"I expect," Lord Boniface observed dryly, "that Lord Gunthar will see to that answer shortly. How a single man could weave through vedettes of Solamnia's finest young men, leading that great boar after him…
"Great boar?" the four others exclaimed, turning in unison to Lord Boniface. The famous Knight frowned, and Alfred laid an uneasy hand on his shoulder.
"We…we saw no boar, Lord Boniface," the High Justice explained. "Perhaps the night's confusion… or the wine…"
"I tell you, 'twas a boar I saw!" Boniface insisted angrily. "And if I saw it, 'twas there, by Paladine and Majere and whatever good god you could name!"
"Be that as it may, we saw no boar," Alfred repeated patiently. "Only the flock of ravens in the rafters…"
He paused as the other Knights stared at him in puzzlement.
"You… you saw no ravens," he concluded bleakly. "None of you did."
"I did not look above me," Stephan soothed. "Though by Paladine and all the assembled gods, I remember the shrill and insulting dryads the Green Man brought with him."
It was his turn to be the curiosity. The Knights gazed at him in perplexity.
"Something also of corn and murmuring bees, it was," Stephan muttered, "and a great bear, not a boar, danced in our midst."
"No, no," Gunthar corrected. "It was Vertumnus alone. I'm positive."
"A hall of mirrors, this business," Stephan muttered.
"But the shedding of blood?" Sturm asked. "The sap flowing from a wound?"
"Sap?" Lord Boniface asked incredulously. Four pairs of Solamnic eyes turned toward the lad, as though he had suddenly announced that the moons had fallen.
Stephan chuckled, and then suddenly grew somber, his eyes on the shivering lad who sat uncomfortably on the bench before him. "The problem is, Sturm, that whatever we saw, we agree that you were wounded, that in rage you dropped Lord Wilderness, and we all heard the challenge afterward."
'The boy was wounded?" Gunthar asked in alarm. He stepped toward Sturm and extended his hand. "Where did he cut you, Sturm?"
"At my shoulder," the lad replied, pointing to the wound…
… which had vanished entirely. The pure white fabric of his ceremonial tunic, unstained and untorn, covered the spot where the wound throbbed faintly. In silent bafflement, Gunthar and Alfred examined Sturm's shoulder.
"Whatever you're feeling," Alfred pronounced quietly, "I see no wound. And yet a wound would make sense. Without it, the last threats of that green monstrosity would be ridiculous."
He looked at the other Knights, who nodded gravely.
"Whether you be wounded or whole, Sturm Bright-blade," Lord Alfred continued, raising his index finger pontifically, like a scholar or lawyer, "there remains the problem at hand. Whatever we remember, this thing-this swordplay and killing and rising from death and… and dripping sap, for the gods' sake! — 'tis more important than dryad or boar, or your wound, for that matter. For Vertumnus addressed you, and it was to you that his challenge descended."
"Indeed," Lord Boniface said, firmly but not unkindly. "And now we must decide what this means."
Sturm looked from face to face in the dimly lit library. Already the shadows in the room had shifted from the deepest blackness to a sort of foggy gray. Perhaps that, too, was a power of Vertumnus's music-to collapse a long night into a brief conversation. Or perhaps the time had passed so rapidly, like the years in Solace, merely because Sturm had not kept track of it.
Sturm was almost relieved when a soft rapping at the door signalled the entrance of the Tower sentries, or at least two of the company, whose honor or misfortune it was to speak for the threescore men assigned to guard the stronghold and the ceremonies therein. Shamefaced and shuffling, red to the ears and downcast of shoulder and eye, they stood in the doorway.
The sixty sentries were crack foot soldiers, gathered from all over Solamnia, schooled by the Order, and blooded in the Nerakan Wars. They were not the kind of men accustomed to nodding at their posts.
But out of their number, fifty had heard a soft, plaintive music rising out of the winter night. Some swore it was a folk song from northern Coastlund they heard on the brisk December wind; others thought it was something more refined and classical, the likes of which they had heard in the vaulted courts of Palanthas.
