The book of the burning

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Edmund got what he deserved. He was very cruel even till the end. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I was surprised by delighted in your approval of violence. Edmund was awful and he delighted in how awful he was. He couldn't keep on going. It was a delight to kill him.
t

 

[ChrisGibson]

IN THE WAKE OF EDMUND'S DEATH, CYNRIC AND HILARY COME TOGETHER. MEANWHILE, ALL THE WAY IN THE FAR WEST, WE REJOIN ANSON, OHEAN AND THEONE


As Hilary brushed her hair, she turned to see Cynric.
“You’ve had a bath,” she said. “You look fresh as a baby.”
“A baby who was nearly killed.”
Hilary stood up and came to him, touching his face with the small bronze beard.
“I never saw how young you were until now. So many responsibilities and yet we are both so young.”
“I do not feel young,” Cynric said.
“Nor do I. We’ve both been badly used.”
“I…” Cynric began, “are you alright? When I saw you, covered in that bastard’s blood… It must have been terrible.”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Hilary said. “It was wonderful.”
Cynric studied her, as if he had never seen this woman before.
“He, who had raped me, abused me, overpowered me, dishonored my friends, who was about to kill the man I love… I plunged a dagger into his throat and though he lied and said he could not remember, her certainly knew me then. Awash in his blood I felt…”
“Like a Valkyrie!”
“Yes,” Hilary said.
“Like a shieldmaiden of old.”
And then Cynric said, “You aren’t fragile at all, are you?”
“No more than you.”
Cynric laughed and he said, “I think I may be a little fragile.”
Hilary moved away from him. She went the door and she locked it.
“I don’t care anymore,” she said. “Life is not fair. You must make your own fairness.”
She stood before Cynric, and in a swift movement, she loosened her dressing gown so that it fell to the floor.
Cynric’s mouth went dry, and then he swiftly pulled off his tunic and pulled down his trousers and stood before her naked, his penis rising.
“Gods!” Hilary’s voice sounded as if it would break.
She took him by the hand and brought him to the bed. He landed across her. Their arms came together. She kissed him as she had always wanted, wrapped her leg about him, savored his mouth and the softness of his hair, lifted her throat for the kisses down her neck, between her breasts, on her nipples, lower and then lower.
In time she opened for him, closed and opened her eyes at the feeling of Cynric inside her as her hands rested on his broad shoulders, went down his back to his buttocks, as she joined the rhythm of his thrusting.
“You don’t,” she whispered in the shell of his ear, “you don’t… have to be gentle.”
And then he was fucking her, and she was crying out, and when she cried out so did he and in the end he said, “I don’t…. I don’t.”
“Come inside of me,” she whispered. “Please come inside of me.”
With a groan, he did, both of their bodies tightening into a ball, fused, Hilary’s nails digging into his back, Cynric’s body arching, his face raised almost to the ceiling and he spilled and spilled inside of her, his body still frozen in the orgasm nearly a moment, before he lowered across her, and the room with the lamp on, and the sun setting beyond knew no sound but the both of them catching their breaths.



The Otherworld is in fact this very world, and magic is not so much a doing as a being, an inhabiting of space when one has surrendered to enchantment

-from The Encyclopedia of First Teachings , Ollam Vygesserit

.




“ARE YOU SURE this is the right way?”
Ohean fixed Essily with a gaze and she said, “It’s only that it seems like we’ve come this way before.”
“Have I led you wrong in the past?”
“We’ve never been underground in the past.”
Ohean’s eyes narrowed, and Anson touched him on the shoulder saying, “Mother may have a point.”
“Am I going to have to deal with this from now on?” Ohean murmured.
Anson said, “This path does look familiar.”
“Well, in that case,” Ohean said, “Let Essa lead. Let anyone lead.” He left the path and sat down on a rock.
The path they had taken led out of the dust cave where Ohean had read cards and over the lip of the shelf that overlooked it. It was wide enough while they traveled with torch light and occasionally the were light, Ohean wishing Yarrow had remained with him to add her magic. The path seemed to go straight for the space of a day, and when night came they camped in the midst of it. By the second day the path was rising up and narrowing considerable. Anson wondered if they could bring a horse through, and Kenneth said that there was no choice seeing that, if he stayed down here he would rot with him. Ohean said there was no need to talk of rotting just yet, and the path went up and up, narrower and narrower until, coming through a small way, they saw it drop into a long, cavernous country, still a main road with many caves hanging off of it. There was plenty of air down here. One path, like a great mountainous highway, rose up and carried them out of this, to a place that was obviously carved out over time, an undermountain road for people they did not see. After a time it emptied into more caves, and here they were now, uncertain.
“Ohean,” Essily said. “You have guided us well in all things. I am not saying I know the way better. Only that you might need to rest.”
Anson looked between the two of them, and Ohean, at last, smiled and, laughing ,shrugged.
“We should rest here for a while. But these caves oppress us all and it will be good to get out of here.”
“They don’t oppress me,” Dissenbark said.
Ohean and Essily looked at her.
“I’m only saying,” her voice echoed lightly off the wall, “I feel enlivened here. I don’t know why.” She pointed to the right of them.
“Ohean, Orem is right. We have come here before, and right there is the way we should go. I know it. Trust me.”
Ohean was no one not to trust, not when the knower was so certain. He rose up from where he had squatted on his hams. banged his staff three times and said, “We go. That way. After Dissen.”

“What,” Anson murmured beside Ohean, “is that noise?”
Ohean had deftly rolled a ciragrette, and now Anson could smell it burning. The wizard said:“What noise?”
“You cannot hear it?” Anson looked, incredulous. “The stamping of feet. Many feet. Walking. Padding.”
Then he said, “You do hear it. I know you do.”
Ohean turned to Anson, the cigarette hanging between his fingers, and said, “And what does my hearing do about it? We are far under the earth. We are in the territory of other peoples. It is them we hear. Let us hope they do not hear us, or if they hear, that they do not mind.”
Arvad could hear Ohean and Anson murmuring. He wanted to go to Anson, who made him feel safe. Now and again he heard a moving in the walls, and then again he saw Kenneth trembling and shaking. He rocked him awake and Kenneth, clammy and exhausted shot up, Arvad putting a quieting hand over his mouth.
“It’s me,” he said, gently. “You’re safe. Go back to sleep.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Cynric and Hilary have certainly come together! Good for them! I hope Ohean and co are safe where they are. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

It was good to get back to Ohean and Anson. So much intrigue was happening away from them, but they are the heart of the story. Hilary and Cynric have finally come together, because life is just too short for them not to, and they could not contro the passion , especially not after the killing Edmund.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT WE ARE STILL IN THE WEST, AND WE GO FROM THE UNDERGROUND PASSES UP TO THE LAND OF CHYR



THE UNDERLAND PASSES

That night they rested, and Theone moved her blankets closer to Orem.
“Thea!” he said.
“Tell me,” she said, settling down. “Are we together. Or aren’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
Theone adjusted her cushions and said, “Surely you cannot be so obtuse. I mean what I mean. Are we together or not?”
“Well,” Orem looked flustered, he steepled his fingers and said, “We haven’t had time, Thea. Only that time in the hotel. That one night. Otherwise there has never been any time. You see?”
“Yes,” Theone told him. “Only I loved you a long time after I never saw you again, after I thought you were dead, and seeing you was like being hit.”
“It was the same,” Orem said, breathlessly. “It was the exact same thing for me.”
“I’ve been so startled,” she said, “that I didn’t know if, I still don’t know if I can trun back into me. If we can turn back into us.”
Orem did not look at her. He placed his hand lightly in hers and murmured, “I feel the same way.
“But.”
She looked up at him.
“But,” he repeated, “we will become us again. We will get back to us again,” he squeezed her hand. “I promise.”



IMMRACHYR





Hai un espírito que o sento
Deliciosos para non facer mal,
Nin vingar ningún mal,
Pero se deleita por soportar todas as cousas,
Na esperanza de gozar do seu propio ao final ...
Nunca se regocija
Pero a través de sufrimentos; Para o
A alegría do mundo é asasinada.


Noon light shone bright the the stainglass windows of the Minster, and below, as the choir sang above, the richly dressed folded and unfolded their robes and hands. Beneath the altar the bier of the Queen lay, draped in deep burgundy velvet. At each corner, burned a taper of beeswax, and everyone in the minster held their own burning taper.
The voices of the choir rose higher, swelled singing:

Atopei en solitario, sendo abandonado.
Teño bolsa
Alí con eles que viviron
En densos e desolados
Lugares na terra, quen
A través da morte obtida
Esta resurrección e vida santa eterna.


