Umber

A pair of gates that had been closed opened apparently of their own accord as the young people moved toward them, and Klavicus gestured to Mahlanda to follow. “Keep moving,” he ordered her, and though she wondered at the urgency in his voice she didn’t wonder for long. The gate slammed shut on their heels, and as the youths began their descent stairs formed at their approach and vanished after their passing. A flickering like torchlight illuminated only the vicinity through which they moved. The space felt oppressive to Mahlanda even without the constant threat of tumbling into the darkness below.

They reached ground level and still they descended, down and down half a mile and further, and Mahlanda was beginning to think she might go mad when they reached the bottom, which opened out mercifully into a wide space, a natural cavern with a clean-swept floor of sand. One wide curve of the wall had been smoothed and was covered with writing. The youths, who could not read, looked at it curiously but without comprehension.

Klavicus, on the other hand, passed along it with an almost greedy attention; for lack of anything better to do and to avoid thinking how far below the ground they were with no visible means of return Mahlanda trailed behind him, paying particular attention when he occasionally touched his finger to a word. She quickly realized that this was not a text but rather a list of names, hundreds of them. Kain. Rose. K’Nayde. Pendragon. None conveyed anything to her mind. Klavicus came to a complete stop before one, somewhere in the middle. The name next to his finger was Vir. “What do these signify?” she asked softly.

“Paladin houses. More or less.”

That word again. “What is a paladin?”

“Touch the weapons,” was all he said by way of reply. She looked around the room, and saw the ghostly images of weapons of all types standing in alcoves along its edges; some of them Mahlanda did not recognize. She was about to protest that there were too many when she saw that four of the images glowed more vibrantly than the others. The youths seemed drawn to them and she followed too, carefully laying a hand to each only when no one was too near.

The first was like a piece of the starlit night sky forged into a sword. She touched her fingers to the hilt and stifled a cry as her perspective, her very being, shifted; she tried to pull away but the sword now held her fast. She was on a ship anchored off the shore of a small island on which a single tall tower stood.

“Too long has this vile warlock terrorized the people. It is time to make an end of it.” Brandishing his blade, the paladin leads the assault on the island. It is a grim business, for the warlock has amassed an army of his own in the tower’s defense, but at last they cut their way through to the heart of the fortress, where they find…no one. A mighty rumble shakes the ground and the island begins to sink with alarming rapidity. “A trap!” the paladin shouts. “Teleport back to the ships!” Too late does he realize that the warlock had encased the tower in a region of nullified magic and then abandoned it; he and his men can do nothing but drown and die, cursing the warlock’s name…

Mahlanda found herself gasping for air as she returned to herself, though she was dazed by the vision of so much water, naturally occurring, in one place. She was loathe to subject herself to another vision, but Klavicus was watching her expectantly and so she moved on. The next sword was of darker lineaments than the first, resembling a length of chain beaten into a weapon, and she might have shrunk from touching it even if she didn’t know the coming effect.

“Die, and die! Be free!” The paladin surges through the slaver’s hold with his companions, cutting down any who oppose him. He slashes savagely at the bonds of every slave he encounters, and though his careless aim should sever wrists and ankles instead the blade slices through the manacles as if they are flesh, and passes by flesh as if it is air. The resistance is fierce but the paladin in his righteous anger pays little heed even as one by one his allies are struck down. He gives a cry of triumph as he penetrates the leader’s sanctum, but in his recklessness does not look behind him as he is stabbed in the back, his small dying consolation that at least most of the slaves escaped…

The third sword was of a striking design, forged of overlapping, veined elliptic shapes of pale gold that each in themselves was quite beautiful but together formed a deeply serrated blade that radiated a kind of menace. She looked down at her hand and saw the reptilian mottling of a githyanki.

Silent. Stealth. The githyanki creeps along the corridors of an asteroid outpost. He is here to kill a man. He does not know the man’s name, does not know why his superiors desire him dead; he is here to fulfill his function, and that is enough. He finds his target, pierces him with the sword, which nearly sings with the delight of death, gorging on the blood of its victim with the thirst of a parched throat. The githyanki retreats to make his escape in the confusion. He has hidden, hidden well, but – there! By only one he is discovered, but one is enough and alerted by the betraying cry they descend upon him like rabid hounds…

Mahlanda was weary of death and betrayal, but Klavicus’ stare brooked no refusal and she reached for the final blade. It was much simpler than the others, the style if not the material not dissimilar to a weapon a common soldier might use even now.

