Umber

Mahlanda took Klavicus’ hand and they vanished..to return to precisely where they were before. Or, more precisely, to multiple where they were befores, pockets of reality for each of Opa Skarp’s brood and themselves overlapping in a manner so vertiginous that Mahlanda’s hand flew to her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Don’t focus on individuals,” Klavicus instructed her. “Take in the gestalt.”

That was, she found, easier said than done, but having no desire to embarrass herself she kept her gorge down, and in truth was soon distracted by events as they unfolded. For though to her eye the warrior had blown the horn, here in these other spaces it did not wind. Instead a booming voice spoke out.

This is no place for cowards, for the covetous, or for thrill-seekers. Cease thy meddling or be prepared to offer your life in service to a greater power.

She felt a strong compulsion, the sense that she must commit herself to whatever followed or depart in haste. She looked at Klavicus inquiringly. “I feel it too,” he said. “But it’s not for us. You couldn’t bind yourself to the oath if you wanted to.”

All of the youths remained.

Very well. Will you swear never to avoid enemies or conflict out of fear, but instead seek challenges that befit your skills and station?

Nine heads nodded.

Will you swear to protect and aid those in need of assistance, through inconvenience, through discomfort and pain, even unto death, with every resource you call your own?

Again a murmur of swift agreement.

Will you swear to honor your commitments and promises, and make your word your bond?

There was yet another round of assent.

Will you swear to tell the truth, free from exaggeration or distortion, at all times, even if the truth be against you?

Now there was some hesitation. However sheltered their upbringing in Opa Skarp’s paradisiacal valley, the youths’ short, largely violent acquaintance with the wider world had already left some scars, and they peppered their interrogator with questions regarding the precise boundaries of ‘truth’ versus less admirable qualities like knavishness and naiveté.

“It answered them,” Mahlanda breathed with some amazement as the thundering voice responded, with perhaps even a tinge of amusement in its gravelly tones.

“Of course it did,” Klavicus replied irritably. “It’s not a pre-recorded message.”

“A what?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. Suffice to say there is a living entity –well, ‘living’ isn’t precisely the right word – uttering the statements you’re hearing. What is more interesting – although in your profound ignorance you’d have no way of knowing it – is that he is permitting them to bargain at all. A sign of how far the world has fallen, and how desperate certain powers have become.”

The stone rumbled threateningly beneath them; when the young people looked unperturbed Mahlanda assumed it was a phenomenon for she and her escort alone. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, but as her companion seemed unmoved she tried to suppress any outward show of panic. “Be cantankerous if you like,” he shrugged, clearly not speaking to her, “you know it’s the truth.” After a final hard jolt that would have knocked her to her feet if Klavicus hadn’t steadied her, the ground stilled.

By then the young people had made their peace with fealty to honesty, and the voice continued. Will you swear not to seek retribution against any who defeat you fairly upon the field of honor, but accept defeat with grace and humility?

There seemed to be some skepticism as to whether fairness was a thing ever encountered in life, and Klavicus nodded in some sympathy. “Rather an outdated fashion,” he agreed, “but the Galeb Duhr takes the long view, and likes to believe some styles will come around in popularity again.”

She was curious to know who this Galeb Duhr was, but the voice had moved on. Will you swear to fight honorably, without intrigue or trickery, against any who return to you the same dignity?

The bard was beginning to look deeply uneasy. “It is the profession’s stock in trade, after all,” Klavicus observed, “putting a certain patina on the truth. But doubtless she will take comfort in ‘any who return to you the same dignity,’ secure in the knowledge that in Umber honor is unlikely to be put to the test.”

Mahlanda turned a sharp eye on him. “You are a cynic, aren’t you?”

“I give voice to the unpleasant truths others feel in their guts but don’t permit to percolate up to their brains.” When she started to protest he clucked his tongue in disapproval. “Examine your own conscience, not mine.”

The bard had murmured her yes, with somewhat less conviction than the others, and the voice moved on. Will you swear to seek righteous vengeance upon those who will not?

Vengeance seemed a popular concept, and there was little hesitation.

Will you swear to persuade others to hold to these same standards but also always judge them according to their abilities and station?

Several of the youths looked puzzled at the idea of proselytizing virtue, but none demurred.

Know that you will be judged without hesitation or compunction should you fail in any of these things. You are free to turn away now if you do not accept this.

