Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  * * *

  From a balcony far above the plaza, a tufted face with a bulbous nose peered down from out of a tall window. A Gnome face. Its owner watched carefully as the little drama unfolded among the members of House Kijamon and their guest, standing on the Trail below him. He watched as Abeni stormed away, and saw how none chased after him. Not even the girl. Then he nodded to himself, already calculating how this apparent rift might be used to advantage.

  “Ambassador! The Queen would see you in her study.”

  The Gnome turned away from the window and nodded to the young Djin who had been sent to pester him. “Then we had best not keep her waiting,” he said. “Lead me. I still have no idea where anything is around here.”

  But as he strode from the room, his mind was a whirl. The girl was finally here. And now, at last, he could carry out the real purpose of his visit.

  Chapter 13

  “Never mind all that, boy. I’d much rather know how you managed to fly the great Wagon.”

  Abeni blinked. He had just told his King that the flanks of the Anvil were crawling with Gnome Hordesmen—invaders who were harassing honest Djin travelers within their very own lands. “Surely the King of all Djin will wish to expel the outsiders,” Abeni said. But again Mabundi waved such thoughts away with a casual hand.

  “I tell you they are no matter,” Mabundi said. Standing imperiously beside the Anvil Seat, Queen Yoliq glared down at Abeni, her face narrowing into a frown.

  “Do as your King commands you, young man. Reveal the secret of how you lifted the Wagon of Tears into the sky. It is a great sacrilege. You should be ashamed! Tell us now, before your disgrace grows any deeper.”

  Abeni’s confusion took a turn toward anger. “The Wagon is entrusted to House Kijamon,” he said, trying hard to keep his tone polite. “Only the Mizar, or Kijamon himself may make report of that duty, and Abeni is not Mizar. Does the King truly plan to do nothing about the Gnomileshi stain that spreads upon the Anvil?”

  Mabundi rolled his eyes. “Are you deaf, boy? I know all about that. Quishek asked if he could have a few of his Hordesmen patrol around the borders to make sure none of his more excitable Hordelets ventured too far, causing trouble for us. It was a rather neighborly gesture, I thought, so I allowed it.”

  “But, that makes no sense!” Abeni said, unable to keep the frustration from his tone. “The Gnome King is permitted to place his people within our lands, to be sure that none of his people come within our lands?”

  Yoliq jumped to her feet. “You forget yourself, Abeni, son of Kijamon! It is not for you to question the wisdom of my husband!” Mabundi leaned over and placed a calming hand on her arm. “He only expresses his concern, my dear.” Then he turned to look at Abeni.

  “It is not so grim as you suggest, my boy. I have allowed Quishek four of his Hordelets to serve as buffer, but only on the Plateau. They may not set foot upon the Anvil itself. On that you have my word.”

  By then, Abeni had managed to rein in his surprise and was in better control of himself when he replied. “As the Queen has said, it is not Abeni’s place to question. He has told his King of the Gnomes. His duty is complete. Abeni must now go to make report to Kijamon.” But Mabundi raised a hand.

  “There is still the matter of your iron debt,” he said, pointing to the dull black band of metal around Abeni’s upper arm. “You were bound to the Wagon, and to the care of two fallen kings. I will hear your report on this before you are released to your lesser duties.”

  Abeni stared intently at the King. “The duty was bonded by Kijamon,” he said. “Abeni may not speak of it to any save Kijamon.”

  “Dammit boy, that’s a technicality! I am the one who told him to bind you. The bond is mine, in truth. You will report to me.”

  But the young Djin shook his head. “Mabundi is wise, and perhaps Abeni is foolish. He knows only that his bond oath was spoken to Kijamon and so only Kijamon may hear the tale of its keeping and judge the mettle of Abeni’s honor. Or his shame.” But in his heart, Abeni had no doubt of which it was, and having delivered his urgent message, he turned to go. Since he had not been summoned to an audience, and had come voluntarily to report on the presence of the Gnomes, he was not bound by any protocol and did not require Mabundi’s permission to leave. But this never even entered his mind. His only thought was about how he would ever stand the humiliation of disappointing his father.

