CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow you were right a lot did happen. Many revelations and how the plot is progressing is very interesting! Great writing and I look forward to more after the weekend.
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The book of the burning
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Book Six
Take This
As my
Blessing
Thirty- Eight
“This is the Age of War, the Age of lying, the Age of deceit. This is the age when men are far from God and God herself divided.”
-Ifandell Modet The First Discourse
-
SOLAHN
Austin blinked in the middle of the night. Why was he up? What was it? Yes, he was in Solahn, further south or further east than he had ever been, in the Wheat Palace no less, and the balmy air of an early summer Solahn evening was blowing the curtains. But when he blinked he saw a shadow at the door and nearly started before he whispered: “Erek?”
Erek stepped across the room and came to him. He looked young, like when they were boys, and he was only in the white trunks all good Zahem men wore under their clothes. His chest was strong and broad and smooth and Erek was looking on him with desire.
“I’m here,” Erek said. “Tonight.”
“Austin did not know what to say. He had always imagined this, always pictured himself saying, “Yes,” saying, “come to me. Now.”
But instead he said, “No.”
Erek tilted his head in confusion.
“No,” Austin said. “Not like this. Not after all the years I waited for this. Not like this.”
Austin turned on his side and closed his eyes, feigning sleep to hope sleep would come. He could still hear Erek over him, breathing. He waited a moment, and then, at last, Erek turned and left, closing the door behind him.
“Could you… maybe not…. Trot so fast!” Mehta gasped out between breaths.
“I’m not trotting at all,” Rendan shouted back, and his hair was in her face. “The horse is.”
“You’re really awful,” Mehta mumrued as she clung tighter to his back, and the horse’s sharp hooves thundered over the ground descending toward the village.
“Besides,” Rendan said, “You’re the one who wanted to come.”
Mehta chose to say nothing. It was always best to think of the most withering retort rather than spitting out words. At last she settled on simply punching Rendan in the back of the head.
“Ouch!”
“You’re welcome,” she told the prince.
As they rode on, slowing down, Rendan reigned in the horse and looked over the village that was spread out undernearth them on the crescent of sand.
“I don’t understand,” Mehta said. “There’s nothing here.”
Rendan frowned, but Mehta could not see it. He shook his head and dismounted. “Should we go down?”
She nodded, fumbled from the horse and as she did she touched the copper bracelet. That had been the bracelet Orem had bought her, and simply because she wanted a new one she had gone with him into town. And how here she was, far from Turnthistle. She half frowned, half smiled to herself and took in the scent of the sea, heading down after Rendan.
The town had seemed abandoned, and Rendan called out for someone. Once, when he was a boy, he and his father had ridden past here. It had been a bustling village. Well, what was happening here? Had they already come? The pirates? But no. There was no wreckage, no pillaging.
And then, out of one of the houses, on that street came a man, and he called, “Prince! Lord Prince!”
Rendan nodded and he and Mehta came, trusting the horse on its own.
“I’m so glad you’re here. My wife. And her baby.”
“Wife and baby?” Mehta said.
Rendan shrugged and followed the man as a woman began to weep from inside the little house. Mehta followed him and they entered a house where there were five men and a woman in a chair crying over an infant.
“My lady—” Rendan began.
But just then the little man who had called him locked the door shut behind him, and Mehta cried as the woman stood up dropping the baby abruptly to the ground and a melon rolled out of a dirty blanket. Mehta felt the point of a dagger at her throat, and her eyes turned long enough to see one at Rendan’s.
“”Um,” the woman said looking, forlornly after the melon, and then raising her eyes to Mehta, “I dropped my baby. I was never a good mother.”
“Who are you?” Rendan hissed, or tried to hiss. It did not sound nearly as menacing as he meant it to.
“It doesn’t matter who we are,” the short man said, “It is who you are. Prince Bellamy—”
“He’s not Prince Bellamy—” Mehta began.
“And it is a matter of what you are,” the man continued. “Or what you will be doing.”
“Which is coming with us,” the woman said, picking up the melon.
“Yes,” another man, a very tall one, said.
“What are you talking about?” Mehta demanded when she had regained herself. “The only place we’re going is back to the palace so you can just unhand us now.”
The woman smacked her suddenly, and Mehta’s head snapped back.
“The only place you’re going,” she told Mehta, “is to meet the Sea Queen. Right now.” And then she added, smacking the kitchen girl again: “Wench.”
As Mehta’s cheeks burned, and her head rang, she cut her eyes toward the woman who had dropped the melon and thought, You’ll pay for that.
UNDER THE EARTH
Theone sat by the bed, looking over Dissenbark who lay still on the bed and Orem, who had come quietly into the room, gently put her hand in his.
“She was my first companion. She was with me from the beginning,” Theone said. “I was so frightened when she came along. After everything that had happened I didn’t trust anyone. She taught me to laugh again. To be a little bit happy. Orem, it is she who has brought me this far.”
Orem said nothing, but leaned into her and pressed his chin into her shoulder. She kissed him on the head.
“I never noticed your hair. Or I suppose I forgot it. It’s wavy.”
“Um,” Orem murmured, looking over Dissenbark, “when did you notice that?”
“I think our first time together. Years ago. But also last night.”
“Ah.”
“I was afraid that it wouldn’t be the same. That we couldn’t survive everything that happened.”
“Well,” Orem said straightening up and gripping her hand as he brushed back Dissenbark’s hair, “there’s nothing like being crushed to stop the fear of destruction.”
Theone nodded.
“It wasn’t like it was before,” Orem said. “Before I had less than one third of a heart and you were scarcely a girl. Now we’re both…”
“Old and broken,” Theone said.
Orem frowned and gave a tilt of his hand. “Maybe a little old and broken, not completely.”
When Regni entered the room he said, “You two! The blond soldier was just here.”
“Anson?”
“No the other blond soldier.”
Theone thought a little before she realized the Dwarf was being sarcastic.
“What’s wrong with her, Master?” Orem said.
The Dwarf frowned up at Orem, but it seemed that he probably frowned at anyone.
“I forgot,” Regni said, “you weren’t there. You were fighting. All of you were fighting. I appreciate that especially when up above you have your own things to do. But we are a gruff people. I am a gruff creature. No, you see, this girl here had a great rush of power. Even with the aid of two half beaten wizards, she had a great burst of power and, from the look of things she wasn’t used to it. But even a sorceress of many years might have been undone by last night. No worry, she’ll be good as new, probably by tonight if she just… help me lift this girl’s head. Here ya go, girlie, drink this.”
Theone had moved forward to lift Dissenbark’s head, and Regni was spooning a thin hot liquid into her mouth when Orem said, “Sir, did you say… a sorceress?”
“Of course I said a sorceress?” Regni scowled up at him. “You saw the power coming out of her,” he looked to Theone. “What the hell else would she be?”
“I knew she was a conjure woman,” theone said. “A hedgewitch of types, but… this was power such as Ohean as, such as the enchanters out of legend. I had never… I did not think….”
“Power,” Regni said, “is power.”
In the shadowed darkness they were curled up like commas, one flesj, barely could the light reflect on the darker skin against Kenneth’s white.
“This is just the place I always wanted to be,” he murmured.
“In the bottom of the earth, sleeping in a room like a cave after recovering from battle,” Arvad said.
“No,” Kenneth began and then winced.
“You need to be careful,” Arvad touched the bandage around Kenneth’s arm and then kissed it. “I need to wash it.”
“This is the least painful thing on me.”
“Your memories?”
“Yes,” Kenneth said.
Arvad separated from him and touched his head.
Kenneth grinned. “They’re not there. There all over me. There are so many things I did. So many things I saw.”
“You had no nightmares last night.”
“No,” and then Kenneth said. “It hardly matters. Now I’m simply used to it. I’m simply seeing it all the time.”
“I wish….” Arvad began. “I wish that I could understand it better. Like Orem. Then you wouldn’t feel so alone. Then…”
Kenneth was lying on his side and he caught Arvad’s wrist.
“No,” he kissed Arvad’s arm. “It’s better this way. You can’t even get a grasp of who I was. So you love me for who I am. You see me the way I want to be seen. I need that.”
Arvad’s head had been turned from Kenneth. Now he turned around and he ran his hand all over his shaven face, across his mouth.
There was a tap at the door and Arvad, clearing his throat before calling, “Hold on.”
He dressed quickly. Kenneth only pulled on his trousers and sat at the edge of the bed, and then he opened the door.
Orem and Theone entered the room and she said, “We’ll tale Anson and Ohean soon enough, though I suspect they must know. But we just learned the strangest thing about our Dissen.”
MORE A LITTLE LATER THIS WEEK. TOMORROW: IF I SHOULD FALL
Take This
As my
Blessing
Thirty- Eight
“This is the Age of War, the Age of lying, the Age of deceit. This is the age when men are far from God and God herself divided.”
-Ifandell Modet The First Discourse
-
SOLAHN
Austin blinked in the middle of the night. Why was he up? What was it? Yes, he was in Solahn, further south or further east than he had ever been, in the Wheat Palace no less, and the balmy air of an early summer Solahn evening was blowing the curtains. But when he blinked he saw a shadow at the door and nearly started before he whispered: “Erek?”
Erek stepped across the room and came to him. He looked young, like when they were boys, and he was only in the white trunks all good Zahem men wore under their clothes. His chest was strong and broad and smooth and Erek was looking on him with desire.
“I’m here,” Erek said. “Tonight.”
“Austin did not know what to say. He had always imagined this, always pictured himself saying, “Yes,” saying, “come to me. Now.”
But instead he said, “No.”
Erek tilted his head in confusion.
“No,” Austin said. “Not like this. Not after all the years I waited for this. Not like this.”
Austin turned on his side and closed his eyes, feigning sleep to hope sleep would come. He could still hear Erek over him, breathing. He waited a moment, and then, at last, Erek turned and left, closing the door behind him.
“Could you… maybe not…. Trot so fast!” Mehta gasped out between breaths.
“I’m not trotting at all,” Rendan shouted back, and his hair was in her face. “The horse is.”
“You’re really awful,” Mehta mumrued as she clung tighter to his back, and the horse’s sharp hooves thundered over the ground descending toward the village.
“Besides,” Rendan said, “You’re the one who wanted to come.”
Mehta chose to say nothing. It was always best to think of the most withering retort rather than spitting out words. At last she settled on simply punching Rendan in the back of the head.
“Ouch!”
“You’re welcome,” she told the prince.
As they rode on, slowing down, Rendan reigned in the horse and looked over the village that was spread out undernearth them on the crescent of sand.
“I don’t understand,” Mehta said. “There’s nothing here.”
Rendan frowned, but Mehta could not see it. He shook his head and dismounted. “Should we go down?”
She nodded, fumbled from the horse and as she did she touched the copper bracelet. That had been the bracelet Orem had bought her, and simply because she wanted a new one she had gone with him into town. And how here she was, far from Turnthistle. She half frowned, half smiled to herself and took in the scent of the sea, heading down after Rendan.
The town had seemed abandoned, and Rendan called out for someone. Once, when he was a boy, he and his father had ridden past here. It had been a bustling village. Well, what was happening here? Had they already come? The pirates? But no. There was no wreckage, no pillaging.
And then, out of one of the houses, on that street came a man, and he called, “Prince! Lord Prince!”
Rendan nodded and he and Mehta came, trusting the horse on its own.
“I’m so glad you’re here. My wife. And her baby.”
“Wife and baby?” Mehta said.
Rendan shrugged and followed the man as a woman began to weep from inside the little house. Mehta followed him and they entered a house where there were five men and a woman in a chair crying over an infant.
“My lady—” Rendan began.
But just then the little man who had called him locked the door shut behind him, and Mehta cried as the woman stood up dropping the baby abruptly to the ground and a melon rolled out of a dirty blanket. Mehta felt the point of a dagger at her throat, and her eyes turned long enough to see one at Rendan’s.
“”Um,” the woman said looking, forlornly after the melon, and then raising her eyes to Mehta, “I dropped my baby. I was never a good mother.”
“Who are you?” Rendan hissed, or tried to hiss. It did not sound nearly as menacing as he meant it to.
“It doesn’t matter who we are,” the short man said, “It is who you are. Prince Bellamy—”
“He’s not Prince Bellamy—” Mehta began.
“And it is a matter of what you are,” the man continued. “Or what you will be doing.”
“Which is coming with us,” the woman said, picking up the melon.
“Yes,” another man, a very tall one, said.
“What are you talking about?” Mehta demanded when she had regained herself. “The only place we’re going is back to the palace so you can just unhand us now.”
The woman smacked her suddenly, and Mehta’s head snapped back.
“The only place you’re going,” she told Mehta, “is to meet the Sea Queen. Right now.” And then she added, smacking the kitchen girl again: “Wench.”
As Mehta’s cheeks burned, and her head rang, she cut her eyes toward the woman who had dropped the melon and thought, You’ll pay for that.
UNDER THE EARTH
Theone sat by the bed, looking over Dissenbark who lay still on the bed and Orem, who had come quietly into the room, gently put her hand in his.
“She was my first companion. She was with me from the beginning,” Theone said. “I was so frightened when she came along. After everything that had happened I didn’t trust anyone. She taught me to laugh again. To be a little bit happy. Orem, it is she who has brought me this far.”
Orem said nothing, but leaned into her and pressed his chin into her shoulder. She kissed him on the head.
“I never noticed your hair. Or I suppose I forgot it. It’s wavy.”
“Um,” Orem murmured, looking over Dissenbark, “when did you notice that?”
“I think our first time together. Years ago. But also last night.”
“Ah.”
“I was afraid that it wouldn’t be the same. That we couldn’t survive everything that happened.”
“Well,” Orem said straightening up and gripping her hand as he brushed back Dissenbark’s hair, “there’s nothing like being crushed to stop the fear of destruction.”
Theone nodded.
“It wasn’t like it was before,” Orem said. “Before I had less than one third of a heart and you were scarcely a girl. Now we’re both…”
“Old and broken,” Theone said.
Orem frowned and gave a tilt of his hand. “Maybe a little old and broken, not completely.”
When Regni entered the room he said, “You two! The blond soldier was just here.”
“Anson?”
“No the other blond soldier.”
Theone thought a little before she realized the Dwarf was being sarcastic.
“What’s wrong with her, Master?” Orem said.
The Dwarf frowned up at Orem, but it seemed that he probably frowned at anyone.
“I forgot,” Regni said, “you weren’t there. You were fighting. All of you were fighting. I appreciate that especially when up above you have your own things to do. But we are a gruff people. I am a gruff creature. No, you see, this girl here had a great rush of power. Even with the aid of two half beaten wizards, she had a great burst of power and, from the look of things she wasn’t used to it. But even a sorceress of many years might have been undone by last night. No worry, she’ll be good as new, probably by tonight if she just… help me lift this girl’s head. Here ya go, girlie, drink this.”
Theone had moved forward to lift Dissenbark’s head, and Regni was spooning a thin hot liquid into her mouth when Orem said, “Sir, did you say… a sorceress?”
“Of course I said a sorceress?” Regni scowled up at him. “You saw the power coming out of her,” he looked to Theone. “What the hell else would she be?”
“I knew she was a conjure woman,” theone said. “A hedgewitch of types, but… this was power such as Ohean as, such as the enchanters out of legend. I had never… I did not think….”
“Power,” Regni said, “is power.”
In the shadowed darkness they were curled up like commas, one flesj, barely could the light reflect on the darker skin against Kenneth’s white.
“This is just the place I always wanted to be,” he murmured.
“In the bottom of the earth, sleeping in a room like a cave after recovering from battle,” Arvad said.
“No,” Kenneth began and then winced.
“You need to be careful,” Arvad touched the bandage around Kenneth’s arm and then kissed it. “I need to wash it.”
“This is the least painful thing on me.”
“Your memories?”
“Yes,” Kenneth said.
Arvad separated from him and touched his head.
Kenneth grinned. “They’re not there. There all over me. There are so many things I did. So many things I saw.”
“You had no nightmares last night.”
“No,” and then Kenneth said. “It hardly matters. Now I’m simply used to it. I’m simply seeing it all the time.”
“I wish….” Arvad began. “I wish that I could understand it better. Like Orem. Then you wouldn’t feel so alone. Then…”
Kenneth was lying on his side and he caught Arvad’s wrist.
“No,” he kissed Arvad’s arm. “It’s better this way. You can’t even get a grasp of who I was. So you love me for who I am. You see me the way I want to be seen. I need that.”
Arvad’s head had been turned from Kenneth. Now he turned around and he ran his hand all over his shaven face, across his mouth.
There was a tap at the door and Arvad, clearing his throat before calling, “Hold on.”
He dressed quickly. Kenneth only pulled on his trousers and sat at the edge of the bed, and then he opened the door.
Orem and Theone entered the room and she said, “We’ll tale Anson and Ohean soon enough, though I suspect they must know. But we just learned the strangest thing about our Dissen.”
MORE A LITTLE LATER THIS WEEK. TOMORROW: IF I SHOULD FALL
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion and an excellent start to the chapter! Poor Mehta, she definitely was mistreated and I am interested to see what happens next with her. I am glad Theone is ok and she has Orem with her at this time. Hopefully everyone of them will be ok after the battle. Great writing and I look forward to If I Should Fall tomorrow! I hope you have a nice Sunday!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Maybe we can talk about this later. I was well asleep by the time you posted, and it seems like sleep was what I needed. Mehta, we will see, is a resourceful gal, but first we will see what happens in Geshichte Falls.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
SOLAHN
“I hate being here,” the Queen said from the rooftop of the Wheat Palace. “We’re not near the city. I feel far from everything, and there is no word from the son the Gods so recently returned to me.”
And then Yarrow touched the Queen’s hand, which Iokaste had not expected, and she squeezed it.
“No worries,” Yarrow said. “See, the armies are coming just as you desired.”
Beyond the palace were many tents, the blue of Macaena, the red of Ithank, the yellow banners of Tynarreos. There were the tents of the dukes of Baumand and Riverwide and always more riders were coming from the east.
“Any day now the allies from Armor will arrive.”
“Perhaps,” Iokaste said.
“No perhaps,” Yarrow shook her head. “It is your own land.”
“It is a fickle one. Solahn stays powerful by not being rash. The king is a cousin and not a close one. Ilthanwy of Armor will always wait to see which way the wind blows.”
Yarrow said nothing about King Arlaye, and just now she saw a rider coming toward the palace, across the fields, not over the road, and he was waving the red banner of a herald. Screaming, though he could not have seen her from this height: “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
“Yarrow?” Iokaste put a hand out to the enchantress.
Linking hands and lifting their skirts they turned, went across the roof and headed for the stairwell back to the receiving hall of the palace.
This was a four story descent, and arriving in the hall of checked black and white stones, her brother came running up the steps.
“I know, Hektar,” she said. “We saw him riding from the palisade.”
The stairwell lead to a screen behind the dais and there a servant placed the circlet on Iokaste’s head and then she went around to sit on the throne and all rose as the herald entered, with the herald’s privileges, running and screaming, “The word of the Queen.”
She nodded. He approached.
He was brown with traveling, and his stringy hair was chocolate colored. Colon of Hatzumemas. He murmured, “You Majesty, in riding from Penlacar I received one message, but met a dying man with an arrow in his back who gave me a second. The second first.”
The Queen nodded, trusting the herald’s judgment.
He passed her the letter and she read over it, her face and her eyes tightening. Her lips growing firmer. She did not weep. Instead she passed the letter to Yarrow.
Yarrow, passing it to Hektar, told him, “Rendan and Mehta have been abducted. Whoever has done it is asking for no ransom, but apparently has a vengeance on Bellamy.”
“What does Rendan have to do with Bellamy?”
“Somehow they have mistaken him for his uncle,” Yarrow said. “The fools.” She touched the Queen’s hand and said, “By my art I will discover them. I go now,” she said, and the sorceress departed from the throne room.
As she was leaving, the herald said, “The other matter has to do with Bellamy.”
The Queen raised an eyebrow and the herald said, “He has done what we thought he would not attempt. He has united with William of Daumany and they have put their men combined with Phineas’s on three fronts.
“Even I know that is a risk,” the Queen said.
“Chyr, he knows, does not have time to refuse him or Tealora, and as for us, he does not expect much fight out of you, I am afraid,” Colon replied, “He has given the conquest of Chyr to Phineas, who desires it, and he is even now, riding in this direction to engage us. William of Daumany has other concerns entirely.”
Seven ships made their swift way across the water, and all were painted black, the many oars of each dipped in, came out of the water and the ships raced on. At their head was one with a white mast and on that mast was a black hand.