“Already there are many wondering how we can upset the succession and choose a new Queen,” Ronnerick whispered to his nephew.
Dessanon’s lips hardly moved as he said, “I sympathize with them. But every time we fight over succession, every time we assume there is no heir, all the princedoms split and that is when an invader comes in. We are only strong together. If we resist now, not only will the army of Solahn still come, and this time as conquerors, but we will have no one to stand behind.”
“They would stand behind you.”
Dessanon looked at his old uncle.
“Do not tempt me.”
“They would have stood behind your son.”
Dessanon looked about the Minster, around at the many lords and ladies, caramel skinned, mahogany faced, ivory colored northerners in their silks and velvets, in their high hats.
“Would they have?” he said. And then, “I wonder.”
Ronnerick gave a sharp intake of breath and pointed.
“Maud,” Dessanon murmured.
Entering from the side of the minster she came, tale, in pale blue, her hair veiled in white like the Goddess Allayah, and she bore a spray of small white flowers. Looking neither to the left nor to the right, she made her stately way down the great aisle of the cathedral until she faced the Queen’s bier, and then, kneeling before it, kissed the velvet and laid the flowers on it.
“She would have been my daughter,” Dessanon said.
“She will be at the council,” Ronnerick said. “She has standing.”
The woman called Maud was gone from their side, and the page said, “Who is she, sirs?”
“She is princess of Thaary,” Dessanon told him. “Thaary and Vand are the two princedoms who were never ruled either when the Solahni and the Yrkroon came into Chyr. Their princes have the blood of the Alcontradi, and they are connected to the men of Solea and Handrustar. Now they are independent, but still they show allegiance to Chyr, and out of respect call their rulers princes, not kings.”
“Her mother and father were killed when she was just a girl,” Ronnerick said, “But because her mother was a princess of Laujinesse she had a godmother of the fairy people. One Yarrow. Yarrow raised her in the south, and Queen Ermengild sent a steward to oversee her lands. She and Ethan would have wed and been Prince and Princess of Thaary, but he disappeared searching for the Stone years ago. As Ermengild believed her grandchildren would return to her one day, so Maud believed she would again see Ethan. That bond of belief made the old woman and the young one close.”
“It will be interesting,” Dessanon said, “to know what light the Princess Maud will bring to tomorrow’s council.”


“But as the Lord Dessanon himself has said,” Ryderch of Palance noted as he stood, “if we do not accept this new King, this Bellamy, then who will we choose? Ermengild clearly had a next in the line of succession, which was Tealora, who is even now being crowned Queen in Solahn.”
“But you forget that Ermengild always believed one of her line would return,” Duncan of Bathmark said.
“Does senility excuse what is?” another demanded.
“You hold on now,” Marrquis of Dalmant said. “Even now you will not speak ill of the Queen.”
“The Queen is dead,” said Northrus, who sat beside the offending lord, “and speaking the truth will not make her less so, or this land more safe. Bellamy is on his way and we must choose what to do.”
Ronnerick turned to watch the young lord, Verge, speak.
“Lord Ronnerick, who is the next heir after Tealora?”
“It splits threeways with the Duke of Vetch, the Duchess of Amblin and a princess Lara who is of the House of Vamanesse, living in North Hale, and who has never lain eyes on Chyr.”
“At least Tealora was raised here in the city,” another lord said. “And who knows, maybe we make too much of it? Maybe Bellamy will be so busy with his own country he will leave Chyr to the governance of his wife or,” he shrugged and gestured to Ronnerick, “the care of a steward.”
“Maybe… Maybe… Maybe he won’t come here often?”
The voice was low and it was a moment before everyone heard it, before they saw that it was the red headed Maud speaking.
“Maybe he’ll let Tealora rule by herself. Maybe he’ll hand over this land, our land, the Land of Iffan, the land of the Children of Famke, to a steward.”
She rose and her eyes roved the chamber.
“That is the worst thing of all, to have the Council hand over our kingdom like a rag, to have a land with a Queen, without a true King, or without one who is unfit to rule.”
She was silent, and Dessanon and Ronnerick;s eyes were fixed on her.
“Years ago my lord and prince Ethan left to find Ermengild’s heirs, and bring back the Stone Addiwak gave to Julian in the Time of Trouble. Ermengild died believing that he would succeed, that they would return. I live, and I believe. I believe that the heir, or heirs will return. I believe Ethan will not return without them. But if that were not to happen, it wouldn’t matter.
“Now, I am of the House of Thaary, of the line of Julian who fell from the Stars, and my fathers and mother never yielded to the Solahni, not even when a Solahni sat on the Throne of Chyr. We never accepted a Solahni as our King. And we never shall,” she declared, her voice impassioned.
“I never shall.”


“Do you have a name?” Maud asked the page.
“I’m Sebastian, Ma’am.”
Maud shook her head as he poured the glass of wine and said, “I am not yet old enough to be a Ma’am. Maud will suffice.”
Sebastian, circling to pour wine for Lord Dessanon and then for Ronnerick, thought about this and said, “How about Lady?”
Maud raised an eyebrow and said, “Lady Maud. My lady. Um, I like it.”
She turned to the others and said, “My lords, the plan for this lady is to leave for Thaary in the morning. If things were to turn out the way we hoped, then Ethan and I would have been married here, and Ermengild would have been present to oversee my coronation. But there’s nothing for it now. I’ve already sent a message to Haul Prince of Vand, and I need someone to ride to the Commots.”
Sebastian put down the pewter jug, understanding that he was privy to something important now.
“In Chyr the husband of a Queen receives the crown matrimonial unless it is otherwise stated,” Maud said. “This is a bad law, a law meant to please men, but there it is. Bellamy will be here in a matter of days, and the Parliament and Council of Lords will hand over the Kingdom to him and Tealora. If the nation of Chyr proper will not rise against him, then the Commonwealth will.”
Ronnerick nodded.
“With the border princes, the Commots, Vand and Thaary behind us, surely there will be Chyri lords who go over to our side. I will return to Thaary, and at the palace call the counts, and they will crown me as Princess. Then I and the Prince of Vand will mobilize.”
“Perhaps the dukes of the Southlands will take courage and go to your side,” Ronnerick suggested.
“But what after that?” Dessanon said. “A whole mass of people without a King, without a Queen.”
“There will be a King,” Maud said, “or if not a King a Queen. And until then there will be a people, a free people who refuse to bend the knee to another conquerer.”
Ronnerick nodded to this and linked his long fingers through his beard.
“There is something,” the old man said.
“Vand and Thaary, the Commots, the Border Princes… They cover the far west and the east. What if… what is somehow you could establish yourself in the South. Make a buffer against the Solahni or… even hold squeeze them in?”
“You could establish yourself in the Crystal City,” Sebastian said brightly.
They all looked at him and Sebastian was caught off guard.
“Repeat yourself, boy.” Ronnerick charged him.
“I did not mean to speak out of turn.”
“But speak you did,” Ronnerick said, “and maybe your speaking will be our salvation.”
Sebastian bit his lower lip and then repeated: “You could make camp in the Crystal City.”

TOMORROW: WORKS AND DAYS

 

[CharmedFan28]

The many thoughts over who should lead are fascinating! I am eager to see who it is in the end. This was a fun portion to read with some great writing and I look forward to more Works and Days tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Of course, the thoughts in Chyr are completely different from what's going on in the Three Kingdoms between Myrne, Wolf and Edith. In the South they are having a discussion, in the north they are having a war. Meanwhile, Theone and Orem (a much better name than Gimble) are working their way back to each other.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WHILE THE PEOPLE OF CHYR ATTEMPT TO RESIST THE SOLAHNI, THEONE, ANSON AND THE OTHERS CONTINUE TO MAKE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE UNDERLAND PASSES



THE UNDERLAND PASSES







“All this day I’ve heard footsteps,” Arvad said.
Dissenbark looked to him.
“Something like it. Noise. Definitely. I can tell because before I hadn’t heard anything at all. I know the difference.”
“Another reason for more light,” Essily murmured. “Anson cannot hold his sword aloft forever.”
“The stone glows,” Theone said. “Sometimes. It burns enough to provide some light.”
“I am sick of this stumbling in the dark. I am tired of these caves. I need sun,” Arvad complained.
Ohean had been sitting on the ground and now he was restacking his thick cards and hiding them in his vest.
“Surely by now we must be under Chyr or close to it. Earlier I had sought to come out closer to Chyr, further away border. But Arvad is right. This grows wearisome for all of us.” He looked to Dissenbark. “Most of us.”
Essily whispered to Ohean, “Do we tell them that we’ve actually gone under the sea?”
He shook his head and she grinned.
“Even I can’t do this forever,” Dissenbark told him. “Even though I said the caves gave me… a sort of energy.”
Orem looked at her, woebegone, and said , “I don’t know what energy you can get from these gloomy passes.”
“They remind me of my nightmares,” Kenneth said. “Of places I went though, things I was taken through.”
“Yes,” Orem agreed. “I am of a mind with you, Kenneth. And let’s not forget, the same who built these built the paths under the Temple from which we escaped.”
“It troubles me you still have nightmares.”
“Birch—I mean Essily… it is nothing.”
Anson looked between his mother and the man who had once been a Black Hand, who reminded him in some ways of Cedd. Had his mother been like this to him, and how different would Cedd have been, would they all have been if she had remained in Kingsboro? Ah, but there would have been no Imogen, no Hilda…. No Morgellyn. There was no point in trying to rewrite what was long written. He shook his head.
“Ohean, what do the cards say?” Anson asked him.
“The cards never say anything,” Ohean said. “They give hints. They give urges. Every time a Queen comes up she is overturned. There are portents of fire above, or battles ahead. There is a card which keeps saying we are surrounded. I don’t rightly understand it all. But I feel we should leave these passes soon as possible and come back onto the surface of the world.”
Arvad put his hand over his mouth. He could not stifle a yawn.
“We need to rest for the night,” Pol Winthrop said, looking on Arvad.
“I’m fine. I don’t—”
“I think you’re right,” Ohean said. “We’ve traveled far enough. Tomorrow we will look for a way out.”

