Oath Keeper

To Elicand’s relief, the fall did not kill him. In fact, it wasn’t even a fall at all. Not really. More of a terrifying, death defying slide. After a short drop from the Lip, ridges began to rise on either side of him, keeping Elicand channeled between them as the cliff face arced out away from vertical, pressing against him, and eventually, under him. He had no idea how far he slid, nor how fast, but a year or two after he’d tumbled off the edge—at the very most—the slideway had carried him as far as it would and he’d come to a rest some vast, unknowable distance from where he had started. Or maybe only a few strides distant. It was impossible to say. He’d been too busy screaming.

(fun play tumble fall statement) (confirmation query)

“Piles of fun statement,” Elicand replied, standing slowly and rubbing at his backside. That part of him had received the worst of the scrapes, during the parts of his journey that had actually included contact with the rock, although those had been fewer than one might imagine. With every bump or rise along the route, Elicand had been tossed abruptly into the air, certain that he had come free from the track at last and was now being flung aside to his certain doom.

“Where are we now, question?”

(sadness family mother group live place statement)

Elicand wasn’t sure he’d caught the gist of that one. “This is where your mother lives question?”

(correction mother family group live place time-past statement)

“And where are they now question?” A sense of dread bloomed in Elicand’s belly. He was afraid he knew the answer to this already.

(big-nose-people steal people-mine time-past statement)

The Gnomes. Great. Why would Gnomes want to take these gentle people hostage? What use could he—

“Wait a minute,” Elicand said, out loud. “How is it that you can do empathinking? Where did you learn to do it?”

(talk-teach time-past lesson-mine mother-give statement)

“But how does she know? Where did she learn to do it?”

(mother-mine friend-yours statement) (memory-share (DANGER DANGER FLEE SELF-THOU TIME-PRESENT-NOW)) (sadness-mine-ours)

Elicand recognized the shared memory right away. It had been playing over and over in the back of his mind ever since he’d first heard it. From Calaida. Just before she and her people had suddenly— And then, like a brilliant light had shone down, illuminating everything, Elicand realized what had happened. When he had gotten himself trapped in the Scary Tunnel of Wind… Shondu hadn’t wandered off and left him to die. He’d gone for help—gone to the one person every child runs to when they’re scared. He’d run to get his mother. Empathinkers were adult Brownies and Calaida was Shondu’s mom!

“Oh, what have I done?” Elicand groaned. He stumbled then, banging his shoulder against a rocky cave wall and then leaned against it, sinking slowly to his haunches in despair. “And ow!” he added, rubbing at his latest bruise. “Are all stories this painful question?”

The darkness did not reply.

They had been wandering about blind and in the roaring silence for days. No matter where they went, they never seemed to get far enough from the cascading river to diminishing its ravenous appetite for sound. The only time Elicand had heard any sound at all had been the few times he had banged his head on low rocks, or the one time he had fallen painfully, striking his knee on a raised ridge of stone. And while these occasional reminders that he was not in fact deaf were reassuring, he decided he would rather live without them, if that could be arranged. Hearing the sound, “Clunk!” conducted to his ears by way of his skeleton was just not worth the bruises.

Their explorations however, were much more productive than they had been in Ouchyville, because here they could communicate more clearly. According to Shondu, they could only “think-talk” in the caverns that were filled with “river-breath.” It was apparently something about the dampness of the air that permitted this unusual way of talking. But even though empathinking was better for conveying emotions than conversations, Elicand preferred it greatly over the “fun play, eat now” style of chatter that had been the extent of their conversations on the surface, before this adventure had begun.

The biggest problem confronting them was that Shondu did not know his way around the caves. Apparently, young Brownies were educated by sending them out into the world to roam free and have fun, learning about the peoples of the world and exploring whatever places, things or ideas captured their interest. Brownies considered themselves the only well-educated people in the entire Forest, and indeed, Shondu’s knowledge of the Wasketchin, the Djin and the Gnomes did seem quite extensive. Especially his knowledge of their curse-words.

But that education came at a price. Until they reached maturity, Brownies returned to River-Home rarely, and even then their visits were brief. Shondu knew next to nothing of the politics or daily life of his Brownie elders, so he could not explain anything about the relationship between his mother’s people and the Horde. And he knew absolutely nothing of the local geography, so he was as lost down here as Elicand himself was.