Under the mast, all wrapped in black, hands behind his back was the High Priest of Mozhudak, Phineas. For days a great look of triumph had been on his face, and then, yesterday it had turned still as stone and his eyes had narrowed. Beside him, his green eyes reflecting back the sea, was his Wand, Urzad.
One of the sailors, all in black, came up the deck and positioned himself to face Phineas.
“My Lord?”
Phineas looked down at him with raised eyebrow.
“My Lord, we will reach the coast of Chyr by the morning.”
“Good.”
“And if all is going right, then Bellamy should already be nearing the stronghold of Queen Iokaste. There were rumors that the prince lived, but none have seen him. Iokaste is only the wife of a dead king and, soon Bellamy will have victory over her.”
“Bellamy can hang himself,” Phineas declared stepping down. “The only capacity in which he is at all useful to me is as the husband of Tealora. He should have come immediately with her and received the crown. Where is she?”
“She is still in Penlacar.”
“Then she is not yet Queen,” Phineas said. “He thought he would just leave Chyr like a leftover, to claim when he wished? He doesn’t understand.”
“He understands that my lord wants it.”
Phineas frowned. “But he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand what Chyr is. He is a fool.”
“Let it not trouble my lord,” Urzad spoke up. “Whether he comes with Tealora tomorrow or the day after or in a year this still means there is no Queen and that Chyr is ripe to be taken. For you. Which is what you desired.”
“You are right,” Phineas looked to his Wand. “You are always right, my Urzad.”
The ship’s captain said, “When we arrive, will we march across and enter Chyr by force?”
“Chyr?” Phineas snapped. “Chyr?”
General Fan blenched.
“Ohean himself, with Yarrow, entered Enrick Elkanahir with the express desire to take the Beryl from the hands of the Dark One. They destroyed the Temple in the hopes of taking that Beryl and putting it in the Crown of their Queen and that Queen was to sit on a throne in the Crystal City of Yrrmarayn which has awaited her all these years.
“No, we are not going to Chyr. We are marching into Yrrmarayn and when we arrive, we will raise it to the ground.”
“The Crystal City,” said Urzad, “will be the City the of Ashes.”
.
YRRMARAYN
That night, as they stood on the parapet overlooking the sea, Princess Maud of Thaary turned to General Aylahn and confessed to the other woman, “I wish I’d had the proper coronation like I said.”
“There was no time.”
“And from the look of things even less than we thought. Well,” Maud put down her binoculars, “I imagine they think the city’s filled with nothing but sad innocent people. Whatever the powers of Solahni spies and Phineas’s magic, not much of either can come into this land.”
“He has no idea we’re fortified.”
Maud smiled and said, “As much as I would love to lean down from the walls of the Crystal City itself and wave at our friend Phineas, I think it’s better that we send Admiral Basil out with a fleet to engage them.
“Um,” a smile spread across General Aylahn’s broad, dark face, and she fingered one of her thin braids. “They’re hoping to surprise us and—”
“And don’t even suspect we’re coming for them,” Maud concluded.
“Gives you a warm feeling inside.”
“Doesn’t it?” the Princess agreed.
UNDER THE EARTH
Are you going to read to me out of that book of yours?” Ohean asked.
“Well, you’ve just woken up,” Anson said. “And you haven’t been well.”
“I fail to see what my waking up or my health for that matter, have to do with my ability to hear one of your poems.”
Anson smiled at him.
“Read me something, or at least remember something.”
“I can do that,” said Anson, lifting a finger. He crossed the room and went to his satchel. A moment later he pulled out the red and gold book which was a little battered now and half filled.
“What shall I sing? What is the type of song my Ohean needs?”
“Something that reminds me,” Ohean sighed and sat down, “of last night.” Then he said, “Not the whole demon smiting businnes, but afterward. In here. When you were the way you were.”
Anson colored and he said, “I had been so tense. I was afraid I’d lost you and I can’t lose you again.”
“Again?” Ohean said.
Anson pressed on, “I was wild with grief, I couldn’t get enough of you. And I don’t think you could get enough of me.”
Ohean shrugged and smiled. “I wasn’t complaining.”
Anson grinned and opened the book, beginning to read:
nude as birth
blowing out smoke
they had the same body
the same hands
he crushed out his cigarette, and kissed his other self
who could taste the remnants
for a moment, he breathed out smoke too
they were kissing and then very quickly
making love,
trying to keep quiet
body and brain
heart the same
same shit rushing through them…
that they were safe and protected,
innocent still
this just felt too good for words
utterly, totally, rough,
there was nothing but love and the taste of his body
There should be more than that,” Anson commented.
“I think that’s plenty,” Ohean said, pulling on his tunic and scooping Anson into the crook of his arm.
“I thought you were ill.”
“I told you I wasn’t too ill to listen.”
“Or apparently for other things.”
Ohean shrugged. Anson read:
fire
quaking
shaking
trembling
waking
the second coming and coming
and the erupting
hard, now opening.
he came
over me my lover moves quickly
breathes quickly
makes a strangled scream
his ass is soft as velvet,
solid as metal
“He is rigid in my arms.”
they hold each other
hot in the silence
“That,” Ohean said, easing his face down, to kiss his chin, “is just about right.
“How dead I was,” he commented, “before you. Even when you came I did not recognize you.”
“Recognize me?” Anson said.
Ohean clarified. “I didn’t see that I had been sent to love you.”
There was a perfunctory rap on the door, and then Theone simply walked in.
“The two of you,” she said. “It’s great. It’s wonderful. I mean it’s glorious!”
They both looked at her.
“Dissenbark is awake.”
The first thing she demanded was to sit up and have something hot to drink. The second thing, upon discovering her discomfort, was to be led to a toilet. When she had returned, cussing and swatting off her would be helpers, she sat down in the chair and sipped the boillion Regni had poured her.
“So,” she said, “after it had been explained to her. “A witch? Now how do you like that?”
“So she is like you?” Arvad said to Ohean.
“Like me, yes,” Ohean said. “But more like herself. A wizard is a wizard, a witch is a witch, though there are witchy enchanters and wizardly witches. The two do cross, and magic is magic. But witches are of the earth. Wizardry is from beyond the earth. We came, and our magic came, from across the Sea in the land of the infinite East.”
“That is what I thought,” Dissenbark said, sitting up straighter. “But it does not explain what I am. I have known conjure women, some. And they possessed some wizard lore. But they were not of great power ,and they were not wizards. And I am no wizard. So, Ohean, if you can, tell what I am.”
“You are of the earth,” it was Essily who spoke. “This is why we knew you as a sister when you came.”
“And it is why being under the earth awakened you. Why you became so powerful here,” Ohean said.
Andvari and Regni nodded.
“You will have heard of Mahonry,” Essily said, “and of how the Gods sent him and the children of men from the Infinite East into this world. Some said it was a punishment but, of course, wiser ones knew they were sent here because this was the original place of Men. Men were made of the Earth as were the Muspel of fire. Men were made of earth as we were made of Earth, the Dwarves, as were some of the Wood Folk. Their mother was Selu, and so they had to return here.”
“But some,” Regni said, “never left. Most of them died out or they married with the men who returned with Mahonry. But those who had never left had the power of the earth as many of those who had crossed the sea had enchantment and the power of the sea and beyond. Those who had the earthly power were the witches. In time that original enchanment died out for the most part..”
“Over time the powers of most witches became smaller and smaller. Fewer and fewer were trained. It became weaker and weaker. It came up scarcely. Those who possessed the gift had nothing or no one to awaken it,” said Essily.
“But you,” Regni told her. “Have had much to awaken it. The Demon was the last impulse that called up the power in you. Now it will never go away.”
“I imagine,” she said, smiling at Ohean, “you’re enough to awaken something in me. Not to mention Essily and Yarrow and all that has happened.”
“Or Anson,” Essily reminded her.
“And,” Ohean added, “not to mention Theone, or Orem, or Kenneth.”
They, all three, looked at him, and Theone said, “I have the ability to scry. Some little things like that.”
“And we could both,” Kenneth looked at Orem, “cast little confusions or confoundments. But…”
“We’re not witches or anything,” Orem completed the thought. “Now that we’re not Hands, we’re not much of anything.”
“Where did you think the power of the Hand came from?” Andvari said in a chiding voice.
“From… Mozhudak. Or… Something.”
“You’ve paid no attention,” Regni shook his head. “The song. Remember the song.”
He recited:
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, Ennalisa.
“You thought you were Solahni, and doubtless by now you must have some Solahni blood. But the Hands are the children of Gozen, enslaved by their own choice, the last of the children of Gozen. Those people did not come from the Utter East with Mahonry. They were the ones who stayed and—”
“A race of witches,” Theone said.
“Yes,” Andvari said with a pleased smile. “That was the original reason we sided with you in the Time of Trouble and helped to build the Temple. Once your people were Earthborn. You all were witches.”
“I hate being here,” the Queen said from the rooftop of the Wheat Palace. “We’re not near the city. I feel far from everything, and there is no word from the son the Gods so recently returned to me.”
And then Yarrow touched the Queen’s hand, which Iokaste had not expected, and she squeezed it.
“No worries,” Yarrow said. “See, the armies are coming just as you desired.”
Beyond the palace were many tents, the blue of Macaena, the red of Ithank, the yellow banners of Tynarreos. There were the tents of the dukes of Baumand and Riverwide and always more riders were coming from the east.
“Any day now the allies from Armor will arrive.”
“Perhaps,” Iokaste said.
“No perhaps,” Yarrow shook her head. “It is your own land.”
“It is a fickle one. Solahn stays powerful by not being rash. The king is a cousin and not a close one. Ilthanwy of Armor will always wait to see which way the wind blows.”
Yarrow said nothing about King Arlaye, and just now she saw a rider coming toward the palace, across the fields, not over the road, and he was waving the red banner of a herald. Screaming, though he could not have seen her from this height: “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
“Yarrow?” Iokaste put a hand out to the enchantress.
Linking hands and lifting their skirts they turned, went across the roof and headed for the stairwell back to the receiving hall of the palace.
This was a four story descent, and arriving in the hall of checked black and white stones, her brother came running up the steps.
“I know, Hektar,” she said. “We saw him riding from the palisade.”
The stairwell lead to a screen behind the dais and there a servant placed the circlet on Iokaste’s head and then she went around to sit on the throne and all rose as the herald entered, with the herald’s privileges, running and screaming, “The word of the Queen.”
She nodded. He approached.
He was brown with traveling, and his stringy hair was chocolate colored. Colon of Hatzumemas. He murmured, “You Majesty, in riding from Penlacar I received one message, but met a dying man with an arrow in his back who gave me a second. The second first.”
The Queen nodded, trusting the herald’s judgment.
He passed her the letter and she read over it, her face and her eyes tightening. Her lips growing firmer. She did not weep. Instead she passed the letter to Yarrow.
Yarrow, passing it to Hektar, told him, “Rendan and Mehta have been abducted. Whoever has done it is asking for no ransom, but apparently has a vengeance on Bellamy.”
“What does Rendan have to do with Bellamy?”
“Somehow they have mistaken him for his uncle,” Yarrow said. “The fools.” She touched the Queen’s hand and said, “By my art I will discover them. I go now,” she said, and the sorceress departed from the throne room.
As she was leaving, the herald said, “The other matter has to do with Bellamy.”
The Queen raised an eyebrow and the herald said, “He has done what we thought he would not attempt. He has united with William of Daumany and they have put their men combined with Phineas’s on three fronts.
“Even I know that is a risk,” the Queen said.
“Chyr, he knows, does not have time to refuse him or Tealora, and as for us, he does not expect much fight out of you, I am afraid,” Colon replied, “He has given the conquest of Chyr to Phineas, who desires it, and he is even now, riding in this direction to engage us. William of Daumany has other concerns entirely.”
Seven ships made their swift way across the water, and all were painted black, the many oars of each dipped in, came out of the water and the ships raced on. At their head was one with a white mast and on that mast was a black hand.
Under the mast, all wrapped in black, hands behind his back was the High Priest of Mozhudak, Phineas. For days a great look of triumph had been on his face, and then, yesterday it had turned still as stone and his eyes had narrowed. Beside him, his green eyes reflecting back the sea, was his Wand, Urzad.
One of the sailors, all in black, came up the deck and positioned himself to face Phineas.
“My Lord?”
Phineas looked down at him with raised eyebrow.
“My Lord, we will reach the coast of Chyr by the morning.”
“Good.”
“And if all is going right, then Bellamy should already be nearing the stronghold of Queen Iokaste. There were rumors that the prince lived, but none have seen him. Iokaste is only the wife of a dead king and, soon Bellamy will have victory over her.”
“Bellamy can hang himself,” Phineas declared stepping down. “The only capacity in which he is at all useful to me is as the husband of Tealora. He should have come immediately with her and received the crown. Where is she?”
“She is still in Penlacar.”
“Then she is not yet Queen,” Phineas said. “He thought he would just leave Chyr like a leftover, to claim when he wished? He doesn’t understand.”
“He understands that my lord wants it.”
Phineas frowned. “But he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand what Chyr is. He is a fool.”
“Let it not trouble my lord,” Urzad spoke up. “Whether he comes with Tealora tomorrow or the day after or in a year this still means there is no Queen and that Chyr is ripe to be taken. For you. Which is what you desired.”
“You are right,” Phineas looked to his Wand. “You are always right, my Urzad.”
The ship’s captain said, “When we arrive, will we march across and enter Chyr by force?”
“Chyr?” Phineas snapped. “Chyr?”
General Fan blenched.
“Ohean himself, with Yarrow, entered Enrick Elkanahir with the express desire to take the Beryl from the hands of the Dark One. They destroyed the Temple in the hopes of taking that Beryl and putting it in the Crown of their Queen and that Queen was to sit on a throne in the Crystal City of Yrrmarayn which has awaited her all these years.
“No, we are not going to Chyr. We are marching into Yrrmarayn and when we arrive, we will raise it to the ground.”
“The Crystal City,” said Urzad, “will be the City the of Ashes.”
.
YRRMARAYN
That night, as they stood on the parapet overlooking the sea, Princess Maud of Thaary turned to General Aylahn and confessed to the other woman, “I wish I’d had the proper coronation like I said.”
“There was no time.”
“And from the look of things even less than we thought. Well,” Maud put down her binoculars, “I imagine they think the city’s filled with nothing but sad innocent people. Whatever the powers of Solahni spies and Phineas’s magic, not much of either can come into this land.”
“He has no idea we’re fortified.”
Maud smiled and said, “As much as I would love to lean down from the walls of the Crystal City itself and wave at our friend Phineas, I think it’s better that we send Admiral Basil out with a fleet to engage them.
“Um,” a smile spread across General Aylahn’s broad, dark face, and she fingered one of her thin braids. “They’re hoping to surprise us and—”
“And don’t even suspect we’re coming for them,” Maud concluded.
“Gives you a warm feeling inside.”
“Doesn’t it?” the Princess agreed.
UNDER THE EARTH
Are you going to read to me out of that book of yours?” Ohean asked.
“Well, you’ve just woken up,” Anson said. “And you haven’t been well.”
“I fail to see what my waking up or my health for that matter, have to do with my ability to hear one of your poems.”
Anson smiled at him.
“Read me something, or at least remember something.”
“I can do that,” said Anson, lifting a finger. He crossed the room and went to his satchel. A moment later he pulled out the red and gold book which was a little battered now and half filled.
“What shall I sing? What is the type of song my Ohean needs?”
“Something that reminds me,” Ohean sighed and sat down, “of last night.” Then he said, “Not the whole demon smiting businnes, but afterward. In here. When you were the way you were.”
Anson colored and he said, “I had been so tense. I was afraid I’d lost you and I can’t lose you again.”
“Again?” Ohean said.
Anson pressed on, “I was wild with grief, I couldn’t get enough of you. And I don’t think you could get enough of me.”
Ohean shrugged and smiled. “I wasn’t complaining.”
Anson grinned and opened the book, beginning to read:
nude as birth
blowing out smoke
they had the same body
the same hands
he crushed out his cigarette, and kissed his other self
who could taste the remnants
for a moment, he breathed out smoke too
they were kissing and then very quickly
making love,
trying to keep quiet
body and brain
heart the same
same shit rushing through them…
that they were safe and protected,
innocent still
this just felt too good for words
utterly, totally, rough,
there was nothing but love and the taste of his body
There should be more than that,” Anson commented.
“I think that’s plenty,” Ohean said, pulling on his tunic and scooping Anson into the crook of his arm.
“I thought you were ill.”
“I told you I wasn’t too ill to listen.”
“Or apparently for other things.”
Ohean shrugged. Anson read:
fire
quaking
shaking
trembling
waking
the second coming and coming
and the erupting
hard, now opening.
he came
over me my lover moves quickly
breathes quickly
makes a strangled scream
his ass is soft as velvet,
solid as metal
“He is rigid in my arms.”
they hold each other
hot in the silence
“That,” Ohean said, easing his face down, to kiss his chin, “is just about right.
“How dead I was,” he commented, “before you. Even when you came I did not recognize you.”
“Recognize me?” Anson said.
Ohean clarified. “I didn’t see that I had been sent to love you.”
There was a perfunctory rap on the door, and then Theone simply walked in.
“The two of you,” she said. “It’s great. It’s wonderful. I mean it’s glorious!”
They both looked at her.
“Dissenbark is awake.”
The first thing she demanded was to sit up and have something hot to drink. The second thing, upon discovering her discomfort, was to be led to a toilet. When she had returned, cussing and swatting off her would be helpers, she sat down in the chair and sipped the boillion Regni had poured her.
“So,” she said, “after it had been explained to her. “A witch? Now how do you like that?”
“So she is like you?” Arvad said to Ohean.
“Like me, yes,” Ohean said. “But more like herself. A wizard is a wizard, a witch is a witch, though there are witchy enchanters and wizardly witches. The two do cross, and magic is magic. But witches are of the earth. Wizardry is from beyond the earth. We came, and our magic came, from across the Sea in the land of the infinite East.”
“That is what I thought,” Dissenbark said, sitting up straighter. “But it does not explain what I am. I have known conjure women, some. And they possessed some wizard lore. But they were not of great power ,and they were not wizards. And I am no wizard. So, Ohean, if you can, tell what I am.”
“You are of the earth,” it was Essily who spoke. “This is why we knew you as a sister when you came.”
“And it is why being under the earth awakened you. Why you became so powerful here,” Ohean said.
Andvari and Regni nodded.
“You will have heard of Mahonry,” Essily said, “and of how the Gods sent him and the children of men from the Infinite East into this world. Some said it was a punishment but, of course, wiser ones knew they were sent here because this was the original place of Men. Men were made of the Earth as were the Muspel of fire. Men were made of earth as we were made of Earth, the Dwarves, as were some of the Wood Folk. Their mother was Selu, and so they had to return here.”
“But some,” Regni said, “never left. Most of them died out or they married with the men who returned with Mahonry. But those who had never left had the power of the earth as many of those who had crossed the sea had enchantment and the power of the sea and beyond. Those who had the earthly power were the witches. In time that original enchanment died out for the most part..”
“Over time the powers of most witches became smaller and smaller. Fewer and fewer were trained. It became weaker and weaker. It came up scarcely. Those who possessed the gift had nothing or no one to awaken it,” said Essily.
“But you,” Regni told her. “Have had much to awaken it. The Demon was the last impulse that called up the power in you. Now it will never go away.”
“I imagine,” she said, smiling at Ohean, “you’re enough to awaken something in me. Not to mention Essily and Yarrow and all that has happened.”
“Or Anson,” Essily reminded her.
“And,” Ohean added, “not to mention Theone, or Orem, or Kenneth.”
They, all three, looked at him, and Theone said, “I have the ability to scry. Some little things like that.”
“And we could both,” Kenneth looked at Orem, “cast little confusions or confoundments. But…”
“We’re not witches or anything,” Orem completed the thought. “Now that we’re not Hands, we’re not much of anything.”
“Where did you think the power of the Hand came from?” Andvari said in a chiding voice.
“From… Mozhudak. Or… Something.”
“You’ve paid no attention,” Regni shook his head. “The song. Remember the song.”
He recited:
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, Ennalisa.
“You thought you were Solahni, and doubtless by now you must have some Solahni blood. But the Hands are the children of Gozen, enslaved by their own choice, the last of the children of Gozen. Those people did not come from the Utter East with Mahonry. They were the ones who stayed and—”
“A race of witches,” Theone said.