The man stands atop a tower, 150 feet tall with a massive, bright brass horn in its center. The landscape around him once was lush but now is dying; the defilers have seen to that. While he broods on the scene the hilt of the simple sword he holds struggles in his hand like a living creature restrained against its will, and reluctantly he releases it. Faster than the wind it speeds away from him, taking his sight with it, traveling unerringly to a distant house and through its entry as if the door was not closed. A man and a woman lay dead on the floor, a third man standing over them with a bloody dagger. He turns and has no time to utter so much as a word before the sword plunges itself into his chest.

As rapidly as it left it returns to the man on the tower. “That was the last,” he mutters, his tone bitter. “It is finished, forever.” Taking the sword in both hands, the hilt raised to the sky like an offering, he summons all of his strength and drives the blade into the stone at his feet. With a nearly human groan the moorings of the tower loosen and the structure begins to sink.

When the man stands nearly level with the ground he strides off toward the most desolate reaches of the land. Behind him the tower continues its descent, but he does not spare it a second glance.

“Dinner is served.” Mahlanda shuddered and then shook herself from her reverie to find herself, to her relief, not in the bowels of the mysterious tower but back in Klavicus’ cavern home. She had intended to stop the flow of memory after the youths started for the tower with Barunus but her mind had drifted off until the Preserver’s welcome voice interrupted her.

As he escorted her to a table he had set in the common area a rich array of unfamiliar smells assaulted her. The white cloth on the table was made of the same substance as Go’s robe had been, though this was in considerably better repair. Mahlanda touched it, she hoped unobtrusively, resisting the urge to stroke the soft fabric as if it were a pet. She was oblivious when Klavicus held out a chair for her, wary as he pushed it toward the table while she sat, and confused when with a flourish he unfolded a napkin made of the same rich material – silk, he had called it before? – and placed it on her lap.

Nothing in the serving dishes before her was familiar. There were substances that looked like vegetables, and an item that resembled meat, and the odors were certainly aromatic and appetizing but all unrelievedly strange. She tried to remember the words he used – potatoes, peas, filet – but there were so many of them, and the rich red drink he kept pouring for her – he called it wine but it was like nothing of that name she had ever tasted before – seemed to go to her head.

For a time she ate in silence and voluminously, and only when she approached satiation was she embarrassed to realize how sparingly her companion had indulged in the food, if not the spirits. “That was,” she said around her last mouthful, “incredible.”

“Higher water content than in most so-called edibles now,” he said. “Not so dry, or tough. There’s dessert,” he added, returning with a tray of triangular confections made of a strange, flaky pastry cradling some finely chopped alien nutmeats dipped in a sticky, sweet substance that resembled kank honey but with a lighter, less musky flavor.

He had opened another bottle, of a clear, thicker substance he called muscat, that harmonized remarkably with the pastry, and while she accepted the glass he proffered she also mustered some reserves of restraint and ate and drank more slowly now, trying to collect herself. She was, after all, in the company of an individual heretofore unknown to the Veiled Alliance, with apparent power to rival a dragon king and reserves of knowledge perhaps unmatched in the known world, and it would be a poor showing indeed if she came away from the evening with nothing but weight gain and a hangover.

There were a thousand things she should ask him, but her recent experiences still lay heavily on her mind. “You never told me what a paladin is.”

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed, in that infuriatingly pleasant tone which she had already come to understand meant and I’m not going to.

She sighed and tried a different tack. “Why were those swords of particular note?”

“Now that,” he said, “is a more interesting question.”

The flames of the candles burning at the center of the table merged to form a crude image of the sword apparently made from links of chain. “This was called Chainbreaker. It was forged by a paladin of great passion but little wisdom,” the flames momentarily flickered to reveal the face of a man past his youth but not yet old, a smoldering anger in his eyes, “whose idealism outstripped both his ability and his morality.”

The sword made of the night sky appeared, superimposed upon it the image of an extraordinarily young man wearing a profligate amount of metal as armor. “This was the youth who tried to keep him on the paladin’s path. He wielded the weapon known as Starfire.”

“He seems young to have made such a weapon.”

“And he did not. It was already an ancient thing by the time it was given to him by his mentor. Its powers, however, wax and wane with what might be called the ‘virtue’ of its wielder.”