Kenneth shot up with a scream that rang through the small cavern. Everyone looked to him and Theone was standing in the midst of them with a smoking torch.
“It was actually time to get up anyway,” Ohean told him, unaffected. He was wrapped in his black cloak, only his face showing, and the tip of his staff glowed with a deep blue light that cast no warmth.
They were al ready quickly, and Kenneth didn’t tremble because he was used to nightmares now. He woke up screaming and went on about his business. All around him, for the first time he heard the tramping, the stamping, like rain on a roof.
“That,” Dissenbark, “is what we are fleeing.”
Anson said, simply, tugging on Kenneth’s sleeve. “We’re surrounded.”
“Well then I’ve got my sword,” Anson said and Kenneth pulled at the roan’s reins and they were heading away,.
Orem grinned and said, “Prince, I’ve got my sword too, and I will stand with you back to back.”
“So many protectors,” Theone wondered. “Who’s being protected?
There was a great roar, suddenly, from behind, and then Ohean burst out followed by Pol, and as he leveled his staff a gout of white and gold flame shot out and filled the cave with light.
“Move,” he commanded in a quiet voice, and suddenly they began to hurry down the cave, occasionally hearing another blast of flame from the wizards’ staff, seeing its light against the walls.
“That’s enough. That’s enough for now,” Ohean said breathlessly, and the tapping of their feet on stone filled the cave so that they almost didn’t hear the other stamping, but then Dissenbark said, “I hear them. We’re running to them!”
“Yes,” Ohean said, coming ahead of her, wishing to be at the front of it. “But we can’t run back.”
“Damned right!” Essily cried, grabbing Ohean’s hand.
Anson ran ahead of them, the sound of Callasyl unsheathed, ringing in the cave walls.
“We never run back!” the Prince declared.
“He’s marvelous!” Essily exalted.
Jogging beside her, Orem told Theone, “I like them.”
There was a rumbling and a roar and the cavern shook so violently they were knocked to the ground, except for Anson who clung to the side of the rock wall. As he bent to take Ohean’s hand, the earth shook and now, as they looked back and forth, one to the other, the rocks pressing against each other screamed, and Arvad thought they would die right here, at the bottom of the world.
And then it all stopped.
When it stopped they were so grateful for the end that no one realized they were in darkness. Dissenbark made a slight yelp. She made a yelp because a small hand had touched her. Many hands were touching her. This black space was crowded.
“What?” Theone began, “is going on?”
The only light now was the Stone, faintly glowing. Even as she noticed it, the glowing grew more bold, deep dark blue to bright white, and as it came afire it rose up from the chain about her neck, floating, holding itself out as it blazed.

Tārakāvak saha mama kisisētma gal novē
magē ḷadaru kālayē
udē piṭṭaniyē
kavadāvat asārthakayi
kalu rātriyē dī mama vehesaṭa patvemi
mama ālōkaya saha gītaya
mama eliyal hṛdayā!

And all that space was filled with the white blue light. Before Theone’s eyes, from her neck still hovering, burned the white stone, fire in its facets, and by that light they could all make out, hundreds and hundreds of pairs of eyes.





MEHTA



“Lady,” Allman said to Aimee, “I know you worry.”
“How can I not worry for my son,” Aimee Kimball said. “The worst thing that ever happened to him was that day when you and that Skabelund and your whole troop came to our house and called him the Prophet.”
“It was the will of God, Lady.”
“It was bullshit. You could have gone to the lady down the road and said the same thing, only her son would be suffering now and I have feeling Dahlan is more resilient than most, so…” Aimee shrugged.
“It I the resilience of the Prophet,” Allman said.
“If you mention prophets again,” Aimee said, “I will kill you, here in these caves. My husband was always scornful of you. He was so right.”
“Lady,” Sariah said, simply, “I don’t know anything abour prophets or… any of that. But Dahlan sent us away from him for our safety and I believe that he is resilient, prophet or not. I trust those wizards and that prince with him. I think he’s in very good hands.”
“He’s in extremely good hands,” Mehta turned back to tell them, and kept walking.
Austin had said nothing, and neither had Erek. They had not spoken much, but remained close together during their journey.
“Tomorrow is our last day in these caves,” Mehta said, rolling herself in her cloak and turning over to sleep.
“Really?” Rendan looked to her. “And how do you know?”
“We’ve been going up and up for days now, and this path has been straight under the land. Where we will come up, though, I can’t say, seeing as I don’t know much about Solahn save the border country.”
“You’re really something else, you knowME?” Rendan said.
“Because I can tell up from down?” Mehta gave him a grin and rolled over on her side.
“Mehta says we will surface tomorrow,” Rendan told Ethan and Yarrow after the kitchenwoman had gone to bed.
The prince and the enchantress were sitting in front of the fire, speaking in low voices. Yarrow looked up at him and said, “Yes, that’s right. Tomorrow should see us to the surface.”
When Rendan looked at her in surprise, Yarrow said, “Really, if Mehta could tell, do you think I wouldn’t.”
‘In truth,” Ethan said, “I did not know.”
“Well, yes,” Yarrow said, “but Mehta is an exceedingly clever girl.”
Ethan looked at the sorceress askance and she said to Rendan, “You have no idea how lucky you are to be accompanied by that girl.”
“She was a great comfort to me,” Rendan said. “Since my father’s death. She really is remarkable.”
“She seems the sort that lives to give comfort to someone,” Ethan reflected.
“I think she is the sort who lives to give comfort to someone,” Yarrow agreed. “But I believe that someone is you, Prince Rendan, and always has been. I see it. Perhaps in the First World you all were together and now you are together again, having found each other.”
“I used to feel the same way about myself and my Maud,” Ethan said.
“And why do you no longer feel that way?” Yarrow looked to him. “For a time we are separated from those we love, in this life and in others, but we come back. For love is eternal.”
“Ohean knows of love,” Rendan said to her. “But what of Lady Yarrow?”
She looked at him.
“What of the other wizards? Is it true that folk such as you have loves?”
“Folk such as I may have many loves, and you can imagine that Ohean and I both have.”
“I have heard tale in the beginning,” Ethan said, “of Yarrow who was the great witch and love to King Jarman, in those first days, when my ancestors came out of the north. That was long ago though.”
“Look at my face, look in my eyes, and you know that I can count back long ago,” Yarrow said.
“Then it was you?”
“Of course it was me.”
“Tell us,” Rendan said, “if you would, of those days, of Jarman.”
“What is there to tell?” she said. But as she spoke, in the firelight her caramel skin took on a deeper shine, her eyes glowed with some private and ancient rememberance.
“It was a different time. The sun was warmer then, and the world newer. I was in my first youth, having crossed the sea. The Time of Trouble had ended and Ohean kept company in Chyr. He was chamberlain to the King. I remained with them a time and then left with Aethlyn, who in this life is Anson. In the east, in the land that is now that of the Nardarines we met the fathers of your fathers, who would be the Solahni. Aethlyn traveled on, farther north, to learn the magics of the Frost Giants and fight the great monster of the world, for he is the Hero. But I remained among those people.
The day came when they were sore pressed and had to go further south. They were driven out by the Children of Nar, and this is making a long tale short. I followed them. I followed Jarman. He loved me. Together we fought many battles and it is true, with my aid he established the city of Don Athonwys. This was long before the Solahni went into Chyr, long before the compact with Phineas and with Mozhudak. As I said, it was a better day.”
“Some say,” Rendan said, “that Jarman had a son and this son was Haul the second king from whom we are all descended. Other’s say Haul was the son of his sister and that Jarman never died, but was borne away by you. Still others say Haul was the son between himself and you. That from then on you and he dwelt together forever and you did not come into this world often.”
At this Yarrow turned her face from them, and for a long time all they saw was her profile shadowed by darkness and the thickness of her hair.
“That,” she said, at last, quietly, “is one of those things of which we will not speak.”
She turned and smiled gently.
“Not just yet.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to get back into this story! It sounds like Theone and co are in trouble. I look forward to seeing what happens. The conversation in Mehta was also very interesting. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! I hope you are having a nice night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I am glad to be back in the story, though I do lament the large number of typos. This the part of the book that has been the least changed and the least reviewed, but it might be my favorite anyway.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT WE MEET LITTLE PEOPLE AND OVERLY TALKATIVE JEWELRY AND OUR COMPANIONS BREAK OUT OF THE EARTH AT LAST.