  Without even realizing he had done so, Abeni turned his back to his King and wandered from the Hall, drenched in the sweat of his own misery.

  And behind him, Mabundi’s face folded into a frown.

  * * *

  Mabundi watched the son of Kijamon stride from the Hall. Beneath his hand, he could feel his wife tensing, preparing to shout out for the guards to bring the boy back, but Mabundi squeezed her arm gently. Leave him be. He heard her snort with contempt for his weaknesses, but let it pass. At least she wasn’t shouting for the boy’s head. Off to the side, a door opened.

  “You see how brash that House has become, do you my lady?” The Gnomileshi Ambassador slipped into the Hall, closing the door behind him. “Even its younger sons now dare to question the Crown.” As always, he spoke to the Queen whenever he had something unpleasant to say.

  “So you’ve been eavesdropping, have you, Quishek?” Mabundi was still irritated by the boy’s news. “Well, what say you about this charge, then? Abeni tells me he was stopped by Gnomes on the flanks of the Anvil itself. That was not our agreement.”

  The Gnome’s hands came up in a flutter of protestation, patting at the air as if he hoped to soothe the King’s anger by creating a pleasant wind. “The boy was mistaken,” Quishek said. “I have had reports already from those involved. They were merely resting in the shade at the foot of the trail. Upon the Anvil, yes, but only by a matter of strides. When they halted the Wagon, it was still on the Plateau. No Djin have been disturbed or waylaid upon the mountain itself. All is conducted as we agreed.”

  “Well, that sounds fine then,” Yoliq said, straightening herself and seeming to gain her confidence now that her Gnome toady was once more at her side.

  “There is another matter I would raise…” the Gnome began, looking as much at the Queen as at the King.

  “What matter is that?” Mabundi asked.

  “There is a girl,” Quishek said. “A Wasketchin girl, here upon the Anvil.” Mabundi raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

  “What of her?”

  Quishek rubbed his hands together in the Gnome gesture of pleading. “She has committed crimes,” he said. “Back in the Throat. Crimes against the Crown itself. King Angiron would… greatly appreciate her return.”

  “A Wasketchin trouble child? Why bother me with this, Quishek? Present your petition to whichever House holds the lands on which she’s hiding.”

  Quishek lowered his head. “Under normal circumstances, I would not trouble the Crown over such a matter,” he said. “But I felt you might wish to be informed before I present my petition.”

  “Why?” Mabundi said, one eyebrow rising slowly in suspicion.

  “Because the House in question just strutted out your door,” Quishek said, inclining his head at the doorway through which Abeni had just left. “And the girl in question came here with him.”

  Mabundi cocked his head. “With him?”

  “Yes, great King. With him. The girl was riding upon the Wagon of Tears, and is now being harbored by House Kijamon.”

  “What?!” Yoliq sputtered, leaping to her feet. “House Kijamon, again?” She turned to her husband with fury now burning in her eyes. “Having lost the Fallen King, and desecrated the Wagon of Tears, they proceed to amass magics of unknown power, they defy the Crown, and now they are harboring unsavory foreigners? Criminals? How much more do you need, Mabundi? How much more proof?”

  “Proof of what, my dear?” Mabundi tried to pat her arm gently, but she jerked away from him, backing toward the Ambassador.

  “You idiot! Can’t you
see? Kijamon is plotting to take your throne!”

  * * *

  Tayna could only sit back and watch the great Kijamon. The scene around him reminded her of a taxi dispatch office. Once, when she had been out doing her weekly chores for the Goodies, the taxi that had been hired to drive her around the city broke down, and she and the driver had walked seven blocks back to the dispatch building to wait for a new cab to become free. As she sat there in that grubby little office, Tayna had watched an entire world unfold around her. Cars came in and went out, drivers arrived and left, packages and passengers were dropped off or picked up. Voices called out and horns blared, and behind it all, some mechanized tool whined and burped in continual bursts, like a gassy mosquito with a bullhorn.