When young Brownies visited home, they did so in the same way that Shondu and Elicand had arrived—by doing what Shondu called “pocket-turning”—a phrase that conveyed a sense to Elicand in empathink of something like both “door-opening” and “door-closing.” As best he could tell, it meant both, and this was their problem. Before Shondu could open the door again to the outside world, he must first close the door he had opened when he’d brought Elicand here, by taking him back out again. But he was powerless to do so without the pikabu bag that Elicand had lost. It was hard to know exactly what the problem was, given the oddness of this emotion-based communication, but clearly, if Elicand wanted out of the caves, they either had to find the bag, or find their own way out.

So that’s what they were doing now. Exploring the caverns and tunnels of the Brownie territory, trying to find their way to the surface. It wasn’t entirely hopeless however, because Shondu at least could see down here. He’d been able to see in Ouchyville too, of course. Elicand had worked that out for himself at the time. But Shondu had been different then. More frivolous. Caught up in a joke that only he had found funny. When they talked about it now, Elicand was surprised to sense that Shondu seemed genuinely embarrassed by how immature he had been. Apparently, his little friend had done some growing up recently. Maybe hearing the screams of your mother being dragged away by invaders had that kind of effect.

Since Shondu could see though, and since they were now actually cooperating in their mutual exile, things were going much more smoothly. Elicand did not have to crawl about on hands and knees, making little cairns of stone to orient himself by. He simply stuck out his hand and Shondu took it, to lead him through the tunnels, avoiding the most dangerous places. Consequently, their progress was much faster than it had been before. And safer too.

They were sitting on a comfortable stoop of rock, sharing a bitter helping of the papery-tasting moss that Shondu assured him was safe to eat, when Elicand caught wind of something strange. Literally. He had been in sensory isolation for so long that at first he couldn’t even name the sense that had disturbed him. Oh yes. Smell. For the first time in week-long days, his nose brought him a hint of something that was neither damp air nor rock dust. It was a high-pitched odor. Sweetish, but somehow oily too. And it left an unpleasant tang on the back of his tongue. It was unlike anything Elicand had ever put nose to before.

“What is that smell question?”

(ignorance unpleasantness dislike statement)

“Can you at least tell where it’s coming from question?”

(uncertainty statement) (everywhere statement) (avoid suggestion)

“Well, if you don’t know where it is condition, and you can’t even tell what direction it’s coming from condition, how do you propose we avoid it question?”

(nose-close eyes-close run-away suggestion) (laughter question)

“Did you just make a joke question?” Elicand asked. “In empathink? I didn’t even think that was possible statement.”

(laughter-thought time-always possibility statement)

“Trust a Brownie to say that,” Elicand replied. “But it’s the first thing we’ve smelled down here in forever statement, and it might be coming from outside suggestion, so I think we should try to find it decision.”

After arguing about it for several more minutes, Elicand finally convinced his tiny guide to continue leading in the direction they had been going. Since the source of the smell was not clear, there was no more specific direction to choose, and the only wrong way would be back the way they had come. Finally, Shondu took him by the hand and began to pull him forward again, but not quickly.

(tongue-sticking-out statement)

“Be that way if you want to suggestion,” Elicand said, “But thank you for helping gratitude statement, just the same.”

They continued like that for some time, moving forward through the caves. For a time, Elicand wondered if they had lost the trail. The smell had receded and even the incessant din of the river seemed somehow less oppressive, but Shondu assured him that there had been no branches or side trails that they might have missed, so they pressed on. While the sound and smell had diminished, the air seemed to be getting wetter and Elicand wondered if perhaps the smell and the dampness flowed differently in the air, refusing to mix—perhaps the odor had risen higher above their heads and was forcing the watery parts of the air down lower, or some such explanation? But then they rounded a bend and were suddenly overwhelmed as everything came crashing together—the smell, the dampness and the noise—all of it. The tang of the smell suddenly felt thick enough to lick—like a gel forcing its way into his nose and throat, while droplets of spray spattered across his face.