THE UNDERLAND PASSES


There were long faces and broad faces, most of them very brown faces, most bearded, but not all, most short, all shorter than the shortest of the companions—which was Arvad—but some much squatter, and shorter than others. And many had caps and on their caps were melting candles, their wicks snuffed out. Most carried hammers and chisels and the others carried spears, but all were crouching in fear. Still the star burned bright and cried:

From high in the heavens I came down.
Round and white in Belia’s hand
Sat in the crown of her man
Again and again, seven generations
Until Heralan
On the head of the fair queen bright I burned
She learned the secrets of heaven from me
Mozhudak desires me
His servant and the Solahni prince
Cross the sea, the mountains stint and packing
In flesh and bone and blood did weave the spell to carry
Me
And then did they bury me

The star grew brighter where now even Ohean closed his eyes and Theone turned away

Far from the light of day
Or stars and moon of heaven
My abode
In the bowels of the Mother,
past the skirts of the mother
by those foul
punished by the Red Woman
one last deed they did against the Gods
to carry this, Elia’s stone beneath the rocks
and for seven cen’tries bury me!

The stone glowed white now and slowly, Theone watched it settle into her hand. There, like a little moon, or like a white fruit it glowed.
The spears of the Small people were lowered, and the one at the front, grey beared, broad chested, opened his mouth to speak. At once the stone raged:

SONS OF EARTH, TAKE THESE MEN,
AND GUIDE THEM
TO THE WORLD ABOVE !

“Mistress,” the old dwarf spoke, and Theone, looking to him, realized he was actually speaking to the Jewel. “What are you?”

I AM THE STONE, THE STAR, THE JEWEL OF ADDIWAK
I AM THE ONE WHO BY YOUR ARTS WAS BROUGHT
TO THE DARK EARTH BENEATH
AND I SICKEN IN THESE PLACES
YOU ARE THE ONES WHO WILL PAY FOR FALSE DEEDS
BY BEARING THESE UP.

“These?”

THESE WHO YOU SOUGHT TO KILL!

“Mistress,” the Dwarf began again, while behind him was the sound of quavering voices.
“Who are you?”
“I am the Beryl. I am the Stone of Addiwak.”
“And?”
The voice from the stone spoke breathlessly.
“Addiwak herself.”
At once Theone nearly reached to pull the Jewel from her throat, and the underground people gasped and fell to their knees. It hung from Theone’s neck going dimmer and dimmer until the light was gone again.
They all looked to Ohean. Ohean said, simply, not addressing the Stone: “Lady, what else?”
There was nothing. In the darkness was only the torch Dissen still bore with waning strength, and the a few distant torches which revealed how many of the Small Folk there were.
Then, in a whisper, all around them, the Voice spoke.

“Not to the city, but to the wood,
to the ancient standing forest shall
the Sons of Transgression guide you
There the Sons of Earth shall hide you
And there made ready shall you be
at the place called Halinthindor
you shall learn of the new war
and how to win
and what is more
the second heir of Ermengild.

“Lady?” Ohean tried again.

“One king, one queen,
but not to wed
the queen is found
the prince thought dead
is under hill
and under earth
and more than what you
thought him worth
he will be king
was always one….

“Lady?”

Peace Ohean
My speech is done.

And then there was silence, and it was, to all of them the most absolute silence. No voice would intrude again.
The voice that did intrude was from the Dwarf and he said, “These are the outer paths. You might have walked them several days more. They would have, in time, let out, I believe, near the plains of Chyr.”
But another voice spoke up. “It seems however that the Queen would have you enter the land of Halthindor. We will not touch it.”
“We cannot touch it,” said the first Dwarf.
“But through our paths you can come quite close to it.”
Anson said, “And how long will it take?”
“If you come with us,” said the first Dwarf, “and get some rest, then we can feed you in the morning—for it is deep night now—and you will be before the Wood in the afternoon.”
So saying the Head Dwarf turned, and then they were marching, with a majestic deliberation down the path, but only a few moments later they stopped. There was murmuring from the assembled small people before them and Theone turned to Ohean and Essily, whispering something. But Orem only shrugged. Then a small point of light glowed from up ahead and they could see that on a spot not far ahead of them, the Head Dwarf was not facing down the hall, but against the wall.
He raised his hands and called out a long, crackling, crumbling, groaning, growling word, and then there was silence.
And then there was, imperceptible at first, a line of light, thin as a hair, and then a great blaze of light, a square of it, or a door, and then the Dwarf was overshadowed by the light. Slowly, the companions noticed, they were walking in through the door.
“We will follow?” Anson said to Ohean.
Ohean nodded.
“We will follow.”
“Out of the Earth,” Kenneth murmured, touching Arvad’s hand. “Out of the Earth at last.”




MEHTA




The next morning they actually knew it was morning. There was something less in the quality of the darkness, and here the air was better. Mehta stopped to wash her face in the dripping brook they had been following all this time, that had would its way down from the surface of the earth. All that morning they walked through a broad and increasingly rough, uncarved way, and black became brown and brown became gray and by the middle of the day they were seeing light, and then they were blinking hard, and a defile of brown and grey stones spilled out beneath them to a little brook, bordered by green.
“Where are we?” Rendan wondered.
“I do not know,” it was Yarrow who spoke. “I must get my bearings.”
“I smell that we are by the sea,” Ethan said.
The enchantress nodded, and there was something dreamy and distant on her face.
“Since nearly the whole of Solahn is surrounded by the sea,” Allman said, “that tells us nothing, Lord. But I need to stretch my legs. I need to stretch my legs and then sit down a bit and regain myself.”
The others agreed to this, or at least Rendan and Ethan did. Yarrow said nothing at all, held, it seemed to Ethan, by the scent of the sea. Long ago she had come into the world from it. So said the ancient tales, had they all. In the beginning.
Mehta did stretch her legs and go to drink water. This water was fresher than what they’d had and she came back up the little hill to where they had exited, taking off her boots, rubbing her feet. The smell of something tickled her nostrils and she turned to look.
Kneeling before a patch of dirt was Rendan, dust in his hair, his jacket a little torn, but his face intent. Smoke rose from where he knelt and, curiously, she rose to stand behind him.
He did not notice her at once, and when he did he explained. “It is not hard to make a quick incense. This isn’t good like what they’d have at the temples. Or in my home for that matter. But there are plenty of flowers here. You see. We have come through safely, so it is right to give thanks.”
Mehta was about to say, “Let’s not give thanks just yet,” but thought better of it.
“Every man past the age of sixteen is initiated into the priesthood of Banthra,” Rendan said, “save he refuse. The last king to refuse was Norgan. He made the pact with Phineas and entered Chyr to steal the Stone and rule over them until they were pushed out.”
“I never knew you were religious,” Mehta said, folding her skirts and sitting beside him.
Rendan closed his eyes and made a shape over the fire, whispering some words, she imagined, to close out the ritual. Then he said: “I am not.
“I’m just grateful.”
That afternoon they started a walk in a brisk eastern direction and the wind was good and cool. Spring time had set in earnest. The grasses were high and so were their spirits. Mehta sang:

sun rises
treetop capsizes
pouring a shower of snow
coffee's hot,
the wind is not
chill it blows


Seizing Austin by the shoulder, Skabelund cried out: “What is that? Back! Duck!”
He said “Duck” when he realized there was no going back, because they were in open country.
“What did you see?” Rendan began. But soon enough he also saw.
Coming toward them, slowly, was a part of riders on white horses, their clothes white and blue, carrying broad swords at their sides, with the points of their brass helmets peaking out white turbans, and in the midst of them was a white palanguin, and from the white palanquin flapped a banner and upon the banner was an orange tiger.
“That is of my house!” Rendan’s voice strained, rising up, but Ethan pulled him back.
“Your house is your uncle’s house,” Ethan reminded him. “You don’t know who that is?”
“It is coming from the west, not the east. If Bellamy was headed toward my home, I don’t think he would have reached it yet, let alone be strolling at his ease. No, I have to go.”
Rendan broke from Ethan to walk through the grasses toward the approaching party which still did not notice him. The herald was blowing a long, low horn to mark their coming and Yarrow said: “There is no harm. We are more than a match. Have you forgotten? I bear witch fire.”
They ran toward the party, Mehta catching up with Rendan, and just then the horn changed, and they were noticed.
“Stop! Stop!” Rendan called.
The face of the herald, a man in middle years, changed. He stopped. He called out, “Rendan! Prince!”
“Yes!” Rendan wanted his voice to sound glorious, but he was tired and it was more like a croak. He caught his knees and began breathing as he approached the dusty road clefting the great plain.
“Rendan!” a voice cried from inside the palanquin.
The curtains flew open and a woman who looked one part terror, one part disbelief and the other two parts joy looked upon him.
“Mother,” Rendan said, coming toward her. “Lady, I am so glad to see you!”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Those Dwarves were a good surprise and I am glad they didn’t harm Theone or any of them. That family reunion at the end was also a big surprise! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yeah. I dunno. I really enjoy this part of the story too. I'm glad you have fun with it, especially the family reunion. There have been a lot of reunions so far, and we aren't finished yet.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WHILE OHEAN, THEONE, ANSON AND OUR FRIENDS, NAVIGATE THEIR WAY UNDER THE SEA, MEHTA NAVIGATES THE ROYAL COURT OF SOLAHN, AND PRINCE RENDAN'S MOTHER.



