The Swordsman's Oath

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “I wish you would curb your enthusiasm for telling me things I learned as a first-season apprentice before you were even thought of, Shivvalan. How do you propose we go about this, anyway?” Faint hope warred with the suspicion in the old man’s faded eyes.

  “I think I can find Halice, at very least, and I imagine she’ll know where Livak may be.” Shiv rose from his stool and fetched a ewer from the old-fashioned dresser behind him, taking a little silver vial from his breeches pocket. Viltred watched in silence as the younger mage sprinkled black drops of ink on the surface of the water. A greenish glow began to gather in the water, rising above the rim of the jug to trickle over the sides and sink into the stained table top. “A friend of mine was helping tend her leg,” Shiv explained in increasingly animated tones. “He found he had a boot buckle of hers and passed it on to me. As he said, you never know when you might want the means of scrying for someone.” He dropped the trinket into the water, caught his lower lip between his teeth and bent closer to his magic, expression intense.

  “Just get on with it,” muttered Viltred.

  A sudden sound of rushing air and water filled the room and Shiv stood abruptly upright, his eyes meeting Viltred’s where he saw his own consternation mirrored.

  “You set wards of warning on your way here?” asked the old man, a quake of fear in his voice. “Could that be this swordsman arriving?”

  “No, I’m afraid my spells are woven only for the Elietimm,” Shiv replied breathlessly. “After traveling to those accursed islands, I’ve no desire to find myself in those bastards’ hands again, believe me. One of our number suffered much the fate we have to protect you from.”

  “Let’s remove ourselves to the safety of the village,” said Viltred more robustly. “You have sufficient mastery of air to achieve that?”

  Shiv scowled in frustration. “We daren’t take the time to gather all your valuables and if we just translocate ourselves away, we’ll have no idea what the Elietimm do or where they go.” He swiftly crossed the dusty floor to open the varnished shutters just enough to see out. “We’ll be trapped like rats in a barrel if we stay here, though. No, we’ll find a vantage point in the woods where we can hide ourselves,” he said decisively. “With the greater moon dark and the lesser at last crescent, this is the blackest night of the season and that can help us as much as them.”

  “If I see them coming for us I’ll be away, clear to Hadrumal, if I can,” warned Viltred, grim-faced. As the old mage rose stiffly from his chair Shiv drew back the bolts on the sturdy wooden door. He caught the shorter man under one arm and, throwing open the door, half hurried, half carried Viltred into the concealing gloom gathering beneath the trees as the sun sank slowly in the clouded western sky.

  “Wait,” commanded Viltred a touch breathlessly.

  Shiv bent his head close to the old mage’s. “What is it?”

  “I’ve a few spells of my own woven hereabouts,” Viltred murmured grimly. “I can set them for two-footed beasts as well as those with four.”

  He rubbed knuckles swollen with joint evil and a faint blue glow gathered into a ball between his hands. Viltred released it with a gesture and it floated away like a wisp of marsh gas, alighting here and there on the fringes of the forest to leave a small, fast-fading imprint on the grass.

  “We have to conceal ourselves,” whispered Shiv urgently. “I’ve some means of confusing their enchantments but we have to stay absolutely motionless.”

  Viltred nodded and the two wizards drew further into the shadows. A flicker of multi-hued light at the edge of seeing gathered around them, evaporating to leave the mages no more visible than the patterns of darkness merging with the twilight.

  The final golden shimmers of the sun were scattered by a waterfall tumbling into a brook but everything else was muted to myriad shades of gray. Black as the night deepening under the surrounding trees, the shape of a man suddenly ran across the open ground to the hut, crouching low and moving swiftly. His yell ripped through the silence as a shock of lightning erupted from the ground beneath his feet, throwing him backward to scramble in confusion for the shelter of the trees. Smoke drifted away on the night’s chilly breath.

  After a long still moment, two more figures slowly paced across the turf to vanish in the dark lee of the hut. A sudden flare of blue light outlined the frame of a window and startled curses were hastily hushed. After a tense pause a hooded individual strode boldly from the cover of the woods and stood in the middle of the grass, a handful of others respectful in his wake.