“Yes,” Andvari said with a pleased smile. “That was the original reason we sided with you in the Time of Trouble and helped to build the Temple. Once your people were Earthborn. You all were witches.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow lots more witches then we knew about before! I hope Rendan and Mehta are ok. This story is still exciting to read and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT WE JOURNEY TO SOLAHN AND THEN RETURN TO KINGSBORO WHERE CEDD AND HIS COURT ARE SOON TO BE DRAGGED INTO A CONTINENTAL CONFLICT...
SOLAHN
That night Austin wound his way through the quiet, darkened halls of the sleeping quarters. Allman was gone. Rendan was gone. Mehta was gone and no one knew where. There was, as far as he could see, no reason for them to be here. Erek was simply left estranged. Unless he fought, and Austin did not want him to fight. He had thought of Erek for over ten years and he pressed open his door and then came into his room. He hoped he wasn’t rejected. He had rejected Erek. He could look for the justice in this, but, after all, he had rejected Erek.
He undressed quickly and called, “Erek.”
Erek sat up to look at him, standing before him.
“Erek—” Austin began, but Erek only made space for him in the bed, lifting the sheet, in one smooth movement, removing his trunks so they were naked together.
Erek pulled Austin to him, held Erek’s head to his. He could feel Erek, taller, broader than him, longer, crying in his arms. Suddenly Erek looked up at him and kissed him on the mouth. He did it again, and it felt right to have Erek’s mouth on his, to press himself into Erek and Erek to press into him. They held on greedily to each other’s faces, and Austin ran his hands over the softness of Erek’s buzzed hair while Erek buried his face in the thickness of Austin’s They looked at each other, blinking, and Erek bit his lips, looking grim, and then he pushed Austin gently down and lay on top of him kissing him. The two of them clung together.
He caught Erek’s hair in his hands and pulled his face into his chest, wrapping his thighs around him while, on the side of the bed. With no preamble, Erek fucked Austin harder and harder.
“Almost,” Erek panted, thrusting again, “there.”
Austin ran his hands down the Erek’s back and pulled him in. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth feeling Erek hard inside of him.
“I’m gonna come…” Erek warned him.
Erek moaned, “Oh—ahhh—” as he came, a hot slick shower all over his stomach, dripping from the tip of his cock before her pressed his damp head in Austin’s arms.
The two of them lay side by side on the bed, exhausted.
They fell asleep like that with the lights still on, pressed to each other.
A little later, when they woke up, Erek moved off the bed and walked about the apartment, shutting off the lights. For a moment, Austin saw the length of his lovely body, his long torso, his almost flat stomach, his buzzed head.
Kissing, linking limbs, sighing as, at last, they ran their hands over each other’s bodies.
Erek turned over on his stomach turned around to open his legs, running his hands up and down Austin’s thighs, looking up at his brown chest, shiny with sweat while he felt Austin fucking him, touching his face while Austin looked down on him in love and, at last, looked up, and making a staggering noise while Erek tightened his grip around his thighs, Austin came, his semen shooting deep, and then trickling out of Erek the same time Erek felt his own orgasm, and pointed his cock to Austin, showering his chest and stomach.
At least a minute later, Austin was still kneeling between Erek’s legs, still hard inside of him.
They lay side by side, panting, not speaking, eyes wide open, shining with the joy of what had just happened.
“We cannot stay here,” Erek said. “Eventually we, or at least I, would have to fight in a Solahnese war. There is no future in going to Zahem. Mereesa is young. We have no children. She is young and we have no children. It will be a whole new world. For both of us.”
“What are you saying?” Austin began.
“That I’ve tasted happiness for the first time in years and when the world that made me unhappy, that I believed in, is coming to an end, I cannot go back to it. I have to discover what this is. What we are.
“We cannot go back to Westrial. You would only made Ashley’s life a misery and your father a disgrace.”
“We will go to Chyr,” Austin said, turning on his side and looking over the Erek’s, running the back of his hand over the smooth rises of muscle on his chest and arms. “And join my friends in their battle. We should have gone all along.”
“Yes,” Erek said. “We will go to Chyr.”
KINGSBORO
Francis Pembroke nearly ran into the great hall.
“Your Grace!” he cried. “Your Graee.”
Smiling gently on Isobel who sat beside him, Cedd said, “He means you.”
He turned back to Francis and said, “Who cannot be smitted by the Queen?”
“Your Grace you are right,” Francis said in the tone of one who was humoring more than wishing to make conversation, “but even now, there is a delegation with the black banner and orange of sun of Sussail.”
But when Isobel had heard this, the Queen of Westrial had already risen and waddled, with as much dignity as a woman, increasingly pregnant could, down the steps of the throne, Cedd coming behind her as she caught his hand.
“You are worried, Iso?”
Isobel looked at Cedd and she said, “This is a time when I do not believe that any news is good news.”
They came down the the great hall, and there were so many lifts and walks and passages that the riders from Sussail had enough time to refresh their horses and themselves before coming into the first hall. The herald was Beregond of Gladden, and he bowed low to King Cedd, but kneeling, kissed Queen Isobel’s hand.
“Beregond, rise,” Isobel commanded.
“I come with word from your lady mother.” Beregon said, and Isobel nodded.
“King William of Daumany is marching through the Short Country. Your father and the King and the King of Armor are already gathering their forces, and though William has said he is not aggressing, but merely traveling, he has taken Narbonne and marches for Toledo.”
“How would he dare?” Isobel demanded. A sensation of rage, which she realized was touched with fear, was rising up her body.
“He had made some type of allegiance,” King Cedd.
“But with whom?” Isobel demanded. “Edmund’s head was sent in a bag to the court of Ambridge. The two Hales are gone from him.”
“Solahn,” Francis said, simply, and Cedd nodded solemnly.
“He has made contract with Solahn, and if with Solahn then he hopes for Chyr. Now that Ermengild is dead, his wife if Queen.”
“The Chryans would never let him have the throne!” Francis protested while Beregond, quiet, looked from one to the other.
“You have other news,” Isobel surmised.
“Zahem is fallen. Phineas is mighty there.”
“He is just a priest,” Cedd said. “the chief priests of their weird religion.”
“He is a mage,” Isobel said, simply. “As powerful as any Royan mage, as powerful as Ohean, whom you have made your enemy.”
“My King,” Francis said while Cedd, remained quiet and, down the hall, Anthony was marching, sweeping back his cloak, “may I be permitted to speak.”
“Yes, Francis. Always.”
“Lord Beregond mentioned not only that William was marching into Sussail, but that he was marching across it, across the Short Country on a war path.”
“And Bellamy of Solahn’s ships are coming with him and with Phineas, who is coming up the bay of Havern. While we know they are going to Chyr, perhaps to start a war, we are on the other side of that bay.”
“Two armies,” Cedd said, “and both of them are marching to Westrial.”
The approaching summer was making itself felt and sometimes this was the only reason Anthony slept naked in Cedd’s bed. It was too warm to cling and tonight Cedd was too disturbed to make love. He trembled and woke up in a fright and now Anthony heard him wretching and at up in bed. He did not go to the wash room for him, but waited for his love, who was his king, to return. Anthony sat on the bed while Cedd returned, shaky legged and stood against one of the shelves nailed into the wall, his head hanging, dejected.
“I cannot do it again,” Cedd lamented. “How could our ancestors. They came here fighting. They were corsairs and warriors. All their songs were of war. My mother’s family was Hale. I am half Hale. But… I cannot do this.”
He turned to Anthony is despair. “Look at my people out there. My people, sleeping and loving and drinking and fucking and whatever. In peace. And I have to take them into another war? Like we fought with William’s fathers. Stacks of bodies, dead boys on top of dead boys, men gone into madness, farms destroyed, children killed, women raped for… what?”
Cedd leaned againt the wall and buried his face in his hands, trembling.
Slowly the door opened, and this web of apartments within apartments, locked to others, were open to only Francis, Teryn and Isobel. The pregnant Queen entered and she said, “Lord, stop your weeping.”
“Isobel?”
“I may have a way where there will be no bloodshed, or as little bloodshed as possible on our side. But… you must trust me.”
“Isobel, I always trust you.”
The Queen nodded.
“I will use methods you do not like. Methods I am told you would have made laws against, Cedd, if you could.”
“You are a witch,” Cedd said.
“I am more than a witch.”
The King nodded.
“If I had learned to respect witches and more than witches, my brother would be here, my sister would be here. Ohean would be here and I would be in a very different position.”
He had been naked before her many times, and on a night like this, Anthony did not care about his nakedness either. Cedd stepped forward, lifted Isobel’s face, and kissed her lips.
“Do what you must,” he said. “You are my Queen.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND
SOLAHN
That night Austin wound his way through the quiet, darkened halls of the sleeping quarters. Allman was gone. Rendan was gone. Mehta was gone and no one knew where. There was, as far as he could see, no reason for them to be here. Erek was simply left estranged. Unless he fought, and Austin did not want him to fight. He had thought of Erek for over ten years and he pressed open his door and then came into his room. He hoped he wasn’t rejected. He had rejected Erek. He could look for the justice in this, but, after all, he had rejected Erek.
He undressed quickly and called, “Erek.”
Erek sat up to look at him, standing before him.
“Erek—” Austin began, but Erek only made space for him in the bed, lifting the sheet, in one smooth movement, removing his trunks so they were naked together.
Erek pulled Austin to him, held Erek’s head to his. He could feel Erek, taller, broader than him, longer, crying in his arms. Suddenly Erek looked up at him and kissed him on the mouth. He did it again, and it felt right to have Erek’s mouth on his, to press himself into Erek and Erek to press into him. They held on greedily to each other’s faces, and Austin ran his hands over the softness of Erek’s buzzed hair while Erek buried his face in the thickness of Austin’s They looked at each other, blinking, and Erek bit his lips, looking grim, and then he pushed Austin gently down and lay on top of him kissing him. The two of them clung together.
He caught Erek’s hair in his hands and pulled his face into his chest, wrapping his thighs around him while, on the side of the bed. With no preamble, Erek fucked Austin harder and harder.
“Almost,” Erek panted, thrusting again, “there.”
Austin ran his hands down the Erek’s back and pulled him in. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth feeling Erek hard inside of him.
“I’m gonna come…” Erek warned him.
Erek moaned, “Oh—ahhh—” as he came, a hot slick shower all over his stomach, dripping from the tip of his cock before her pressed his damp head in Austin’s arms.
The two of them lay side by side on the bed, exhausted.
They fell asleep like that with the lights still on, pressed to each other.
A little later, when they woke up, Erek moved off the bed and walked about the apartment, shutting off the lights. For a moment, Austin saw the length of his lovely body, his long torso, his almost flat stomach, his buzzed head.
Kissing, linking limbs, sighing as, at last, they ran their hands over each other’s bodies.
Erek turned over on his stomach turned around to open his legs, running his hands up and down Austin’s thighs, looking up at his brown chest, shiny with sweat while he felt Austin fucking him, touching his face while Austin looked down on him in love and, at last, looked up, and making a staggering noise while Erek tightened his grip around his thighs, Austin came, his semen shooting deep, and then trickling out of Erek the same time Erek felt his own orgasm, and pointed his cock to Austin, showering his chest and stomach.
At least a minute later, Austin was still kneeling between Erek’s legs, still hard inside of him.
They lay side by side, panting, not speaking, eyes wide open, shining with the joy of what had just happened.
“We cannot stay here,” Erek said. “Eventually we, or at least I, would have to fight in a Solahnese war. There is no future in going to Zahem. Mereesa is young. We have no children. She is young and we have no children. It will be a whole new world. For both of us.”
“What are you saying?” Austin began.
“That I’ve tasted happiness for the first time in years and when the world that made me unhappy, that I believed in, is coming to an end, I cannot go back to it. I have to discover what this is. What we are.
“We cannot go back to Westrial. You would only made Ashley’s life a misery and your father a disgrace.”
“We will go to Chyr,” Austin said, turning on his side and looking over the Erek’s, running the back of his hand over the smooth rises of muscle on his chest and arms. “And join my friends in their battle. We should have gone all along.”
“Yes,” Erek said. “We will go to Chyr.”
KINGSBORO
Francis Pembroke nearly ran into the great hall.
“Your Grace!” he cried. “Your Graee.”
Smiling gently on Isobel who sat beside him, Cedd said, “He means you.”
He turned back to Francis and said, “Who cannot be smitted by the Queen?”
“Your Grace you are right,” Francis said in the tone of one who was humoring more than wishing to make conversation, “but even now, there is a delegation with the black banner and orange of sun of Sussail.”
But when Isobel had heard this, the Queen of Westrial had already risen and waddled, with as much dignity as a woman, increasingly pregnant could, down the steps of the throne, Cedd coming behind her as she caught his hand.
“You are worried, Iso?”
Isobel looked at Cedd and she said, “This is a time when I do not believe that any news is good news.”
They came down the the great hall, and there were so many lifts and walks and passages that the riders from Sussail had enough time to refresh their horses and themselves before coming into the first hall. The herald was Beregond of Gladden, and he bowed low to King Cedd, but kneeling, kissed Queen Isobel’s hand.
“Beregond, rise,” Isobel commanded.
“I come with word from your lady mother.” Beregon said, and Isobel nodded.
“King William of Daumany is marching through the Short Country. Your father and the King and the King of Armor are already gathering their forces, and though William has said he is not aggressing, but merely traveling, he has taken Narbonne and marches for Toledo.”
“How would he dare?” Isobel demanded. A sensation of rage, which she realized was touched with fear, was rising up her body.
“He had made some type of allegiance,” King Cedd.
“But with whom?” Isobel demanded. “Edmund’s head was sent in a bag to the court of Ambridge. The two Hales are gone from him.”
“Solahn,” Francis said, simply, and Cedd nodded solemnly.
“He has made contract with Solahn, and if with Solahn then he hopes for Chyr. Now that Ermengild is dead, his wife if Queen.”
“The Chryans would never let him have the throne!” Francis protested while Beregond, quiet, looked from one to the other.
“You have other news,” Isobel surmised.
“Zahem is fallen. Phineas is mighty there.”
“He is just a priest,” Cedd said. “the chief priests of their weird religion.”
“He is a mage,” Isobel said, simply. “As powerful as any Royan mage, as powerful as Ohean, whom you have made your enemy.”
“My King,” Francis said while Cedd, remained quiet and, down the hall, Anthony was marching, sweeping back his cloak, “may I be permitted to speak.”
“Yes, Francis. Always.”
“Lord Beregond mentioned not only that William was marching into Sussail, but that he was marching across it, across the Short Country on a war path.”
“And Bellamy of Solahn’s ships are coming with him and with Phineas, who is coming up the bay of Havern. While we know they are going to Chyr, perhaps to start a war, we are on the other side of that bay.”
“Two armies,” Cedd said, “and both of them are marching to Westrial.”
The approaching summer was making itself felt and sometimes this was the only reason Anthony slept naked in Cedd’s bed. It was too warm to cling and tonight Cedd was too disturbed to make love. He trembled and woke up in a fright and now Anthony heard him wretching and at up in bed. He did not go to the wash room for him, but waited for his love, who was his king, to return. Anthony sat on the bed while Cedd returned, shaky legged and stood against one of the shelves nailed into the wall, his head hanging, dejected.
“I cannot do it again,” Cedd lamented. “How could our ancestors. They came here fighting. They were corsairs and warriors. All their songs were of war. My mother’s family was Hale. I am half Hale. But… I cannot do this.”
He turned to Anthony is despair. “Look at my people out there. My people, sleeping and loving and drinking and fucking and whatever. In peace. And I have to take them into another war? Like we fought with William’s fathers. Stacks of bodies, dead boys on top of dead boys, men gone into madness, farms destroyed, children killed, women raped for… what?”
Cedd leaned againt the wall and buried his face in his hands, trembling.
Slowly the door opened, and this web of apartments within apartments, locked to others, were open to only Francis, Teryn and Isobel. The pregnant Queen entered and she said, “Lord, stop your weeping.”
“Isobel?”
“I may have a way where there will be no bloodshed, or as little bloodshed as possible on our side. But… you must trust me.”
“Isobel, I always trust you.”
The Queen nodded.
“I will use methods you do not like. Methods I am told you would have made laws against, Cedd, if you could.”
“You are a witch,” Cedd said.
“I am more than a witch.”
The King nodded.
“If I had learned to respect witches and more than witches, my brother would be here, my sister would be here. Ohean would be here and I would be in a very different position.”
He had been naked before her many times, and on a night like this, Anthony did not care about his nakedness either. Cedd stepped forward, lifted Isobel’s face, and kissed her lips.
“Do what you must,” he said. “You are my Queen.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Interesting to get back to some characters we haven’t heard from in a while. Always a lot going on and I look forward to more after the weekend!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
There are those who would hold power over you, children, and to gain this power, they have fenced in the limitless and placed you in limits, setting for you bounds and calling these bounds reality.
- The Book of the Burning
MEHTA
“Are you alright?”
“Well, you see me here, right before your eyes,” Mehta said.
They were alone in a dark hull of the ship, and by now Mehta was used to the tossing of the waves.
“It’s only that… with the waves and everything, I didn’t know.”
“Well, Rendan if you’re all right, I’m all right. I’m not made of weak stuff. I’ve been underground and now over water. I should have just stayed in my room and let you go on,” she said. “I don’t know why I had to follow you.”
Then she said, “Actually, I should have just gone back to the farm. Ever since I left that farm I haven’t had a peaceful day.”
“I am truly sorry, Mehta,” Rendan said. “You are a fair and valiant girl and you don’t deserve this.”
“Shut up,” she said, not untenderly. Then she corrected herself. “Shut up, your Majesty.”
Rendan chuckled and looked at her.
“Every day that passed before I left with Master Orem for the city, I used to look out of the window. Or while I was sweeping the porch I’d look down the road, to the mountains where the Pass was. I would just wish for something to happen. I would long to be in the middle of something. That’s why I haven’t let myself be turned aside from any new adventure. Since we ran into Theone and Ash, well, I guess Ohean now, on the road, I’ve been in the middle of something. Right in the middle of it. Years from now people will wonder what it was like to be us, to be where we are.” She stopped.
“Rendan, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself if I knew that I had a chance to be in the thick of this, but remained at home, just some kitchen girl, sweeping a floor, cooking dumplings. I used to think that I was made for other things than that. Now I know it’s true.”
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather be with here than you,” Rendan said. “And anyone else I’d rather not see in this trouble.”
“Oh, stop.”
“No,” Rendan said. “I am serious. I have… I have met Dauman maidens, ladies with thick black hair and gowns of gold and bright green and red, rings shining from their fingers. And I saw, once, a Valencian princess with skin the color of bronze and a child’s weight of pearls hanging from her neck. But I declare, in all my life, I have never—ever—and that’s a fact—known a woman like you.”
Mehta opened her mouth, and then the ship came to some sort of rough halt, but the waves were still washing about it.
“What were you going to say?” the prince asked her.
But at that moment they both heard feet coming down the steps and looked up to see, by the smoking light of a horn lantern, the dull edge of a scimitar glowing, and the woman who had slapped Mehta took her by the wrist.
“It’s time to go, girly. Time for the both of you.”
“Com’ on Prince Bellamy,” said the one who had posed as the villager calling for his help. He hoisted Rendan off of his haunches. The pirates tied up his and Mehta’s hands and led them up to the deck.
“I was just going to say,” Mehta told Rendan as they were coming up to the deck, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
And then she winked.
Above, the sky was thick, creamy blue and the sea a deep, winking azure. Now Rendan saw that this small ship was linked, by a thick plank bridge to a larger one that, he assumed, had just arrived. It was longer and thinner than a Dauman ship, and its mast was large and black with the dramatic stipped orange and black head of a roaring tiger.
“Come now,” the evil girl said to Mehta, “walk it, wench, walk it. Don’t be afraid. I’ll be right behind you with this.”
She poked Mehta in the behind with the scabbarded point of her sword, and Mehta yelped from surprise while Rendan said, “Don’t hurt her.” And the little man cuffed him.
“We’re off to see the Sea Queen,” he sang. “The Sea Queen.”
The bridge was sturdy enough, but it was of rope, and it shook, and Mehta simply sucked in her breath, smelled the sea and refused to look down. She reminded herself of what she had said in the hold, that this was the place in the world she most wanted to be, even if she died today, here, out in the sea, some distance from the Dauman shore, on a pirate ship. She was stepping onto the solid deck of this new ship, and a few moments later, Rendan was beside her. She was looking into the copper, blue eyed face of one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Dressed like a man in black books, brown trousers a white tunic and black vest, she was immaculate, flaxen white hair hung down her shoulders, and she was glaring, not at Mehta, but at the ones who had brought them here.