Elicand spat and coughed, trying to clear the sickly mist from his mouth and lungs, but a new breath followed every cough and just pulled more of the stuff back in. His sightless eyes burned in its stinging presence and he lurched away, losing track of Shondu’s hand and stumbling about, gagging. Something smooth and cold banged against his leg and he fell, reaching out with his hands, but his fall was broken by more of the smooth hardness, which somehow, writhed beneath his weight, skittering away to either side, and left him to drop face-first onto the cave floor. His hands and cheek struck hard against the gritty stone, but there was a squelch too, as though he had landed partly in the thick muck of a river bank.

((water-hole rushing-speed place-here caution statement) intensify)

Gagging and retching, Elicand scrambled to his feet and backpedaled, trying desperately to get away from whatever creature had tripped him, before it could attack.

(negation creature place-here statement)

“Are you sure?” Elicand wheezed. “It felt like a snake. A giant snake.”

(smell horrible place-here statement) (iron-stump number-many place-here statement) ((negation creature place-here statement) intensify)

Elicand brought his hand up to wipe away the gravel that seemed to be stuck to his face, but he immediately regretted the move. His hand was covered in a tar-like, gluey mess and all he succeeded in doing was getting the gravel stuck to the goo on his hand and smearing it all on his face.

With a gentle tug on his clean hand, Shondu guided Elicand forward.

(water-hole rushing-speed hand-clean place-here suggestion) (movement speed-slow caution suggestion)

The hand tugging at him pulled him down into a crouch, and then Elicand felt the cold rushing of the river envelope his hand.

And suddenly, he could see.

The image that swam before Elicand’s blurry, burning eyes was the strangest thing. Another Wasketchin hung in the air, staring down at him in disbelief. The face was close enough to touch, too close, and as he reached out to push the stranger away, the stranger made a lunge toward him. Elicand cried out in the deafening silence and jerked himself away.

Blackness enveloped him once more.

“Where did he go? Where is he? Did you see who it was?”

(negation person-other here-place time-now statement) (puzzlement statement)

“But I saw him,” Elicand said. “Another Wasketchin. He was right in front of me. He tried to kill me.”

(laughter statement) (understanding statement)

“What’s so funny?” Elicand demanded, but Shondu’s calmness, his certainty that he knew what had happened, helped to calm the frightened story uncle, and eventually Shondu managed to explain what had happened. (soul-blending statement) Apparently, the river was more than just a convenient flow of water for the Brownies. It was the entire reason they lived down here—to be near it. Because when two people placed their hands in its current, their minds became one, allowing them to hear, taste, feel and think as one. They could see as one too, which is what had happened. Elicand hadn’t seen another Wasketchin looming over him. He had seen himself, looming over Shondu, but through Shondu’s eyes.

At first, Elicand hadn’t believed, but eventually Shondu convinced him to come back to the hole in the floor where the river peeked through and they had plunged their hands back into its powerful flow. This time, Elicand was prepared for what he saw, and it did not frighten him. But it was still a very disquieting thing. To see himself as Shondu saw him. Impossibly large and threatening, looming over him and blocking his view of the world. But there was humor there too. And kindness. Trust. What Elicand saw was not limited to the content of Shondu’s vision—it was a blending of all that Shondu saw and felt about him, laid together on top of what he saw. Soul-blending.

It was the most powerful experience Elicand had ever had.

When at last the wonder of that experience had receded, and the stench of whatever it was that lived in this cavern reasserted itself upon him, Elicand allowed Shondu to hurry him along. He paused briefly to scrub as much of the filth off his face and hands as he could manage—which had been Shondu’s original purpose in leading him to the crack in the floor that exposed the river coursing beneath the rock under their feet.

What he had seen through Shondu’s eyes had been as perplexing as the smell itself. More than a dozen cylinders lay scattered about the cramped cavern. Like the sky-tubes that bore Seekers in the Wagon of Tears, but not as long. Those standing on end came as high as Elicand’s chest. Each had a hole on its upper face, and each had several raised ridges running around the circumference of the cylinder, like bond-rings around the arm of a Djin. Had they brought these things here? But the stench of the containers, and its assault on his eyes would not allow him to linger, and since he couldn’t examine them without taking his hands from the water and plunging himself back into darkness, there wasn’t much more he could learn about them. Elicand allowed Shondu to take his hand and lead him onward again, away from that strange place.