There is, unfortunately, a great misunderstanding of what the Way of the Wise, often called magic, consists. If one were crudely looking for power, he could turn to politics, the accumulation or money, or to the rough edge of a sword. What the ancient teaching is about is not power over, but inhabiting and participating in the very potency of the enchanted world.

-from The Encyclopedia of First Teachings , Ollam Vygesserit




UNDER THE EARTH





These paths were different from the ones they had traveled before. They were high and straight cut with walls of polished white-gold stone. Torches burned clear in the walls and by this new light Theone could see the small people, little men, squat and wide eyed for the most part. Many with wide, short faces like exaggerated ovals, ears like trumpets, all with lambent eyes.
“I am Andvari,” the chief dwarf said, “And I am the king of these people.
“We were not seeking your injury,” he continued, speaking to Ohean. “When the Lady spoke out of the Stone in confirmed what we had heard.”
“And what had you heard?” Ohean asked him.
“That the paths we had built long ago, in the service of the Shadowed One, had been entered by Ohean. That he and some others had, at last, gone down and taken the Beryl belonging to the Lady of Heaven. The Shadowed One is not, of course, the only one of the Fire Devils, only the greatest. When the Jewel was taken the Muspel were roused. They cannot, by the curse laid upon them, leave the underground lands anymore than we can. Less, actually, for we can travel above ground if we wish, for a time.
“Well, then wait?” Dahlan said while Dissenbark nodded beside him, “are they after us too?”
On their way down the path, Andvari looked after her and said, “They were after us. Their rage was at us. As far as they could see, we had failed because we built the passes, we built the foundation of the temple. We built the labyrinth. That was in my father;s day.”
“Your fa—” Began Orem. “But that was… In the Time of Trouble. It was… more than twenty five centuries ago. It was…”
Andvari’s round, white, yellow eyes looked at him and he said, “We are a long lived people. My father lived in the days of the curse, when Kavana condemned all of us to remain under the earth, so great was her rage.”
“This is a story I have heard many times,” Anson said. “But never the fullness of it.”
“If there is time then I may tell it, or perhaps where you are going someone will tell it.”
As they walked on, Theone said, “It is good, then, that you have found us. If you had not found us, maybe they—the Muspel—would have done so.”
“It is possible,” Andvari said, “But it would have taken a while. For as, the passes you were in are outside of our kingdom and our Ways, so are we outside of the deep lands of the Fire Folk.”
“Are they really made out of fire?” Dahlan wondered.
And, confusingly, Andvari said, “Sometimes, yes. But, certainly, not always.”
Now they were before a great door of frosted silver, and the shining tendrils of a silver vine wound all the way up the height of the bevilled door. A red bearded Dwarf stepped out and he, like the rest of them, had a broad chest. His knotted biceps were folded in front of them, and he carried a short hammer wih a broad head. Lightly he hit the door and pronounced a word, and then, soundlessly, it opened onto the deepest, greenest garden with the clearest, most trickling brooks any of them had ever seen.


First there were the Twins, the Lovers, the Brothers,
the Blue Bird and the Serpent. They were all that was
and there love was all that was and before them
nothing is known, though some say they were always
loving each other and bearing each other forth.

In time they came together and from their lovers union
was born the First Daughter and the Second,
the Lower and the Higher, the Mistress of the Stars,
and the Mother over the Sea and they are called by men
Elladyl and Addiwak, mother of the waters, and mother
of the Stars.

Now this is the number of the children of Addiwak,
called the Mother of All waters, Selu, Vara.
Aiuryn, and born of them the Younger Gods: Kavana,
Banthra, Nar, Famke, Ahnesse.
These are the Vanyar and the Vassar,
and Selu was the Mother of the Earth,
and the Earth is her garment,
and her daughter
was the Great tempestuous Kavana

Kavana of the shaking mountains
Kavana of Great Rages
The Red Woman
The Vengeful Lady
Whose snaking hair is Fire
Kavana the Queen and Lady
Of the Tiger God
Kavana who entered his world,
seeking her brother Nar

To Anson, some of the names were familiar, each name of each holy one spoken was like an enchanted key, opening some door, and his mind went ever to the Twins, that the world as it was now began when two, like himself and his Ohean, lay down in love together, and it had continued when their children, two maidens, had of their own accord brought things into being, only after two men had loved, only after women had born of their own, did the way of man and woman come. He thought of every time he’d made love, of those nights with Pol and of Pol, who sat over there in the garden, watching over Arvad to whom he’d made love. Could that tenderness have created a world, as had the Twins? They were like the Serpent and the Blue Bird. The Serpent and Blue Bird. Serpent and Blue Bird, the idea slithered through his head, fluttered in his brain.

In the first Age after Mahonry came into the world,
then did the Shadowed One, the one of Smoke and Fire
rise from the earth, the height of a mountain
with a whip like lightning. Oh, Mozhudak and he dared to
wound the earth.
These were the deep creatures of the pit
and they arose against Selu, against the precious earth
and all the creatures born of here, against the fair folk
and the men of mountains and overhill.
They arose against the children of men,
who in the very making were of this world ,
not of the one from which they traveled,
and her is where we here of Sindri
who condemned the sons of earth.

Sindri mighty duergar lord took to wife the Svart elf,
Saxoninga, stepdaughter of the
Shadowed Demon Lord, and for her sake and the wish
for riches made his pact that all the Dwarves would
fight against all men and fair folk.
Only his brother Brokk stood against him.
So slew he him and banished them,
his followers far to the north.

Now come they, Sindri, sending all his people
to build the mighty passes under earth, to forger the
weaponry all dark and iron dull for
the folk of Mozhudak,
and also for those men who followed him.
From them, from ancient origins come
those folk known as the Hand.


“I had heard that Nava was ancient,” Dahlan said. “That when we came to it, it and the temple already belonged to Solahn. But in our stories the Prophet made it holy and concecrated it to God. We ignored that Nava had even been a city before we came.”
“But how could you ignore it?” Theone wondered, “When you saw Black Hands around the Temple everyday.”
“There were many things we ignored,” Dahlan said, “simply because we were told to.”
Orem looked to Kenneth.
Kenneth said, “I thought…. But… I did not know where we came from. I knew we were Solahns, but…”
At this, Andvari broke from the rhythm of the poem and said, “Now the blood of the Hands is mostly Solahni, but the Hands, like the Temple and the priesthood were before Solahn.”

He sang:

Out of the ruin of Talmaze went the Men of Gozen
and settled they at the mouth of the Bay of Enlad,
and there they built the city that would be
the place of Mozhudak.
There, at the mouth of the world of the damned
they worshiped and there he leapt from the earth.
There they served him and made their pact,
half the priesthood, half the soldiers,
this the origin of all Hands.
The place they lived of old
was Enrick Elkanahir
though now men call it,
fairer, Nava.

And in those days the tale is told in Chyr,
of Iffan the Star King and of Ohean
Who with might put down the dread deep power.
But under the earth is told the rage of Kavana,
who descended from her mountains all in rage.

At this, Theone fancied she heard screaming far off, a shouting, but she shook her head and laid it against Orem. Orem was a Hand and so was Kenneth. Maybe she was a princess of Chyr, The Princess it seemed. But her father and his father and before that had also been Hands . She was as much that as anything else. And apparently they were not Solahni, though by now they had Solahnish blood. They were something much, much older.

And in her rage she charged the sons of Sindri
to be sealed beneath the earth and never,
unless called to leave that place of hiding
and then only for the period of six days.
This is her wrath and this her warning,
and only the children of Brokk
from this were freed—

This may have been the intended end or not, but at this point a much rounder Dwarf brpoke int othe garden shouting ,and there others behind him.
“the Muspel! He cried. The Muspel are coming. They are all ready burning the palace. Come, King! Let us fight!”