“Who are these?” she snapped.
“This is the Prince Bellamy and some wench he was with,” said the girl, pronouncing, as usually, the word wench with as much of an edge as she could.
“For the last time, I am not Prince Bellamy.”
“Shut up,” the little man said.
“This is not the Prince Bellamy,” the Sea Queen said. “And you are a fool.” She looked at Rendan, “Speak, please.”
“I am Rendan the son of Nordan, King of Solahn. Bellamy is my uncle and more than that, my enemy. You took me away from raising an army against him one who is making war on Solahn and the Young Kingdoms with the support of Phineas—”
“Phineas?” The Sea Queen said, an edge in her voice.
“Yes,” Rendan said. “And this is my faithful companion, the Lady Mehta. I am the only thing between my uncle and the Tiger Throne, and now your servants have taken me from what I was doing.”
“Release them,” the Sea Queen said before Rendan could continue.
The pirates looked perplexed, but at a sharp gaze from the Sea Queen, they did as she said, and now Rendan and Mehta stood before her, shaking out their wrists.
“He is the heir to Solahn. Iokaste and Hektar would have our heads if molested him. In fact, he is now King of Solahn. And Phineas is my enemy too, for reasons best stated later, Perhaps Bantha and Kavana have brought us together. We have a common enemy and by helping you I may help myself.
“I see that you need a bath and fresh clothing. Food and true rest. Karmine,” she called, and a copper skinned girl dressed like a man with a sword at her side joined the Sea Queen, “see that the King and his friend are treated like honored guest. Hopefully we can speak, at dinner perhaps, about how we can help each other.”
Rendan nodded.
“But, before you go, Lady Mehta is it?”
Mehta nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am?”
“Can you tell me some of your story?”
“It is no story, really,” Mehta said. “I am really just a kitchen girl.”
“She says that too much,” Rendan said. And then he told their whole story and the Sea Queen nodding with approval said, “Would that I had a kitchen girl like you. Lady Mehta. On this ship you are free and you may do anything you please.”
Mehta looked behind her quickly and then said, “Anything?”
The Sea Queen nodded.
“Well, the bath would be nice,” Mehta said.
“I’ll show you to it,” Karmine told her. Mehta began following Karmine and said, “Just… a second?”
The pirate maid nodded. Mehta turned around, faced the girl who had abused her. Mehta pulled back her fist and sent her rolling across the deck. And then, looking at the short man, she did the same.
Shaking her fist out, Mehta next said, “And now, Karmine, I think I’m about ready for that bath.”
“Well, look at you,” Rendan clapped his hands together as Mehta came to the dinner table where the Pirate Queen sat beside Karmine. They all rose at her approach, and Mehta put a hand to her chest and said, “What’s all this?”
“You are an honored quest here,” said the Queen. And Rendan came and pulled the chair from behind her and gestured for Mehta to sit down.
“That’s not necess…” she began, and then let it rest, and allowed Rendan to seat her.
“This is a beautiful gown,” Mehta said, touching the white sleeves shot through with silver. “Your… Majesty?”
The Pirate Queen laughed and Karmine said, “Your Majesty, indeed.”
Mehta flushed. “I simply have no idea what to call you.”
“We usually call her Captain,” another one of the pirates said, and this was when Mehta realized that all of the pirates were women.
“Well, now Captain is something I can manage,” Mehta said, and they all laughed. She noticed the strange way Rendan was looking at her, the lingering smile, and she wanted to turn her head. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted him to continue.
“It is from the Spiral Islands,” the Captain continued. “King Rishiard brought it to me. I thought you should have it, after all you went through.”
“My lady, I mean, Captain, I am so sorry,” Mehta said. “For my loss of temper. I… well, if you had seen how those two treated us.”
“That,” Karmine said withj a laugh, “was a well aimed punch.”
“And those,” the Captain said, “were not mine. They were simple crooks I paid off going to the coast. Low pirates. Now my corsairs.”
“Do they look like us?” Karmine said, dusting off her white sleeve, while the door opened and new corsairs in white brought in a silver domed platter, fish on a laver, hot bread, puddings, crystal decanters of wine.
“Really!” another corsair girl said, smirking. “I think we clean up better than that.”
“And, of course,” the Captain began.
“No men,” Karmine concluded.
They all nodded.
MORE TOMORROW
- The Book of the Burning
MEHTA
“Are you alright?”
“Well, you see me here, right before your eyes,” Mehta said.
They were alone in a dark hull of the ship, and by now Mehta was used to the tossing of the waves.
“It’s only that… with the waves and everything, I didn’t know.”
“Well, Rendan if you’re all right, I’m all right. I’m not made of weak stuff. I’ve been underground and now over water. I should have just stayed in my room and let you go on,” she said. “I don’t know why I had to follow you.”
Then she said, “Actually, I should have just gone back to the farm. Ever since I left that farm I haven’t had a peaceful day.”
“I am truly sorry, Mehta,” Rendan said. “You are a fair and valiant girl and you don’t deserve this.”
“Shut up,” she said, not untenderly. Then she corrected herself. “Shut up, your Majesty.”
Rendan chuckled and looked at her.
“Every day that passed before I left with Master Orem for the city, I used to look out of the window. Or while I was sweeping the porch I’d look down the road, to the mountains where the Pass was. I would just wish for something to happen. I would long to be in the middle of something. That’s why I haven’t let myself be turned aside from any new adventure. Since we ran into Theone and Ash, well, I guess Ohean now, on the road, I’ve been in the middle of something. Right in the middle of it. Years from now people will wonder what it was like to be us, to be where we are.” She stopped.
“Rendan, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself if I knew that I had a chance to be in the thick of this, but remained at home, just some kitchen girl, sweeping a floor, cooking dumplings. I used to think that I was made for other things than that. Now I know it’s true.”
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather be with here than you,” Rendan said. “And anyone else I’d rather not see in this trouble.”
“Oh, stop.”
“No,” Rendan said. “I am serious. I have… I have met Dauman maidens, ladies with thick black hair and gowns of gold and bright green and red, rings shining from their fingers. And I saw, once, a Valencian princess with skin the color of bronze and a child’s weight of pearls hanging from her neck. But I declare, in all my life, I have never—ever—and that’s a fact—known a woman like you.”
Mehta opened her mouth, and then the ship came to some sort of rough halt, but the waves were still washing about it.
“What were you going to say?” the prince asked her.
But at that moment they both heard feet coming down the steps and looked up to see, by the smoking light of a horn lantern, the dull edge of a scimitar glowing, and the woman who had slapped Mehta took her by the wrist.
“It’s time to go, girly. Time for the both of you.”
“Com’ on Prince Bellamy,” said the one who had posed as the villager calling for his help. He hoisted Rendan off of his haunches. The pirates tied up his and Mehta’s hands and led them up to the deck.
“I was just going to say,” Mehta told Rendan as they were coming up to the deck, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
And then she winked.
Above, the sky was thick, creamy blue and the sea a deep, winking azure. Now Rendan saw that this small ship was linked, by a thick plank bridge to a larger one that, he assumed, had just arrived. It was longer and thinner than a Dauman ship, and its mast was large and black with the dramatic stipped orange and black head of a roaring tiger.
“Come now,” the evil girl said to Mehta, “walk it, wench, walk it. Don’t be afraid. I’ll be right behind you with this.”
She poked Mehta in the behind with the scabbarded point of her sword, and Mehta yelped from surprise while Rendan said, “Don’t hurt her.” And the little man cuffed him.
“We’re off to see the Sea Queen,” he sang. “The Sea Queen.”
The bridge was sturdy enough, but it was of rope, and it shook, and Mehta simply sucked in her breath, smelled the sea and refused to look down. She reminded herself of what she had said in the hold, that this was the place in the world she most wanted to be, even if she died today, here, out in the sea, some distance from the Dauman shore, on a pirate ship. She was stepping onto the solid deck of this new ship, and a few moments later, Rendan was beside her. She was looking into the copper, blue eyed face of one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Dressed like a man in black books, brown trousers a white tunic and black vest, she was immaculate, flaxen white hair hung down her shoulders, and she was glaring, not at Mehta, but at the ones who had brought them here.
“Who are these?” she snapped.
“This is the Prince Bellamy and some wench he was with,” said the girl, pronouncing, as usually, the word wench with as much of an edge as she could.
“For the last time, I am not Prince Bellamy.”
“Shut up,” the little man said.
“This is not the Prince Bellamy,” the Sea Queen said. “And you are a fool.” She looked at Rendan, “Speak, please.”
“I am Rendan the son of Nordan, King of Solahn. Bellamy is my uncle and more than that, my enemy. You took me away from raising an army against him one who is making war on Solahn and the Young Kingdoms with the support of Phineas—”
“Phineas?” The Sea Queen said, an edge in her voice.
“Yes,” Rendan said. “And this is my faithful companion, the Lady Mehta. I am the only thing between my uncle and the Tiger Throne, and now your servants have taken me from what I was doing.”
“Release them,” the Sea Queen said before Rendan could continue.
The pirates looked perplexed, but at a sharp gaze from the Sea Queen, they did as she said, and now Rendan and Mehta stood before her, shaking out their wrists.
“He is the heir to Solahn. Iokaste and Hektar would have our heads if molested him. In fact, he is now King of Solahn. And Phineas is my enemy too, for reasons best stated later, Perhaps Bantha and Kavana have brought us together. We have a common enemy and by helping you I may help myself.
“I see that you need a bath and fresh clothing. Food and true rest. Karmine,” she called, and a copper skinned girl dressed like a man with a sword at her side joined the Sea Queen, “see that the King and his friend are treated like honored guest. Hopefully we can speak, at dinner perhaps, about how we can help each other.”
Rendan nodded.
“But, before you go, Lady Mehta is it?”
Mehta nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am?”
“Can you tell me some of your story?”
“It is no story, really,” Mehta said. “I am really just a kitchen girl.”
“She says that too much,” Rendan said. And then he told their whole story and the Sea Queen nodding with approval said, “Would that I had a kitchen girl like you. Lady Mehta. On this ship you are free and you may do anything you please.”
Mehta looked behind her quickly and then said, “Anything?”
The Sea Queen nodded.
“Well, the bath would be nice,” Mehta said.
“I’ll show you to it,” Karmine told her. Mehta began following Karmine and said, “Just… a second?”
The pirate maid nodded. Mehta turned around, faced the girl who had abused her. Mehta pulled back her fist and sent her rolling across the deck. And then, looking at the short man, she did the same.
Shaking her fist out, Mehta next said, “And now, Karmine, I think I’m about ready for that bath.”
“Well, look at you,” Rendan clapped his hands together as Mehta came to the dinner table where the Pirate Queen sat beside Karmine. They all rose at her approach, and Mehta put a hand to her chest and said, “What’s all this?”
“You are an honored quest here,” said the Queen. And Rendan came and pulled the chair from behind her and gestured for Mehta to sit down.
“That’s not necess…” she began, and then let it rest, and allowed Rendan to seat her.
“This is a beautiful gown,” Mehta said, touching the white sleeves shot through with silver. “Your… Majesty?”
The Pirate Queen laughed and Karmine said, “Your Majesty, indeed.”
Mehta flushed. “I simply have no idea what to call you.”
“We usually call her Captain,” another one of the pirates said, and this was when Mehta realized that all of the pirates were women.
“Well, now Captain is something I can manage,” Mehta said, and they all laughed. She noticed the strange way Rendan was looking at her, the lingering smile, and she wanted to turn her head. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted him to continue.
“It is from the Spiral Islands,” the Captain continued. “King Rishiard brought it to me. I thought you should have it, after all you went through.”
“My lady, I mean, Captain, I am so sorry,” Mehta said. “For my loss of temper. I… well, if you had seen how those two treated us.”
“That,” Karmine said withj a laugh, “was a well aimed punch.”
“And those,” the Captain said, “were not mine. They were simple crooks I paid off going to the coast. Low pirates. Now my corsairs.”
“Do they look like us?” Karmine said, dusting off her white sleeve, while the door opened and new corsairs in white brought in a silver domed platter, fish on a laver, hot bread, puddings, crystal decanters of wine.
“Really!” another corsair girl said, smirking. “I think we clean up better than that.”
“And, of course,” the Captain began.
“No men,” Karmine concluded.
They all nodded.
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! I am glad Rendan and Mehta were ok in the end. I was scared for them. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, it turns out Mehta and Rendan are more than fine, and of course, I had not realized until the Pirate Queen said it, Rendan now is actually the King of Solahn. Perhaps the metaphor "smooth sailing" from now on is too much. But I like it.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT EVERYONE LEARNS SOMETHING WORTHWHILE.....
“When I was still in my first youth I fell upon very hard times,” the Captain told them while the fire burned low, “I was treated sorely and end of all ends I was abducted, by low pirates as you were, but at no specific orders. Only be a slave.
“I was on board a ship full of women, bound for the slave markets in the Spiral Isles and in those markets a woman only had one trade. I, personally, had been used enough, and in just that way. Having earned my freedom, I had no intentions of losing it again.
This is where I met Camilla, whom you may or may not meet. She was a great fighter, grown up in the warf streets of Solahn, and she freed me and herself. Karmine was a little girl then. These pirates had come to her village, murdered the men and taken the women. Her mother, Roxana was the third of us. We were of a like mind. We took the ship, killed the crew without mercy. By then all remorse, all regret and most conscience were burned from me. The women who did not want to join us we let go. Those who did we taught to fight. At first we were just finding slave ships and freeing them, bringing the women and girls to us who wanted freedom. But the slave trade has…” the Captain smiled to herself, “faded a bit in this sea since we took the waves. It was when I met Rizhihard that he suggested that perhaps we go in for more than freeing slaves and taking the wealth of slave ships.”
“And so you became pirates?” said Rendan.
The Captain nodded. “We became pirates. With the Solahni in mind as many of us were Daumans and Spiral Islanders, but usually it was other pirates and slavers. We went into business with Rizhihard.”
“Some say,” Mehta began with a breathless voice, “that the two of you were lovers?”
“Some do?” The Captain raised a mischievous eyebrow.
“Well, that is a tale for another day, But this is how I became what I am now.”
“But why did you search for Bellamy? What did you want to do with my uncle?”
“The same thing you do,” said the Captain.
She raised her blue green eyes to Rendan and said, “I want to kill him. I would kill Phineas if I could, but I’ve already seen that task will not fall to me.”
Mehta looked at her, opened her mouth, and then closed it.
“Speak,” the Captain said. “Ask your question, and I will answer.”
“We don’t—” Mehta began, and then said, “What we mean is… how did Bellamy harm you? What did he do?”
The Captain nodded and raised her finger.
“Do you remember how I told you that when that slave ship found me I was mad out of my mind? He was the reason. He and Phineas. Listen,” she said to the Rendan and the Mehta, who were looking at her wide eyed, “and I will tell you why.”
“Firstly, you need to know my name is Cayanne. I grew up on the Borders, like you, and we never had much. Some who say that add, we never had much, but our house was full of love. Mine was not. Ours was a house of misery. I left, heading for one of the northern cities, and it was there that I met a rich man, and he took me in. He did more than take me in,” the Captain said. “I became his kept woman. He set me up in a little house, off of the grounds of a castle. I thought it was his, but he said it belonged to one of his tenants. In time I learned that he was a prince. That, in fact, he was the Prince Bellamy.”
At this Mehta did an intake of breath, and Rendan looked at her in disbelief. The Captain, Cayanne, nodded.
“I belonged to him for some few years and one night he was staying at the house and a fearsome man arrived. He was all cloaked in black and very white. A Black Star was on his hand so I knew what he was. I felt cold just seeing him ride to the house. It seemed as if the sky hardened and the wind rose at his approach. I hid and did not hear his business. But that night Bellamy called me down.
“He told me he had made some agreement with this man, and I did not know what this agreement was, but I must have been the price of the bargain. The man looked at me. I still remember his face. How cold it was. All white and absolute blackness.
“You will bear wonderful sons,” he said. And it was as if he were laughing at me. That night he took me away. We left in the middle of a windstorm. When it was time to rest he chose a cave. He set his men outside of it, took me in and he had me there. I tried to fight, but only a little. He was a powerful sorcerer I knew. There was no not letting him have what he wanted. That was how I knew Phineas. That was how he claimed me for the Black Hand. He kept me in his own house and soon I knew I was with child.”
Cayanne looked away from the fire and straight to Mehta.
“Speak.”
“But… who was the father?”
Cayanne, fingers linked, shrugged. “Who can say? A viper or a cobra, what is the difference. Solahns are olive skinned and Phineas is that stark white of the Older Race from which the Hands spring, but the two are mixed now and look so close it is hard to tell. He kept me until the child was born and when he was born he sent me and the baby to one of the houses. I never saw him again.
“But I had a son. And we were not with the other women, and none of the Hands touched me. I raised my boy with the select group, the Mothers, and we were happy. He played in the grass. He was so full of life. Looking back, I must have been a very different woman than I am now, a girl, really. I thought things would never change. I thought I had been through enough.
“But enough only seems to come when we say it’s enough. When he turned five, they took my boy. They took him. They took him to Ennalisa and they made him into a Hand. They erased his name. They turned him into one of them, to do the evil from which he had come. I…” she passed a long hand over her face, unable to talk.
“I could not move. I was too stunned to speak, to do anything. And then… I don’t know… it was only a few days. Nothing had happened to me, but something snapped. I realized all those years I had just been waiting for them to do something. And then they had. They had taken my boy. What else would they do? Part of me said who cared, I didn’t want to live. But I had changed, and there was something in me that said that whatever life was, I wanted more of it. I wasn’t ready to be finished off.
“So, to make a long story much shorter, I escaped. For days I ran. I know I was tailed. But I met a witch. Actually I believe she was a great enchantress. She was traveling too, and cast a charm upon me, she said they would never find me and from now on my fortune would change. A few days after we parted I was caught by pirates and so I cursed her, though she had been kind to me, but now I see her charm was true. My son was dead, or good as dead, but I swore that, if I was able I would kill those who were responsible. In the end, if I could not have my Kenneth, I would have revenge.”
“Your who?” Mehta said while Rendan sat up, straighter.
“My son,” Cayanne said, looking at the two of them as if they might have been slightly stupid.
Rendan waved this away.
“My lady, what did you call him?”
“His name?” Mehta said.
“His name,” Cayanne said, “was Kenneth. It… it is not a common name in these parts. I met a sailor once by that name and thought the name fair.”
“Yes,” Rendan murmured. He looked, desperately at Mehta.
“Lady,” she began. “Cayanne…?”
The Captain looked at her, waiting.
“It’s just that… I had never known anyone with the name before either. I only… What I am saying is…”
“Your son lives,” Rendan said.
Cayanne’s eyes flew wide open.
“We believe your son lives,” Rendan continuned. “The name is too unusual in these parts. It is a northern name I believe, and all of our travels have been guided by the gracious hands of the Gods.”
Cayanne opened her mouth, but Mehta said, “The Kennneth we knew had been a Hand, but he was a Hand no longer, he had come out of a deep enchantment and was…”
“Finding himself,” Rendan said. Mehta nodded.
“He talked of the last thing he remembered being… how he was turned, into a Hand. And his mother. He remembered his mother, golden haired.”
“Green blue eyes,” Rendan remembered.
“He said her name was Caya, but…” Mehta shook her head.
Cayanne’s face did not move. It was frozen.
At last she spoke in a dead hiss.
“Gods.”
“It is too much to be a coincidence,” Rendan told her again. “Your son is with our friends. Kenneth lives, and my lady is always in his thoughts.”
MORE IN A FEW DAYS. TOMORROW: IF I SHOULD FALL
“When I was still in my first youth I fell upon very hard times,” the Captain told them while the fire burned low, “I was treated sorely and end of all ends I was abducted, by low pirates as you were, but at no specific orders. Only be a slave.
“I was on board a ship full of women, bound for the slave markets in the Spiral Isles and in those markets a woman only had one trade. I, personally, had been used enough, and in just that way. Having earned my freedom, I had no intentions of losing it again.
This is where I met Camilla, whom you may or may not meet. She was a great fighter, grown up in the warf streets of Solahn, and she freed me and herself. Karmine was a little girl then. These pirates had come to her village, murdered the men and taken the women. Her mother, Roxana was the third of us. We were of a like mind. We took the ship, killed the crew without mercy. By then all remorse, all regret and most conscience were burned from me. The women who did not want to join us we let go. Those who did we taught to fight. At first we were just finding slave ships and freeing them, bringing the women and girls to us who wanted freedom. But the slave trade has…” the Captain smiled to herself, “faded a bit in this sea since we took the waves. It was when I met Rizhihard that he suggested that perhaps we go in for more than freeing slaves and taking the wealth of slave ships.”
