. Again. Because I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet. But at least I could do something for my friends. I might be able to free them. Lazul left my blade leaning against my leg where my left hand could reach it. Then the f
our dwarves dashed off in different directions chortling to themselves.

  I wasn’t sure if four chortling dwarves was a good thing. Once again, I cursed my loss of story-sight.

  But here I was. Fighting a story. I wasn’t even fighting Garethen or the Kaerun or any other fell beast. Just... a story. A story that had gotten too big. A story that wanted us to tell it, that forced us to live out what it was.

  In other words, a story like any other.

  Garethen’s words returned to me. He said the stories had to be stopped. Looking around, I saw what he meant, what he had been afraid of. If stories could do this, if such an old story could take an army that had just fought side by side and turn them into enemies, what else could a story do?

  It could keep nations from ever aiding each other. It could kill children for disobeying their parents. It could turn someone who perhaps once was a good man into the Fallen Lord.

  I hoped the last part need not be true. I hoped what remained of the tales would still protect me as they had before. But with the Library gone, who could say? Had the Library strengthened the tales, or controlled them? Secured them, keeping them safe from being forgotten, or tamed them, keeping them from using people, like this tale was now?

  But I knew how to fight this story: Just speak it. Speak the story to its end.

  But an ending is far more powerful if the beginning is spoken, too.

  So, though I didn’t have an audience, though this little valley only held myself and the dead, I spoke.

  “Dwarves marched the plains of Chereken, their axes in hand, their armor gleaming in the alien light of the sun. Their monuments had been desecrated, their guardian statues removed. They came to seek those who had wronged them: the men who dwelled above and knew little of kinship, of ties that protected.

  “Elves marched on the plains of Chereken, their fingers crackling with energy, their keen eyes scouring the hillsides. Their scrolls had been stolen from sacred cabinets, scrolls older than the waters which told how the brenevai had chosen to birth them. They came to seek those who had wronged them: the dwarves who lived below and craved treasure, every treasure they could unearth.