Two moss meals later, and after walking an unknowable distance, but one that should surely have been enough, Elicand was disappointed that the stench still hounded him. He had done what he could, rinsing and scrubbing at his hand and even plunging his face into the river water, but he had not been able to completely remove the traces of whatever it was that he had stuck his hand into, and the smell lingered there with it. By this time, Elicand was exhausted. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed since he had awakened on that little jut of rock, but it felt like ages upon ages, and the more he thought about it, the less enthusiasm he could muster for standing up and pressing on into the dark. So Elicand wrapped himself more tightly in his kirfa, and leaned back against the papery moss that they had been eating, and which grew along the base of the tunnel wall here where they had stopped to do so. Shondu seemed to approve of this new course of action.

(sleep-ours place-here time-now statement) (happy statement)

Soon, the two of them were cuddled together against the cold and damp, dreaming fitful dreams, and neither of them stirred for the longest time, until Elicand reached up to scratch his chest and then awoke with a frightened cry.

He could not move his fingers.

Once more, Elicand strained to flex them, and once more, they refused to bend. The sticky mess that had coated his left hand the day before had now hardened into a shell of sorts, like a tight-fitting glove of stone—one that was virtually impossible to bend or close. He felt around blindly in the darkness until he found a small round rock, about the size of a fist. Then he pressed the center of his palm flat down on top of it, pushing hard as he tried to close the hand into a grip around the stone. But nothing moved. In frustration, he slammed the hand down on the rock, but the armor held, absorbing the shock of what should have been a very painful blow, and distributing its force around his entire hand. It took a dozen repeated slams of his palm down onto the rock before he finally felt a slight give in the shell. Huzzah! He could now, with great effort, fold his thumb very slightly toward his fingers. At this rate, he would have to smash the bones of his hand entirely into dust before he’d be able to flex it enough to do anything useful. Elicand sighed and slumped back down.

“Well, one thing is certain,” he said. “Being me has become much more interesting since the Wayitam sent me home.”

(fun-time self-you-feel time-now question) Shondu asked.

“Oh, yeah agreement,” Elicand replied. “Lots of fun statement.” He reached up with his good hand and rubbed at the spot on his cheek that had stiffened along with his hand. There wasn’t much he could have done with the side of his face, even at the best of times, but the stiffness he felt there bothered him even more than the rigidity of his hand. The skin of his cheek tugged at him incessantly—when he talked, when he swallowed, when he smiled or frowned. Even rolling his eyes at his own predicament came with a slight twinge of tightness. What good is a failed story uncle who can’t even smile without looking like a cripple?

A moment later, Elicand felt Shondu’s fingers on his good hand and then felt a few clumps of moss pressed into it.

(food-eat person-you time-now suggestion)

“Right,” Elicand said. “Do you think I can use this club-hand as a dinner plate question?” He placed a large piece of moss on the up-turned palm of his left hand and brought it up to his mouth. But in the darkness, his little finger bumped against his nose, and he felt the moss hit him on the lip and then bounce away into oblivion. Elicand reached forward and began to pat at the ground with his good hand. The least he could do was refrain from throwing his food around after Shondu had gone to the trouble to fetch it. But this rock-falling, tree-blasting, perpetual blackness of night was getting to be extremely not fun anymore.

Once again, Elicand sang his charm-song for light. He was no longer trying to make light, of course. It was a song of defiance. It was a song of frustration. It was a song to sing against the forces of everything that was wrong in the world and declare his complete lack of caring how many victories those forces might take—he was never going to bend to them.

So of course, this time the charm worked.

Elicand winced at the sudden brightness of light after so many, many days without it. His eyes watered and tears ran down his face, and even though he could not feel their wetness where they passed over the stiffened part of his cheek, it was still the most wonderful thing he could ever remember doing with his vim.

He had long ago given up trying to charm light into a rock or stick. For days now, Elicand had been trying to simply bring light to himself, hoping that if the vim didn’t even have to leave his body, then maybe it would more readily do its work there right inside of him, but even that had never produced anything before.