  The stout wooden door exploded inward in a soundless shower of splinters and the black-clad men rushed inside, only the faintest gleams of starlight catching on their swords and one pale, uncovered head. Faint sounds filtered through the ruins of the door, the scrape of nailed boots on the floorboards, the heavy drag of furniture being hauled aside, crashes spoke of shattering crockery while a series of dull thuds suggested treasured books being tossed angrily to the floor. One liveried figure emerged from the door, head down and stooped shoulders betraying failure and fear. The hooded man crossed the grass with impatient strides and struck him with a gesture of disgust. The others emerged, one proffering something that stayed his leader’s punishing hand. With a sweep of his cloak, the hooded man led his troop away to melt into the forest night.

  The pallid, wasted arc of the lesser moon rose over the sheltering crag. Slowly tendrils of smoke began to ooze from the windows and door of the cabin. Greedy flickers of flame began to lick around the timbers, startlingly orange against the deepening night. In an impossibly short time the roof collapsed in on itself and the red glare of the inferno defied the soft light of Halcarion’s crown of stars, now riding high and uncaring above the smoke. Feathery drifts of ash swirled across the glade as grass withered and the bare earth began to steam. Suddenly the fires melted away, leaving only a ruin of blackened wood.

  A motley-colored cat made a tentative foray from the edge of the woods but something startled it and it dashed up a tree. On its second attempt, it reached the forbidding heap of charred timbers and paced cautiously round, sniffing and occasionally prodding with an inquiring paw. After a while, a second cat appeared, ears down and tail clamped close to its gray-striped side. The two animals explored the edges of the ruin for a while, the air around them shimmering oddly, the size and colors of the creatures shifting and altering until the spell faded away to reveal the wizards in their own forms. Neither man paid any heed to the magic unravelling around them and continued to search intently, pulling wreckage aside.

  “Let me.” Shiv hauled a blackened beam aside to reveal the smashed and burned remnants of a trap door. Viltred pulled at a twisted tangle of wood and metal with an effort, struggling with a racking cough as the ash and cinders were puffed up around them both. Shiv helped him clear the choking debris then made to go down the rock-cut stair now revealed.

  “No,” snapped Viltred. “This is still my home, what is left of it.”

  Gathering his faded jerkin around himself, Viltred descended the steep steps awkwardly while Shiv waited, arms folded and one impatient boot raising little flurries in the soot as it tapped.

  Viltred’s cough echoed harshly as he emerged from the cellar some while later. “Well, the Archmage is going to learn nothing new about these mysterious islands, their vicious peoples or their arcane arts from the few treasures I won from Azazir.” He spat into the dust and clinker. “They’ve taken every last piece, so where does that leave Planir’s hopes now, Shivvalan, tell me that!”

  The High Road between Upper Cote and Spring Cote,

  Caladhria,

  10th of Aft-Spring

  “Ryshad!”

  I was so startled to be hailed by name on the deserted early morning road that I jerked my reins like a novice. The indignant horse skipped a pace forward, shaking its head with a rattle of harness rings and bits.

  “Ryshad, over here!”

  “Shiv?” I looked around to see the wizard waving at
me, lanky and raw-boned as I remembered him, leaves stuck to his breeches as he emerged from a spinney I would have sworn was empty of anything larger than a squirrel. “What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing?”

  A second, hunched figure appeared and Shiv turned to offer his arm. “May I present my companion, Viltred Sern. Viltred, this is Ryshad, the sworn man I told you about.”

  A Prince’s man soon learns not to betray surprise so I bowed, expressionless, as I looked to see what manner of man had been apprentice to one of the most notorious and dangerous wizards that the hidden city of Hadrumal had ever produced. It was something of a surprise to see a tired old man with a ragged gray beard and sunken eyes, soiled and crumpled after what must have been a cold night out in the open. Still, it had been a generation or so since Azazir had been given the choice of banishment to the distant wilds of Gidesta or death at the hands of the Council of Wizards for his irresponsible sorceries.