  In the midst of all that, in that large, grimy garage, a cage of chickens had been set down, waiting for its rightful owner to come claim it. But somehow the cage door had sprung open, and for two or three minutes, Tayna and a rumpled older woman in a sarong and wearing too much makeup had chased the frantic hens around the concrete floor, herding them into a pair of large garbage pails before they could get stepped on or crushed by an arriving taxi. It had been pure, fascinating mayhem.

  House Kijamon was like that.

  Not that there were any chickens or belching tools, but the Wind Forge had a similar energy all the same. While Abeni himself had gone off to report the Gnome incursions to the King, Shaleen and Zimu had led her up to the family home to wait, and to meet the famed Kijamon himself. It had taken them twenty minutes to climb the Trail of Sky all the way to the top, and all the while, her hosts had kept up a steady hum of conversation, describing the wonders that passed around them. They were clearly proud of Kijamon’s city, and they showed it to her with all the love and reverence with which one might display a newborn child.

  When they reache the summit of the long climb and marched across the great buttress that flowed seamlessly out to the main level of the Forge, Tayna found a busy hub of activity, with people coming and going every which way. Not at all the quiet, restful refuge of a master artisan that she had been expecting.

  There must have been a dozen projects under way at various stations and benches around the area, but unlike the grubbiness of a taxi garage, this had the feel of both elegance and functionality. More like the kitchen of a busy hotel maybe, only carved from quartz. The entire main floor was devoted to Kijamon’s work. The family lived on the floor above, and there were even more benches and booths on the levels below, where any number of assistants and apprentices labored over the many wonders and contrivances that would eventually bear the mark of House Kijamon and be sold or bartered to the world outside.

  From the big studio, they ascended up to the private family level, where Tayna had expected all that activity to die down, but even here, the definition of “family” and “private” seemed somewhat fluid. They found Kijamon deep in discussion with two completely different groups of Djin, here in what he called his “little” shop, even though it comprised fully half of the family level.

  Off to one side of the space, a clutch of older Djin stood together near the forge, deep in discussion, while other people came and went around them. The oldest and most animated of them all was a slender man, somewhat shorter than the rest, and whose once-dark skin had paled to a brownish gray. His hair was a nest of bristly silver coils that clung to the sides and back of his head, but avoided the top completely, save for a tight, circular knot at the crown. But this silver had nothing of the salt-and-pepper color that Tayna had been accustomed to seeing on older men in Grimorl. This was silvery silver, shiny and metallic. Hypnotic almost, as the longer tuft at the top-knot bobbed and waggled in time with the man’s movements.

  But as Tayna and the family stood by patiently, waiting for the discussion to end, a steady stream of younger Djin darted in and out of the room. As they arrived, the old man would turn aside from his conversation to ask a question or examine an item carried by the youth, and then send them on their way again—often without even breaking the stride of his original discussion. It was like watching a machine—No, a computer—and Tayna could not imagine how he managed to coordinate such mayhem as it orbited around him.

  By the time the guests had said their say and been shown out, and the door at the back of the studio had been closed—a signal that the master was no longer available to those who worked below—Tayna had settled herself into a corner and begun to doze in the brilliant, sparkling light that filled the room by way of the windows, making everything warm and hazy.

  “Aha!” said a voice, jolting her back from her slumber. “A wise girl. A wise girl indeed! Sleep when you can, eh? For an idea may take you at any time, and then you’re off! Am I right?” Tayna grinned sleepily at the silver-framed face peering down at her.

  This was Kijamon.

  If Tayna had expected family life for clan Kijamon to be any different from the mayhem she had seen earlier, she was disappointed. The old man seemed to be a force of nature, greeting everyone, giving instructions to Zimu, and answering questions posed by his wife, all at the same time. And even so, his glittering eyes still found time to dart regularly back to Tayna long enough for him to ask perceptive and penetrating questions of her. He was like a switchboard operator, handling a dozen conversations at once, and never seeming to drop the ball.