Mahlanda did not understand how that could be, but before she could ask the plain sword appeared, and with it a middle-aged man of grim resolve. “That was the sword that killed a man all on its own,” Mahlanda said.

“Oathbinder. That was its function, to hold those who pleased to call themselves paladins accountable for their actions.”

“And so the wielder of Chainbreaker died?”

“All men die,” he grumbled. “But at the whim of Oathbinder? Not that man. His desires were pure enough, but over and over he broke the code – the one you heard the Galeb Duhr recite – and refused the correction and guidance of his superiors.” The note of wry detachment in his voice made Mahlanda wonder if he believed in what he said. “His purity of desire saved his life, but Oathbinder marked his failure with a disfiguring scar.”

In another time and place the harshness of Oathbinder’s judgments might have been a cause for consternation but Mahlanda, used to the whims of power, merely shrugged. “What of the last sword?” she asked.

“That is the curiosity,” he replied. The final sword appeared, flashing golden and beautiful and deadly. “Torment certainly never touched the hand of a paladin. Its substance consists of leaves torn in the dead of night from a holy tree. It was forged by the twin of a good man whose soul was half-torn from him and placed, corrupted, into a new body. It was wielded by an assassin who won the right to do so by tempering it in the dying smith’s blood.” Another young man appeared, moving through the shadows with the blade in his hand. “You ask me what a paladin is? I will tell you, it is not that.”

Mahlanda accepted the tea he set before her. “So the – tower – provided visions of the last wielders of the swords. But if Torment wasn’t a paladin’s blade – why?”

“You watched the gleam in the young warrior’s eye. What is a paladin without a quest?”

She tried to conceal her irritation; poorly she feared. “I don’t know. What is he?”

“A paladin likely to forget his ideals.”

“You’re telling me,” she stared at him incredulously, “that they’re going to run around looking for lost weapons rather than confronting our very real and very pressing problems?”

He sipped at his tea. “Enlighten me as to the nature of these real and pressing problems.”

Her hand clenched into a fist. “I could go on all night. As you very well know.”

“Every age has its difficulties.” He leaned back in his chair, looking a little bored. “They differ less than you might like to imagine.”

“But – ”

He held up a silencing hand as the images of the swords flickered through the flames again. “You could say that a mountain is no more than an accretion of dirt. If you wish to appear a fool. Likewise there are artifacts in this world that are more than the sum of the parts used to make them, in meaning and symbolism if nothing else. There was one moment in history when these blades were wielded in a common cause. Would it surprise you to learn that it was at a moment not unlike that which we now face?”

“I don’t see how one could compare anything that happened in the past to what we’re going through – ”

He rose from the table abruptly. “Ah, the tired complaint of every aggrieved generation. Thank you for the intelligent company while it lasted. The portal outside will see you back home.” Without another word he turned away toward the book-filled alcove and began sorting through the spoils of Tyr.

Mahlanda’s cheeks flushed red with anger and embarrassment. She meant to stalk from Klavicus’ home with some small modicum of dignity, but was distracted by a flickering from the wide cleft of air and her curiosity drew her toward it. Opa Skarp was rising up from the sandy floor of the tower, and something else along with him.

The room was dominated by an intricate spiraling design at its center; in its physical presence Mahlanda had found it almost hypnotic and even now it took an extraordinary effort of will to look away. One by one the young people stepped on the path of the pattern, winding along its curves like a human snake. It fought them, tricked them, tested them at every step. Once one of the woman fighters made an error in judgment, and though she bit back her distress it clearly pained her. Mahlanda’s image in the air spoke. “It wouldn’t actually – ”

“Kill them?” the spectral Klavicus said. “Of course it would. It has before. This isn’t a game.”

In spite of his warning she felt a strong attraction, a desire to walk the path herself, a feeling that something of value awaited her on the other side. But as he had with the oath of the paladin, Klavicus held her back. “That isn’t for us either.”

And so she could do nothing but watch as the youths passed over the pattern, where Opa Skarp waited for them. The male warrior studied him, then spoke. “You aren’t our grandfather, are you?”

A faint smile crossed the old man’s face. “No.”

“They’ve tried it before,” Klavicus murmured.

“What happened to the others?” Mahlanda asked, but the look in the Preserver’s eyes answered her question for her.