“And so you became pirates?” said Rendan.
The Captain nodded. “We became pirates. With the Solahni in mind as many of us were Daumans and Spiral Islanders, but usually it was other pirates and slavers. We went into business with Rizhihard.”
“Some say,” Mehta began with a breathless voice, “that the two of you were lovers?”
“Some do?” The Captain raised a mischievous eyebrow.
“Well, that is a tale for another day, But this is how I became what I am now.”
“But why did you search for Bellamy? What did you want to do with my uncle?”
“The same thing you do,” said the Captain.
She raised her blue green eyes to Rendan and said, “I want to kill him. I would kill Phineas if I could, but I’ve already seen that task will not fall to me.”
Mehta looked at her, opened her mouth, and then closed it.
“Speak,” the Captain said. “Ask your question, and I will answer.”
“We don’t—” Mehta began, and then said, “What we mean is… how did Bellamy harm you? What did he do?”
The Captain nodded and raised her finger.
“Do you remember how I told you that when that slave ship found me I was mad out of my mind? He was the reason. He and Phineas. Listen,” she said to the Rendan and the Mehta, who were looking at her wide eyed, “and I will tell you why.”
“Firstly, you need to know my name is Cayanne. I grew up on the Borders, like you, and we never had much. Some who say that add, we never had much, but our house was full of love. Mine was not. Ours was a house of misery. I left, heading for one of the northern cities, and it was there that I met a rich man, and he took me in. He did more than take me in,” the Captain said. “I became his kept woman. He set me up in a little house, off of the grounds of a castle. I thought it was his, but he said it belonged to one of his tenants. In time I learned that he was a prince. That, in fact, he was the Prince Bellamy.”
At this Mehta did an intake of breath, and Rendan looked at her in disbelief. The Captain, Cayanne, nodded.
“I belonged to him for some few years and one night he was staying at the house and a fearsome man arrived. He was all cloaked in black and very white. A Black Star was on his hand so I knew what he was. I felt cold just seeing him ride to the house. It seemed as if the sky hardened and the wind rose at his approach. I hid and did not hear his business. But that night Bellamy called me down.
“He told me he had made some agreement with this man, and I did not know what this agreement was, but I must have been the price of the bargain. The man looked at me. I still remember his face. How cold it was. All white and absolute blackness.
“You will bear wonderful sons,” he said. And it was as if he were laughing at me. That night he took me away. We left in the middle of a windstorm. When it was time to rest he chose a cave. He set his men outside of it, took me in and he had me there. I tried to fight, but only a little. He was a powerful sorcerer I knew. There was no not letting him have what he wanted. That was how I knew Phineas. That was how he claimed me for the Black Hand. He kept me in his own house and soon I knew I was with child.”
Cayanne looked away from the fire and straight to Mehta.
“Speak.”
“But… who was the father?”
Cayanne, fingers linked, shrugged. “Who can say? A viper or a cobra, what is the difference. Solahns are olive skinned and Phineas is that stark white of the Older Race from which the Hands spring, but the two are mixed now and look so close it is hard to tell. He kept me until the child was born and when he was born he sent me and the baby to one of the houses. I never saw him again.
“But I had a son. And we were not with the other women, and none of the Hands touched me. I raised my boy with the select group, the Mothers, and we were happy. He played in the grass. He was so full of life. Looking back, I must have been a very different woman than I am now, a girl, really. I thought things would never change. I thought I had been through enough.
“But enough only seems to come when we say it’s enough. When he turned five, they took my boy. They took him. They took him to Ennalisa and they made him into a Hand. They erased his name. They turned him into one of them, to do the evil from which he had come. I…” she passed a long hand over her face, unable to talk.
“I could not move. I was too stunned to speak, to do anything. And then… I don’t know… it was only a few days. Nothing had happened to me, but something snapped. I realized all those years I had just been waiting for them to do something. And then they had. They had taken my boy. What else would they do? Part of me said who cared, I didn’t want to live. But I had changed, and there was something in me that said that whatever life was, I wanted more of it. I wasn’t ready to be finished off.
“So, to make a long story much shorter, I escaped. For days I ran. I know I was tailed. But I met a witch. Actually I believe she was a great enchantress. She was traveling too, and cast a charm upon me, she said they would never find me and from now on my fortune would change. A few days after we parted I was caught by pirates and so I cursed her, though she had been kind to me, but now I see her charm was true. My son was dead, or good as dead, but I swore that, if I was able I would kill those who were responsible. In the end, if I could not have my Kenneth, I would have revenge.”
“Your who?” Mehta said while Rendan sat up, straighter.
“My son,” Cayanne said, looking at the two of them as if they might have been slightly stupid.
Rendan waved this away.
“My lady, what did you call him?”
“His name?” Mehta said.
“His name,” Cayanne said, “was Kenneth. It… it is not a common name in these parts. I met a sailor once by that name and thought the name fair.”
“Yes,” Rendan murmured. He looked, desperately at Mehta.
“Lady,” she began. “Cayanne…?”
The Captain looked at her, waiting.
“It’s just that… I had never known anyone with the name before either. I only… What I am saying is…”
“Your son lives,” Rendan said.
Cayanne’s eyes flew wide open.
“We believe your son lives,” Rendan continuned. “The name is too unusual in these parts. It is a northern name I believe, and all of our travels have been guided by the gracious hands of the Gods.”
Cayanne opened her mouth, but Mehta said, “The Kennneth we knew had been a Hand, but he was a Hand no longer, he had come out of a deep enchantment and was…”
“Finding himself,” Rendan said. Mehta nodded.
“He talked of the last thing he remembered being… how he was turned, into a Hand. And his mother. He remembered his mother, golden haired.”
“Green blue eyes,” Rendan remembered.
“He said her name was Caya, but…” Mehta shook her head.
Cayanne’s face did not move. It was frozen.
At last she spoke in a dead hiss.
“Gods.”
“It is too much to be a coincidence,” Rendan told her again. “Your son is with our friends. Kenneth lives, and my lady is always in his thoughts.”
MORE IN A FEW DAYS. TOMORROW: IF I SHOULD FALL
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Everyone did learn something worthwhile! It was interesting to hear Cayenne’s story. A bit sad but good in a way that Mehta and Rendan could tell her about her son Kenneth. Great writing and I look forward to If I Should Fall tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
OHEAN AND HIS COMPANIONS COME FROM UNDER THE EARTH, AND EVERYONE IF PROPERLY SURPRISED
OHEAN
“How long will it be before we reach the surface?” Kenneth asked Andvari as they trudged up the path. Here it had grown higher, and a little more narrow, but cleaner. There was nothing that suggested these paths were natural, like the old ones they had followed, and there were no natural caverns they crossed into any longer.
“It depends on what you mean by the surface,” the Dwarf said. “For, as some of you may already have guessed, we came above the surface of the plains some time past. Now we are in the bowels of the Mountains your people called the Ystrad, and soon to come out of them.
“We will come out,” Durgan said, “through the Gate known as Falgri. Of old it was the way we entered the kingdom of the Wood Folk. The word should not have changed, and the passage should still be possible.”
The whole time they had walked on, Anson had been uncommonly quiet, and now Ohean touched him.
“Yes?” Anson said.
“You’ve been strange.”
“Tired is all,” Anson said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Anson squeezed his hand quickly. “Very sure.”
“What I don’t understand,” Theone was saying to Dissenbark in a low voice, while she touched the glowing stone, “is why it went dead on me. Why it did nothing the other night.”
“I have thought about this,” Dissenbark said, “and I was wondering if. maybe, the Stone, or… the Lady, did nothing in order that I could do what I did. It couldn’t be that she was powerless. I doubt that. I think that maybe she retreated so that I could be… powerful?”
Theone nodded and said, “It is as good a reason as I can think and better, in fact. It will have to be a mystery.”
“I knew a tiresome old priest who used to roam the country telling us to beg the Gods’ forgiveness for our sins,” Dissenbark said. “But I think that on the Day of Reckoning They’ll have a few questions to answer too, as far as I’m concerned.”
Dahlan shielded his eyes, looking ahead.
“What’s that?” Orem pointed ahead.
Andvari had already seen it, and Regni and Durgan had put up their hands, bidding the others stop. No one paid heed. Ohean walked at the head of them now, and suddenly he blinked to see green trees in the sunshine, Everyone started at the abundance of living green. But soon after they saw everything else, the people Andvari and Durgan and Orem had seen.
Many of them were not the height of a man, but all were taller than Dwarves and some were sapling tall, in brown and green that clung to them like bark or leaf more than clothing, as if some woodland god had painted their naked bodies. From their close fitting skins sprung leaves, and small branches. They seemed as much part of the forest as any shrub or vine or tree. Wide eyed they were, men and a few appeared to be ladies and some had caps on their heads like the tops of acorns or like the tops of thistles and pine cones or a weaving of twigs and now they were all looking at the travelers.
“Hail Andvari, King of the Underland Duergar,” one said, and the others stopped and bowed.
“Gennel of the Wood Folk,” Andvari returned the greeting.
“There is war,” he said, “and we had spoken with Maud of Thaary. She is defending the Crystal City. I made pact with her though it was against my father’s word. He said that this is a quarrel for men, and we should have nothing to do with it. I did not agree,” Gennel gave a short bow.
“And you wondered that men might come through these walls,” Ohean said.
Gennel nodded, “Of old these were the paths the Royan built, all the way from what is now Solahn into Chyr.”
“And how far is Chyr, good sir?” Theone said.
“When you leave this forest,” Gennel told her, “you are in it.”
“This is Theone daughter of Essnara daughter of Jergen daughter of Ermengild, the Princess once lost,” Ohean said, “and I am Ohean, and these are my companions.”
“Then it is you for whom we have been waiting,” Gennel said.
“The Lady of the Rose is keeping company in the Wood and with her is your kinswoman, the Lady of the Rootless Isle.”
“Nimerly!” Ohean and Dissenbark cried at once, but Essily only wailed and put her hands to her mouth as one wounded.
“Mother!” Anson began.
Essily looked fragile and wounded, shaking her head, looking almost like an old woman. I did not dare to hope. I did not…”
“Lady,” one beside Gennel said, “We will take you to your sister, and straightway.”
While Essily was still weeping, she was surrounded by several of the fairy women, and moving far quicker than the humans were prepared to go, they bore Essily away across the glade.
Only Gennel remained, and he said, simply:
“There is much the Lady Celandine wishes to discuss with you.”
“I thought we would never again see the sun, and when I dreamed of it, it was nothing like this. Nothing like what we see at all. Look, everywhere is green. Yellow green, mint green, deep greens, greens soft as blues, look at that water in the pools, black, the color of peat, the color of eyes and button mushrooms in the moss. The moss green again. Praise the Lord of all Green things, praise him. Praise the Lady for all this,” Dissenbark sang, clasping her hands together as she turned in circles and they went in the company of the Wood Folk.
Suddenly Anson struck up a song:
Praise the Maker for his goodness
Praise the Lady for her kiss
Praise the Lord of all the Green things
Praise she who has born all this.
All the green times
All the verdure
All the lingering lustfulness
Praise the Maker of the Sunshine
Praise them all for all this Bliss!
He caught Ohean’s hand and laughed and Ohean laughed and then the two of them surprised everyone, for they ran on until they stopped under a tree. Anson caught his Ohean’s face in his hands.
“Tonight,” he sang, his cheeks red, his eyes dancing, “you just wait and I’ll love you! I’ll love you wantonly like you never knew.”
He hooked his arm in Ohean’s as they walked on, the path lowered, a black, lush road through high, deep green trees, in the distance, fallen logs, delicate ferns, diamond weaves of spider webs like cloaks. Dissenbark began a song. Arvad sang along.
My temple is above
My temple is below
My lover lady’s with me
Wher’er I may go
Thou love it has brought me
Through the wind and the snow
My temple is above!
It is below!
Anson’s hand was frimly gripping Ohean’s and as they walked together, Ohean said, “Long ago, in this wood, there was a day like this. The birds sang sweetly as if Maia had just stepped forth in the first morning of the world and the warmth of the day was… thick like honey… it was thick and good like honey. The world was sweeter then.”
“There is so much, so much I have to tell you,” Ohean said.
“There is something, and I do not know how to speak it. But I must be certain.”
“Ohean,” Anson sounded, for once, petulant.
“Give me this, love.” Ohean said. “You’ve given me so much give me this last. I promise I will tell you everything that is in my heart.”
As Dissenbark walked the wooded path she noticed it growing broader and flatter under her feet, and where there had been toadstools, now there were creatures with mushroom colored faces, black eyes, and caps, red and white, toadstool shaped. Where there had before been plain trees, now they looked down at her and the bark patterns twisted into black faces. Everything was alive here, the water seemed to sing here.
Cotton dandelion fluff filled the air and rained down and when she burshde it from her eyes, Dissenbark saw the shadow of slender beings floating down. There was a subtle music, the air seemed to make music in the trees, and the willow in the distance were slow, patient faced women. Everything was aware here. Where once were dragonflies, now, larger, were dragonfly winged creatures coming in and out.
Dissenbark opened her mouth to sing and hum and a melody came out, and there were no words, but everyone knew it. The sides of the living trees were painted deep gold by afternoon sun, and now even Orem, who had the least sight for this place, blinked as one and then several of the trees stepped aside, not ripping the land, coming up smoothly and delicate, making an avenue, and at its end, under a great oak, with leaves of gold and copper sat two women, or two more than women, and for a moment, Kenneth saw, as he had seen before, wings, like dragonfly wings or like insect wings, floating slowly behind the one in her rose colored gown. The more he stared directly, hoping for certainty, the more the wings faded until they were not there. But when he turned his head, there they were from the corner of his eye, and the woman who sat first had bare golden arms and she wore a light gown the color of salmon. Her hair was thick white gold, more white than gold, and she said:
“We are well met, Kenneth. Do you remember our first meeting?”
“It was that night. At Yarrow’s cottage. That seemed so long ago.”
“And now you are all here. Lord Andvari, Lords Durgen and Regni, forgive our intrusion on your land.”
“There was no intrustion, Lady.”
“Rest yourselves,” she said. “And all of you. Orem, and Arvad, and also he who shall be King and she who will be Queen, Ermengild’s heir. And Dissenbark, whose deep cries of power below have reached our ears. And, not least at all, the Lord Ohean, come again.”
“Lady,” Ohean bowed, “it has been many years sense last we met. You spoke of a King and a Queen.”
“Yes,” Arvad said. “When Orem marries Theone, he’ll be King, right?”
Orem blinked. This had never occurred to him. But Dissenbark pointed out, “if the Lady had meant Orem, she would not have addressed him. Anson is the one she never spoke of.”
Nimerly sat beside Essily, both of them hands clasped, looking like queens. Nimerly’s wide eyes rested upon Dissenbark, pronoucing the words, “Little Sister.”
The Lady Celandine raised her liquid eyes to Anson and the soldier blinked.
“Orem will not be King,” she said. “As Bellamy will not be King. How can something so plain be hidden from one who was accompanied by the mightiest of the Five?”
Anson blinked stupidly and Regni, tugging at Anson’s sleeve, said, “Can it be? You never told him? How could you not have told him?”
Now Ohean looked truly flustered. The Lady did not. She was not gloating, but she was not upset either. She said, “Often it is those who are close to a thing who are not permitted to see it, no matter how wise or great they may be. It is fitting. It fits.”
They were all looking at Anson now, Theone’s mouth open in slight surprise. Miserably, Anson touched Ohean’s shoulder.
“I must speak to you, Now. And not tonight.”
He pulled him away from the company and the Lady said as Nimerly began absently sifted leaves and twigs on the ground beneath her, “As long as Fennel has brought you to me, because he knows the way, maybe he will be glad to show you places to rest and to bathe, and to prepare for feasting. For we will feast this night. And council, yes council.”
But as Fennel and the others were leading them away, Nimerly, still dropping little leaves to the ground, said:
“Dissenbark.”
The witch woman approached, trying to make some order out of tendrils of ginger hair.
“We are the same. We are First Kin, come from the Earth. That is a fair name you have.”
Dissenbark went red and murmured, “My Lady, I was always given to believe it was a silly name.”
But now Dissenbark saw that this whole time, the Lady of the Rootless Isle had been dropping little twigs and stones, and now she looked down to see her name spelled out on the ground.
DISSENBARK
“It was not silly,” the Nimerly disagreed. “Only overlong. But the true name, the name of power has always been in it, and you will always be known by it.
And as she spoke, the Lady began to sweep away letters, brushing awar a D and then a B, next an S and so forth, until only a few were left.
I N ARK
“Say it,” the Lady Nimerly said. “And become it. If you will.”
“Inark,” Dissenbark murmured, “My name is Inark.”
And so it was.
“When he told me,” Ohean said, “when Regni told me, I knew it was true. He put things together on his own, and when he told me the story I knew. It made sense.
“Not that it was not whispered, not that some did not suspect. You wished. I almost knew. On the Isle, when I began to regain my memories, I sensed this, but I thought it could not be time to tell you.
“When I knew who I was… Such a time has passed,” Ohean said. “And all of us have remained here, in this world, across the sea. There was no going back, and I did not trust the reason I remained. Always waiting. In this life, when I finally loved you, I had put out of my mind the possibility that you could be…” Ohean stopped, turning his head. “That you could be yourself.”
“I know it,” Anson said. “But I don’t remember it. Maybe one day I will remember it whole.”
“I don’t know that it works that way,” Ohean said. I think that even though you were Iffan… Iffan was Iffan and only someone you lived as for a time. Like a dream.”
“Do you know that for sure?” Anson said.
The look on Anson’s face was calculated and challenging and Ohean said, “No. Having never been you, I could not tell you that for sure.”
Anson stepped forward and touched Ohean’s face.
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” he said.
“Well, you won’t leave me now.” Ohean raised an eyebrow and gave him a playful smile.
“No,” said Anson. “Not ever.”
Kenneth walked through the little paths of deep blue flowers, touching the blossoms, smelling the small white flowers hanging through the trees, and he started when he looked up and saw a familiar figure walking beside the Lady of the Rose and the Lady Nimerly.
“Birch.”
“Kenneth, we are well met, Kenneth, at the end of this road.”
“Are we, Lady?” Kenneth said. “I mean at the end of this road?”
“It seems we are all being drawn together in this place, at this time,” Essily said. She wore, for once, a pale, pale blue, and in her pale hair were star flowers and pink blossoms like little kisses. The three ladies looked on him with a love that was more than simple kindness, even Celandine. Essily’s face was graver and older and far more beautiful than it had been at her old house and, once again, when he looked upon Celandine, he noted that when he turned his head there were wings, but when he looked at her her direct, nothing.
“I know who I am,” he said. “At last.”
“I think, by the look on your face, that you know who you were for a time. There is such water here,” Celandine said, taking his hand, “as to let you see yourself fully, even before you were born. Such a drink would heal you, but such wisdom is not for the world into which you will go. And you will go out of here soon, and live long in that outer world.
“Back in the cottage I was Celandine,” she told him as they walked through the wood. “But here, in the Wild Wood, I am as I was, and I see more clearly. There is much in store for you, Kenneth. And much happiness. But what that joy may be is for you to know and not for me to tell.”
A shouting broke the quiet of the woods and both of them looked up.
“My Lady! My Ladies!” called a raucous voice. “All come to the Glade .”
The three ladies nodded to Kenneth, and they walked on ahead. Here in this wood there were no twigs or roots to trip over, and the space was as clear to them as a carpet.
Celandine came ahead of the sisters, and Fennel stood before her and also something that looked like a man with the face of a hedgehog, a long hedgehog with a mannish face, prickles all up and down his back and a spear of green wood.
“My Lady, King Feldor of the Wood Folk is here, and he has come to quarrel with his son for taking sides with the people of Chyr.”
“Then doubtless,” The Lady said, gazing at Essily as she approached, “he has a quarrel with me.”
Now Anson and Ohean, Theone, Orem and Arvad were approaching, and the newly named Inark was with the Lady already. There was a trumpeting from the eastern edge of the woods, and then came a small host of people many who looked like Fennel and were headed by a version of Fennel in legs and arms which seemed to grow out of their bark casings though some seemed to be nude and covered in green shininess like the inside of a leaf, and there were the squatter mushroom folk which reminded Theone of the Dwarves. She whispered to Inark, asking what had become of them.
