The Oath and the Measure

uncover nothing in the quiet. 'Nothing,' he murmured, and he turned on his mattress of straw. 'Only wishful thinking and elven poetry.'

As the night progressed, the melody slipped to the back of his thoughts. A third time, in the small hours of the morning when he hovered in that strange, expectant state between sleep and waking, he heard Mara begin the song again.

And on the third time, he heard something: wishful thinking, perhaps, or poetry, but something nonetheless that crept into the last verses of the song.

'The Age, no fear no fear the thousand lives of men and their stories go to their graves. I am here past the edge of despair.

But we, hear o hear the people long in poem and glory fade from the song.

The magic is free in the air.'

In the music of those silences was sweetness and safety and an assuring sense that the dark was not bottomless.

Sturm's eyes filled with tears, and the melodies, both heard and unheard, died into the smoky night air. He sat upright on the bed. In the real silence that followed the end of the song, he strained to hear words, to gather direction or advice or encouragement. But nothing was there except the snoring of a distant guard and the crackle of the central fire.

Intent and wide awake now, he settled back on the mattress and willed himself to sleep, but it was hours before he closed his eyes. When he did, he slipped suddenly from waking to slumber as though he had fallen atop a steep and sheer battlement.

On the fourth morning, the door opened as usual. Sturm sat up, a little hungrier than usual after a restless night, hoping that the porridge might somehow taste better this morning. It wasn't breakfast that greeted him, though, but the Druidess Ragnell.

The old woman walked through the door, escorted by Guardsman Oron. With a swift wave of her hand, she dismissed the big man, who looked after her reluctantly as he closed the door behind her.

'You realize that you will be here for a long time,' she said.

Sturm did not speak. How could he address his father's murderess? Angrily he lay back on the mattress, turning his face to the back wall.

Behind him, he heard the druidess shuffle and cough. It was hard to imagine her at the head of an army.

'And this is your greeting?' she asked. 'This is that fabled Solamnic politeness?'

Sturm rolled over, regarding her from across the room with a withering stare of hatred.

'I thank you, m'lady,' he replied, his politeness wintry, 'but I would prefer my porridge to your presence.'

The druidess smiled, and with a creaking of her ancient bones, she seated herself in front of him. From the folds of her robe, she drew a branch-of willow, perhaps, though Sturm's botany was weak, and he could scarcely tell. With a practiced, assured gesture, she traced a circle in the dirt on the floor.

'Your trespass is a deep one, child,' she observed. 'A deep one and dire.'

'Trespass? To be brought into your presence under armed guard?'

The druidess ignored him, her eyes on the swirl of dust in the circle she had drawn. Soon, in spite of himself, Sturm found his eyes following the rapid, switching movements of the stick in her hand.

'It is trespass,' she explained, 'because the people of Lemish fear the Solamnic legions, their bright swords and their horses and their righteous eyes.'

'Perhaps their fear is their own doing, Lady Ragnell!' Sturm shot back. 'Perhaps some crime of Lemish cries out for justice! Perhaps there are abandoned castles north of here that can attest-'

'Attest to what?' the druidess interrupted, her voice calm and unwavering. Deep in her eyes, Sturm saw a flicker. Rage? Amusement? He could not tell.

'Perhaps there is one reason, Sturm Brightblade,' soothed the Lady Ragnell. 'Young people say so, which is why we ask them to take up the sword.'

Sturm barely heard her, his eyes affixed once more to the circle of dust that was widening now, widening like the ripples on the surface of a placid pond when something is dropped in the water.

'But I am not here for policy, young man,' Ragnell said.

She was chanting now, the dust rising around her. 'Nor for solemnities of country or court, neither to praise nor punish, but to show only…'

Her voice was rising steadily into singing. Sturm heard the notes of one of the ancient modes and struggled to place it. Then, deep in the pause of the notes and the breathing, deep in the space between words, he thought he heard another melody, a song below words and thought.

'I shall show you a handful of dust,' Ragnell chanted, the stick moving more and more swiftly, 'A handful of dust I shall show you…'

A snowy country, level and treeless, stretched before him, so real that he shivered to look upon it.

Throt. Something told him that these were the steppes of Throt before him. He was looking back into winter, back over months to thick ice and the turn of the year.

Once upon a time, a voice began ironically, the words insinuating into the cold wind he heard and felt. Startled, Sturm shook his head. He couldn't tell if this voice was Mara's doing or rose from the chant of the druidess.

About the time of Yule, in the goblin country, the voice went on. Now there was a village in the vision, a dozen squat huts half-buried in the snow. Smoke curled from a large central fire, and short, stocky shapes, bent and fur-clad, moved in and out of the shadows.

A squalid place, isolated in the winter desert of Throt. Sturm bristled at the mere sight of it, remembering stories of goblin raids, the hordes as swift and merciless as wolves.

When the Solamnic host rode out of the snow, as swift as a storm over the winter desert, Sturm was exhilarated, breathless. There were twenty Knights, perhaps twenty-five, cloaked and armored, their swords already drawn and thick, dark hides draped across the faces of their shields.

It was the sign of no quarter, the dark shields-when the evil against them was too great, too unrepentant.

'Why are you showing me this, Ragnell?' he asked. 'Are my people going to lose the struggle?'

Wait, the wind said in his ears. Wait and attend.

At the head of the column, a tall horseman raised his hand. Behind him, the Knights spurred their horses to a gallop, and the war cry burst from them in unison.

'Est Mithas oth Sularis!'

Like unstoppable wildfire, they rushed through the goblin encampment. The tall commander brought his sword crashing through the nearest of the snow-covered yurts, and the air exploded with the sound of fracturing wood, of tearing hides, of the shrieks of the surprised inhabitants.

At once the encampment was a shambles. Blades flickered like the wings of swarming bees, and the air was loud with the crash of metal against metal, metal against stone and bone. The goblin spears rattled harmlessly against the shields of the Knights, whose swords struck home with wild efficiency. Horses reared and plunged, and the goblins fell in waves before the onslaught.

Sturm shook his head. His hands were sweaty and clenched, and he knelt on all fours above the vision's swirling dust, his breath short and his long hair matted and dripping. For a moment, he saw only dirt and planking. He heard only the chanting of Ragnell in the vast silences of the Dun Ringhill lodge.

Then the scene returned, in sharp and brutal detail. A large, rough-looking man-Sturm recognized him as Lord Joseph Uth Matar, head of the vanished family-emerged from a yurt, two goblin younglings in tow. Filthy little creatures, they were, biting and scratching and fouling themselves in their anger and fear.

Without word or expression, Lord Joseph shoved the yammering little creatures to their knees. He spoke with them shortly, softly, laughing at their threats and curses. The audience over, a young Knight-Sturm guessed it was one of the numerous Jeoffreys-wrestled manfully with the squirming, spitting little monsters. Though his face