Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 31Arc 8: : To Weave A Dream

“This way, mortals.” The Elf Queen’s handmaiden led us through the forest. The stars were starting to come out. The Living Moon peeked over the distant horizon, a golden-green dome crowned in silver. I couldn’t help but note that the second moon, the Corpse Moon, had already risen high, and loomed larger than usual.

“Where are we going?” Hendry asked.

“No idea,” I said. We’d broken camp quickly after our conversation, and I knew the others were confused. We had more than a week before the ball in Carreweir started, and they all expected a night of rest. We led our animals through the dark, fully kitted and saddlebags secure.

“Every night we waste out in the wilderness risks discovery,” I said to the group as we walked. “All it will take is one animal with either Lillian or Evangeline behind its eyes, one patrol, one risen peasant, and we’re done. We can’t fight everything they send at us for the next nine days and still be in any shape to rescue Rysanthe at the city.”

I glanced back at them. “I spoke to Queen Maerlys earlier. We hatched a plan.”

Emma squinted at me. “When did you do that, exactly? I was with you the whole time.”

“You noticed how she was talking through her handmaiden that whole time?” I asked and gestured to Tzanith, a glowing figure whose brightly colored wings led us on through the night. “Her Majesty can’t speak normally anymore with her injuries, so she got better at other forms of communication to compensate. When we were speaking to the others, she was talking to me inside my head.”

The resulting migraine still pounded through my skull, a dull and constant discomfort. I’d trained myself to focus through pain, and had to use that experience just to speak in a steady voice. Maerlys might look like a burnt waif, but her will was strong. I’d begun to believe I might have gotten off easy during our contest of wills back at the ruins of Edvard Agrion’s fortress.

“The seydii are going to help us get into the city undetected,” I said. “Though I don’t know all the details. Care to elaborate, Irnsdotter?”

“It would be Balesdotter,” Tzanith corrected amicably. “And I believe it shall be clear soon enough. Ah, here we are!”

We walked into a glade washed in moonlight. At the center of the field sat a single lone tree, old and tall, casting a long and many-limbed shadow over the grass. There were night flowers blooming, bright beneath the starlit sky.

It smelled clean here, nothing like the verdant rot of the Briar. I paused a moment and took the heady smell in, feeling the ache in my head clear a bit. The unexpected quietude of the moment distracted me from the other occupant of the glade besides the old oak.

It was a coach. A large and regal one, carved of the purest white wood I’d ever seen and caged in a frame of living vines crawling with leaves. Those leaves were of a startling variety of colors, like an entire wood caught in the throws of autumn had been pruned to decorate the carriage. It had gleaming azsilver worked into its design, foggy glass windows, and a raised driver’s bench that currently lay unoccupied. The rays from the two moons seemed to make the thing burn in my sight — it did burn to my spiritual senses, practically blazing with phantasm.

I stared at that work of art, and Art, in numb disbelief. “Tzanith, this is not inconspicuous.”

The nymph turned and blinked innocently at me. “Evangeline Ark shall be searching for the inconspicuous. She shall expect you to arrive in darkness and in cold, and to bring fire. She will expect you to smell of the disquiet dead and to wield a fell axe.”

I shuffled in discomfort. “True…”

Tzanith smiled and gestured to the coach. “My people worked for many long months in tandem to weave this dream. My queen carved it with her own hand from an earde she raised from saplinghood.”

“For me?” I asked in confusion.

Tzanith shook her head, causing her black ringlets to sway and shimmer through different shades of blue-black. “Nay, Ser Knight. This was originally intended as a gift for Markham Forger, who has taken the burden of this age on his shoulders. But a different gift is being prepared for him now, one more suited to this new war.”

That was ominous. I slowly approached the gleaming white-and-golden-green coach, feeling in awe of it. “What does the glamour on it do?”

“Tells a sweet lie,” Tzanith said easily. “One that is also a truth. You wove a similar one during the tournament, yes?”