“Andvari has gone back to gather his troops. However these folk feel about fighting for you, Andvari knows where he stands.”
“My Lord Feldor,” the Lady Celandine spoke, rising to receive the hostile wood lord, “in Maia’s name I greet you and all your host. I was going to call a council of war, but I see you have already brought it.”
“Look at you,” Anson said, sitting down on the ground beside the boy, Dahlan, who was sitting on a rock.
“You look as dazed as…. Well, as I feel.”
“But this is your world,” Dahlan said. “Wizards and…. Dwarves and magic swords and…”
“All of this is new to me,” Anson said. “None of it like anything I ever saw in Westrial, though I think I will be seeing it very soon in very many places.”
Anson sighed and he said, “You know… It’s not that it’s my world. It’s THE world, and we set limits on it, but the limits have been removed.”
“Well, that’s very philosophical,” Dahlan said, “But I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do. There are no cities for me to defend and no prophecies for me to fulfill.”
“You’re better than a prophecy. You’re the Prophet.”
“That is nonsense,” Dahlan said.
“Come with me,” Anson said, standing up and surprising himself by a small groan.
“Where are we going?”
Anson did not answer, and Dahlan followed him across the glade, through trees until they found Ohean who was standing there, seemingly waiting for them.
“Yes,” Ohean said, when Dahlan had spoken to him. “I will get you a horse. Do you know your directions?”
“Of course!”
“No need to be offended. Many do not. I want you to ride a day southeast to the coast, to the place the villagers called Marvel Head.”
“Very well,” Dahlan nodded. “And then?”
“And then wait.”
Dahlan looked doubtful. His shoulders were a little hunched, his brow furrowed.
“And what else?”
Ohean blinked and Anson remembered that he had been raised a prince, and expected to be obeyed.
“And I suggest you start now. Anson, get the boy a horse.”
Ohean turned and left them to it, and Anson obeyed.
The people of the wood were many shapes and sizes and they all stood about the King who said, “Lady, well you know we have come to call no council.”
“And why not?” Essily spoke. “The Son of Destruction crosses the waves. Even now he engages the navy of Chyr, and before long he will set foot on this soil. Behind him are his Hands, and with them the Masters of the Hand who wield the Dark power from beneath.”
“What is that to us?” said Feldor. “See,” he pointed to Theone, “she already bears the Stone that was lost. When have the children of men ever engaged in our affairs? Why should we engage in theirs? Their concern is not for us, well then neither should the People of the Wood be concerned with them.”
It was Nimerly who spoke now, and she said, “Your words are foolish and betray your lack of wisdom. For it was in the very beginning that the Children of Men stood with you, and Mahonry who crossed the waves, in the very ancient days was a constant aid to the People of the Woods. There was marriage between you and they, then and in the time of trouble, in the days of your father’s father which even if you have forgotten, Lord Feldor, I have not.”
“The People Under the Earth are gathering,” Ohean said. “Not long ago, the Fiery One himself burst out of the Pit, I and this witch beside me, confronted him.”
“But he escaped,” Inark said. “He went up and up, and maybe even now, his spirit is in this world.”
“Your son has gathered his men to us,” said Ohean, “and he knows what is at hand. You speak as one without memory. How can it be that you have forgotten what Chyr is? How can it be that you have forgotten the very meaning or the word, or that you have lost the name? And have you forgotten the Great Tree? Aye, you have, else you would never have brought your ragtag army with you and demanded, “What is Chyr?” You would have known, and you would have come before this company with a better tone.”
As he spoke, it seemed the wood grew darker, and Ohean seemed to rise higher and higher. His right hand was cupped as a claw, and it grew with him, filling with light, and then there was light, and the birds that had silenced sang again.
“You are Ohean,” Feldor spoke.
“I am Ohean and much more.”
There was silence, and then a voice from above them, over Ohean, said, slowly, “Chyr is the land. Chyr is the land forever. Why should we let the foot of perdition stand upon it? The People of the Forest are the people of the Land, why should they allow folk who do not possess the blessing to enter the land, to harm the land?”
Theone, who stood across from Ohean, already saw what Anson was beginning to see. The oak tree behind him was stretching and swaying, and the pattern of bark indentations had swirled and swayed, and made a gnarled face. By now his voice was echoed, and it was the voices of many trees.
“Why should we be as the dry land of other lands, lost of its blessing, lost of its voice? Why should we let the sons of destruction destroy our lands, march over our lands?”
“We are the trees and the leaves of the forest. Why should they leave our forest waste? We are the voice and the land of Chyr.”
And now there were others, stepping out of the wood. Maidens in sheer gowns of copper that seemed somehow, fragile as paper, ladies in white birch robes, brown faced young men in bark tight trews, some bare chested. The more Anson looked at them, the more they looked like trees, like birches and elms and willows, but when he looked away, or indirectly, they seemed as men, and they were gathering in number.
One, a tall maiden with hair the color of sun through leaves, advanced and she took the crown from Feldor’s head and went directly to Gennel, placing it there.
“Now hear the voice of the Forest, now Gennel is our King. We are the oldest of the People of the Woods, so old and ancient where we end and where rhe forest begins there is no telling.
MORE NEXT WEEK
OHEAN
“How long will it be before we reach the surface?” Kenneth asked Andvari as they trudged up the path. Here it had grown higher, and a little more narrow, but cleaner. There was nothing that suggested these paths were natural, like the old ones they had followed, and there were no natural caverns they crossed into any longer.
“It depends on what you mean by the surface,” the Dwarf said. “For, as some of you may already have guessed, we came above the surface of the plains some time past. Now we are in the bowels of the Mountains your people called the Ystrad, and soon to come out of them.
“We will come out,” Durgan said, “through the Gate known as Falgri. Of old it was the way we entered the kingdom of the Wood Folk. The word should not have changed, and the passage should still be possible.”
The whole time they had walked on, Anson had been uncommonly quiet, and now Ohean touched him.
“Yes?” Anson said.
“You’ve been strange.”
“Tired is all,” Anson said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Anson squeezed his hand quickly. “Very sure.”
“What I don’t understand,” Theone was saying to Dissenbark in a low voice, while she touched the glowing stone, “is why it went dead on me. Why it did nothing the other night.”
“I have thought about this,” Dissenbark said, “and I was wondering if. maybe, the Stone, or… the Lady, did nothing in order that I could do what I did. It couldn’t be that she was powerless. I doubt that. I think that maybe she retreated so that I could be… powerful?”
Theone nodded and said, “It is as good a reason as I can think and better, in fact. It will have to be a mystery.”
“I knew a tiresome old priest who used to roam the country telling us to beg the Gods’ forgiveness for our sins,” Dissenbark said. “But I think that on the Day of Reckoning They’ll have a few questions to answer too, as far as I’m concerned.”
Dahlan shielded his eyes, looking ahead.
“What’s that?” Orem pointed ahead.
Andvari had already seen it, and Regni and Durgan had put up their hands, bidding the others stop. No one paid heed. Ohean walked at the head of them now, and suddenly he blinked to see green trees in the sunshine, Everyone started at the abundance of living green. But soon after they saw everything else, the people Andvari and Durgan and Orem had seen.
Many of them were not the height of a man, but all were taller than Dwarves and some were sapling tall, in brown and green that clung to them like bark or leaf more than clothing, as if some woodland god had painted their naked bodies. From their close fitting skins sprung leaves, and small branches. They seemed as much part of the forest as any shrub or vine or tree. Wide eyed they were, men and a few appeared to be ladies and some had caps on their heads like the tops of acorns or like the tops of thistles and pine cones or a weaving of twigs and now they were all looking at the travelers.
“Hail Andvari, King of the Underland Duergar,” one said, and the others stopped and bowed.
“Gennel of the Wood Folk,” Andvari returned the greeting.
“There is war,” he said, “and we had spoken with Maud of Thaary. She is defending the Crystal City. I made pact with her though it was against my father’s word. He said that this is a quarrel for men, and we should have nothing to do with it. I did not agree,” Gennel gave a short bow.
“And you wondered that men might come through these walls,” Ohean said.
Gennel nodded, “Of old these were the paths the Royan built, all the way from what is now Solahn into Chyr.”
“And how far is Chyr, good sir?” Theone said.
“When you leave this forest,” Gennel told her, “you are in it.”
“This is Theone daughter of Essnara daughter of Jergen daughter of Ermengild, the Princess once lost,” Ohean said, “and I am Ohean, and these are my companions.”
“Then it is you for whom we have been waiting,” Gennel said.
“The Lady of the Rose is keeping company in the Wood and with her is your kinswoman, the Lady of the Rootless Isle.”
“Nimerly!” Ohean and Dissenbark cried at once, but Essily only wailed and put her hands to her mouth as one wounded.
“Mother!” Anson began.
Essily looked fragile and wounded, shaking her head, looking almost like an old woman. I did not dare to hope. I did not…”
“Lady,” one beside Gennel said, “We will take you to your sister, and straightway.”
While Essily was still weeping, she was surrounded by several of the fairy women, and moving far quicker than the humans were prepared to go, they bore Essily away across the glade.
Only Gennel remained, and he said, simply:
“There is much the Lady Celandine wishes to discuss with you.”
“I thought we would never again see the sun, and when I dreamed of it, it was nothing like this. Nothing like what we see at all. Look, everywhere is green. Yellow green, mint green, deep greens, greens soft as blues, look at that water in the pools, black, the color of peat, the color of eyes and button mushrooms in the moss. The moss green again. Praise the Lord of all Green things, praise him. Praise the Lady for all this,” Dissenbark sang, clasping her hands together as she turned in circles and they went in the company of the Wood Folk.
Suddenly Anson struck up a song:
Praise the Maker for his goodness
Praise the Lady for her kiss
Praise the Lord of all the Green things
Praise she who has born all this.
All the green times
All the verdure
All the lingering lustfulness
Praise the Maker of the Sunshine
Praise them all for all this Bliss!
He caught Ohean’s hand and laughed and Ohean laughed and then the two of them surprised everyone, for they ran on until they stopped under a tree. Anson caught his Ohean’s face in his hands.
“Tonight,” he sang, his cheeks red, his eyes dancing, “you just wait and I’ll love you! I’ll love you wantonly like you never knew.”
He hooked his arm in Ohean’s as they walked on, the path lowered, a black, lush road through high, deep green trees, in the distance, fallen logs, delicate ferns, diamond weaves of spider webs like cloaks. Dissenbark began a song. Arvad sang along.
My temple is above
My temple is below
My lover lady’s with me
Wher’er I may go
Thou love it has brought me
Through the wind and the snow
My temple is above!
It is below!
Anson’s hand was frimly gripping Ohean’s and as they walked together, Ohean said, “Long ago, in this wood, there was a day like this. The birds sang sweetly as if Maia had just stepped forth in the first morning of the world and the warmth of the day was… thick like honey… it was thick and good like honey. The world was sweeter then.”
“There is so much, so much I have to tell you,” Ohean said.
“There is something, and I do not know how to speak it. But I must be certain.”
“Ohean,” Anson sounded, for once, petulant.
“Give me this, love.” Ohean said. “You’ve given me so much give me this last. I promise I will tell you everything that is in my heart.”
As Dissenbark walked the wooded path she noticed it growing broader and flatter under her feet, and where there had been toadstools, now there were creatures with mushroom colored faces, black eyes, and caps, red and white, toadstool shaped. Where there had before been plain trees, now they looked down at her and the bark patterns twisted into black faces. Everything was alive here, the water seemed to sing here.
Cotton dandelion fluff filled the air and rained down and when she burshde it from her eyes, Dissenbark saw the shadow of slender beings floating down. There was a subtle music, the air seemed to make music in the trees, and the willow in the distance were slow, patient faced women. Everything was aware here. Where once were dragonflies, now, larger, were dragonfly winged creatures coming in and out.
Dissenbark opened her mouth to sing and hum and a melody came out, and there were no words, but everyone knew it. The sides of the living trees were painted deep gold by afternoon sun, and now even Orem, who had the least sight for this place, blinked as one and then several of the trees stepped aside, not ripping the land, coming up smoothly and delicate, making an avenue, and at its end, under a great oak, with leaves of gold and copper sat two women, or two more than women, and for a moment, Kenneth saw, as he had seen before, wings, like dragonfly wings or like insect wings, floating slowly behind the one in her rose colored gown. The more he stared directly, hoping for certainty, the more the wings faded until they were not there. But when he turned his head, there they were from the corner of his eye, and the woman who sat first had bare golden arms and she wore a light gown the color of salmon. Her hair was thick white gold, more white than gold, and she said:
“We are well met, Kenneth. Do you remember our first meeting?”
“It was that night. At Yarrow’s cottage. That seemed so long ago.”
“And now you are all here. Lord Andvari, Lords Durgen and Regni, forgive our intrusion on your land.”
“There was no intrustion, Lady.”
“Rest yourselves,” she said. “And all of you. Orem, and Arvad, and also he who shall be King and she who will be Queen, Ermengild’s heir. And Dissenbark, whose deep cries of power below have reached our ears. And, not least at all, the Lord Ohean, come again.”
“Lady,” Ohean bowed, “it has been many years sense last we met. You spoke of a King and a Queen.”
“Yes,” Arvad said. “When Orem marries Theone, he’ll be King, right?”
Orem blinked. This had never occurred to him. But Dissenbark pointed out, “if the Lady had meant Orem, she would not have addressed him. Anson is the one she never spoke of.”
Nimerly sat beside Essily, both of them hands clasped, looking like queens. Nimerly’s wide eyes rested upon Dissenbark, pronoucing the words, “Little Sister.”
The Lady Celandine raised her liquid eyes to Anson and the soldier blinked.
“Orem will not be King,” she said. “As Bellamy will not be King. How can something so plain be hidden from one who was accompanied by the mightiest of the Five?”
Anson blinked stupidly and Regni, tugging at Anson’s sleeve, said, “Can it be? You never told him? How could you not have told him?”
Now Ohean looked truly flustered. The Lady did not. She was not gloating, but she was not upset either. She said, “Often it is those who are close to a thing who are not permitted to see it, no matter how wise or great they may be. It is fitting. It fits.”
They were all looking at Anson now, Theone’s mouth open in slight surprise. Miserably, Anson touched Ohean’s shoulder.
“I must speak to you, Now. And not tonight.”
He pulled him away from the company and the Lady said as Nimerly began absently sifted leaves and twigs on the ground beneath her, “As long as Fennel has brought you to me, because he knows the way, maybe he will be glad to show you places to rest and to bathe, and to prepare for feasting. For we will feast this night. And council, yes council.”
But as Fennel and the others were leading them away, Nimerly, still dropping little leaves to the ground, said:
“Dissenbark.”
The witch woman approached, trying to make some order out of tendrils of ginger hair.
“We are the same. We are First Kin, come from the Earth. That is a fair name you have.”
Dissenbark went red and murmured, “My Lady, I was always given to believe it was a silly name.”
But now Dissenbark saw that this whole time, the Lady of the Rootless Isle had been dropping little twigs and stones, and now she looked down to see her name spelled out on the ground.
DISSENBARK
“It was not silly,” the Nimerly disagreed. “Only overlong. But the true name, the name of power has always been in it, and you will always be known by it.
And as she spoke, the Lady began to sweep away letters, brushing awar a D and then a B, next an S and so forth, until only a few were left.
I N ARK
“Say it,” the Lady Nimerly said. “And become it. If you will.”
“Inark,” Dissenbark murmured, “My name is Inark.”
And so it was.
“When he told me,” Ohean said, “when Regni told me, I knew it was true. He put things together on his own, and when he told me the story I knew. It made sense.
“Not that it was not whispered, not that some did not suspect. You wished. I almost knew. On the Isle, when I began to regain my memories, I sensed this, but I thought it could not be time to tell you.
“When I knew who I was… Such a time has passed,” Ohean said. “And all of us have remained here, in this world, across the sea. There was no going back, and I did not trust the reason I remained. Always waiting. In this life, when I finally loved you, I had put out of my mind the possibility that you could be…” Ohean stopped, turning his head. “That you could be yourself.”
“I know it,” Anson said. “But I don’t remember it. Maybe one day I will remember it whole.”
“I don’t know that it works that way,” Ohean said. I think that even though you were Iffan… Iffan was Iffan and only someone you lived as for a time. Like a dream.”
“Do you know that for sure?” Anson said.
The look on Anson’s face was calculated and challenging and Ohean said, “No. Having never been you, I could not tell you that for sure.”
Anson stepped forward and touched Ohean’s face.
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” he said.
“Well, you won’t leave me now.” Ohean raised an eyebrow and gave him a playful smile.
“No,” said Anson. “Not ever.”
Kenneth walked through the little paths of deep blue flowers, touching the blossoms, smelling the small white flowers hanging through the trees, and he started when he looked up and saw a familiar figure walking beside the Lady of the Rose and the Lady Nimerly.
“Birch.”
“Kenneth, we are well met, Kenneth, at the end of this road.”
“Are we, Lady?” Kenneth said. “I mean at the end of this road?”
“It seems we are all being drawn together in this place, at this time,” Essily said. She wore, for once, a pale, pale blue, and in her pale hair were star flowers and pink blossoms like little kisses. The three ladies looked on him with a love that was more than simple kindness, even Celandine. Essily’s face was graver and older and far more beautiful than it had been at her old house and, once again, when he looked upon Celandine, he noted that when he turned his head there were wings, but when he looked at her her direct, nothing.
“I know who I am,” he said. “At last.”
“I think, by the look on your face, that you know who you were for a time. There is such water here,” Celandine said, taking his hand, “as to let you see yourself fully, even before you were born. Such a drink would heal you, but such wisdom is not for the world into which you will go. And you will go out of here soon, and live long in that outer world.
“Back in the cottage I was Celandine,” she told him as they walked through the wood. “But here, in the Wild Wood, I am as I was, and I see more clearly. There is much in store for you, Kenneth. And much happiness. But what that joy may be is for you to know and not for me to tell.”
A shouting broke the quiet of the woods and both of them looked up.
“My Lady! My Ladies!” called a raucous voice. “All come to the Glade .”
The three ladies nodded to Kenneth, and they walked on ahead. Here in this wood there were no twigs or roots to trip over, and the space was as clear to them as a carpet.
Celandine came ahead of the sisters, and Fennel stood before her and also something that looked like a man with the face of a hedgehog, a long hedgehog with a mannish face, prickles all up and down his back and a spear of green wood.
“My Lady, King Feldor of the Wood Folk is here, and he has come to quarrel with his son for taking sides with the people of Chyr.”
“Then doubtless,” The Lady said, gazing at Essily as she approached, “he has a quarrel with me.”
Now Anson and Ohean, Theone, Orem and Arvad were approaching, and the newly named Inark was with the Lady already. There was a trumpeting from the eastern edge of the woods, and then came a small host of people many who looked like Fennel and were headed by a version of Fennel in legs and arms which seemed to grow out of their bark casings though some seemed to be nude and covered in green shininess like the inside of a leaf, and there were the squatter mushroom folk which reminded Theone of the Dwarves. She whispered to Inark, asking what had become of them.
“Andvari has gone back to gather his troops. However these folk feel about fighting for you, Andvari knows where he stands.”
“My Lord Feldor,” the Lady Celandine spoke, rising to receive the hostile wood lord, “in Maia’s name I greet you and all your host. I was going to call a council of war, but I see you have already brought it.”
“Look at you,” Anson said, sitting down on the ground beside the boy, Dahlan, who was sitting on a rock.
“You look as dazed as…. Well, as I feel.”
“But this is your world,” Dahlan said. “Wizards and…. Dwarves and magic swords and…”
“All of this is new to me,” Anson said. “None of it like anything I ever saw in Westrial, though I think I will be seeing it very soon in very many places.”
Anson sighed and he said, “You know… It’s not that it’s my world. It’s THE world, and we set limits on it, but the limits have been removed.”
“Well, that’s very philosophical,” Dahlan said, “But I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do. There are no cities for me to defend and no prophecies for me to fulfill.”
“You’re better than a prophecy. You’re the Prophet.”
“That is nonsense,” Dahlan said.
“Come with me,” Anson said, standing up and surprising himself by a small groan.
“Where are we going?”
Anson did not answer, and Dahlan followed him across the glade, through trees until they found Ohean who was standing there, seemingly waiting for them.
“Yes,” Ohean said, when Dahlan had spoken to him. “I will get you a horse. Do you know your directions?”
“Of course!”
