Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  “Proves one thing,” she said, as she withdrew a handful of slush from one elbow. Abeni raised his eyebrow in curiosity.

  “Drove my brain like a rented car,” she said. “Must really be Wasketchin.”

  “The Little Fish still has doubts about this?”

  “Thought I was human,” Tayna replied, with a ghost of a shrug. “S’a hard belief to change.”

  Then she struggled up to her feet. Abeni quickly jumped up beside her.

  “It is too soon. The Little Fish must rest.” But Tayna shook her head.

  Everything hurt either way. “Can walk and throb same time,” she said. Then she set out across the snow, walking in the direction the Wagon had been pointing before they stopped.

  Abeni had no choice but to resume his chant and follow along.

  * * *

  They had been walking for over an hour when Tayna suddenly lifted her eyes from the flat, obstructionless snow spread out ahead of them, and turned to look back at Abeni. So far, her task as Way Maker had been effort-free.

  “You know,” she said, stepping aside to let the bulk of the Wagon glide past her. “Just realized something.” The exercise and the steady cold wind had numbed her face, and though she was cold, it had at least made speaking a little easier. “Think the Miseratu made a mistake.”

  Abeni rarely broke his chant, but he was able to squeeze a few words in between the bubbling sounds of his music.

  “What mistake?” he managed, before resuming the song.

  “Been a long time. They must be out of practice.” Abeni had said that the more real their attack was—the more connected to her real life they could make it—the more effective it would be. “Used real memories.”

  Abeni nodded.

  “Most were about the Old Shoe—orphanage where I grew up.” Before the whole cremation thing, the dreams had been getting worse and worse, like they’d been working their way through her memories, finding scarier and scarier things to make her see again. Misery Deluxe, with extra pickles. As the Wagon finished sliding by, Tayna fell into step beside Abeni.

  “Well, one was earlier. A lot earlier.” She glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye to be sure he was paying attention. “Didn’t even recognize it. Think it was guy who took me from my parents. Gave me to Angiron.”

  Abeni looked at her with curiosity. “And the mistake?” he asked, obviously torn between asking the million questions on his tongue and maintaining the flow of his splashing melody.

  “Was on a mountain,” she said. “The Anvil, I think.” The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. That black thing had seemed totally at home there… And it hadn’t felt as though he’d had her for very long either. Yes, this felt right. Tayna turned to look her big friend in the eye. “Think my family lives on the Anvil.” Could it be true? Could those Misery hags have accidentally shown her a clue?

  Abeni raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t break the rhythm of his chant, and the Wagon continued its calm glide forward as he sang. Still, he hadn’t said, “No,” and that was something. Tayna turned her face back into the wind and resumed her trudge. Could she really be from the Anvil? How cool would that be?

  In the distance behind them, the wind began to laugh.

  Chapter 2

  Since the Forging of the Oath she had slumbered, waiting, a vouchsafe against the day when the Dragon’s Peace might fall and she would be awakened to her ancient duty. Once, long ago, she had had a name, although so long ago now, and through such sleeping, and through the dreaming of so many lives, that her own name was now lost in the tangled weaves of memory.

  She awoke in darkness. Whether due to the hour or to the place, she did not know. She did not know where she was. She did not know when she was. Her only knowledge was a hunger that gnawed at her belly, at her memory of a belly, but it was not food she craved. It was knowledge. Who yet lived? Who was dead? What stories had unfolded? What new ones were a’birthing throughout the world even now?

  As she struggled upward from the depths of her non-being, the questions grew more urgent. More specific. What had befallen the Dragon’s Peace? Clearly it had faltered, but how? Which duties had been forsworn? Whose carelessness or malice had betrayed the ancient pact? Like a vapor of thought, she rose from the chamber of her silent keeping and floated upward, toward the light. Toward life. Toward the Oath. Toward her duty.