SOLAHN


“I thought you were dead, and I was simply going to make the most of it,” Queen Iokaste said, motioning for her servant not to pour, taking the golden jug from his hands and pouring a cup of wine for her son.
“The news came almost immediately to me that your father had died, that you had died. I heard something about the Temple falling. As you can guess it was the least important of the things on my mind. All I knew was that there were strange goings on in the West. And then Ermengild died.”
“The Queen of Chyr?”
“Yes,” Queen Iokaste said. “For a time I thought maybe, somehow, your uncle had a hand in that too. But it was old age, I am sure. I did not want to do anything. I did not want to do anything but be miserable, but the court said that wasn’t an option. The night I heard you all were dead I knew Bellamy had done it. I also knew that I had to do something. I could not allow him to simply come here and make himself king, but there was no way I could see to stop him. The city is up in arms against him. They’ll never receive him. That’s for sure. This only worried me more because it meant that the fair city of the Solahni would come under sieged. It would suffer, and in the end give way. It had to. With you gone, Bellamy was the true heir to the Throne. There are cousins, yes, but they would contest who should be king. There was bound to be some manner of civil war.”
Iokaste stopped talking and looked, from her couch, over the porch. They were in White Palace, one of the royal houses outside of the city and from here they looked out on green fields though, as they had come on the road, Mehta had seen, in the distance, the walls of small towns, the suburbs of the great city of the kings.
“I moved everything out,” Iokaste said. “I would rather fight here than in the city. When I came to marry your father, the court called me a foreigner. But my grandmother was of the royal House of Solahn. See, this land was my care as well.
“But you are here,” the Queen placed a firm hand on her son’s knees. “You have escaped the wiles of that sorcerer, with the help of these…” she gestured to Mehta and Yarrow, “brave friends. And with this prince of Chyr.”
The man who sat beside the Queen and looked just like her said to Ethan, “That is the one thing which has bought us time. As you will know, a princess of Chyr, one… Tealora, is the new heir, and she is the wife of Bellamy. He has gone to claim the throne there. Perhaps he thought it would be easier. He does not wish to divide his army in two.”
“Uncle, we know of this,” Rendan said to Iokaste’s brother. “He has the aid of Phineas,” Iokaste said, darkly, “And of the Black Hand and their sorcery.”
“But Chyr had magic of its own,” Yarrow said.
“Had,” the Queen said. “Where is Ohean after all these years? And where are the folk of the Ancient Wood. There was magic in Chyr, but from what I have heard, it is gone.”
“Enchantment,” Yarrow began, “once cast upon a land never truly fades. When the people cry out, they are not abandoned.”
“This is what we have hoped,” Iokaste’s brother said. “Day in and day out the doors to the House of Banthra are open. We hope that, in our time of need, the Tiger will rise.”
“Hektar, that is not mete,” Iokaste said to her brother. “After all, today, out of the grass and from traveling under the earth, here is my son, restored like one dead. There is the beginning of miracles. With him comes friends from far of lands, a Chryan prince, noble Zahem soldiers and a magical woman. This is cause for great praise.”
“And if it is true,” Rendan said, “that Bellamy is making his ships ready for Chyr, then so much the better for us.”
“Phineas is still here,” Hektar reminded him. “He is in this land and he is coming closer by the day.”
“Perhaps,” Rendan allowed. “But he is not here, today. We are, and that is the point.”
“And what is more,” Yarrow continued, “there are many things he doesn’t know. Many things that will make it much harder for your Bellamy to take the throne anywhere. There is magic in Chyr. And there is, if not a king, then at least a new Queen.”
“What?” Queen Iokaste began, but it was Mehta who said, “Wait, Ma’am, and we will tell you all.”


WE'RE TAKING A HOLIDAY TOMORROW NIGHT AND PAINTING OUR TOES. MORE BOOK OF THE BROKEN COME FRIDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! So much going on and it’s a good thing your taking a holiday tomorrow so I can reread. This journey under the sea is fascinating, as is the other part of this story and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I will just say, "Yes, you've got time to re read." Savor the flavors, grasshopper. Thanks for reading and thank you for posting.

 

[ChrisGibson]

UNDER THE EARTH


The Dwarf who had rushed in was Thumbprick, and nearly as soon as he had shouted to Andvari, the noise grew louder beyond the garden. This place had seemed so peaceful, and such a relief after the long day’s tunneling through the caves. Now they followed Andvari, and really they all followed Ohean, whose arms were outstretched as if he were going to do something, and whose staff was thrust forward. There was a small break of space and then, as they looked up, coming through the forest, it was Theone who noticed first that the green leaves were sharp jewels, jade, crystal, glittering emerald, and they were passing through a mineral forest.
And then the forest endedand there was shouting and screaming and they were standing on a ridge and, below them was the great city of the Small People. It was all up and arms and whatever it was lit by in normal times, now it was lit by fire. All through the streets they raced, toward the horizon, toward where the fire burned and here and there on a tower, one squat and knotted dwarf with a short sword battled something akin to it, something twice the height of a man, with a face like a man, almost, but also, possibly like a lion, maned, and horned, or shaggy, golden and red, with whips and with swords that sizzled and Andvari was gone, descending into the fray.
“What,” Arvad wondered, “Do we do?”
Orem looked at Kenneth who nodded grimly, and he said, “I suppose we fight.”
“What?” Theone snapped. “See here,” she shouted above the din. “I’ve lost you after all this time and you would leave to die, under the earth, fighting some hell creature you know not what. No.”
“Theone,” Orem said, tenderly. “Listen. You may be queen in the world above, but not here. Here we must do this.”
And then Orem caught the edge of the parapet where he stood and said, “We will return,” and leapt off.
“That’s my cue,” Anson said, taking a bow and pulling out his blade.
“Pol, do you still remember how to fight?”
“Fuck you, I do!” Pol Winthrop said.
“Mother, bless me.” Anson said.
Essily placed her hands on his head and wiped her pale hair from her face, and then Anson knelt before Ohean, who laid his hands on his head and whispered words of enchantment. He did the same for Pol as well, and the prince and pleasure man took hands and leapty into the fray together.
“He is a warrior,” Ohean said. “Before all things.”
Suddenly Kenneth embraced Arvad, and then he kissed him quickly and he was gone too, leaving Arvad shaken. Dahlan looked to Ohean who scowled, and Essily said, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Then what do we do?” Arvad wondered. “Surely not stand here and watch while our friends plunge into the middle of it.”
“No,” Ohean said wearily, “No, certainly not. We will not go into the middle of it. We will go to the end of it,” he said. And instead of leaping off the edge, leisurely, seemingly heedless of the screaming and explosions below, he walked along the edge as the path lowered slowly into the city.
“Come now,” Ohean said. “Let us go.”


“It is like a human city,” Dahlan said. “But at the same time it’s like little mountains grown together and twisting out of each other.”
He said it more to distract from the people running up and down the streets, shouting.
“Have you noticed,” Theone said, as they walked against the crowd, that, for the most part was heading away, “that there are no women?”
“Maybe it’s because these are all fighters,” Arvad interrupted himself with a shout as he jumped out of the way.
“I have never seen,” said Ohean, “in all of my days, nor heard tale of anyone seeing, a female Dwarf—”
“The last word was cut off by a great explosion, followed by a shuddering quake so great Ohean nearly fell, but Essily steadied him.
Ohean righted himself on the staff, and at that moment a gout of fire blasted from an alley, and out came a creature with a face broad as a bull’s and a blazing yellow body. It had the muscled thighs of a man, but was fur bellied. It made a sweep for Ohean’s staff, but Ohean, steady now jabbed it in the belly. It roared and they jumped back, smelling of sulphur, darkening the air around them. The first made for Ohean, lunging as if he might land on the wizard, but Dahlan jumped in front of him and while Ohean shouted, “No, you idiot—”
The monster lunged on the boy, and then then gave a gurgling howl as the immense thing collapsed upon Dahlan like a wall. Arvad had his knife in it, and Essily, Dissenbark and Theone were slashing at it as well.
Ohean set down his staff and was murmuring in a long, musical tone as he began tp push the beast, turning it over. It came away, its belly oozing blood, Dahlan’s hair sticky with blood, his short dagger still firmly gripped in his hands and gripped around its stomach.
“I just let it fall on me,” Dahlan smiled, trying to look nonchalant, though he was gasping.
“Don’t you ever do that a—” Ohean began, but there was another shake of the land and another roar, and Ohean said, “Further on. Further in. That’s why we’re here. Let’s go.”

They walked on, and now the streets were more desolate. This must have been a marketplace. It was abandoned now, carts overturned, fruits smashed. From high windows fires burned.
“I need to rest,” Theone said, making her way to an overturned vegetable cart. “I need to rest and that’s a fact. Pray the Twins our friends are safe.”
But even as she said this, there was a great roar. It was greater than any before, and then another earthquake, ahead of them a great chunk of rock from above crashed into the middle of the street.
“Essily!”
“Yes,” she said, and clearly something has passed between them.
“Dissenbark. Tea, to me.”
Ohean pulled Dahlan and Arvad into his cloak and began a charm as around them towers began to fall. It went on and on until Arvad wished to put his hands over his face to scream, to die, and then it stopped. And there was nothing but darkness.
There was darkness for a long while, and then there was a sizzling and a snapping and Dissenbark whispered: “What… the hell…. Is that?”
It was Arvad who said: “A voice.”
It was a while before they could all hear the voice repeating: “You. You. You.”