“No need to be offended. Many do not. I want you to ride a day southeast to the coast, to the place the villagers called Marvel Head.”
“Very well,” Dahlan nodded. “And then?”
“And then wait.”
Dahlan looked doubtful. His shoulders were a little hunched, his brow furrowed.
“And what else?”
Ohean blinked and Anson remembered that he had been raised a prince, and expected to be obeyed.
“And I suggest you start now. Anson, get the boy a horse.”
Ohean turned and left them to it, and Anson obeyed.
The people of the wood were many shapes and sizes and they all stood about the King who said, “Lady, well you know we have come to call no council.”
“And why not?” Essily spoke. “The Son of Destruction crosses the waves. Even now he engages the navy of Chyr, and before long he will set foot on this soil. Behind him are his Hands, and with them the Masters of the Hand who wield the Dark power from beneath.”
“What is that to us?” said Feldor. “See,” he pointed to Theone, “she already bears the Stone that was lost. When have the children of men ever engaged in our affairs? Why should we engage in theirs? Their concern is not for us, well then neither should the People of the Wood be concerned with them.”
It was Nimerly who spoke now, and she said, “Your words are foolish and betray your lack of wisdom. For it was in the very beginning that the Children of Men stood with you, and Mahonry who crossed the waves, in the very ancient days was a constant aid to the People of the Woods. There was marriage between you and they, then and in the time of trouble, in the days of your father’s father which even if you have forgotten, Lord Feldor, I have not.”
“The People Under the Earth are gathering,” Ohean said. “Not long ago, the Fiery One himself burst out of the Pit, I and this witch beside me, confronted him.”
“But he escaped,” Inark said. “He went up and up, and maybe even now, his spirit is in this world.”
“Your son has gathered his men to us,” said Ohean, “and he knows what is at hand. You speak as one without memory. How can it be that you have forgotten what Chyr is? How can it be that you have forgotten the very meaning or the word, or that you have lost the name? And have you forgotten the Great Tree? Aye, you have, else you would never have brought your ragtag army with you and demanded, “What is Chyr?” You would have known, and you would have come before this company with a better tone.”
As he spoke, it seemed the wood grew darker, and Ohean seemed to rise higher and higher. His right hand was cupped as a claw, and it grew with him, filling with light, and then there was light, and the birds that had silenced sang again.
“You are Ohean,” Feldor spoke.
“I am Ohean and much more.”
There was silence, and then a voice from above them, over Ohean, said, slowly, “Chyr is the land. Chyr is the land forever. Why should we let the foot of perdition stand upon it? The People of the Forest are the people of the Land, why should they allow folk who do not possess the blessing to enter the land, to harm the land?”
Theone, who stood across from Ohean, already saw what Anson was beginning to see. The oak tree behind him was stretching and swaying, and the pattern of bark indentations had swirled and swayed, and made a gnarled face. By now his voice was echoed, and it was the voices of many trees.
“Why should we be as the dry land of other lands, lost of its blessing, lost of its voice? Why should we let the sons of destruction destroy our lands, march over our lands?”
“We are the trees and the leaves of the forest. Why should they leave our forest waste? We are the voice and the land of Chyr.”
And now there were others, stepping out of the wood. Maidens in sheer gowns of copper that seemed somehow, fragile as paper, ladies in white birch robes, brown faced young men in bark tight trews, some bare chested. The more Anson looked at them, the more they looked like trees, like birches and elms and willows, but when he looked away, or indirectly, they seemed as men, and they were gathering in number.
One, a tall maiden with hair the color of sun through leaves, advanced and she took the crown from Feldor’s head and went directly to Gennel, placing it there.
“Now hear the voice of the Forest, now Gennel is our King. We are the oldest of the People of the Woods, so old and ancient where we end and where rhe forest begins there is no telling.
MORE NEXT WEEK
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was some great writing! This story gets more and more intricate as it goes on but I am really enjoying it! I am glad I have the weekend to reread this portion and I look forward to more next week!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, I see what you mean. Well, I always do try to give a nice chunk for the weekend, but as we come further there are certain more magical elements and the story is certainly increasingly intricuate. We've come a long way from Conn in the Blue Temple.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WHILE IN THE SACRED WOOD OF CHYR, THE WOOD PEOPLE MAKE PLANS, IN THE MUCH MORE MUNDANE NORTH, WAR CONTINUES BETWEEN THE TWO HALES AND THE KINGDOM OF INGLAD
“Look well on me, for I am the Spirit of the Forest, in days of old my name was inpronouncable, but now it is Finagra. Rule wise, preserve us, remember the Green Tree, my sister. Remember her land, which is in danger even now.”
Gennel bowed, but before he could say anything, one of the birch bark lads, with a nearly flat face and mouth that opened like a flap, called, “Away to the plains! Away to the plains! Gennel my King, we will meet you there.”
And then there was a great stomping and storming and suddenly, Ohean felt an uprooting and unsettling behind him as the tree lifted its tendrils from the ground and moved on. Whole portions of the forest were moving, and this went on and on for sometime, clods of dirt falling, crashes coming. The Companions, wisely, stood together. Nimerly, Essily and the Lady seemed unaffected. When it was done, even Gennel and his people were gone, and there was no Feldor either. The woods seemed very still, and very, at least Inark thought this, unmagical.
“Our work is nearly done here,” The Lady Celandine said. “This wood, by right, was never mine. I will depart for the south, and Essily and Nimerly will come with me. But your work, of going to defend the Crystal City, begins today.”
“I am rested enough,” Kenneth said with the closest thing to a laugh he had worn for days. To Arvad he still seemed weary, but he was happier now.
“Gennel is King of the wood,” Celandine said, grasping the hands of Anson and Theone, “but you are the King and Queen. As of yet, you do not know what that means, but soon you shall. And Gennel will. His armies are yours. Both of yours, and you will both need them. Very soon.”
Anson looked doubtful. He turned to Theone.
“I don’t know how to be a King. I only know how to be a general. A soldier.”
“And I don’t know even that,” Theone said.
“Well, then leave it to one who does,” Essily said, placing a light hand on Kenneth and another on Orem’s. “A King rules. A general conquers. Now and again some do both, but that is not usually the way of it. Here, she said raising herself on the tips of her toes and kissing Orem on his large forehead, and then Kenneth. “Receive my kiss. May every shadow pass away, and the spirit of all wisdom descend upon you. Walk on,” she said, stepping away. “Walk on and all shall be made clearer soon.”
Ohean spoke a few words with Essily and the Lady, and then the Lady gave a thing to Ohean, slipping it inside his cloak, and they began to walk in the direction of the departed forest folk. As they did, Celandine called out: “Hail Ohean, the Ancient One who crossed over the sea, Hail the King who was lost but lives again, Hail Theone, Queen of the Race of Gozen lost. Hail Inark, the Red Witch who gained her power in the worlds beneath. All Hail to Kenneth, and to Orem, who bear the Black Blood of Gozen, and possess the secret skill. Fair thee well, all fair well!”
Now, the Dark Age has come.
Plant the Ursuham, the Name of God.
It is not the season to plant other seeds.
Do not wander lost in doubt and delusion.
-Sage Imbeth Atanambyl
AMBRIDGE
“Aye! And then her Baldiness said she was pregnant by the King, and she still says she is.”
“Well, he ain’t the king no more!” old Martin said, as he took a plug from his ale. “Osric Wulfstan sent his head in a back to the palace.”
“Can you imagine that?” Ned wodnered beside him, forgetting his beer long enough to lean over the bar and smile. “The Baldies sitting down to table and old Queen Edith, haughty as ever, saying, ‘I do say, Allyn, whatever is for dinner?’ And then, just like that, a head in the bag. Her husband’s head.
“Ah, but I doubt she was too troubled about it,” Matilda the barmaid said. “After all, for twenty-five years they barely touched each other. She hated him as much we hated them. My sister worked in the palace. She always said the Queen looked like she smelled something bad.”
“I heard,” Gus looked around for King’s guards, “That she had him killed and passed it off on Osric and Myrne.”
“And then did she have the head sent back and pretend she was Osric and Myrne?”
“Now that I don’t know. No one knows.”
“I had heard, and I believe this, for my cousins live up in Budic, across the border,” that the Queen lied and had Edmund locked away in Hale so what she could take over. Then young Osric hears about, snatches up Edmund anc chops off his head quick as butter.”
“I heard that it was the Queen Myrne herself. That as she did it she said, ‘Vengeance for my family!”
“How can you blame either of them? The King murdered their fathers.”
“I don’t blame either of them,” Mallory said, over the noise of the pub. “I just don’t want Osric Wulfstan to burn our city down.”
“Here! Here!” Ned said. “Does it matter what the great and the mighty do as long as they do not do it to us? I don’t give a damn if Osric is crowned king in Ambridge.”
“But I do care if its Allyn Baldwin. King Allyn!” Mallory screwed up her face and the barmaid Brenda laughed.
“It matters a little who rules, surely,” said a man beside them, new, a little rough looking.
“You have the look and sound of Hale about you?” Ned said.
When the man looked surprised, Ned said, “What do we care about that? Kings and princes make wars across imaginary borders. What is that to us. Half my family is in Hale. A third in Westrial.”
“I had heard war comes down there,” the new man said, “And in a way it does matter, a little, who rules here. Can they lead us? Protect us? Will there be some tyrrant marching across us. It matters a little.”
“Right enough,” Ned agreed. He felr loud and raucous next to the thoughtful country burr of this northman.
“Sir,” Ned said, “did you come in here with that dark haired lass a moment ago.”
“I did.”
“She is fair. Fair spoken. One of us, I think.”
“I am one of us,” the girl said, returning.
“What’s that?” Brenda cried, and turned, looking at her.
“Hill! Hill!” Brenda cried.
Brenda looked between Hillary and Cynric.
“Is this your man?” Brenda cried. “Where have you been? What is…?”
But as she went from the beginning of one question to the beginning of another, Brenda’s eyes widended and tears ran down her face.
“I never thought,” she was clapping her hands together and looked like she might faint.”
Justin, the old innkeeper came beside her and murmured, “Why don’t you and your sister go back and have a talk for a bit. Catch your breath, girl.”
Brenda nodded rapidly, fanning her face, and then she looked at Cynric.
“He’s a nice one. Would you like to come back with us.”
“I would, Ma’am,” Cynric nodded. He nodded to the other men at the bard and pushed himself off the stool, throwing back his brown cloak. As the three of them headed out of the common room, Justin shouted, “Why don’t you just take the day off!”
“Oh, I thought I would never hear from you.”
“I told you I was leaving,” Hillary said. “Bren, you were the last person I could see before we had to flee.”
“I know,” Brenda moaned, “and it all seemed so dangerous, and I never knew who you were leaving with. And then the war came. And now you come back with this handsome, gentle young man. A bit rough looking, like he knows how to hunt.”
Cynric blushed beneath his thin beard.
“I went with the war,” Hillary said.
“Explain,” Brenda said, sitting down after she had poured borth Hillary and Cynric and drink.
And so, leaving out her rape by Edmund, she talked of fleeing to Saint Clew, and then joining up with Myrne and Wolf.
“King Osric! And Myrne! You know them.”
“They weren’t king and queen then” Hilary said. “They weren’t really anything. It happened so fast.”
Cynric looked like he was about to say something, then did not, and Hilary told, now that they were relaxed, in great detail the story of Myrne and Wolf coming to Ambridge and Myrne agreeing to marry Allyn Baldwin and sending Wolf separately from her while she traveled to Herreboro pretending to ask for Allyn’s hand in marriage, only to declare war. She told of how Wolf had gone into the hills and met Cynric and Eryk and this was when Brenda slapped her thigh and shouted, “You are the Queen’s cousin!”
“But I’m not royal, ma’am.”
“But he is a powerful lord,” Hilary said, not to be outdone while Cynric went red. “Cynric is Lord of Slico and her has holdings here, for his mother is from Senae. He’s half Inglad though you’d never know it.”
Hilary told the whole story of the war and wrapped it up neatly and when she was done, Cynric noticed that Hilary had conveniently left out that he had a wife, and it was not her.
For the last couple of months, tales of the rage of Osric Wulfstan had blazed across Inglad. His armies had swept across the Riverlands and were heading, quickly, east toward Ambridge. Chester, Shrewbury, Eastland and Senae fell before him quickly. Indeed, there did not seem to be much of a struggle, and it had been reported that the people of the fens, who never seemed to care for anyone and lived in a place where, frequently, taxmen went to collect and never returned, leaped out, fighting for him. The exiled barons from Hale and the priesthood called for Cynric’s blood, Myrne’s humiliation. A few lords near Ambridge declared that the proper thing to do would be chop of the prretender king’s head and marry Myrne to Allyn Baldwin. For this the city of Ambury, the Archbishop’s seat, was burned to the ground, and he taken into custody.
In the south there was little support for him, but then the southern lords had suffered most under Edmund and remembered what henchmen the Baldwin’s had been. The Evanses remembered as well as the Thomlinsons and the Verins. Godric Verin remembered for the sake of his wife, Alaina, who had been born with the name Flynn, and seen her brother dispossessed and her nephew, Michael, flee into the woods to became an outlaw of legend.
“Only the eastern corner remains for him,” Brenda reported to her sister, and to Cynric, both of whom knew this. “And Ambridge.”
“Yes,” Cynric said, finishing up his drink, “and the Wulfstan armies will arrive in Ambridge any day.”
TOMORROW WE RETURN TO GESCHICHTE FALLS
“Look well on me, for I am the Spirit of the Forest, in days of old my name was inpronouncable, but now it is Finagra. Rule wise, preserve us, remember the Green Tree, my sister. Remember her land, which is in danger even now.”
Gennel bowed, but before he could say anything, one of the birch bark lads, with a nearly flat face and mouth that opened like a flap, called, “Away to the plains! Away to the plains! Gennel my King, we will meet you there.”
And then there was a great stomping and storming and suddenly, Ohean felt an uprooting and unsettling behind him as the tree lifted its tendrils from the ground and moved on. Whole portions of the forest were moving, and this went on and on for sometime, clods of dirt falling, crashes coming. The Companions, wisely, stood together. Nimerly, Essily and the Lady seemed unaffected. When it was done, even Gennel and his people were gone, and there was no Feldor either. The woods seemed very still, and very, at least Inark thought this, unmagical.
“Our work is nearly done here,” The Lady Celandine said. “This wood, by right, was never mine. I will depart for the south, and Essily and Nimerly will come with me. But your work, of going to defend the Crystal City, begins today.”
“I am rested enough,” Kenneth said with the closest thing to a laugh he had worn for days. To Arvad he still seemed weary, but he was happier now.
“Gennel is King of the wood,” Celandine said, grasping the hands of Anson and Theone, “but you are the King and Queen. As of yet, you do not know what that means, but soon you shall. And Gennel will. His armies are yours. Both of yours, and you will both need them. Very soon.”
Anson looked doubtful. He turned to Theone.
“I don’t know how to be a King. I only know how to be a general. A soldier.”
“And I don’t know even that,” Theone said.
“Well, then leave it to one who does,” Essily said, placing a light hand on Kenneth and another on Orem’s. “A King rules. A general conquers. Now and again some do both, but that is not usually the way of it. Here, she said raising herself on the tips of her toes and kissing Orem on his large forehead, and then Kenneth. “Receive my kiss. May every shadow pass away, and the spirit of all wisdom descend upon you. Walk on,” she said, stepping away. “Walk on and all shall be made clearer soon.”
Ohean spoke a few words with Essily and the Lady, and then the Lady gave a thing to Ohean, slipping it inside his cloak, and they began to walk in the direction of the departed forest folk. As they did, Celandine called out: “Hail Ohean, the Ancient One who crossed over the sea, Hail the King who was lost but lives again, Hail Theone, Queen of the Race of Gozen lost. Hail Inark, the Red Witch who gained her power in the worlds beneath. All Hail to Kenneth, and to Orem, who bear the Black Blood of Gozen, and possess the secret skill. Fair thee well, all fair well!”
Now, the Dark Age has come.
Plant the Ursuham, the Name of God.
It is not the season to plant other seeds.
Do not wander lost in doubt and delusion.
-Sage Imbeth Atanambyl
AMBRIDGE
“Aye! And then her Baldiness said she was pregnant by the King, and she still says she is.”
“Well, he ain’t the king no more!” old Martin said, as he took a plug from his ale. “Osric Wulfstan sent his head in a back to the palace.”
“Can you imagine that?” Ned wodnered beside him, forgetting his beer long enough to lean over the bar and smile. “The Baldies sitting down to table and old Queen Edith, haughty as ever, saying, ‘I do say, Allyn, whatever is for dinner?’ And then, just like that, a head in the bag. Her husband’s head.
“Ah, but I doubt she was too troubled about it,” Matilda the barmaid said. “After all, for twenty-five years they barely touched each other. She hated him as much we hated them. My sister worked in the palace. She always said the Queen looked like she smelled something bad.”
“I heard,” Gus looked around for King’s guards, “That she had him killed and passed it off on Osric and Myrne.”
“And then did she have the head sent back and pretend she was Osric and Myrne?”
“Now that I don’t know. No one knows.”
“I had heard, and I believe this, for my cousins live up in Budic, across the border,” that the Queen lied and had Edmund locked away in Hale so what she could take over. Then young Osric hears about, snatches up Edmund anc chops off his head quick as butter.”
“I heard that it was the Queen Myrne herself. That as she did it she said, ‘Vengeance for my family!”
“How can you blame either of them? The King murdered their fathers.”
“I don’t blame either of them,” Mallory said, over the noise of the pub. “I just don’t want Osric Wulfstan to burn our city down.”
“Here! Here!” Ned said. “Does it matter what the great and the mighty do as long as they do not do it to us? I don’t give a damn if Osric is crowned king in Ambridge.”
“But I do care if its Allyn Baldwin. King Allyn!” Mallory screwed up her face and the barmaid Brenda laughed.
“It matters a little who rules, surely,” said a man beside them, new, a little rough looking.
“You have the look and sound of Hale about you?” Ned said.
When the man looked surprised, Ned said, “What do we care about that? Kings and princes make wars across imaginary borders. What is that to us. Half my family is in Hale. A third in Westrial.”
“I had heard war comes down there,” the new man said, “And in a way it does matter, a little, who rules here. Can they lead us? Protect us? Will there be some tyrrant marching across us. It matters a little.”
“Right enough,” Ned agreed. He felr loud and raucous next to the thoughtful country burr of this northman.
“Sir,” Ned said, “did you come in here with that dark haired lass a moment ago.”
“I did.”
“She is fair. Fair spoken. One of us, I think.”
“I am one of us,” the girl said, returning.
“What’s that?” Brenda cried, and turned, looking at her.
“Hill! Hill!” Brenda cried.
Brenda looked between Hillary and Cynric.
“Is this your man?” Brenda cried. “Where have you been? What is…?”
But as she went from the beginning of one question to the beginning of another, Brenda’s eyes widended and tears ran down her face.
“I never thought,” she was clapping her hands together and looked like she might faint.”
Justin, the old innkeeper came beside her and murmured, “Why don’t you and your sister go back and have a talk for a bit. Catch your breath, girl.”
Brenda nodded rapidly, fanning her face, and then she looked at Cynric.
“He’s a nice one. Would you like to come back with us.”
“I would, Ma’am,” Cynric nodded. He nodded to the other men at the bard and pushed himself off the stool, throwing back his brown cloak. As the three of them headed out of the common room, Justin shouted, “Why don’t you just take the day off!”
“Oh, I thought I would never hear from you.”
“I told you I was leaving,” Hillary said. “Bren, you were the last person I could see before we had to flee.”
“I know,” Brenda moaned, “and it all seemed so dangerous, and I never knew who you were leaving with. And then the war came. And now you come back with this handsome, gentle young man. A bit rough looking, like he knows how to hunt.”
Cynric blushed beneath his thin beard.
“I went with the war,” Hillary said.
“Explain,” Brenda said, sitting down after she had poured borth Hillary and Cynric and drink.
And so, leaving out her rape by Edmund, she talked of fleeing to Saint Clew, and then joining up with Myrne and Wolf.
“King Osric! And Myrne! You know them.”
“They weren’t king and queen then” Hilary said. “They weren’t really anything. It happened so fast.”
Cynric looked like he was about to say something, then did not, and Hilary told, now that they were relaxed, in great detail the story of Myrne and Wolf coming to Ambridge and Myrne agreeing to marry Allyn Baldwin and sending Wolf separately from her while she traveled to Herreboro pretending to ask for Allyn’s hand in marriage, only to declare war. She told of how Wolf had gone into the hills and met Cynric and Eryk and this was when Brenda slapped her thigh and shouted, “You are the Queen’s cousin!”