During the Emperor’s festival of war in the north, I’d adopted an alter ego known as Ser Sain, the Hyacinth Knight. Melodramatic and self-indulgent, but that was part of the magic. Not all glamours are subtle, and sometimes theatrical ones work better.

“Who does it make us?” I asked as I paced around the coach. The members of my lance were also spreading out to inspect it, murmuring excitedly amongst themselves.

“Once you step inside,” Tzanith told me as she followed along in my wake, “you shall become the Lord Finn Nu, a chieftain of the Wyldedales and the Knight of Mandrakes.”

I frowned. “An elf?”

“Some men think so,” Tzanith said mysteriously. “It is a guise that Lord Tuvon would take, once in a blue moon.”

I looked at the gleaming coach with new apprehension. “If this is a known guise…”

“Fret not, Ser Knight.” Tzanith stepped up to my side and made a sweeping gesture towards the vehicle. “No one save mine own people shalt recognize the masque in the way you are imagining.”

Emma frowned. “Then what use is it to us? Surely if some unknown faerie lord from the deep wilderness shows up at Evangeline’s party, she will at the very least quirk a questioning eyebrow, mayhap?”

“Be polite,” I admonished her. “The elves know what they’re doing…”

I paused and glanced at Tzanith. “ Don’t you? My squire has a point.”

Tzanith dipped her head in acknowledgement. “The magic is very strong, yet also subtle. It shalt not simply change thy appearance, but also implant memories into the minds of they who perceive it — true memories, of times long gone and legends half forgotten. Finn Nu was real once, and my people still remember him. We share that memory now. It shall become as your cloak, as your armor. Where you appear, the commonfolk shall whisper with excitement. When you arrive at the doors of a lord’s hall, it shall seem only natural to welcome you, with bemusement and wonder perhaps, yet also with the knowledge that you bring many gifts and the joy of change. You shall seem like an eccentric from faraway lands, one whose name is whispered in half-remembered songs.”

I nodded along with her explanation. This was old magic. The magic of stories, of host and guest, of strange travelers and stranger games played before warm hearths that tended to end with lessons learned and fortunes gained. Or with new burdens, for those who acted too brash. It was a protomagic, in a way, for Soul Arts themselves. They operated on the same principle -- a construct of phantasm that acted as a kind of spiritual echo of some event or concept, manifested as a brittle new reality layered over the physical world. Only, glamours were far more complex and difficult to weave than Auratic Arts. No human could ever match an elf in this kind of magic. We just didn't live long enough to get that breadth of experience, or that degree of conceit.

How many lords had Tuvon visited in guises like this one over the centuries, weaving his spells over mortals and guiding our fates? Had the God-Queen done this same thing when She still walked among us? And did the curses they laid on us outweigh the blessings?

I put those brooding thoughts from my mind and stepped close to the carriage as I dared. There were images carved into the outer face of the white wood in ever-so slightly darker shades, showing capering satyrs and dainty-hoofed fauns dancing around twisted flames that bloomed like flowers. I could almost hear their music.

“What are the glamours rules?” I asked.

The elf maid nodded in appreciation. “This is no passing masque that you might pull over yourself to turn the eyes of commonfolk or drowsy guards. You must embody the roll, become it. It will not be easy, and the strength of the dream also makes it fragile.”

I grimaced. “I don’t have time to educate myself on an entire new persona.”

Tzanith stepped up to the coach without fear and pressed her hand against it. “The memories you clothe yourselves in shall also pour into thee, Ser Headsman. That is the other danger, and one that even my people can fall victim to.”

I understood that. There were plenty of cautionary tales of this very thing. Mortals, and occasionally elves, who cloaked themselves in strong glamour could sometimes lose their true inner self in the act. There were stories about arrogant knights or wise wizards who forgot who they really were and went mad, convinced they were another until some brave hero or beneficent spirit broke the spell.

“It is tied to your will,” Tzanith continued. “You shall have to be two men at once, and believe in the reality of both. Become too much of him…” She gestured to the coach. “And you may forget Alken Hewer. Retreat too deeply back into yourself, and Lord Finn Nu will unravel from you.”