  “By all means boy, take them a twentyweight sample and see if they’ll contract for five hundred. Send Abeni to find me when he returns. No dear, I leave food plans in your capable hands. And you must be tired after your long journey.” This last statement was aimed at Tayna, but it took her a moment to notice. Apparently, you had to watch the man’s eyes. It was the only clue he gave as to which sentence was addressed to which person, and she quickly discovered that it was best to ignore the conversations he carried on with the others and wait for his eyes to snap back to her before she started listening, although Kijamon himself appeared able to listen to everything at once and sort it all out just fine.

  “Um, overwhelmed rather than tired,” she said, in answer to his question.

  “You’re Wasketchin, clear enough, but your tongue is not limber in the language. You were raised apart from your kin?”

  “Yessir,” Tayna said, adding the “sir” more out of sheer awe than any conscious attempt at respect. It was absurd that he could have picked up so much from just the few words she had spoken, wasn’t it? Especially with so much else going on around him at the time? But his eyes had snapped onward while she was thinking about it, and she resolved then and there to do her best to keep up.

  “I don’t remember my folks,” she said, when his gaze next snapped to her. “I was raised… somewhere else. But now I’m looking for them and I think they might live here on the mountain somewhere.”

  His attention went around the group again, before coming back to Tayna with a snap.

  “There’s any number of Wasketchin living on the Anvil,” he said. “Some are known but many are not. Do yours wish to be found?”

  Snap.

  “I think so,” she said. “I think they might be in trouble, and I’m hoping I can help.”

  Snap.

  “All Wasketchin are in trouble these days, it seems. Will your kin still be where you left them?”

  Snap.

  “I don’t know, but it’s the best place to start.”

  Snap.

  “Then tomorrow we’ll see about finding you some help in the matter. Bosuke is the Master of Histories. You can start with him.”

  At that point Shaleen raised her hands and brought the conversation to a halt. Abeni and Tayna had only just arrived, and it was time they be given something to eat. Or did Kijamon mean to stain the honor of their House? But the old man only grinned and nodded at his wife, saying how hungry he was and how welcome a meal would be.

  As one, the family began making their way toward a side door, ushering Tayna along between them, which was good, because she was still completely bewildered by it all. She could b
arely believe it, but after a week on the run, she had been here for little more than a half dozen sentences and she had already made more progress on her family yours problem than she had in all the days since she’d first learned about it. And to her astonishment, she was pretty sure that during the course of that same conversation, Kijamon had also organized a dinner party, negotiated two sales contracts, interrogated Zimu on the condition of the Wagon, and reminded Shaleen to prepare a room for their young guest.

  The man was simply exhausting.

  * * *

  “Yes, my King. She is here.” Quishek stared vacantly at the blank wall in front of him as he spoke. At his side, the tall Yeren assigned to him stared equally blankly into the center of the room, but Quishek ignored the beast completely, save for the fact of clinging tightly to its pink-skinned hand with both of his own.

  “Indeed I do, my King,” he continued after a moment. “The girl you seek arrived today, with the Wagon, and the Djin.” Then he paused, as though listening to a sound only he could hear.

  “Very perceptive of you, my Liege,” he replied. “Yes, they arrived sooner than expected. It seems she has rediscovered the power of flight.” Another pause.

  “And what report is that, my Lord?”

  Quishek shook his head tightly. “It could scarcely be the Djin, my Lord. He has been known to us for a goodly time. Is it not too curious that he might discover such gifts only now? No, power is not always where it looks to be, my King. It is hers, not his. I am certain of it.”

  Then the Gnome Ambassador bowed formally toward the wall. “If that is your will, your Greatness. I will report further news to you tomorrow. It will be—”

  Irritation flashed across the Ambassador’s eyes for a moment, and he let go the Yeren’s hand. “Stupid f’znat!” he muttered to himself. “Is he blind? He sees only what he expects to see. Not what is. Unless…” His eyes lost focus again as he wandered toward the windows, lost in thought. Something in what he’d just said was tickling at him, like the lure of an unsolved puzzle.