  * * *

  The memory descended from out of the sky toward a ridge that ran north-east, protruding slightly above the flat and tangled expanse of forest on either side. A line of travelers wended their way in single file, up one flank of the ridge, along its spine for some goodly stretch, and then descending back down into the colored leaves on the other side. Some old, one quite young, most women, a few men. All Wasketchin. They appeared weary, but resolute. Not frail, but not accustomed to long travel either. Names hovered in the awarenesses of those upon the ridge. Arin. Lan’ia. Arkenol. M’Ateliana. But one was more than simply aware of her name. One with spirit and abandon. This one sang her name to the sky as she walked. “Winry, Winry, Whin An’re, Annery…” The memory remembered the joy of smiling. There was a rightness to this procession. These people. Though it lay about them in tatters, still the Oath clung to them. The woman at the end scented most strongly of it. M’Ateliana. Queen of the Wasketchin. From her the Oath shone out with a radiant glow. Her thoughts showed that she herself had heard the words, had once stood upon the mountain and witnessed the renewal of the Pact. She had reveled in its magics, but too, she had also keened. Most lately, this queen had stood bereft upon the Bloodcap, when the words had been silenced and the Promise flayed into tatters. Now she strove to knit those tatters together once more. She was newly come to this troupe of wanderers, but somehow, her joining with them had been in service to the Oath. She would be useful. But not yet.

  Satisfied with the story of this group, the memory folded itself into the air, and resumed its search.

  * * *

  She did not have far to travel though, unfolding herself out of the air scarcely a morning’s brisk walk more easterly and north, ahead of the Queen and her hikers, to a shallow valley that lay between two higher fingers of escarpment. But whatever had drawn her here was not visible from so high a vantage point. She quested downward with her thoughts, sinking slowly down toward and then through the leafy canopy, until the subject of her visit was revealed. A small band of Gnomes parading noisily through the trees. Two ranged ahead, skulking through the undergrowth, while a third ambled along behind them, leading a taller figure through the trees by a length of rope. One Who Waits. The skulking Gnomes carried long, heavy sticks that glowed with soft emanations of vim. The third Gnome had no stick, and clutched a large chalice to his chest instead. Its metal sides vibrated uncomfortably in the thoughts of the memory, oscillating between here and there, between right and wrong, then and now. It sang a song of opposite, although what it opposed, she could not say. And while the chalice projected an air of too-muchness, the One Who Waits who accompanied them projected one of too-little. It was a he, yet he did not seem entirely present in his selfness. A faint echo of the song of opposites clung to him, matted into his very fur. He did not walk—he shambled. His mind was quiet. His face was blank. He simply… existed.

  By comparison, the thoughts of the Hordsemen were focused and clear. They hunted Wasketchin. Alone or in groups. It did not matter. Even though the Dragon’s Peace had only recently fallen, already they stalked the forest in search of their cousins. Already men had learned to hunt men. Their prey, approaching along the ridge to the south, had not yet learned caution, and the hunters were unafraid.

  Sensing that things were unraveling more quickly than they should, the memory withdrew from the squad of Gnomes and reached out again.

  * * *

  A cave. Dim flickers of yellow moss painted the walls with a damp, ghostly light. At the back of the cave, a great chair of gleaming white bone. Once the pelvis of some huge and forgotten
beast, now it was Hordefist, the Gnomileshi throne. And upon that throne, there was a Gnome. Lord Angiron. First Prince Angiron. Contender Angiron. King Angiron. Newly crowned, judging by the jabber of names that still hovered, unsettled within his mind. The new king gestured to a throng of attendants gathered before him. One by one, each stepped forward to take from their king’s hand a golden chalice and the end of a white rope. Tucking the chalice under an arm, each one saluted his king and then turned and strode from the room, with a rope trailing behind him. It pulled tight when he reached the doors at the end of the royal chamber, and only then would the Gnome stop and look back. At the other end of each rope, a large, disheveled creature, next in the line of such creatures arrayed beside the throne, shuffled forward, following the pull of their slender bond. Mindless. Matted. And more than twice the height of the tallest Gnome in the room. But completely obedient. Strangely vacant. Those Who Wait.

