Douglas Hulick - Sworn in Steel

It wasn’t easy. The fortress was situated on a bluff overlooking a narrow pass. It had been placed wonderfully in terms of defense, and there was no way I would have been able to approach it with an army even now and stand a chance of taking it against even a dozen degans. But there’s a difference between an army and a man on a mule, and besides, no one had been clearing brush or worrying about keeping sight lines open or the place defensible for a long time. It took a while, but I was able to find my mule and me-and then just me-enough goat paths and dried-up washes to make my way up to the wall and then through a gap, well away from the gate and the main courtyard.

I’d been harboring a vague hope of somehow gaining the empty windows or some hole in the hall’s wall or roof to gain a view of the goings-on inside, but reality quickly put an end to those dreams. Without climbing gear, there was no way I could get to either, and even then I’d have risked being seen by Stone or another degan in the courtyard. Instead, I spent precious time scouting and skulking about the perimeter of the main building, trying to find a way either through or in. As luck would have it, every door seemed either to be locked or to open on a room or passage that led away from where I wanted to be.

Finally, as I was passing through what might have once been a garden but was now an overgrown tangle, eyeing the side of a crumbling tower that stood almost close enough to the hall for a foolhardy jump, I heard them: voices. Just a trace, mind you, and lost on the wind as quickly as they’d been found, but I had the scent. After a bit of searching and listening, I found the source: a crack the width of my hand in the hall’s outer wall, put in place by a seed that had taken root in some fault in the masonry and become a Djanese maple over the years.

The fault didn’t run straight, and it narrowed as it went in, but that didn’t matter. What I couldn’t see I could hear, and that was enough for the moment. I settled in against the rough, reddish brown trunk of the tree and put my ear to the gap.

They were shouting. About what, I couldn’t tell, but there were enough voices to make it sound like a hollow buzz through the crack. Eventually, the buzz lessened and I heard Gold’s voice rise over the others, forcing them down by its sheer weight of authority.

“While I don’t deny the importance of them,” said Gold, “I want to remind everyone why we’re here today. It isn’t to ooh and aah over Ivory’s blade and the laws Bronze has brought back to us. That’s a noble gesture and an impressive feat to be sure, but their presence doesn’t change the fact that we have three swords on the table before us without owners, and one more hanging on the wall back in the Barracks House. If anything, those blades underscore the reason for this tribunal: four deaths in less than twice as many months, and all of them hovering around Bronze. That is why we’re here, brothers and sisters. Don’t forget that.”

“The reason we’re here,” said Degan, his voice cutting through the air like the arc of a sword, “is because of the chasm that exists within the order. Everything else-the deaths, our lost laws, Ivory’s sword and what it holds-can all be traced back to that. Until we deal with the issue of our Oaths and how they relate to the emperor and the empire, what I did or didn’t do is minor by comparison.”

“How convenient for you,” said Gold.

“Convenient or not,” said Degan, “it’s true.”

“Why should we even believe you?” Another voice, one I didn’t recognize. “Why are you even here, if not to buy our favor and bribe your way back into the fold?”

“Because he’s come here to put himself at our mercy, is why.” Brass’s silky, easy tones were instantly recognizable. “Bronze brought back the swords and the laws. Who of us have tried to do one in the last century, let alone both? Who of us have done anything other than ignore the question that has plagued us since our founding? Who has settled for the status quo?”

“I don’t dispute that Bronze brought the swords and the laws home,” said Gold, “but at what price? Where is Ivory? Where is Steel? Without them here, we have nothing but the word of the man on trial for their deaths.”

“You have no cause to lay their deaths at Bronze’s feet.” This from a voice that sounded familiar but I couldn’t place. Someone who’d questioned me in Ildrecca about Iron? In any case, other voices rose in agreement. Still more rose against.

“I have their steel before me,” shouted Gold, his words smothering the rest like a blanket. “What else do I need? Which of us would willingly give up their steel and still live? Oh, excuse me-which of us, save for Bronze?” A few laughs, but not many. “Are we to believe these swords didn’t come with a cost?”

“Of course they did,” answered Brass. “But you can’t simply assume Bronze killed them because he’s alive. If so, why should he even bother to come back? Why not keep running? Or, if he’s the killer you say, why not keep hunting us? Why call the Order together and stand before us when he has so many other options?”

“Fear.” The word fell from Gold’s lips like a weight, and the hall grew silent. “Fear of being hunted. Fear of being found. Fear of being judged by the sword rather than by his deeds. Fear, at last, of infamy. Our brother Bronze returned because he’d found more than he bargained for, more than he knew what to do with. Even an Oath-breaker and a killer can have his limits, and Ivory’s blade was Bronze’s, I think. When he held the whole of the Order in his hands, it was too much even for him: too much to act on, and too much to risk.” A pause. I could almost see Gold turning dramatically to face Degan as he said, “Am I right, brother? Was it fear that brought you back?”

“Yes.”

Even out here, I could hear the collective gasp within the hall.

“You’re right,” continued Degan. “I came back because of fear. But not because I was afraid of being hunted or found or defamed. Not because I feared you or what Ivory’s sword represented. I came back because I was afraid for you, for the Order. I did what I did because, after I saw Iron lying on the ground, I knew that the Order was broken and that something needed to change.”

“And you would be that change?” said Gold.

“I would be part of it.”

“And what kind of change would you bring, brother Bronze? A tide of blood and steel, as you say Steel would have wrought? Or would it come on the edge of Ivory’s sword, with the bindings it holds? How would you save us?”

“Neither of those.”

“Then what?”

There was a long pause. Finally, when Degan spoke, I had to press my ear to the stone, straining to hear.

“Steel wasn’t wrong, at least in part,” he began. “I didn’t realize that at first, but as I spent time on the road coming back, looking through some of the other books I took from Ivory’s library, I began to see his point. And Ivory’s.”

A murmur through the crack that I couldn’t gauge. After a moment, it faded and Degan’s voice slid through again.

“When you start something,” said Degan, “you have a picture in your head of how it will be. You build that image in your mind and you hold on to it, hard, because that’s your guide. But once that thing starts to become a reality, once you actually start to bring it into being, you realize it will never be that thing you saw in your dreams. You begin to see the flaws and the failures, the shortcomings and the mistakes; and try as you might, you can’t reconcile it all. Try as you might, the reality never shines as bright as its potential. It becomes disheartening. This perfect thing, you suddenly realize, will never be-can never be. Not as you dreamed it when you first began.