Some claimed it was a lullaby. But whatever the tune that reached the sentries who manned the walls from the Knight's Spur to the Wings of Habbakuk, it acted as a lullaby indeed, for they awoke hours later, tied to their stations by entanglements of vine and root, their comrades tugging frantically at the undergrowth that imprisoned them.
Lord Alfred listened in a fuming silence as the pair mumbled through their story. He scarcely looked at them as he dismissed them, his eyes on a tumbled stack of books that lay tilted and open on a lectern in the corner of the room. The door closed behind the sentries, and an enormous mutual sigh faded with their footsteps into the distant clamor of the hall.
"So he's as powerful as they say, this Vertumnus," Alfred said quietly in the restored silence of the room. "That is all the more troubling, especially when I consider what lies ahead for the boy."
All eyes returned to Sturm. He wished he could have joined the sentries in their retreat, but he held his breath and fought down the fear.
"I believe," the High Justice began, "that you have been singled out for a purpose."
"What kind of purpose?" Sturm asked.
"If you've been listening, lad, you've probably gathered that we're no closer to answering that than you are," Stephan explained with a smile. "All we know is that something in the music and the mockery and the flyting was such that it fell to you to bear sword against Lord Wilderness and to defeat him in combat, only to find that he is the victor while the game is not over. It's a riddle, to be certain."
"And the answer?" prompted Sturm.
"I believe he gave you the answer," Lord Alfred replied. "That on the first day of spring you-and you alone-are to meet him in his stronghold amid the Southern Darkwoods. There apparently the two of you shall settle this issue, as the Green Man said, 'sword to sword, knight to knight, man to man.' 'Tis written full clear that the Measure of the Sword lies 'in accepting the challenge of combat for the honor of the Knighthood.'"
Sturm swallowed hard and slipped his cold hands under his robe. The Knights regarded him grimly, uncertain whether a death warrant lay in Lord Alfred's pronouncements.
"One thing is certain, lad," Boniface said. "You've been called to a challenge."
"And I accept, Lord Boniface," Sturm said bravely. He stood, but his legs wobbled. Swiftly Lord Gunthar moved to steady him with a strong hand.
"But you are not a Knight, Sturm," Lord Stephan said. "Not yet, that is. And though the Oath and Measure run in your blood, perhaps you are not bound to them."
"And yet," Lord Boniface insisted softly, "you are a Brightblade." He leaned toward Sturm, his blue eyes searching and raking at the heart of the boy.
Sturm sat again, this time clumsily. He covered his face with his hands. Again the strange banquet played through his recollection, and the edges of his memory were blurred, uncertain. Vertumnus's face was vague when he tried to recall it, as were the melodies, the alien tunes that only an hour ago Sturm thought he would never forget.
What was certain in this? He remembered only the challenge clearly. That challenge was certain-as certain as the Oath and Measure, by which a Knight was bound to accept such challenges.
"Lord Stephan is right when he says I am not yet part of the Order," Sturm began, his eyes fixed on the library shelves beyond the Knights. The books seemed to dance in the dim light, green bound and mocking. "And yet I am tied to the Oath by heritage. It's… it's almost as if it does run in my blood. And if that's the case-if it's something that connects me to my father, like Vertumnus said, or I thought I heard him say-then I want to follow it."
Alfred nodded, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Gunthar and Stephan were silent and grave, whil
e Lord Boniface Crownguard looked away.
Sturm cleared his throat. "I suppose things like rules and oaths are… even stronger when you can do otherwise but you choose to follow them because,… because…"
He wasn't really sure why. He stood again, and then Lord Alfred slipped from the room, returning at once with the great sword Gabbatha, said once to grace the belt of Vinas Solamnus. It was the sword of justice, a shimmering, two-edged broadsword, its hilt carefully carved in the likeness of a kingfisher, the golden wings spread to form the cross-piece. So there, before the most powerful Knights of the Order, Sturm set his hand to Gabbatha and swore a binding oath that he would take up the challenge of Lord Vertumnus, the druid or wizard or renegade knight.
When the words were said and the oath was sealed, Lord Stephan, now abstract and pensive, stalked from the room at once, muttering something about impossible odds. As the old Knight opened the door, the room outside echoed with the sound of axe against wood.