A gate had opened behind Opa Skarp and the young people were filing through it. Mahlanda moved to follow, but Klavicus held her back. After the youths were gone Opa Skarp looked directly at them, and Klavicus dismissed his hiding spell. “For better or for worse,” he said, “for good or for ill, they are the Ones.”

The old priest nodded. “They have earned mortality, if not yet immortality. Give them their names.”

“It shall be done,” Klavicus replied with a ritualistic formality. “Ivan,” he recited. “Kerac. Po. Reign. Regan. Saphira, Snarky. Sugar Primrose. Zane. And you?”

“Opa Skarp is no more. I shed the name with the responsibility.” He took a step toward Klavicus. “It is your time to do the same.” Klavicus frowned, but for once and rather to Mahlanda’s surprise remained silent. “We have watched, we have listened, we have conferred. Demon. We who remember could call you the last of its kind here, but we who know now declare the kind extinct. You are our Witness as others are our Warriors, our Thoughts as others are our Arms. We are well pleased with you, and we declare you now and forever forward daimon, the last and the first and the last of your kind.” He glanced up at the smooth places on the Preserver’s head. “Be what you are, in all of its fullness, for these are the End times or the Beginning.”

“I thought you were fools for trying.” Klavicus studied the old man shrewdly. “But who would have thought the Galeb Duhr could wield – well, my mistake.”

“As long as you profit from it.”

Klavicus, his face expressionless, nodded curtly and turned away. “Time to go,” he said to Mahlanda.

“Wait,” she replied and before he could stop her turned toward the old priest. “Why can’t I take the oath? Why can’t I walk the path? I have the desire,” she clutched her hand to her chest, “it is strong in my heart.”

The old priest, once a man and now an elemental force, looked on her with some pity. “You are too old already. However hard you try to grasp the rock of purity it turns to sand within your hand.”

She bowed her head and her hands fell limply to her sides. She didn’t see the expression on Klavicus’ face as he looked down at her.

Not until this second time. And then she regretted all of her calculation, her scheming, her mistrust of the demon – daimon – whatever he was. She crept to where he was working and stood hesitantly just outside the intricate bone panels that delineated the space. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’ve been trying to speak to me, and I haven’t been listening. Please, go on.”

He turned toward her immediately rather than leaving her to squirm in her discomfort. “Not tonight.” At her crestfallen face he added, “It’s nothing to do with you. Some nights I prefer to be alone with my ghosts.” He held up one of the books. “You think these should be back in public circulation?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“I won’t return the originals. But you can make copies if you like.”

She bit at her lower lip. It would be time consuming, but with sufficient magical aid…

As if he were reading her mind he said, “By hand.”

“By hand?” she protested before she could stop herself. “It would take lifetimes!”

“Then you had better decide what’s important.”

She could sense that she was at another crossroads with him; she wondered if being in his company ever consisted of anything else. Her gaze roamed over the volumes in despair and finally returned to him. “Perhaps you could direct me toward the most vital material.”

“As you wish.” His tone was casual but there was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “If you’d like I can create a permanent portal to here – near here, at least,” he amended. “You could come and go as you please.”

She wanted to believe in his good intentions. But when had that ever worked out? Even Tithian had been a decidedly mixed blessing – better than Kalak, to be sure, but he hadn’t wasted any time anointing himself king, had he? A tiny, nearly extinct voice inside her warned, It never works if you don’t try. But still…there was one thing she had to know. “Why did you bring me here?”

“I had a friend once,” he answered her only after a long pause, and his gaze grew distant, “who sacrificed himself on the altar of his own disillusionment. It was an ugly thing, and a waste, and in the end, though he thought he had redeemed himself, futile. He and his fellow martyrs failed at what they set out to do.”

Mahlanda was not without a certain mental agility and psychological astuteness, and these dots were perhaps not difficult to connect. “He lived at the same time as the men you showed me, wielding those swords, didn’t he?” A chilling insight struck her. “And we’re living with the consequences of their failure?”

He took her arm and steered her toward the door. “It’s late. You should be getting home. Doubtless many pressing problems have accumulated in your absence.”

He was mocking her, she knew, but gently now. As she prepared to step through the portal she said, “What was his name? This friend of yours?”

As a lingering silence turned into an uncomfortable one she gave a small shrug and turned away. But then echoing down the portal as from a long distance she heard a murmured reply, “His name was Mordenkainen.”