She smiled more softly then. “You will have some time to acclimate to the memories. There are some days before you must embody it completely, and I would suggest taking the time to become comfortable in his skin.”

This was why I’d never trained too hard on glamour, or relied on it. It was a dangerous magic, tricky and prone to disaster. Many of the Alder Knights were masters at it, using their masques to walk in various guises around the land as they watched for diabolical threats and guarded over the places where reality became thin and the Wend bled through.

In the nine days — eight now — that I had to prepare for the confrontation with Evangeline and rescue Rysanthe, I would also be distracted trying to gain a balance with this wholly new identity. But it was necessary. This wouldn’t be like ghosting into some unwary city like Vinhithe or even a necromancer’s keep like with Emery Planter. It would be the only way to enter Carreweir and get close to my target without having a whole horde of monsters crash down on my head.

I grimaced, but accepted it and turned to my group as they gathered up behind me. “What about everyone else?”

“They will be your entourage,” Tzanith said. “Their guises shall be somewhat more fragile. I would recommend keeping as much attention on you and off of them as possible.”

“Stealing all the glory again?” Emma asked in a droll voice.

I gave her a thin smile. “Once the cloaks come off, I’m sure you’ll get a chance.”

Penric scratched at his chin as he studied the kingly carriage. “No driver.”

Tzanith gave the old archer a curtsy and gestured with an open palm to the waiting seat. “Shall you do the honors, O’ Penric of Reynwell?”

The man’s pale cheeks darkened as he blushed. “Um… I suppose, if…”

“Go ahead,” I told him. Then I added, “No beasts.”

“It will use yours,” Tzanith told me. “They will be part of the masque.”

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Being able to take our chimera into the city was an unexpected boon. Maerlys really did think this through, though I had to wonder how she’d gotten it here in the first place. I nodded in gratitude.

“Your archer has chosen to be your valet,” Tzanith said and then raised her dark, pretty eyebrows. “And the others? The dream will require inspiration from each of you, to make the magic take.”

“Scribe,” Lisette said without hesitation, then shrugged. “May as well keep things simple.”

Hendry took a longer moment to think, and seemed at a loss.

“You must be confident in yourself, Ser Hendry Hunting.” Tzanith placed a hand on the young knight’s elbow. “If you do not believe in the masque, then no one else will.”

Like Penric, Hendry’s cheeks reddened at the elf’s touch. It was somewhat unsettling, watching the effect they had on us mortals from the outside like that. It was no wonder they’d managed to keep us leashed for so long, without us ever even being aware of it.

Dangerous thought, Al. You have enough enemies.

“Um…” Hendry looked at the coach. “Then I’ll be Finn Nu’s squire. Or, unless Emma should be—”

“No,” Emma said over him without any hesitation. “I think I’ll be taking a different approach this time. We can’t have it all rely on our bumbling leader, now can we? The first time someone angers him, he’ll do that brooding glare of his and blow the whole game unless one of us distracts.”

Fair.

Tzanith looked uncertain. “Lady Orley, Finn Nu is the lynchpin of this spell, it will be difficult to—”

“Did this Finn whoever have any siblings?” Emma asked with an arched eyebrow. “Younger, perhaps?”

The elf paused with her mouth open, a thoughtful look crossing her features. “Hm. He had many… and none? The story has taken various shapes over the ages.”

She blinked then and her wings fluttered in excitement. “Ah! He does now. Clever girl.”

Emma’s smirk could have wilted flowers. “All I must do is believe it, yes? I was taught glamour by Nath herself.”

“What did you just do?” I asked her in suspicion. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Emma shrugged and turned her back on me. “You’ll see once we become whoever we become inside that coach. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is something I require for my disguise… And my satisfaction.”

With that ominous statement, she walked off about ten steps while the rest of us watched in bemused confusion. I folded my arms, wondering what my dire apprentice was up to. She stopped not far off and ran her gaze over the black edges of the woods where the clear night sky failed to penetrate the canopy.

Then, in a voice ringing with aristocratic conceit, she called out into the darkness.

“Qoth.” Emma spoke into the night. “I know you’re out there listening, you foppish imp.”

Silence. Emma and Lisette stepped up next to me, and I returned their questioning looks with a shrug.

Emma’s voice came out louder and sharper. “Temero Qoth, Thornsworn, Son of Chesh! I will not be trifled with! You have been ignoring my summons for an entire year, and that ends tonight.”

When there was still no response, Emma took a step forward and said, “Do I need to call you a third time with the rest of your true name and make it a proper conjuration?! I am beginning to grow impatient.”

Even as I thought she would be ignored after all, two shining eyes appeared at the edge of the forest. I thought at first they were like the pupils of a beast, reflecting the moonlight, but the color seemed a bit off.

“I hear you, Emma Orley. You may cease your mewling.”

When Emma grew truly angry, she did not bluster or shout. She got quiet. I heard her get quiet then as she faced those shining eyes. “There you are. You know, earlier, I tried to convince myself that you perhaps had a twin brother.”

Those eerie eyes blinked. “A twin?”

“Yes,” Emma said in a light voice. “Because the spirit Nath gave to me the day after my parents died was not and has not been released of service. And yet, for a year, he has been defying me. I grieved for him, thinking he died of his wounds after our hunt for the chorn! So tell me, Briar Elf, are you or are you not Temero Qoth?”

Another blink. I understood what my squire was doing. Elves could not tell direct lies.

“…I am he,” Qoth said. His voice was pitched strange and unnatural, a grating sound that clawed at my ears.

“Then I hold you in contempt of your oath,” Emma said in a voice that could have chilled ghosts.

The creature in the darkness spoke in a pained tone. “You do not understand what you do, child.”

“I am no child,” Emma spat. “I am squire to the Headsman of Seydis and disciple of Thorned Nath. I have slain lords and faced demons. You slunk back into your den after fighting a mere scavenger in the sewers of Garihelm, and have avoided me since. Art thou a coward, ser?”

A high pitched yowling sound emerged from the forest. Hendry’s stag and Emma’s demigryphon both made agitated noises and tried to pull back against their reins, forcing Penric and Hendry to hold them with muffled curses. Morgause only pricked her ears up and lowered her head at my side.

“I am no coward, spiteful girl. You know not of what you speak.”

“Funny,” Emma said without concern for the creature’s growing anger. “It looks an awful lot like cowardice to me. Are your wounds not healed?”

A pause before Qoth answered. “Wounds left by the abgrüdai never heal clean. Ask your precious master what I speak of.”

The scars on my cheek prickled, but I said nothing. Emma didn’t even glance back at me.

“So are you crippled?” Emma asked. “Shall I retire you like an old chimera with too many tumors and ask my godmother for another pet?”

Another angry warbling growl came from the Briar Elf.

“You swore an oath of vassalage to me,” Emma said in a hard voice, ignoring the spirit’s growing rage. “I have not released you from it. You heard all the same things as me earlier today — the battle ahead involves all of us, with terrible consequence for failure. The Seydii are offering their support.” She gestured to the faerie coach. “And what have the Briar given, other than threats and mockery?”

Dead silence. I didn’t even hear wind, as though it was too afraid to interrupt and catch the girl’s ire.

“I require all the strength I can muster,” Emma continued. “And you are my familiar. So fall in line, imp, and give me a modicum of reason to respect you!”

I felt a spike of tension in my gut as the sense of threat in the air grew more intense. I don’t think I’d ever seen any of the Sidhe that angry. The shadows at the edge of the forest practically seemed to boil.

And then it stopped abruptly, and the two gleaming predator eyes glaring at us from the darkness seemed to dim. A moment later, their owner stepped out into the moonlight and squatted down. It was a mangy looking cat with dark brown fur and bloodshot eyes, with tufted ears and a long, spindly tail that whipped behind it in agitation.