“But I’m not royal, ma’am.”
“But he is a powerful lord,” Hilary said, not to be outdone while Cynric went red. “Cynric is Lord of Slico and her has holdings here, for his mother is from Senae. He’s half Inglad though you’d never know it.”
Hilary told the whole story of the war and wrapped it up neatly and when she was done, Cynric noticed that Hilary had conveniently left out that he had a wife, and it was not her.
For the last couple of months, tales of the rage of Osric Wulfstan had blazed across Inglad. His armies had swept across the Riverlands and were heading, quickly, east toward Ambridge. Chester, Shrewbury, Eastland and Senae fell before him quickly. Indeed, there did not seem to be much of a struggle, and it had been reported that the people of the fens, who never seemed to care for anyone and lived in a place where, frequently, taxmen went to collect and never returned, leaped out, fighting for him. The exiled barons from Hale and the priesthood called for Cynric’s blood, Myrne’s humiliation. A few lords near Ambridge declared that the proper thing to do would be chop of the prretender king’s head and marry Myrne to Allyn Baldwin. For this the city of Ambury, the Archbishop’s seat, was burned to the ground, and he taken into custody.
In the south there was little support for him, but then the southern lords had suffered most under Edmund and remembered what henchmen the Baldwin’s had been. The Evanses remembered as well as the Thomlinsons and the Verins. Godric Verin remembered for the sake of his wife, Alaina, who had been born with the name Flynn, and seen her brother dispossessed and her nephew, Michael, flee into the woods to became an outlaw of legend.
“Only the eastern corner remains for him,” Brenda reported to her sister, and to Cynric, both of whom knew this. “And Ambridge.”
“Yes,” Cynric said, finishing up his drink, “and the Wulfstan armies will arrive in Ambridge any day.”
TOMORROW WE RETURN TO GESCHICHTE FALLS
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! The group is splitting up but for good reason. Also good to see what’s going on elsewhere in this eventful story. Excellent writing and I look forward to Geschichte Falls tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I actually had to reread this myself. There is a great deal going on, especially with the deep history of the forest people.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHYR
As they marched from the wood they heard a distant rumbling. At first, Anson thought it was thunder, and then it was a rustling. It was almost a singing, but none of them could make it out accept maybe Ohean, and they did not ask him. His face was set and the hood of his great mantle was drawn back.
“This is it. This is the moment. When the wind sent me on my way such a time ago, I did not know why she sent me, but it is for this time. This moment.”
From the forest the land dipped down into a low valley, and to their left stretched the hazy blue shadow of the Throndon Mountains.
“A little way south are the lands of Thaary and Vand, and see, if we journey a day, we will stand before the Crystal City itself.”
Above them, at the end of the vale there stretched a band of forest, deep green, nearly black green, and Anson wondered, but they all wondered, if that was a true wood, or the trees and the spirits of trees which had gone a head of them.
“We’ll never catch up with them,” Arvad commented, but Inark said, “We will. I feel it. In the Wood The Lady Celandine said a thing, and I feel that our luck will change presently. I feel…”
Her words stopped. Her mouth hung open and her head swung in the direction of the great, long, Throndon.
“It is coming from the hills.”
They stopped around noon, near a little brook, and the weather was so fair and the water so clear, the sky so deeply blue.
“That look on your face?” Orem said, sitting down beside her.
“Everything is right,” she said. “At this moment. I’m just waiting for something to go wrong.”
Orem squeezed her hand, smiled at her devilishly and said, “Why do that? Things will go wrong soon enough without you worrying for it.”
The rest of that day they climbed through the green hills leading up to the forest, and it was a forest, and they were light hearted and Theone tried to check her light heart, found herself saying that everything had always gone wrong. But the Beryl was warm on her breast.
Why shouldn’t you be light of heart?
Why shouldn’t you be light of heart?
Theone had believed she was talking to herself, but the second time she knew the voice.
Star and no Stone am I! The Beryl sang, and there was a laughter in its song.
“How?” theone began.
Whenever you listen for me, I will always come.
Next she added:
Even if you are not listening, I will come.
“But that time… Down below…. With Dissen… with Inark. You….”
I was there.
“But…”
Be thou, light of heart! I have always been there. And I always will be.
And then she was silent.
But going up the hill, toward the forest, which the closer they came, seemed to stretch directly overhead, Theone felt light in her heart.
That night they slept in a clearing at the edge of the hills. Looking down below, it was hard to imagine how steep the climb had been, the view of the vale was laced in black trees. Ohean unrolled his coat under a tree and went to sleep straightaway, but the rest of them remained awake for some time.
“How he does it, I do not know,” Anson said.
“He is a wizard,” Inark said. “I, on the other hand, am a very recent witch, and my nerves are jangling.”
Theone nodded to this.
“Kenneth and I know how to sleep,” Orem said. “We’re soldiers. We do it on command.”
So saying, Orem hooked an arm about the worried Theone, and brought her to the place where he had laid out his bedpile, and Kenneth reached for Arvad, but Inark said, “And who will keep watch with the witch?”
“No one needs to keep watch at all.”
Ohean had risen. His hand was on her head and he whispered something. Instantly she could think of nothing but sleeping. The moon was large and white and the stars twinkled. Ohean said, “Once you gave me the gift of support. Now I will give you rest. Sleep.”
And stumbling with grateful yawns to her bedpile, Inark drifted into darkness.
When she blinked again, everyone was waking, and Orem and Kenneth stood terrified. Inark was wiping sleep from her eyes and she instantly came to wakefulness when she saw Ohean standing with his planted before him, looking serene. Arvad had just waken, and he and Anson looked sleepy while Theone clutched the Beryl glowing blue at her breast.
There was a steady tramping through the woods, and torches and a party and Ohean said, “Stand firm.”
“It is what I sensed,” Inark said. There was a smile in her voice.
Theone, watching, had fought the urge to come close to Orem and Kenneth. Now she knew she must. Before she had not wanted to be some shrinking woman dependent on her man. Now she knew she had to stand with him, that she and Kenneth and Orem were the same thing.
Lacing through the thin trees there came a train of riders on black horses, and light was coming now so that it was too much to hope that they weren’t really black, that maybe this was a random assortment of dark troops. Theone did not know that Kenneth and Orem, who had been part of this, were sweating from their palms, their scalps, their upper lips as much as she was. She did not know that what Orem wished to do more than anything else was run. She knew the black trews, the black boots, the sable cloaks, the faces hooded or helmeted, the helmets with the long dark horsehair plumes. The Hands. The Black Star.
“And yet we must meet them,” Inark spoke. And though her voice trembled, there was no fear in it.
And Anson murmured, “Blessed are they who standeth and wait at the door.”
And as they approached, suddenly all were surprised to see at the head of this army an old man on a white horse, all wrapped in silvery white, or white shot with silver, and a cloud of grey tendriling hair came from his head and a great beard bloomed from around his face and as he approached, raising his hand, he called: “Hail Ohean, who has crossed over again from the East in this blessed time.”
And when they looked at him, Ohean looked like a child, and his red coat and his clothing were old, and the troop came to rest, and helmets were lifted and hoods pushed back and these men, though they were dressed as hands, pale and black haired and dark eyed as Orem and Kenneth, were smiling brightly, and even those who seemed grave, seemed to hide some smile. Their eyes twinkled and Ohean spoke coming up to him and grabbing his reigns with a bright smile.
“Oh, and bless Mahonwy, the first of us who crossed over in the first days with Mahonry and declared the ancient compact. Oh, hail! All, hail! You have at last come again into the earth!”
Anson was trying to think. All of them were. Mahonwy was one of the Five. Beyond that none of them knew, but as they looked at the old man whom Ohean greeted with such fatherly affection, they were sure they should have known more. Anson knew him, though. For this had been the old man who had come to him on the small island, during his isolation. Even as they were thinking this, Mahonwy gestured to one beside him.
He had the same look as Orem. There was laughter in his dark face and he possessed a clear, bright brow. He dismounted from his black steed and came before Orem, saying: “Speak, and win peace.”
Orem hung back, but Kenneth said, “Sir, what are you? You look like…” he faltered then, and it was Orem who said: “You look like what we once were. In darker, more shameful days.”
Even as he finished speaking, there was such a look of pain on Orem’s face, and he barely finished the sentence. Theone touched him lightly, but the one who had spoken said: “I am Gilvaethwy, and I am what you were in days far brighter. Come, you. And you, Daughter,” he said to Theone. “You are for another. You, my sons, come with me, and I will make you clean again.”
“Sir,” Orem said, quickly, “I have never been clean.”
“Everything,” Gilvaethwy pronounced, “is clean. Only no one remembers.”
And he took them by the hand, and he led them through the woods and still they were in the time between the night and sunrise, and there was a pool, and he bade them strip, and so they did, and it was all as a dream, and then he bid them go into the pool, and when Kenneth placed his toe in there he yelped.
“A great soldier such as yourself undone by a little water?” the Master said, and Orem yelped as well, for when he placed his leg in the water, it was so bone cold he wanted to leap out. He dared not. He placed himself in the water, feeling miserable, so frigid he didn’t know what was happening with Kenneth.
And then he was being scrubbed roughly, so roughly he thought he would cry and he wanted to shield his sex, all his tender parts from the scrubbing, but soon he knew the Master would not harm him. He wanted so badly to cry, and then he was crying, and it had nothing to do with the scrubbing, and his wrists were burning, and all of the pool was warm now, warm with salt as if from his tears. And everything was salt and again he was being washed, more gently and this hand was not the hand of a man, but of a mother, and it was gentle, and it washed all of him. He shielded no part. Water was in his eyes and a voice he could not call man or woman’s bade him step out, and then he was being toweled gently and lain down like a little child and he remembered, long ago, in the Mother’s house he’d had a mother, his own sweet mother, who bathed him and rubbed his back and rubbed oil into his skin, and he cried for the remembering of this. He rememberedTheone coming to him. How gently and in ignorance, they’d made their way to love, and he wept remembering the infant long gone, long gone. In the distance an old man was calling, “Arlan!” bu this meant nothing to him and then the Master was saying, so gently: “Dress.”
And for some reason Orem thought he would open his eyes to see white things. But instead they were black. Black soft undergarments and then black trews and boots and a black shirt and tunic and a black cloak and helmet with a horsehair main he bawked at touching.
“Do not fear to touch. All is yours, save the sword which you must win. Put them on.”
And Orem saw that, in cofusion, Kenneth was dressing, and as he looked at his hands he cried out and at the same time Kenneth did as well.
For years now, since he had left, Orem had tied a band over the one thing that remained of his past, but the Black Star was always on him, branded on him since his Embuement.
“But today is your Enbuement, as we had of old,” Gilvaethwy said, “and these must be worn in pride,” and on his wrists, on both the right and on the left, were stars going from pale silver to palest gold, to deeper gold then back again.
“In ancient days when Phineas arrived he snuffed out the the Star and made it Black. But of old it was Gold, and so it is again. Thou art the Lords of the Gold Star and of the Silver Star. This,” he said regarding the batallion of men and black who had coming riding with him, “is your army to command.”
And now Orem saw that Kenneth stood before him, and in his face was a look of wisdom and of strength and of power, such as he had not previousy seen.
“But Master it is yours,” Orem began.
But even as he spoke, Gilvaethwy was gone.
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As they marched from the wood they heard a distant rumbling. At first, Anson thought it was thunder, and then it was a rustling. It was almost a singing, but none of them could make it out accept maybe Ohean, and they did not ask him. His face was set and the hood of his great mantle was drawn back.
“This is it. This is the moment. When the wind sent me on my way such a time ago, I did not know why she sent me, but it is for this time. This moment.”
From the forest the land dipped down into a low valley, and to their left stretched the hazy blue shadow of the Throndon Mountains.
“A little way south are the lands of Thaary and Vand, and see, if we journey a day, we will stand before the Crystal City itself.”
Above them, at the end of the vale there stretched a band of forest, deep green, nearly black green, and Anson wondered, but they all wondered, if that was a true wood, or the trees and the spirits of trees which had gone a head of them.
“We’ll never catch up with them,” Arvad commented, but Inark said, “We will. I feel it. In the Wood The Lady Celandine said a thing, and I feel that our luck will change presently. I feel…”
Her words stopped. Her mouth hung open and her head swung in the direction of the great, long, Throndon.
“It is coming from the hills.”
They stopped around noon, near a little brook, and the weather was so fair and the water so clear, the sky so deeply blue.
“That look on your face?” Orem said, sitting down beside her.
“Everything is right,” she said. “At this moment. I’m just waiting for something to go wrong.”
Orem squeezed her hand, smiled at her devilishly and said, “Why do that? Things will go wrong soon enough without you worrying for it.”
The rest of that day they climbed through the green hills leading up to the forest, and it was a forest, and they were light hearted and Theone tried to check her light heart, found herself saying that everything had always gone wrong. But the Beryl was warm on her breast.
Why shouldn’t you be light of heart?
Why shouldn’t you be light of heart?
Theone had believed she was talking to herself, but the second time she knew the voice.
Star and no Stone am I! The Beryl sang, and there was a laughter in its song.
“How?” theone began.
Whenever you listen for me, I will always come.
Next she added:
Even if you are not listening, I will come.
“But that time… Down below…. With Dissen… with Inark. You….”
I was there.
“But…”
Be thou, light of heart! I have always been there. And I always will be.
And then she was silent.
But going up the hill, toward the forest, which the closer they came, seemed to stretch directly overhead, Theone felt light in her heart.
That night they slept in a clearing at the edge of the hills. Looking down below, it was hard to imagine how steep the climb had been, the view of the vale was laced in black trees. Ohean unrolled his coat under a tree and went to sleep straightaway, but the rest of them remained awake for some time.
“How he does it, I do not know,” Anson said.
“He is a wizard,” Inark said. “I, on the other hand, am a very recent witch, and my nerves are jangling.”
Theone nodded to this.
“Kenneth and I know how to sleep,” Orem said. “We’re soldiers. We do it on command.”
So saying, Orem hooked an arm about the worried Theone, and brought her to the place where he had laid out his bedpile, and Kenneth reached for Arvad, but Inark said, “And who will keep watch with the witch?”
“No one needs to keep watch at all.”
Ohean had risen. His hand was on her head and he whispered something. Instantly she could think of nothing but sleeping. The moon was large and white and the stars twinkled. Ohean said, “Once you gave me the gift of support. Now I will give you rest. Sleep.”
And stumbling with grateful yawns to her bedpile, Inark drifted into darkness.
When she blinked again, everyone was waking, and Orem and Kenneth stood terrified. Inark was wiping sleep from her eyes and she instantly came to wakefulness when she saw Ohean standing with his planted before him, looking serene. Arvad had just waken, and he and Anson looked sleepy while Theone clutched the Beryl glowing blue at her breast.
There was a steady tramping through the woods, and torches and a party and Ohean said, “Stand firm.”
“It is what I sensed,” Inark said. There was a smile in her voice.
Theone, watching, had fought the urge to come close to Orem and Kenneth. Now she knew she must. Before she had not wanted to be some shrinking woman dependent on her man. Now she knew she had to stand with him, that she and Kenneth and Orem were the same thing.
Lacing through the thin trees there came a train of riders on black horses, and light was coming now so that it was too much to hope that they weren’t really black, that maybe this was a random assortment of dark troops. Theone did not know that Kenneth and Orem, who had been part of this, were sweating from their palms, their scalps, their upper lips as much as she was. She did not know that what Orem wished to do more than anything else was run. She knew the black trews, the black boots, the sable cloaks, the faces hooded or helmeted, the helmets with the long dark horsehair plumes. The Hands. The Black Star.
“And yet we must meet them,” Inark spoke. And though her voice trembled, there was no fear in it.
And Anson murmured, “Blessed are they who standeth and wait at the door.”
And as they approached, suddenly all were surprised to see at the head of this army an old man on a white horse, all wrapped in silvery white, or white shot with silver, and a cloud of grey tendriling hair came from his head and a great beard bloomed from around his face and as he approached, raising his hand, he called: “Hail Ohean, who has crossed over again from the East in this blessed time.”
And when they looked at him, Ohean looked like a child, and his red coat and his clothing were old, and the troop came to rest, and helmets were lifted and hoods pushed back and these men, though they were dressed as hands, pale and black haired and dark eyed as Orem and Kenneth, were smiling brightly, and even those who seemed grave, seemed to hide some smile. Their eyes twinkled and Ohean spoke coming up to him and grabbing his reigns with a bright smile.
“Oh, and bless Mahonwy, the first of us who crossed over in the first days with Mahonry and declared the ancient compact. Oh, hail! All, hail! You have at last come again into the earth!”
Anson was trying to think. All of them were. Mahonwy was one of the Five. Beyond that none of them knew, but as they looked at the old man whom Ohean greeted with such fatherly affection, they were sure they should have known more. Anson knew him, though. For this had been the old man who had come to him on the small island, during his isolation. Even as they were thinking this, Mahonwy gestured to one beside him.
He had the same look as Orem. There was laughter in his dark face and he possessed a clear, bright brow. He dismounted from his black steed and came before Orem, saying: “Speak, and win peace.”
Orem hung back, but Kenneth said, “Sir, what are you? You look like…” he faltered then, and it was Orem who said: “You look like what we once were. In darker, more shameful days.”
Even as he finished speaking, there was such a look of pain on Orem’s face, and he barely finished the sentence. Theone touched him lightly, but the one who had spoken said: “I am Gilvaethwy, and I am what you were in days far brighter. Come, you. And you, Daughter,” he said to Theone. “You are for another. You, my sons, come with me, and I will make you clean again.”
“Sir,” Orem said, quickly, “I have never been clean.”
“Everything,” Gilvaethwy pronounced, “is clean. Only no one remembers.”
And he took them by the hand, and he led them through the woods and still they were in the time between the night and sunrise, and there was a pool, and he bade them strip, and so they did, and it was all as a dream, and then he bid them go into the pool, and when Kenneth placed his toe in there he yelped.
“A great soldier such as yourself undone by a little water?” the Master said, and Orem yelped as well, for when he placed his leg in the water, it was so bone cold he wanted to leap out. He dared not. He placed himself in the water, feeling miserable, so frigid he didn’t know what was happening with Kenneth.
And then he was being scrubbed roughly, so roughly he thought he would cry and he wanted to shield his sex, all his tender parts from the scrubbing, but soon he knew the Master would not harm him. He wanted so badly to cry, and then he was crying, and it had nothing to do with the scrubbing, and his wrists were burning, and all of the pool was warm now, warm with salt as if from his tears. And everything was salt and again he was being washed, more gently and this hand was not the hand of a man, but of a mother, and it was gentle, and it washed all of him. He shielded no part. Water was in his eyes and a voice he could not call man or woman’s bade him step out, and then he was being toweled gently and lain down like a little child and he remembered, long ago, in the Mother’s house he’d had a mother, his own sweet mother, who bathed him and rubbed his back and rubbed oil into his skin, and he cried for the remembering of this. He rememberedTheone coming to him. How gently and in ignorance, they’d made their way to love, and he wept remembering the infant long gone, long gone. In the distance an old man was calling, “Arlan!” bu this meant nothing to him and then the Master was saying, so gently: “Dress.”
And for some reason Orem thought he would open his eyes to see white things. But instead they were black. Black soft undergarments and then black trews and boots and a black shirt and tunic and a black cloak and helmet with a horsehair main he bawked at touching.
“Do not fear to touch. All is yours, save the sword which you must win. Put them on.”
And Orem saw that, in cofusion, Kenneth was dressing, and as he looked at his hands he cried out and at the same time Kenneth did as well.
For years now, since he had left, Orem had tied a band over the one thing that remained of his past, but the Black Star was always on him, branded on him since his Embuement.
“But today is your Enbuement, as we had of old,” Gilvaethwy said, “and these must be worn in pride,” and on his wrists, on both the right and on the left, were stars going from pale silver to palest gold, to deeper gold then back again.
“In ancient days when Phineas arrived he snuffed out the the Star and made it Black. But of old it was Gold, and so it is again. Thou art the Lords of the Gold Star and of the Silver Star. This,” he said regarding the batallion of men and black who had coming riding with him, “is your army to command.”
And now Orem saw that Kenneth stood before him, and in his face was a look of wisdom and of strength and of power, such as he had not previousy seen.
“But Master it is yours,” Orem began.
But even as he spoke, Gilvaethwy was gone.
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