  When the last of the attendants had led the last of the creatures from the room, she knew with a cold certainty. This king had spoken no oath. His reign, his attendants, the very land around him and the air upon it, all stank of Oathlessness.

  Troubled, the memory of duty folded herself once more into the air.

  * * *

  There followed a series of flashes. A series of images, names, and vague details. Moments frozen in time.

  A Wasketchin youth. Elicand. Alone in total darkness, surrounded by thundering waters.

  Zimu, a Djin adventurer and merchant. Haggard and weary, he emerged from the trees at the skirts of the Anvil and began the climb toward home.

  The Wasketchin King, Malkior, sat in a dehn, conferring solemnly with his advisers, but there was worry on his brow. Worry for a missing wife.

  A Gnome chaplain, alone and terrified, wandering the forest in search of someone. Some “her.” A goddess? A corpse? A sorceress? Even he was not certain who or what she was. But his search had been ill-fated and he meandered now, lost in unfamiliar lands.

  Another squad of Hordesmen, picking their way down the steep slope of the Throat of the Forest, trailing two behind them on ropes—One Who Waits, and a slender Djin. The names of the Gnomes ran together, but the name of the Djin was clear. Sarqi, son of Kijamon.

  The memory sensed that her view of events was drawing to a close. The flashes became more numerous and short-lived. More players in the game of history, each one involved, but with every passing flicker, less deeply connected. Less important. And then it was over, and she knew what she had to do.

  It was time to choose.

  Yet even after the images had faded, and she knew that she was pressed to choose, she knew also that she had not seen all. She knew that, impossibly yet truly, there were others in this pageant. Other places. Other peoples. But for some reason, she could not reach these others. Could not touch their minds, nor witness the events of their present. It was a strangeness that boiled in her mind for a time. That there could be such others, beyond her reach, beyond her knowing, and yet that they might bear upon the crisis of here and of now. Distant yet present. Untouchable, yet active. It made no sense. It was a puzzle.

  Still, it was time to choose.

  The nexus of her existence floated there for a time, motionless, high above the forest, resplendent in its multi-colored song. And in that stillness, a calling tugged at her being. A silence. As she floated there in her stillness, that puzzle of silence caught at the tendrils of her thought. Somewhere below. Another Other. Once distant and untouchable, like the ones she could not reach, but no longer. Now here. Now present. Not yet acting, but capable of action. As her thinking focused on this enigma, her nexus followed, flashing invisibly across the morning sky, to the east, and down, through the treetops and the branches, until she settled upon the wing of a beetle, crawling along a single twig of a specific branch, overlooking a quiet ravine containing nothing of interest save an old, discarded blanket.

  Below her, as the morning light pierced the leaves and burned rays of brilliant light down into the lower reaches of the trees, the blanket trembled, and a moment later, a head appeared, peeking cautiously from beneath its folds.

  It was the Other. She could sense its thoughts. Fear. Loneliness. Strangeness. Confusion. But behind all that, there was… amusement? Impatience? What manner of creature was this? A female, clearly. Young. Wasketchin, in appearance. But not Wasketchin. Another impossibility. But this impossibility possessed a strength of spirit like none she had yet felt. This was a shell she could use. This was a host. An agent to channel the full will and power of the Flame of the Dragon that Was.

  Satisfied with her choice, she released the focus of her nexus, and allowed it to expand. Then, with a shifting of her thought, she willed herself to the center of the Other and gathered the nexus to her once more.

  But it would not close.

  Again she tried, working by instinct, rather than foreknowledge or experience. She had not done this before. She knew only that it could be done, and the how of it. Instinctively. Relax the nexus. Let it swell. Clench the nexus. Occupy. Only the last step refused to cooperate. Stupid nexus. Pretty much a total possession fail! What’s up with that? And why did her words now come so strangely?