Sturm shifted from foot to foot, looking up at the older men, awaiting advice, instruction, orders.
"Very well," Lord Alfred breathed. "Very… well." It was as if he had lost something.
"Go within a fortnight, Sturm," Lord Boniface urged. "Prompt departure will give you… time to travel unfamiliar country. If we are to believe Lord Wilderness, time is of the essence in this challenge."
"I remember," Sturm said bleakly. " 'Appointed place and appointed time.'"
"But you should prepare yourself first, Sturm," Gunthar urged indecisively.
"That is true," Alfred agreed eagerly. "Choose a horse from the liveries-that is, a horse within reason. You are, after all, a son of the Order, and we shall do our utmost to equip you and train you and ready you for the spring and the Southern Darkwoods."
Sturm nodded. The evening had dwindled to halfhearted promises. It was as though the Knights knew it, and knew that a still darker issue lurked beneath the promises.
The boy had been wounded, after all. Or so he maintained, and sharp-eyed old Stephan Peres confirmed it. And in spring, Lord Wilderness had threatened, the wound would come due.
It was all chaotic, this business before them, all grim and unforeseeable in its mystery.
Gunthar sidled to a shelf and thumbed through a book while Alfred recited the equipment Sturm would need, where it was available, and in what quantity or quality the Order was willing to provide it. Sturm continued to nod and thank the High Justice, but his eyes were distant and his thoughts elsewhere.
So they left him, still nodding and quietly thinking, standing in the midst of the library, all of Solamnic history surrounding him, leaning in on him from atop the dusty and indifferent shelves. Lord Boniface was the last out the door-Angriff's good friend, his rival in swordsmanship.
"I'm proud of you, lad," he said, and turned swiftly away, his face masked by the shadows of the dimly lit room.
"Thank you," Sturm breathed again, and the door closed behind all of them, leaving him alone with his fear and musing.
"How do you fight a mystery?" Sturm asked aloud. "How do you even follow one?" He turned and faced the darkened stained glass window.
Beyond the glass lay only the faintest of lights-the sunrise oblique in the east, scarcely visible because of the baffling mountains, the vaulting walls, and the simple fact that the window faced west. Behind the yellow of the harp and the white sphere of Solinari in the corner of the window, the lad could see sharp, wavering shadows. It was a sprig of holly, grown up against the wall outside, trembling in the breeze of the winter morning.
Chapter 3
Inns and Remembrances
The twins had warned him, that autumn night at the Inn of the Last Home, in the week before he saddled Luin and rode away from Solace into the forbidden north.
It was a last night of reunions and farewells as the three of them sat over cold tea and guttering candles at the long table by the trunk of the enormous vallenwood tree that rose through the floor of the inn. Otik the innkeeper, solicitous as ever, cleared the last of the glass and crockery while the three companions drank absently, staring across the table at each other over the dodging lights.
Sturm felt ill-suited in his mourning gray cape and robes, especially among his old friends. He wondered if that was part of bereavement-that after the six months of gray and fasting and confinement, you were supposed to weary of it all, to yearn for setting aside the robes and moving to other things. Times were when he still missed his mother grievously, but already the face of Ilys Brightblade was blurred in his memory, and he had to tell himself the color of her eyes.
But the story she had told him was fresh in remembering, down to the smallest details. Recounted on her deathbed, before the fever gave way to delusions and unconsciousness, it was a tale that would send him from Solace.
Sturm shook his head, startled from memory by a loud, low voice. The dark imaginings of the clerical incense, of his mother's unnaturally pale face, vanished into light, and once again he was at the Inn of the Last Home, Caramon leaning across the table, questioning him above the glowing candles.
"Were you listening, Sturm? Here we are on the last night before you leave, your saddlebags packed full of provisions and letters and souvenirs. I wish you weren't so set on Solamnia and this banquet and staying there for good…"
"I never said I would not return!" Sturm interrupted, rolling his eyes. "I've told you both before, Caramon. It's… it's a pilgrimage of sorts, and when I've learned a few things in the north and settled a few others, I'll be back."