You delve into my lands
You take from my hands
You dare you fingers feel
With that which was my Jewel

“Not much of a po…” Dahlan began. He had meant to say, “Not much of a poet, is he?” and laugh, but this voice filled the place, and dried his mouth, and he was aware of his weakening bladder, his melting bowels, the blood and gore on his face.
And now the ground was shaking again, harder now so that they went to their knees, and stones were falling from far above and the houses were cracking. And then, filling the sky, it came, winged, filling the darkness with its greater darkness, and one foot touched the earth, and it was a fire wrapped in smoke and a whip, electric and whining, like a lightning serpent cracked the earth and split it, and it stopped feet in front of them, and they were seen, eyes snapping, and by now Dahlan was standing and all too quickly he realized this thing was after Ohean, and Ohean had knocked him back, and there stood Ohean,. Facing it. Through the darkness, like lightning in a whirlwind, high above the eyes snapped, and these were the eyes of Mozhudak.
“Ohean—”
Dahlan began but he was shoved back by a shock of lightning and then he knew it was Ohean who had done it, and now Ohean cast up a wall of twinkling light between himself and the others. The demon flicked its whip and Ohean stamped his staff and, flicking his whip again, the demon roared:
Ashavagnag vonuata dosetate Ohean astanante!”
And Ohean said not a word, but when the demon flicked his whip around his staff, fire ran up the staff and up the whip into Mozhudak and the demon shrieked high above.
Everything shook. Now Theone heard shouting, and she turned, looking for more demons, only to see Anson with Pol behind him. Anson, Callasyl blazing, ran for Ohean, but Theone and Essily pulled him back this time, and Mozhudak roared and this time there was a whirlwind touching down, and it was Arvad who saw it was finger. A charge went from it, and it broke the staff of Ohean and Ohean fell back like one dead. The wall he had cast shattered like diamond chips, fading, and Anson ran to cover Ohean’s body, heedless of his safety, but Dissendark heeded their safety. Desperately, Theone raised the Jewel and her mouth fell open in horror when it sat in her hands, heavy, cold and dead.
“Come on!” she screamed. “Damn you! Come on!”.
The Demon did not look like any one person. Mozhudak was all winds and wild storms, eyes of lighting, tornado whip, and trembling earthquake with fire for a body. Lighting and thunder wrapped about the place and Dissenbark, seeing this demon lean closer to destroy the comatose wizard, the desperate Anson and the screaming Theone, screamed out her own word and just like that, the earth cracked.
She kept screaming and the earth kept cracking, and now there was a hand on her, and this was the hand of Essily and Essily hissed, “Do not… stop. Do not…”
She felt Essily in her, she felt this woman’s, Nimerly’s kin, power joining her as new power welled in her. She was opening up the earth and Mozhudak was screaming, and she was saying words, and the words were like nets and ropes and locks and she did not know them, but she was saying them, and they poured out of her mouth like fire, or like rock or like burning rock and over and over the words. She heard Ohean whisper the first to her:
“Masgare…”
And she repeared it again and again, “Masgare, Masgare….”
And then Essily’s voice in her head joined Ohean’s,” Masgare, Kavana, Masgare, Kavana….”
They were opening up something in her. Their power was a key, or rather it was like something piercing a wall in her and how, from our her leapt the charm she’d never known.
“Masgare Kavana, Masgare Kavana indeneatha, invande, ilthuen!”
It poured out of her, a river of words, a flowing hot magma of enchantment.
“Masgare Kavana, Masgare Kavana indeneatha, invande, ilthuen! Masgare Kavana, Masgare Kavana indeneatha, invande, ilthuen!”
And the screaming of Mozhudak was becoming more and more fainter, and Dissenbark’s vision was getting dimmer and dimmer, and world was swimming around her, and everything was pouring out of her, and then Dissenbark’s mouth and throat felt like the time she had smoked her father’s fireweed and she ended up not being able to talk for a day.
Everything blackened, and then everything browned, and she knew no more.


It felt late in the day when Anson awoke, and then he realized that it wasn’t any sort of day. Thick light came through the curtains and he was on his back, which was the deadest sleep he ever slept. Ohean was beside him, equally dead to the world, arm bandaged, bandage wound about his head. And maybe he was so many things, and certainly he was his savior, but Ohean was his, plain and simple. He did not need to understand the rest of it. He kissed him lightly on the chest, over his heart. Before, in the nightmare time, he had almost died. And he could not lose him.
“Lose him again,” He murmured, giving a half smile at his own turn of phrase as he ran the side of his hand over Ohean’s chest.
“What’s that?” Ohean murmured, half asleep, clutching his hand.
Anson, who was preparing to get up, maneuvered his hand from Ohean’s and said, “Lose you. Never.”
He climbed out of bed and dressed and then stepped into the little toilet where he took care of business and plunged his face in a bowl of cold water. Yes, he remembered now. He had a purpose. He had a favor to ask of Andvari. When they had finally come to bed, when it was just him and Ohean and the deep embrace had led to the deep kiss and passion, as they had drifted off to sleep, complete, whole again, Anson had prayed for a revelation and prayed to Gavriel to send it to him come morning.

WHEN WE RETURN THE STORY OF GESHICHTE FALLS WILL CONTINUE IN: IF I SHOULD FALL

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow this portion packed a punch! Lots of action and it was all very interesting to me. I hope Theone is ok. Great writing and I look forward to If I Should Fall soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

A LOT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN TONIGHT.... A LOT


Everything about what had happened was a matter of great confusion, or rather disbelief. What they had all seen, quite simply, was that after Ohean was struck, after Theone’s stone had failed, that which had spoken so powerfully before, Dissenbark had stretched out her hand, Essily leaning upon her, seeming to send her strength into the younger woman, and from deep in her had come a mighty voice. She had been still and firm as a stone and her hair was blown back in a devil wind. Mozhudak, eyes like storms, turned from Ohean and the others to her, and the two of them had been locked in battle until Dissenbark was failing, until Ohean had come up again. Anson ws scarcely aware of it.
The three of them, Essily, Ohean and Dissenbark, stood together, and Ohean’s knowledge, his words, his own strength from over the sea and the other world flowed into Dissenbark’s and the two were one, and the two had resisted him. He had shrieked and shrieked to escape their web and then, shouting, had shot up and further up only to disappear. Where he was gone, none could see. Ohean did not think well of it, but was glad that, at least for now, the Muspel were put away. Dissenbark had lain drained and passed out. The nut brown girl white as a Dayne, white as a sheet. Andvari’s chamberlain, Regni had taken charge of her saying: “She’ll need to rest a day or so.”
They were all so tired, but Theone was insistent on finding Orem, and finding Kenneth. It was not long at all. When the battle ended, no one was alone. In grim clumps everyone found one another, and it was as Dissenbark was being born away, like one dead, Orem limped forward, bloody, breathing hard, and Theone bade him lean on her.
“Where is Kenneth?” she said, when Arvad could not.
With one hand, Orem gestured behind him and breathed, “Take you… to him.”
“Is he?” Arvad began, leaping forward, though Anson touched his shoulder.
“No,” Orem said, “but he’s bad off, he is. Bad off in the heart, not wounded by a sword.”
Arvad nodded manfully, and went ahead of them all. In a blasted alley, under a blown out building, Kenneth sat, rocking, his face blackened, and as Arvad knelt down beside him he was gibbering.
“My name is Ruval, my name is Ruval, my name is Ruval, my name….”
Arvad held onto his face and over and over again Kenneth gibbered.
“What did they do to you?” Arvad shook him. “What did they do to you?”
At last, Kenneth, who had turned away from him, stopped. He was trembling violently and he said, “They did not do anything to me… I… remembered. I remembered… everything. I was… I am, a Black Star,” he looked to Orem. “Just like you.”
Orem’s face grew sad, almost, Theone thought, as if he were about to crumple and weep, and he already looked so beat down already. He kept nodding his head.
“All the things we did,” Kenneth began, snuffling up tears and mucus, “all the things on our hearts… when we get those hearts back. And no one knows. Do they?”
Orem was shaking his head and his eyes were wide and shining.
“No one knows, brother,” Kenneth said, turning his face away and weeping.
Theone looked to see that tears were running down Orem’s face and he was shaking and then she realized that Kenneth was looking at her, too.
“Theone,” he said. “Please, forgive me.”
“Of course,” she began, then shook her head. “But… why?”
“I,” Kenneth began. “As you know, as I think you do, Ennalisa, what Dhalan calls Nava, was the first city where we were all founded, but now none of us live there. There are four Houses, all in Solahn. You and Orem must have been at one. Well, I was at another. After you had fled, my Master supposed that you were near our House. He sent me to kill you. I… I was coming to do that.”
Theone’s face changed.
“You…” she said, squinting, “I saw you when I scryed. That night when I took the red horse. You… look changed.”
“He has a heart now,” Ohean said.
“I was after you. I imagine almost on you,” Kenneth said, “when I came to the House of Yarrow. I slept and when I woke could remember nothing.” He looked to Essily. “She must have enchanted me.”
“Something like that,” Essily said, nodding.
“Yarrow took me in. She sent me in the direction of… you,” Theone said to Ohean.
“I told her that two would come to her,” said Ohean. “The day before I went to find Anson. I said the first must be sent after me, the other after her, And so she did.
“And so she took away my memory,” Kenneth said, in amazement, “so that… I could have my heart.
“She could have killed me. But…”
“She’d rather you be healed,” Ohean said.
They were quiet now. All that could be heard were the sounds of burning and Arvad sat beside Kenneth and held him.
“How can you?” he said. “Knowing what I am?”
Arvad said nothing, but held him gently.
“I almost wish,” Kenneth confessed, “that she had killed me instead.”

