The Oath and the Measure

beauty.

'Are you the one who… imprisoned me here?' he asked, this time more softly.

'No,' the man answered finally. His voice was resonant and deep and polished like old wood, and the dark mahogany paneling of the hall glowed greenly as he spoke. 'No, I am no jailer. And you are the first to call this palace a prison.'

'Who are you?' Sturm asked again. The man stood motionless, a pillar of fire above him.

'Look into your shield, lad, and tell me what you see.'

'I see burnished bronze,' Sturm said, 'and my face in the reflection.'

'Hold it up toward me, you fool! Then look at the reflection! Great Paladine's Beard! You Brightblades were never quick on the uptake! If Brightblade you are, as your shield and your self-pity tell me.'

As the man glowed and blustered, Sturm raised the shield, tilting it so that the bright reflection seemed to rest in the boss. With the green light gone, the man looked more pale, positively ancient, and Sturm could make out his features, his mustache, the coat of arms on his breastplate.

Red flower of light on a white cloud on a blue field. The sign of di Caela, of a vanished name in a vanished house.

'Old grandfather,' Sturm proclaimed, kneeling on the rubble-strewn floor of the hall, 'or grandfather of grandfathers, whoever you may be. Or whatever-whether apparition or saint or memory, I salute you as di Caela and ancestor!'

Bravely, ceremonially, the lad extended his sword. Now the man in the balcony moved for the first time, his thin arm waving dismissively.

'Get to your feet, boy, or whatever it is that we used to say when the Measure was measured and I had to put up with legions of your kind. This is a dining hall, not a shrine, and I'm Robert di Caela, not Huma or Vinas Solamnus or whoever else you're proffering swords to in this day and time.'

Robert di Caela sank through the stone balcony as if through dark water. First his glowing boots appeared on the underside of the platform, then his green leggings and sun-struck breastplate. Luminous and colorful as a great tropical bird, he floated gently to the floor of the hall. The oaken doors, Sturm's sole escape from the room, lay behind Robert, open and visible through the wavering transparency of his body. Phosphorescent weeds and mosses dripped from him as he approached, spangling the dark floor behind him.

Instinctually Sturm backed away.

'A simple back-country knight, I am,' Sir Robert said. 'Made even more simple by the fact I am no longer living. Though you've stirred the dust and rustled the curtains around here, I mean you no harm, boy-only curious to see you, to find out what brings a Brightblade back after all these years.'

Sturm backed into the chair and sat down with a thump. He knew his family tree well enough not to be surprised that a Di Caela lord was hungry for gossip and news.

Sure enough, the ghost leaned forward, white face framed in a well-kept, elegant white beard. Robert's countenance was a pantomime mask, the dark mahogany paneling visible in the vacant sockets of the eyes.

'A quest, Lord Robert-' the unnerved boy stammered.

'Sir Robert,' the ghost corrected. 'Time was when we didn't priss and petticoat with conflated titles. 'Sir' was good enough for the likes of your great-granddad and for the likes of men every bit his equal.'

Sir Robert seated himself on a rickety bench, passing somewhat through it as he spoke, and settling with a puff of dust.

' 'Twas a time when a quest was a great thing, lad! We went after enchanters! After lost civilizations and worms encircling the continent itself!'

The ghost closed his eyes, as though he dreamt of those days as he spoke.

'And what,' Sir Robert asked bluntly, as his pale eyes flew open, 'is the quest on which you're bound, little Brightblade?'

As though he were charmed, enchanted, or starved past lie or even concealment, Sturm told the ghost the whole story, from the night at the banquet through his own foggy wanderings and his time of entrapment here in Castle di Caela. It struck him as he told it-how long and venturesome it had seemed in the doing, and yet how weak and simple and even foolish to recount.

At the beginning of the story, Sir Robert listened intently, but his ardor didn't last long. His expression changed from intent to politely attentive, then abstracted and drowsy, then nodding on the edge of sleep.

'Is that all?' he asked. 'You've set out to meet an opponent no doubt your superior in strength and craft, and you've managed to get yourself locked into my estate before you're even halfway there?'

Sturm flushed and nodded as Sir Robert laughed, a low thin chuckle.

'Well?' the ghost asked, standing and hovering not twenty feet from the lad.

'Sir?'

'Look to your ghost lore, boy! What revenge have I asked for?'

'None, sir.'

'And what unfinished business have I asked you to complete?'

'Indeed, none.'

'Absolutely. As I see it, you've enough unfinished business for a lifetime of your own. What treasure do I have?'

'Sir?'

'What treasure, damn it! You've combed the premises from battlements to cellar. What am I hiding?'

'Nothing, sir.' The lad was weary of interrogation. He was hungry and tired.

'Then what is left?' Sir Robert prodded.

'Sir?'

'What else do we ghosts do?'

Sturm stood in silence. Sir Robert approached him, green and yellow and red.

'We answer questions. I have returned to answer a question. No, I shall answer two questions.'

Arms outstretched, the ghost of Sir Robert di Caela hovered scarcely an arm's length from Sturm's chair. Hunger racing through him like fever, Sturm peered at the ghost intently.

'I had always thought,' the young knight ventured, 'there was something magical and right in the answering of three questions.'

'Don't bargain with me, boy!' Sir Robert snapped. 'It will be two questions or none. We stand on no foolish traditions here. Two questions.'

A thousand questions flashed through Sturm's mind as he stared at the ghost, questions historical, metaphysical, theological…

But which questions?

'Why you, of all the ghosts that might visit me?'

'That is your first question?'

'It is.' Sturm regarded the ghost cautiously. Sir Robert hovered a good three feet off the ground, as though he were floating in water.

'Why me?'

''Tis what I ask,' Sturm replied.

'Damned if I know,' Robert replied. 'Next question.'

'That was your answer?' Sturm exclaimed.

'Is that your second question?' Sir Robert asked.

'What? Well… no…' Sturm muttered. He fell silent, and the green light in the great hall shifted and deepened. Now the shadows of bench, throne, and rubble lengthened along the dusty stone floor until it seemed that the furnishings themselves had grown beyond human proportion.

'I… I'm not sure what to ask,' Sturm said finally. His mind lodged against the ancient stories of captured mages, bound to grant wishes-how they tricked their captors into asking for a sausage breakfast rather than immortality or infinite wisdom. Whatever the nature and design of the ghost before him, he was not about to let it