Oath Keeper

“I’m getting too fat for this,” Qhirmaghen muttered, then he remembered where he was and cursed himself for speaking aloud. Sure, he was burrowed in under the floor, but that didn’t mean he was safe from prying ears. It would be just like Angiron to have a personal snoop inspect each room before he entered it. And how would that be, to be dug up by some Undergrunter and executed for treason? Qhirmaghen hunkered down in his hastily dug tunnel beneath the King’s lounging chambers and resigned himself to a long—and silent—wait.

After the reception, he’d rushed away as quickly as he’d been able, to Ishig’s Book, in search of Urlech. After all, Urlech was the one who’d told them that the King’s new wife was a Wasketchin girl, and now here was Angiron, flaunting some other… creature, as his new Queen. Qhirmaghen wasn’t sure what she was, but she was certainly not Wasketchin, and she most definitely was not a girl, no matter what manner of beast she turned out to be. Every inch of her had radiated a single notion: ancient evil.

Urlech’s response had been to consult the bones.

“The Wasketchin girl is still bound to him,” Urlech had reported, after the clicking and dripping had ceased echoing throughout the cavern.

Urlech shrugged. “Bound. That is all I can say. The bones speak without such subtleties.”

“Then who is the crone?”

“A replacement?” Urlech suggested. “Let us judge by the events upon the Arch during the Contest. The girl defied him openly, and stole his Pledge. Does it seem that our King enjoys the faithful obedience of his young wife? Perhaps she is more trouble than he had hoped.”

“Could he have annulled the marriage and chosen another?” Qhirmaghen asked, but Urlech shook his head.

“No. An annulment would have broken the bond. More probably, he has secreted her away somewhere, out of public sight, so that she cannot interfere further. This new Queen may be a decoy. Someone to present to the Horde for now. Someone more agreeable to his aims.”

Now it was Qhirmaghen’s turn to disagree. “No, the crone may be a decoy, but he does not have the girl. He doesn’t even know where she is. He’s been running around ever since the coronation trying to find her, but still she eludes him.”

“Indeed?” Urlech said, widening his eyes in surprise. “A mere girl outfoxes our Trickster Prince?”

“So it would seem,” Qhirmaghen said, nodding in agreement. “Or perhaps he simply wishes us to believe so. But where does that leave us?”

Urlech paced around the dark cavern for a moment, rubbing his nose in thought. Then he stopped. “There are two routes to be taken,” he said. “First, we must find the girl, and give her any aid we can.”

“Agreed. And the second tunnel?”

“Curious for you to use that word,” Urlech had replied. “We need more information about the crone…”

And so here he was now, Qhirmaghen, Fallen Contender and Overcaptain of Minor Works, cramped into the end of a tunnel like a common Grunter, lying in wait under the King’s private chambers, hoping to overhear something of consequence.

All he needed now was the King.

For almost an hour, Qhirmaghen sat quietly, his ear pressed up against the thin dirt cap that stood between him and the King’s chambers. He had chosen his route carefully, and knew that he was below the corner of the room—a location none would ever stand upon—so he had been able to scratch his tunnel to within a very slender breadth of breaking through the hard-packed ground without fear of being discovered by a misplaced foot.

After a lengthy wait, he heard shuffling from above. The King? Qhirmaghen tensed up in anticipation, but the voices spoke in quiet tones and he relaxed. Servants of some description. Qhirmaghen suspected they were talking about their Overcaptain, given how poorly they spoke of him. But what they said was of little concern. It was just the idle grousing of minor folk. What did matter was how hard it was for him to make out their snide whispers as they moved around the room. What if Angiron were to reveal some crucial piece of information in just such a quiet tone?

When the attendants had completed their tasks and departed, Qhirmaghen pulled a small pouch of tools from inside his jerkin and withdrew a slender length of bone from the collection inside. It was longer than his longest finger, but only a fraction of a finger wide, and pointed at the tip. A pin bone from a large fish, stiff, but with some flex to it. When he was certain that the servants were gone, Qhirmaghen worked the slender bone carefully up into the soil above his ear, until he felt it poke out into the room above him. Crumbs of dirt rained down on his face and nose as he worked the bone around a little, creating an open air channel that connected him more fully to the King’s chamber.

Qhirmaghen placed his ear against the dirt once more and confirmed. Yes. He could hear the hush of the room now. As he listened to this more voluminous silence, several more crumbs and pellets of soil bounced from his cheek. Had he weakened the floor too much? He didn’t think so, but still, he would have to take care. No more poking and prodding. He would make do with what he now had.