Yet, in its features I did see the darkly handsome Briar Elf who’d been at the council earlier that day.

“I rue the day Lady Nath gave me to you, girl-child.” Qoth’s voice was sullen.

“You said the words back then, same as me.” Emma pointed to the ground by her left boot. “To me, familiar.”

“Dangerous,” Tzanith warned. “The Briar does not forget slights.”

“Neither do they forgive weakness,” I noted. “Qoth is her vassal, and he has been defying her. If she allows it to pass, then she looks weak and that can be even more dangerous than one insulted familiar.”

I traded a glance with the elf maid. She nodded in agreement and murmured so only I could hear. “True enough. She understands our kind very well.”

I shrugged. “It’s not much different between mortal nobles. They’re all predators snapping at each other, playing games of domination.”

Tzanith smirked. “Does that include you?”

I nodded, my jaw set. It was what it was.

“Now, Qoth!” Emma commanded.

The Briar faerie hesitated a moment longer, defiant as the animal he resembled, then padded over to sit by his mistress’s left foot. He barely reached her knee sitting up. A big cat, dangerous enough to kill a man if he caught him by surprise, but not so mighty as the presence I’d felt in the forest a moment before had seemed.

But elves are deceptive. Qoth was one of the Briar’s lords, son of their chieftain. I suspected that if it weren’t for Nath’s shadow on my squire, she might not have compelled him so easily.

Or did I just not give her enough credit? She’d tested her will against his, and proved the stronger. We would need that soon.

“Anyone else have any drama to play out?” I asked the group. When none rose to the challenge, I nodded to Penric. “Let’s get our animals ready.”

We got the chimera attached to the coach. They were mismatched in height and weight, but somehow I suspected that wouldn’t matter to the ensorcelled vehicle. Morgause took the middle spot, more extended from the driver’s bench compared to the other two, and neither of the other chimera dared challenge her. She would lead. I patted her as I secured the harness, and she bared her fangs at me in her usual show of irritation.

That done, we all started loading up once Penric was on the bench. Qoth slunk beneath the vehicle and vanished. There were few limits to where the Sidhe could hide.

The inside of the coach proved incredibly spacious and comfortable, padded with fine cushions, its ceiling high enough that even I didn’t feel closed in. I thought we might be overburdening it, with three of us in armor, but the carriage barely seemed to creak as we settled in. The seats formed a slight oval, with a small table affixed in the space between.

Lisette, Hendry, and Emma all slid into the space across from me and didn’t even fill it as they found places to prop their gear and weapons There were hooks and storage compartments aplenty — it was as well made as Rosanna’s royal coach, designed to provide relative comfort for extended journeys overland.

I was about to close the door when a gentle hand brushed mine aside and Tzanith slipped smoothly into the carriage as well, taking up a spot next to me. At my questioning look, she gave me a sly smile. I don’t know how she managed to adjust her large, fragile-looking wings and the flowing chiton so swiftly and elegantly, but she may as well have been molded into her seat.

“My services have been lent to you until the completion of this matter,” she explained. “I’m afraid I cannot disobey my queen’s will.”

I didn’t like the idea of having Maerlys’s right hand spying on me for the next week, especially when I might need to speak of sensitive matters to my group. Then again, no one was better at glamour than elves. She could prove valuable, and considering that I might have just burned a very important bridge with the Choir, having the Elf Queen in my corner would be useful.

And yet…

“These glamours get more fragile the more complex you make them,” I said uncertainly. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tack on more characters.”

The handmaiden gave me a grave look. “I’m afraid that this is necessary as more than just an additional boon, my lord.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. Did the magicked coach require the elf’s presence to work?

The grim seriousness in the elf’s voice never faded as she spoke her next words. “Finn Nu is a married man, you see. His wife is the Lady Erthri. A great beauty of Sidhe blood, a child of the kingdom of the moon even as her husband is the son of the benighted earth, the two a single whole. This is a very well known part of the stories.”