Curiously though, now that it had chosen to work, it only did so from within the armor casing of his left hand. How odd.

Elicand waved the hand around him in the air, delighting at the harsh shadows it threw around the tunnel where they had slept. Shondu’s eyes sparkled and blinked in the sudden glare, but he too seemed happy at this new development.

(fun-play shadow-scare delight statement) Shondu bubbled, turning to face the tunnel wall and then raising his hands like the claws of an attacking bear. The shadow on the wall did indeed look like a great and terrible bear, but the sight of a short-furred Brownie wiggling his behind to make the great bear look threatening was more than Elicand could take and he doubled over in laughter, folding at the waist and holding his stomach as though he might die from the hilarity. With his hand covered by the fold of his body and the fabric of his kirfa, its light vanished—and so did the great and terrifying shadow bear. Shondu turned to look at him, disappointed that the game was over so quickly. With his hand mostly covered, Elicand noticed that there was also a bit of glow coming from somewhere else and he held his non-glowing hand out, moving it closer and closer to this second source of light until he had located it. His face, of course. His cheek did not glow as brightly as his hand, but it too shone with the slightly greenish light of the charm. Something about the armor shell seemed to help magic to work, but why that might be, he had no idea.

The two of them played with the light for a little while longer, making silly shadows and following them around the tunnel, seeking better walls to throw their shadows at. But soon enough, they tired of the game and resumed their journey. With Elicand’s light, he was now able to see without the need for Shondu to guide him, and so they were able to walk properly, without Elicand half-stooped over to reach his little guide’s hand.

The only problem they encountered was that, while a brilliantly glowing hand was a good lamp to light Elicand’s way, it also did an excellent job of blinding him. Eventually, he settled on a strategy that seemed to work, by placing his hand on top of his head, where its light could not reach his eyes directly, but could still light the way in front of him. It was odd, but it worked, and their progress from that moment onward was much faster.

Each time they came to a branching of their path, or entered a chamber with more than one way out, Elicand elected to move upward. He hoped that sooner or later, they might possibly reach a tunnel that connected to a cave that finally emerged somewhere into the world above ground level. There were plenty of blind alleys and dead ends, but Elicand had been happy to learn that they did not need to mark each path with a cairn of stones. Shondu had an unerring ability to recognize the places they had already been, and to steer them to a different, untried path so that they could continue their exploration.

As day followed day—or at least, as sleep followed sleep—the pair of explorers wound their way up higher and higher in the system of caves—never freeing themselves of the oppressive sounds of raging, hurtling water, but eventually it dawned on Elicand that he hadn’t actually seen the river in some time. Perhaps as long as a day. They had been making a habit of stopping whenever they’d found an exposed flow, and after taking time to drink, they would often share a moment of soul-blending. It was so much easier to communicate when all you had to do was think your thoughts and they were shared by both thinkers. Ideas did not have to be spelled out in full, or converted into words—they just had to be thought. Conversing with Shondu at such times was as easy as talking to himself inside his head.

But now, he felt the need to blend with his friend again. Shondu had wandered off ahead to explore a side-tunnel, leaving Elicand with a moment to rest, but he found too many worries percolating in the silence to let him rest. Sooner or later, they were going to have to make some decisions. How long could they continue with nothing to eat but moss? Was it possible that heading down would have been the wiser course? And why could they hear the river still, if it had been so long since they had seen it? How did that make any sense? There were so many questions, and even though Elicand liked the emotional honesty of empathinking, he had to admit that he wasn’t very good at it—certainly not good enough to hold complicated discussions about the practical questions that now pestered him.

He was still running in mental circles on a half a dozen worries when Shondu’s thoughts broke into his own.

(Dragon-breath Dragon-blood secret-place excitement statement)

But what sent a jolt down Elicand’s spine and chilled him to his soul was the voice that followed—not an empathought that tickled inside his mind, but an actual voice that spoke in the air all around him.

“Come to me, story thief. Come and take my story. If you dare.”

In that moment, Elicand was certain who that voice belonged to. He had been hearing it in his dreams for his entire life. He had sought it over and over again on the hills outside his own village, and again at the Heart of the Verge with the Wayitam, and always it had eluded him in the waking world.

Chapter 22