  “Shivvalan, I need warmth and food before my joints seize completely in this damp!” The old man scowled out from the moulting fur of his hood.

  “What’s the story, Shiv?” I asked, concerned. “Why are you walking the road without so much as a bundle between you?”

  Shiv shook his head. “I could only tell you half a tale at the moment. Let’s find somewhere with a fire and some decent ale.”

  I let it go for the moment and dismounted to help shove the old wizard into the saddle, where he rode like a sour-faced sack of grain. “There was a decent-looking tavern not far back,” I suggested.

  “Fine.” Shiv nodded. “We’ll be going south as it is. Take us there.”

  I wondered if I would have to find a tactful moment to remind Shiv that, patron’s instructions or not, he had better not have any ideas of ordering me about. Messire gives me his commissions, but I’m used to plotting my own course.

  We soon turned into the well-swept foreyard of the whitewashed tavern and Viltred struggled to get off the horse. Realizing he was older than I had first thought as I saw the grayness of his skin under his sparse and ragged beard, I offered him my arm. Accepting my help after a sharp, suspicious glance the mage stalked stiffly inside where Shiv was charming a pink-faced tap maid into letting us have the private parlor off the common hall.

  Once we were seated in the snug room, which even boasted some well-polished wainscoting, I poured three tankards of the rich dark ale as Shiv drew the heavy oak shutters across the clouded glass of the small window. At a snap of Viltred’s fingers the candles sparked to life, outshining a faint glimmer of blue light spreading from Shiv’s outstretched hands.

  “Now I can tell you what’s going on. We don’t want to be overheard,” he explained as the enchantment faded into the wood and plaster of the walls.

  A sensible enough precaution, given that putting up the shutters would have aroused the curiosity of anyone who’d seen him do it.

  “If you could manage it, Viltred, the augury would be the clearest way to explain everything,” continued Shiv.

  The old man sighed but nodded. “Do you have a candle-end?” He took an oilskin bundle out of an inside pocket and unwrapped a crescent of hammered copper set on a little stand.

  I watched, determined to keep my countenance. We don’t have much use or experience of wizardry in Formalin but I had seen it wielded to startling effect the previous autumn, when Shiv, Livak and I had been fleeing for our lives across the desolate wastes of the Ice Islands. I recalled Shiv was a wizard whose powers linked him principally to the element of water, an accident of magebirth that had played a crucial role in saving us from the merciless Ocean, thanks be to Dastennin.

  Viltred’s color improved as he drank his ale and I took a long swallow of my own. Full favored with the bitter bite of good hops, it was more than good enough for me if I couldn’t get a decent Formalin wine. It was certainly a vast improvement on the sour dregs I’d been drinking in Lescar.

  Shiv fixed a stub of tallow to the lower point of the crescent, and in his unguarded expression I saw he was weary as a brothel watchdog, woken ten times a night. Viltred carefully hung a gem from a tiny hook at the top and Shiv lit the candle with a snap of scarlet magic. I saw from the flashes of fire that this was a diamond, larger than any in the Imperial crown, and bit back an exclamation.

  Viltred cleared his throat before speaking. “Nowadays I live a quiet life with little magic, but one thing I do for the locals, in return for food and so forth, is take auguries for the coming seasons.”

  I wondered how good the old man was; I’ve never seen a festival fortune teller I’d wager a Lescari penny on, netting the witless with their lies. A sudden flash of amber light set images dancing inside the diamond, seizing my eye and seeming to fill my gaze, everything else of no more significance than a mirror’s frame.

  The face of the stone was dark now, clouded with what looked like smoke. It drifted apart leaving only the sooty breath of torches steaming around a ruined hall. Greedy fires devoured heaps of fine satins, lovingly embroidered hangings, furs and gowns looted from Dastennin only knows where. Dark oaken furniture, dutifully polished for generations, was hacked and splintered, gouges showing pale in the old wood like bone exposed in a mortal wound. My heart started pounding in my chest as I recognized this place; it was the audience chamber in the Imperial Palace in Toremal. I gritted my teeth in impotent fury as I saw black-liveried figures crossing the broken tiles of the floor with armfuls of looted luxury to dump on the insatiable flames. I realized with cold horror and hot rage that these were Ice Islanders, fellows to the villains who had maimed and robbed Messire’s nephew the previous summer, that outrage setting Aiten and myself on the trail that had ultimately led to my friend’s death.