Caramon clutched the sides of the table with his red, thick-fingered hands and smiled apologetically at his prim and serious friend. Raistlin, meanwhile, remained silent, his dark, attentive face turned toward the hearth and the last of the dwindling firelight.
"But all this questing and searching, Sturm," Caramon explained. "It could take you away forever. It does that with the real Solamnic Knights."
Sturm winced at the real.
"And if it did, we'd be none the wiser as to why you went in the first place."
"That, too, I've told you again and again, Caramon," Sturm repeated calmly, his voiced strained and brittle. " 'Tis the Oath and the Measure, and it is the Oath that binds the Solamnic brotherhood. That's why I have to go north-into Solamnia… the Vingaard Mountains… the High Clerist's Tower."
"The Code again," Raistlin observed, quietly breaking the silence.
The two larger youths turned at once to their scrawny, dark comrade. Leaning back in a darkened nook in the vallenwood trunk, the young adept was half lost in shadows, almost as insubstantial as his own sleights and illusions.
Out of the gray flickering gloom, Raistlin spoke again, his voice melodious and thin, like the high notes of a viola. "The Code and the Measure," he said scornfully. "All of that smug behavior that the Solamnic Order swears by. And the thirty-five volumes of your Measure-"
"Thirty-seven," Sturm corrected. "There are thirty-seven volumes to the Measure."
Raistlin shrugged, wrapping his tattered red robe more closely around his shoulders. Quickly, with a birdlike grace, he leaned forward, stretching his thin hands toward the fading glow of the fire.
"Thirty-five or thirty-seven," he mused, his pale lips tightening to a smile, "or three thousand. All the same to me, in its foolishness and legalism. You aren't bound to obey a page of it, Sturm Brightblade. Your father, not you, was the Solamnic Knight."
"We've disagreed on this before, Raistlin," Sturm scolded. He stopped himself and leaned uncomfortably back in his chair. He sounded like a reproving old schoolmaster, and he knew it.
Raistlin nodded and swirled his tea in the cup, staring into the bottom as though he were reading omens in the cool dregs.
"There have been other years, Sturm," he whispered. "Other Yules."
Sturm cleared his throat.
"It's… it's because Mother's gone now, Raistlin," he replied tentatively, looking thoughtfully at the glittering pool of wax in the dark ceramic candle
holder. The wick floated on the shimmering surface. Soon the candle would go out entirely.
"The Order is my last remaining family. There's nowhere else to go but north. But mostly it's because of what Mother told me… about what happened the night my father vanished."
The twins leaned forward, stunned by this sudden news.
"Then there was something more?" Raistlin asked. "More that your mother hadn't told you?"
"She… she was waiting for the proper time," Sturm replied, his hands unsteady on the table boards. "It was just that… the plague… then there was no other time…"
"Then when she told you was the proper time," Caramon soothed, resting his huge hand on Sturm's shoulder. "Tell us, in turn. Tell us of that night."
Sturm looked into the eager brown eyes of his young companion. "Very well, Caramon. Tonight I shall tell you that story. Remember that it is not easy in the telling."
And with the twins leaning toward him expectantly, the autumn night uneasy with the high wind and the rattle of leaves across the roof of the inn, Sturm began the story.
"First of all," Sturm began, his gaze fixed on the table, "Lord Angriff saw to me and the Lady Ilys. Smuggled us off on the western road, before the peasants' torches closed a full circle about the castle. Soren Vardis was our guide, and the snow swirled over the high road, or the peasants might well have found us. In their anger, they didn't remember what the Order had done for them."
The twins exchanged a curious glance, and Raistlin cleared his throat. Sturm continued, his gaze fixed on the dwindling fire.
"As to my father," he continued dreamily, abstractly, "when we were safely away, he turned his thoughts to the castle and its garrison. Alfred was there, and Gunthar and Boniface and a hundred men, of whom Father thought he could trust only the twenty Knights. For you see, the countryside went over to the peasants suddenly and swiftly, and the heart of many a foot soldier turned from the Order in the last weeks before the castle fell."
Sturm clenched his fists, his dark eyes smoldering.
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