There was a long pause as the young people looked at one another. Then one after another they nodded, the bard the last and the most hesitant. Mahlanda again felt the compulsion to leave or to swear fealty, to something she knew not what; but heeding Klavicus’ earlier words kept her place and held her tongue as the voice intoned, Then we, the eternal keepers of the Shield and Spine, command you: Speak now these words, not uttered for millennia, as they are no more and no less than the truth:

“I am a Paladin.”

Nine voices spoke the words together, and she turned to Klavicus and began to ask, “What is a – ” but her question was drowned out as the horn sounded at last, a deep, deafening trumpeting that rang out all across the valley, repeating once for each youth that had given his or her assent.

Then, as if she didn’t have enough to cope with, an unnatural light swept across them, coalescing into a form so coherent that Mahlanda was certain it must be a more than a mere natural phenomenon, and fear and wonder wrestled in her mind as she thought of who it must be. “Avan – ” she began to whisper, just as another earthquake rippled beneath their feet.

From their startled looks the young people felt it too, and with a powerful lurch the surface on which they stood rose up from the ground, twenty feet, fifty, more, until a hundred and fifty foot tower stood sentinel over the valley. The tarnish on the horn fell away and it gleamed like a small sun of its own in the morning light and the blazing reflection of the Avangion. The feeling of spatial dislocation fell away as well, and she heard Klavicus mutter a swift spell to mask the two of them before the youths became aware of their unexpected presence.

Her legs went weak beneath her, but before she could fall in obeisance to the sparkling light Klavicus gripped her around the waist and held her upright. She heard a voice in her head, musical and bright as if the light itself danced across the surface of her mind. Don’t let her kneel to me.

Another mental voice that she recognized as her companion by its dryness and unrepentant disrespect if nothing else snapped back, Don’t worry. I won’t.

The young people looked curious but neither frightened nor awed at the Avangion’s presence; they were far more affected by the two people who next appeared beside him, a giant of a man holding a great sword in one hand and a long sword in the other, and a woman wearing a bright robe made of the strange material Klavicus had identified as ‘silk.’ The names of Go and Malik had been murmured among the Tyr preservers but Mahlanda had never met them, and now that she stood before them she was astonished that two such youthful individuals could possess the prowess they did. Although if they were pupils of the Avangion…

Their skill is none of my doing, the lilting voice interrupted her thoughts. Only their existence.

Let them go. It was the first time Mahlanda had heard her companion truly angry.

She thought perhaps the Avangion would strike him down for his insolence, but his reply was mild. I intended to all along.

The youths looked as if they meant to speak, but Go held out a silencing hand. “Thank you,” she said, whether to them or to the Avangion Mahlanda was uncertain. Then the entity’s light flared brightly, and without a word or a cry Malik and Go were gone, crumbled into dust, leaving behind Malik’s pair of swords and the intricate golden patterns, of a dragon and a kirin, from Go’s now disintegrated robe. The Avangion disincorporated, leaving Mahlanda feeling somehow desolate.

When she recovered her voice again she stuttered, “Did everyone else – out here – there – hear that – feel that – is this tower really suddenly standing, in the real – I mean – ” Not certain what space or time they occupied, not certain how any of what she had just witnessed could have occurred, she struggled to frame her question.

“Yes,” Klavicus rescued her from her confusion. “It is perhaps Oerth’s last battle cry, its final bulwark of defiance.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “The words you use – I’ve never heard – I don’t understand – ”

His fingers clenched around a corner of a crenel until it turned to dust in his hand. He held it out to her in his palm. “Understand this. These are the final Champions of the stone and the soil. It has expended nearly all it has in their raising. If they fail, other elemental forces may take up the cause, but this one will be finished.”

He tipped his hand sideways, and as the dust began to fall with a scrambling gesture Mahlanda caught it between her own hands. “You shouldn’t have damaged it.” A strange, powerful emotion seized her, and before she could stop herself a tear fell from her eye into the dust.

“Why do you weep?” he asked harshly.

She looked up at him. “I don’t know.”

“That’s something, at least,” he grunted. As she watched, the surface of his broad palm grew moist. He passed his hand across hers and the dust clung to it, then passed it along the surface of the stone and the crenel was mended. “We should go,” he said. “Skarp’s brood is descending.”