It was perhaps another twenty minutes before the King and his “Queen” entered the chamber, followed by another pair of servants, but Angiron ordered them to leave. Qhirmaghen held his breath and listened.

“You overstep yourself,” Angiron said, as soon as he and his bride were alone.

“Do I? I thought you wanted a queen. That’s what queens do.”

“Wrong!” Angiron barked. “Queens do exactly what their kings tell them to do, and this king is telling you to mind your place.” Then his tone softened into an oily purr. “Or I’m sure one of your sisters can be convinced to play the role more to my liking.”

There was a slight pause as Qhirmaghen imagined the two of them glaring at each other.

Then, “Yes, my Lord.”

“That’s better,” Angiron replied. Somebody moved and more grains of grit sprinkled into Qhirmaghen’s ear and tickled at the side of his nose. He flicked it away.

“Speaking of your sisters, where are they?”

“They’re vacating the last of the children,” the fake Queen said. “They’ll join us once it’s done.”

“You’re sure you’ve got them under control this time? I’m tired of having to chase after your little sprats whenever I need one. They’re not even close to broken.”

“If we’d broken them, they’d have been useless to us. Can’t wring much misery from a simpleton. But now that we’re home…” The woman’s voice trailed off dreamily. “So much prey here,” she said. “So rich. We had forgotten what it was like.”

“Feed all you want. The miserable Ketch are yours. Just leave those children for me.”

“Gladly!” the Regalia woman replied. “And you should have no trouble with them now, my Lord. Your magic has left them as docile as rag dolls. Do with them as you like.”

Children? Being dragged into the Angiron’s war? Qhirmaghen did not like the sounds of this. Were even the weakest of beings mere tools to this mad king?

The Overcaptain of Minor Works risked a quick breath and prepared himself to hear the worst.

“Your magic has left them as docile as rag dolls,” Regalia said. “Do with them as you like.” She stood in the center of a small, underground room. The King’s private receiving room, richly appointed in the Gnome fashion, with soft benches of muck along one wall for seating, as well as a trove of bones, sinews, fleshes and the like. Anything a King might want.

Angiron whirled away from the door where he’d been pacing, and faced his “wife.” “Of course I’ll do as I like, you stupid brain-parasite! Have you found either of your other girls yet? My real wife? Or her ridiculous friend?”

“Not yet, my Lord, but we will. Their scent is quite—”

But the room lurched and cut off her reply. Without warning, the floor and walls rumbled and shook and a great cry rose up from the very soil around them. It was a cry of agony and despair, as though the world itself were lamenting its own impending demise.

The Gnome King threw himself to a low, earthen bench and clutched at it for support, as Regalia staggered into the corner of the room, fleeing the open center where the ceiling above them bounced and rattled, raining clumps of moist dirt onto the floor.

“Oh… What is that?” she cooed, as the sorrow behind the wailing of infinity washed through her. It was enormous. Limitless misery. As though she fed upon the despair of a god. The Miseratu Princess felt herself fill, restored and rejuvenated, as though her long exile from the world and the Prey had never been. “Oh sisters, do you feel it?”

Regalia spread her arms in ecstasy and took a step out from the corner, her eyes closed and her head thrown back, as the pain of the world filled a space within her that she had forgotten. It was more than misery. More than pain, or fear. It was all of these, and more. A feeling that perhaps only the gods felt, and not being such a one, she had no word to describe it.

Other than “delicious.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Fill me! Power beyond all power! For the first time, I am alive!”

And then the floor beneath her collapsed. As she fell, a squeak of terror caught at her expanded senses, and in a flash, her hands shot down into the soil, questing. She groped through the filth and dirt until she snagged a squirming bundle of fear.

“It would seem your underlings are truly beneath you, my ‘King.’” Scorn dripped from Regalia’s tone as she flung the creature into the room and stepped easily up out of the hole to follow him.

“You!” Angiron shouted, his eyes bulging with rage. Qhirmaghen lay in the center of the room as the shaking subsided. The Gnome King advanced, one hand already raised, ready to beat his traitorous Aide into pulp.

“Leave him!” Regalia snarled. “I want to play.”

Angiron flung her a glance of purest disdain. “He’s mine, you ignorant fear-cow!” Then he reached out and to grab the Fallen Contender by the throat.

Behind him, Regalia threw back her head in delight. “Oh, but you mistake me, little worm. It is not your contemptible wretch that I mean to play with.” Then she cuffed Angiron in the side of the head with a casual swing of her arm, hurtling the King across the room, where he hit the wall with a wet thud and slid slowly down toward the floor.

Chapter 39