She paused to let this sink in before continuing. “One is not complete without the other. The lord would not dare attend such an event as Queen Evangeline’s grand ball without his fair wife adorning his hip.”

I felt my mouth set into a thin line. “I see… And is this part of your queen’s price for her aid?”

“It is part of the identity you must assume for this ploy to work,” Tzanith said with utter seriousness. “Besides, your presence at the ball shall hardly be so convincing if you arrive alone save for some attendants. This way, I can keep our masque strong and aid you in certain… subtleties.”

She thinks I’m a blunt, stupid mortal who’s going to cock this up, I thought dryly. Then again, she might have been right. I hesitated anyway, because I recognized this for what it was, and knew Maerlys hadn’t given up on trying to tie me down through her handmaiden.

Tzanith met my glare with all the placitude of a calm lake. “You may command me away, my lord. But know that it diminishes your chances of success. The choice, of course, is yours. We could find another to play the role of the Lady Erthri. Only…”

“Only what?” I growled, impatient with her mock passivity. I knew this was a dangerous, canny being who’d been old before most of the trees in this forest started growing, and I didn’t buy her act as the demure maiden for a second.

Tzanith batted her long eyelashes at me. I noted only then that they weren’t black, but a very dark silver that brought out the unusual color of her eyes brilliantly. “It must be someone you are attracted to in order for the masque to function. Do you have another in mind?”

Emma coughed. Lisette and Hendry seemed to find some feature of the woods outside our coach very interesting just then.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “But no tricks. This isn’t my agreement for the real me to be betrothed to you. I know how you elves work.”

“As you say,” Tzanith said easily. She still had the door to the coach held open, and paused. “There is still time before we must reach the city. I assume you do not wish to enter early and risk exposure before the event?”

I nodded, having considered that. “There’s somewhere else I want to go first. Estival Bawn.”

I hadn’t just spent half a year in Garihelm training or locked up in a haunted tower. I’d also memorized maps of the subcontinent, familiarized myself with as many noble clans as I could. The Emperor had told me that my role might involve being as much the diplomat as the thug, and I’d taken that to heart. So I had a good idea of where my next destination was in relation to the Banner’s capital.

Hendry leaned forward over the small table. “House Brightling’s castle?”

I nodded. “They’re Olliard’s contacts. I believe they are our best allies in this country at the moment, considering Evangeline murdered their lord in cold blood. I’m also worried she might do something to them before things kick off at Carreweir.”

If something hasn’t happened already, I thought, but didn’t let my nerves show on my face.

“Risky,” Lisette said. “Evangeline will definitely have spies on them.”

“I know,” I said. “But if we keep to the shadows until the final hour, then we’ll end up facing our enemy alone while she’s got the whole kingdom in her hand. I’m not going to just sit on my hands for the next eight days. Besides… I think it might be necessary for our main plan to work.”

I glanced at Tzanith, and she nodded.

“Good theater requires an audience,” the elf said. “And rehearsal. If you simply act out your new roles amongst yourselves, then your performance shall become insular and stagnate.”

Auratic Art is named such for a reason, because it is also a form of art. An expression of creativity and will, and in all its forms the baring of one’s soul to the world. Sorcery requires the same level of dedication that a painter needs to maintain his skill with the brush.

“We’re going to see House Brightling,” I said. “If they aren’t compromised, then we coordinate with them.”

“And if they are?” Emma asked.

I shrugged. “We improvise.”

“Very well,” Tzanith said in agreement. “Then if you are all prepared? From here, you must begin to embody the dream. Slip too far from it, then the world shall wake and we will fail.”

We all had our own internal rituals to steady ourselves. I took a deep breath, looked down at my rough, calloused hand with all its myriad scars, both burns from my magic and countless other discolorations from a violent life. I wondered when I would next see those hands, and if I would recognize them at the time.

That was all we got, that moment, before the elf closed the coach’s door with a solid click and subsumed us in the dream.