  Weary and frustrated, she expanded her being one last time, and returned to the beetle on the branch, to rest and to consider. There had been a touching. A linking. She had felt it. The shape of the mind. The wry twist of words. Strange words. Alien words. But though their shapes had been strange, their meanings had not. One more puzzle for her to consider.

  But time for such pondering ended when a crow swooped down out of the sky and landed on the branch next to her. The last thing she saw was its enormous beak descending to claim its breakfast.

  * * *

  The memory of an ancient duty relaxed her nexus, and then clenched it. There was a rippling in the now, and a moment later, she shook herself from head to tail.

  “Scraw!” the crow said, resisting her presence, but she ignored him and stretched her new wings in the morning light, reveling in her ability to do so. To move. To feel.

  “Scraw!” the crow said again, complaining bitterly about having its body moved about without its permission.

  “Shut up, you!” A pebble thunked against the trunk of the tree below her, and the memory turned the crow’s head to see where it had come from. The stranger under the blanket scowled back at her.

  The girl’s words had been strange, but the memory had understood the thoughts behind them easily enough. Shut up? Shut up yourself, she thought back. Possessing a bird isn’t as easy as it looks.

  The girl in the bush snickered. Had she heard that?

  “Yes, I can hear you,” came the girl’s reply. “Why? It’s normal to wake up dressed in a blanket while being attacked by freakish monkey men, and it’s fine for the trees to look like a toxic Crayola spill, but a dead girl mind-melds with a crow and that’s weird? I’m gonna need a rule book if you expect me to know when I should be freaking out.”

  I am not a crow, the memory thought to itself. I am the Flame of the Dragon that Was. I am merely… borrowing the crow.

  “I was worried there for a moment,” the girl said. “Here’s me thinking I could suddenly read the minds of all creatures great and small, but it turns out I’m only jacked into the Ghost of Dragons Past. That’s loads better.”

  The memory felt a forgotten lightness in her mind. Laughter.

  “K-k-k-k-k-keh!” said the crow.

  “Was that you?” asked the girl in the bush, pointing at the bird. “Or is your ride about to cough up a hairball?”

  The crow shrugged.

  I am not sure, thought the memory.

  “Well, I guess this is pretty cool,” the girl said. “I finally meet someone I can actually understand in this crazy dream, and it turns out to be a ghost haunting a duck. What are the odds?”

  I am not a ghost, thought the memory. And this is not a duck.

  “I know,” the girl replied. “It’s a crow. But �
�duck’ was funnier.”

  Then nobody said anything for a moment. They all needed a moment to think. Especially the crow.

  “So do you have an actual name?” asked the girl in the bush. “Does your duck?’”

  I am the… I was she who…

  “I’ll take that as a no. Maybe I should call you ‘Flamey.’”

  Patience! the memory thought back. I have spent an eternity asleep, awaiting and dreading this day of my need. I cannot recall the name I once had. All I remember is that I have a duty.

  “Well, I’m not going to call you ‘Duty.’ If you don’t know who you are, then what are you, exactly? Without all that ‘Flame of a Guy I Used To Know,’ stuff. All you’ve said so far is that you’re not a ghost. That doesn’t exactly narrow it down much.”

  I am the spirit that will renew the Oath, thought the memory. I am the Flame of the Dragon That Was. I am… Mardu. The word just popped into her mind. A name? Her name?

  “Madoo!” said the crow.

  The girl in the bush smiled. “Now that’s a name I can use. Pleased to meet you, Mardu. My name is Eliza. Now could you tell me where the hell I am?”

  Chapter 3

  Warding the Wagon of Tears was a job that usually required three people: one to lead the way around trees, rivers, boulders and the like, one to sing the Wagon up into the air and move it forward, and a third to keep the path clear of anything that might trip up the second guy. Unfortunately, all they had was Abeni, and one damaged idiot.

  So while the field of hard-packed snow they now trudged across was not as taxing as a twisted mountain track or a gnarled game trail in the forest, it still required all of Abeni’s focus to keep the Wagon up and moving. Tayna did what she could, staying out in front, protecting him from the most likely of all obstacles.