  Darker smoke was gathering in one corner and I saw that a ravenous tongue of fire had taken hold of one of the great wooden pillars of the doorway to the throne room. As I watched, the heavy double doors, shorn of their gold fixings, swung open and a tow-headed man in bloodstained leather waved a triumphant and terrible trophy at his fellows.

  It was a head on a pike. From the lumpen shape of the jaw and face, they had beaten their victim before despatching him, savagely enough to break the bones of his skull. For all that, I knew this man, I had seen that youthful and once handsome face warm with contentment, those eyes, now dull and lifeless, bright with excitement. This was my emperor, Tadriol, third son of Tadriol the Prudent, fifth emperor of that House, still new enough in his seat of power to be awaiting the acclamation from the Princes of the Great Houses that would seal their approval or otherwise in the epithet their Convocation bestowed on him.

  I could not stop myself glancing at Shiv and our eyes met for a moment, his face set like ice and just as cold. Realizing my hands were clenched into fists, my nails marking my palms, I reached for my tankard, trying to wet my dry throat before realizing the vessel was empty. Viltred’s magic flickered as he turned the gem once more with trembling fingers of enchantment.

  Soft gray haze cleared and revealed mellow stone walls, warm in the light of fine beeswax candles. I saw myself again, this time standing on a dais in what I instantly recognized as a Formalin Prince’s great hall, lavishly decorated for the celebrations of either Solstice or Equinox. We had evidently all prospered; I was spruced up like a whorehouse apothecary in maroon velvet and fine linen with a discreet collar of golden links as I stood behind Messire’s nephew, Camarl, his plump face genial but his eyes keen, deep in conversation with someone I recognized from a cadet line of D’Azenac. Realizing I was looking at myself as other people must see me was an eerie experience, unnerving, and I stifled a sudden shiver. My lips parted in unconscious surprise when I saw Livak, seductive in a midnight-blue gown of silk, pearls caught in the exquisite confection of her hair and gleaming around her neck. I allowed myself a moment to savor her unaccustomed elegance and realized she was enticing the knot of eager and noble youth around her to wager on the fall of a delicate set of applewood runes, tucking silver and gold coin dis
creetly into the little velvet bag on a ribbon at her waist.

  Shiv was down in the main body of the hall, standing tall and courtly in green linen, closely shaven and with his long dark hair tied neatly back for a change, weight resting easily on his back foot, arms crossed and relaxed. He was laughing with one of Messire’s nieces, who clearly had no idea that her evident interest in him was doomed to disappointment. Viltred was in animated discussion with two noblemen, dressed in formal robes incongruous in this setting but possessing an unexpected air of authority as he waved a black-clad arm, his gnarled hand gripping a staff which he thumped down to emphasize his point.

  “What you are seeing are alternate possibilities for the future,” began Shiv.

  “What does it all mean?” I demanded curtly. Any concerns of the wizards were secondary to the peril threatening everything to which I was honor-bound.

  “We don’t know.” Viltred’s frank admission silenced me.

  “You’ve taken no action?” I heard impatience sharpening the edge to my tone and forced myself to blunt it. “When you’ve seen such a threat to the Emperor?”

  “Taking action based on auguries is a very risky business.”

  Unexpectedly, Viltred was not cross or defensive but merely sounded weary to the bone. “Every event depends on such a chain of circumstance and causation that in acting you can forge the vital link that brings about the very catastrophe you are trying to avoid.”

  “Seeing yourself and Livak like that suggests you both have some role to play in securing a positive outcome.” Shiv gestured at the now lifeless gem. “I’d say our most important task is getting everyone in that vision together as soon as we can.”