That morning—for lack of a better word—Anson found Regni, whose hair was ice white and stuck out in spikes all around his oblong head. His eyes were nearly on stalks and Anson thought he was being stared at severely until he supposed this was what the Physic probably always looked like.
“You’re here to see your friend?” Regni said.
“Not exactly, though yes,” Anson said.
Regni looked at him and Anson said, “Let me explain.” He sat down and folded his hands over his lap.
“We were told that… by the Jewel that… It speaks.”
“Yes,” Regni said. “It is Elladyl’s Beryl.”
“Well, it speaks with her voice except for last night, which I don’t understand. But… it said. Or she said, that here we would learn about the missing prince. That there would be a King and a Queen in Chyr and it would be here we would learn who would be King. You know, since Theone is going to be Queen. We guess. I mean, we think.”
The whole time Anson spoke, Regni stared at him with increasing severity until finally he said, “I thought you would never shut up.”
“Well,” Anson said. “Now I have.”
“And you have come to me because?”
“Because you are the loremaster,” Anson said. “And should know things like this.”
“But you are with the greatest of loremasters,” Regni said, and he does not.”
Not knowing if he was being mocked or not, Anson said. “Please, lord, if you can… tell me anything. I hoped to surprise Ohean with some news.”
There was an unreadable look on the old creature’s face, and then he sighed and he said, “what do you know of when the Five first came into this world, from beyond the sea?”
“It is said they came during the Time of Trouble,” Anson said. “I don’t ask Ohean much about it because… that’s not who he is to me, you see. But that is the story.”
“And what was Ohean’s part? That you know?”
“He… he, well, he came and he met Iffan and Iffan was a Chyr prince, a son of Mahonryo and Famke. He helped Iffan become the first king.”
“What can you say about Iffan?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Anson waved that off. “I was raised away from all that. In Westrial.”
“Say what you can,” the Dwarf charged him.
“Oh,” Anson said, noting the change in the Dwarf’s voice. “Well… It is said that he loved Ohean, That was why he had no sons, but that his sister’s son, Itham, became the next king. Some say Iffan he died, but some say he went into the Cave of Crystals, that Ohean made it for him and he slept there and one day Ohean would wake him, and he would be King once again.”
“Do you believe that?”
Anson affected a bright laugh and said, “If it’s true, I’ve got some competition.”
“Do you believe it?” Regni said in a voice that allowed no humor.
And this time Anson found himself answering, seriously.
“When I look into myself I… no sir, I don’t believe I do. I believe that Iffan died. There used to be two rulers at a time in Chyr. Iffan’s sister was his queen because Ohean was his lover. And then Iffan died and Itham took the throne. But the stories said he would come again. The Book of Burning says he will come again and not die. I do believe that much. But I don’t understand it.”
“Then understand this,” Regni said. “In other lands another tale is told. Not that Ohean came into the world to help in The Time of Trouble and met Iffan, but that all of the Five came into this world for no other reason than to find their lost loves. For in the First World they had been with their beloveds, and in this life were determined to have them again. Ohean crossed the sea to find Iffan, and his whole life remained with him, and they pacted that as they would live in this world, they would always come back into together It is said in the land of Solea, and under the earth, there will come Iffan, even after Ohean himself has put away the memory of him, for grief is hard and hope is harder, and this time around Iffan will not die, they will never be separated. If you understand what I have told you,” the Dwarf said, “then you understand everything you need to know.”
“But I—” Anson began, but the Dwarf said, “and no also this. Chyr is the oldest of all the Royan nations. A thousand years ago the Ayl came to the New Kingdoms, and for six hundred years before that the Remulans spread their empire, but even then, Chyr was old. Even then, Chyr was three times as old as Westrial is now. And in those days Chyr was wider. It took up much of what is now Rheged, spreading to the north, and it spread to the east as well, and it was there that the King ruled, while the Queen ruled in the West. But in time that land in the east separated. It separated so long ago that those people forgot they were once Chyr, though their kings remained. And that land is long gone, though, again, the blood of those kings remains.”
“Locress,” Anson said. “Locress was the other Chyr.”
“Yes,” Regni said.
“And Iffan did not rule at Immrachyr at all, did he?”
Regni shook his head.
“He ruled at Ondres.”




SOLAHN




“Allman is leaving the morning,” Erek said.
“To find his wife?”
“Yes,” Erek said to Austin. “And his children. You know he was kin to some of the Rebels. That is where they are.”
“What about Mereesa?”
“I sent her there as well. I suppose Erek can look after her. Tell her of my safety.”
“Or you could bring her back here,” Austin said.
They were in a garden that reminded Erek of the one back in Nava, in the palace.
“Look,” Austin said, “I have lived in Westrial, but I know little of Chyr and wizards and gods. The truth is, I did not really believe in their gods or their legends. I thought they were made up, like ours.”
“Austin!”
“Oh, please,” Austin shook his head. “All of that nonsense which we now know to be nonsense. But I’ve been on the Rootless Isle, and with Ohean, and in that world and I don’t understand, but something is happening. There is magic. And there are sorcerers. And gods. And… other things. I do not know what is happening, but I do know this, Zahem will probably never be a country again. It’s going to be ruled from Solahn from now on. Dahlan would be a fool to go back there and try to be Prophet, and he doesn’t want to. No, Zahem is done. And there are plenty of followers of the Faith here in Solahn.”
“They are heretics.”
“You don’t really believe that,” Austin said, “And I don’t have the strength to humor you by pretending I believe you believe it. Our own are going to come here. Get Mereesa and get your kids. Bring them here.”
“Austin… what about your wife? Your home? You could easily go back to Westrial.”
“I fled with the Prince. There may be a price on my head. I may have endangered my wife and my father, and while you turned your back on what we had, I did not. I tried to, but in the end I had to be myself. And since being myself meant having sex with other men behind my wife’s back and breaking her heart, I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but I am saying I will stay here. In Solahn. The only reason I came was to be with you, Erek.”
Erek took a deep breath. He looked very glum and Austin repeated:
“I would have much rather been fighting alongside Anson and Ohean. But you could not take that world, so I came here with you. I did so much for you. So much.”
“I know,” Erek said, at last.
He stood up.
“I will do this for you, then. I will remain here with you. For the time being.”





Lead us from darkness to light
Lead us from falseness to truth
Lead us from death into life…

Lead us from sorrow to joy
From despair into bliss

How long had it been since she had said the morning prayer in the quiet privacy the upstairs room at Turnthistle Farm, since she’d lit a stick of incense and a candle and placed them before the old battered icon.

That where there is sorrow
I might bring joy
That where there’s despair
I may bring hope
That where there is pain
pardon

Here the thin line of sweet, white incense burned over the triptych. To the side, veiled in white Elladyl, across from her Addiwak, and in the center of the triptych, eyes sweeping the room, red hair aflame, Kavana. Beneath her the little brass tigers. Mehta rang the bell and spake again.

Be thou above and beneath
To my right and to my left
All around thee
And in me
Hear me when I call.

“Mehta!”
She jumped up and Rendan, looking apologetic, said, “My apologies. I didn’t know.”
Mehta shook her head. “It’s alright.”
“I was… I wanted to say I was leaving.’
“Leaving, for…” Metha remembered herself, turned around, struck the bell which meant the end of prayer and, after clasping her hands and bowing low before the icons, rose up again.
“There’s something going on in the city. They say pirates. I’m going to see about it.”
Mehta reached for her shawl, declaring, “Not without me, you won’t.”
“Mehta!”
“No,” she said , tying her orange hair in a bun. “Nor would you have ever come to me here if some secret part of you did not wish for my company. I’ll get a sword. I’m sure your mother will lend me one. Let us go.”
Rendan stood there looking at her.
“What?”
“What are you?” he said.
“Stop being stupid,” Mehta told him. “You know what I am. A kitchen girl.”

Ethan came into the waiting hall where Queen Iokaste stood in the center with Yarrow, one robed in white gold, the elder in deep blue.
“Your son has already gone,” he said.
“He was supposed to take his uncle.”
“Or at least me,” Ethan said.
“I think it’s pirates,” the Queen told him. “This last year the Hahloranes and the Spiralers have gotten steadily bolder. There are two enemies now, a pirate king from the Spiral Islands called Rizhihard and one simply called the Pirate Queen. No,” Iokaste added, “they are not with each other. Not as far as I know.”
“And you think these could be pirates?”
“I hope,” the Queen said, “they are not. Rendan is young and impetuous and he is full of fire, but not experience. My Lord Ethan, did anyone attend him?”
At this a strangely sheepish look came over the prince’s face.
“A few. I think. A knight or two and…”
Suddenly Yarrow said, “Ethan, where is Mehta?”
When Ethan said nothing, it was Hektar who said, “But that girl…. Just ran off with him?”
“She’s got a mind of her own,” Ethan shrugged, haplessly.
“That she does,” Yarrow remarked.
“She’s…” Hektar spluttered, “she’s just a kitchen wench.”
But the Queen gave a half smile and tilted her head. “Perhaps she is far more than a kitchen wench. Or perhaps kitchen wenches are far more than we what we give them credit for.”

MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND