ANSON
After three days and three nights had passed, his minister Nayvan, his minister who speaks fair words, his escort who speaks trustworthy words, carried out the instructions of his lord did not forget his orders, he did not neglect his instructions.
He made a lament for him. He beat the drum for him in the sanctuaries. He made the rounds of the houses of the gods for him. He wept mightily, and all alone he set his foot in the E, the house of Enlil.
When he had entered the E, the house of Enlil,she lamented before Enlil: "Father Enlil, don't let anyone kill your child in the underworld. Don't let your precious metal be alloyed there with the dirt of the underworld. Don't let your precious lapis lazuli be split there with the mason's stone. Don't let your boxwood be chopped up there with the carpenter's wood. Don't let young Lord Ahnar be killed in the underworld."
In his rage father Enlil answered Nayvan: "My son craved the great heaven and he craved the great below as well.
Thus father Enlil did not help in this matter, so he went to Urim.
Father Oromos answered Nayvan: "What has my son done? He has me worried. What has Varayan done? He has me worried. What has the mistress of all the lands done? He has me worried. What has the Red Priest of An done? He has me worried.". He removed some dirt from the tip of his fingernail and created the Jara. He removed some dirt from the tip of his other fingernail and created the Tura. To the Jara he gave the life-giving plant. To the Tura he gave the life-giving water.
Then father Oromos and the Great Mother, Amana of the Many Shafts spoke. “One of you sprinkle the life-giving plant over him, and the of the life-giving water. Go and direct your steps to the underworld. Flit past the door like flies. Slip through the door pivots like phantoms. The father of death, Ostos, on account of his children, is lying there. His holy shoulders are not covered by a linen cloth. The hair on his head is bunched up as if it were leeks.”
Thus spoke the old man in white, hooded in white, his Royan skin black like bark. He spoke over Anson as he woke and he said to the man crawling out of sleep. Weak, naked, “Do you understand the tale?”
Anson opened his mouth. He wanted to call for water, or for some sort of comfort, but he did not dare. Instead he croaked, found no voice, started over again and said, “I am Varayan. I went to the land of the dead. I have come out… No…”
The man looked down on him, blinking patiently, looking like some ancient tree.
“I am Varayan, awakened in the land of the dead. But… not yet in the land in the living.”
The man blinked, neither confirming nor denying. At last he said, “And in the tale who is Enlil, and who is Oromos? If both are father, why does one turn away, and why is one full of compassion?”
Anson blinked and was preparing to answer when the man, the mage, stood up, wrapping himself in his white robe, and said, “When I return to you, you will have an answer.”
He was gone, leaving Anson trembling in the hut. The night was approaching, and he was not entirely sure where he was.
At last he stood and looked around. There was no food, no water. He had no clothes, only the cloth, the… shroud he had woken up in. It was chilly with early spring, but not cold, and now he got up, walking out of the house and through the trees. He wondered if he was all alone, but he had seen no one, and he did not see the man. He tracked his steps to make sure he was not lost and walked long enough to see he was on a small island, off shore for the Isle, which rose up from the black water with its long snaking complex of temple, garden and terraced palace. Ohean was there. Suddenly there was a sharp pang and he thought, “He was right. He was right to lament me coming here.”
Naked, Anson headed back to the hut and, as darkness settled he saw there was now a flint, a seven day glass candle, bread, mushrooms and a jug of water. He did not think of the light. It did not matter. He sat down to eat, to drink, went out to relieve himself. As darkness came he gave himself to it. In time he slept.
One morning, when Anson woke, he blinked up to see the old man blinking down on him.
“Eat, drink,” he said.
Anson never saw the man, but every few days, bread and food was left, and every day water. He had learned to conserve his food and as he tore of some of the flatbread, the old man said:
“Now, in the tale who is Enlil, and who is Oromos? If both are father, why does one turn away, and why is one full of compassion?”
“Oromos is with the Great Mother. He is the Great Father because he is the other side of Greatmother. He is the Grandfather of the universe, the father inside who is one with the mother. Enlil is only the father, divorced from his mother and father; his love is conditional. It is fierce. Sometimes nonexistent.”
The old man nodded his head and Anson continued, “This is the God of the Zahem, and of the Communion, the God of those who do not know the Mother.”
As he chewed on his bread he said, “I did not know the Mother.”
“What father am I, then?” the old man said, “I who bring you bread every few days and leave you in the darkness?
Anson opened his mouth. He thought on this a moment and then said, “I think, perhaps, for love’s sake even the Deep Father, even the Great Mother, may have a fierce face.”
“Ah, well now answer me, this? Why did Varayan descend to the depths of the world in the first place, and what did he meet when he got there? Who was the Lord Ostos? To Him?”
When Anson and Ohean had reached the Hidden Tower, and they had missed the first great snows on the plains of Westrial, Ohean said, “Many, when they come, are enchanted by the magic of the isle, but the magic is itself a glamour. Because you are of the magic, because it is in you, you will see a different thing, and be drawn to a different thing. Or rather, you will be drawn to the very root, the hard rock of the fluttering thing men so often call magic.”
Ohean, of course, had been right. Even Austin and Pol had had little use for magic but had come in contact with the Red Priests, learning from them every day, and Anson immediately had his head shaved, again, and put on the white robe of the acolyte. There were books to be read and magics that Ohean was happy to teach, but for the most part Anson spent his days in contemplation and in chanting.
In one of the White monasteries, an acolyte would be completely separated from the world, Ohean had said. “Here this is not so, but there is separation enough.”
“I hardly see you except when I come to you at night. Where do you go in the day?” Anson had asked Ohean.
“I do much of what you do,” Ohean said. “And I take council with Grandfather and the Masters, with Jasper, my father, and with the many elders. The Young Kingdoms look to the north, but something is happening in the south far more important.”
When Anson looked at him, Ohean said, “Do not let it trouble you. For now it will trouble me. This is not the time to even think of the outside world.”
It was so not the time that Anson came to Ohean only three days out of a week. The other days he kept seclusion.
“Seclusion is good,” Ohean said. “It is necessary. It opens the senses.”
In seclusion he began to see how the essense of magic was not parlor tricks. It was not changing things of your will, but rather being conscious of the changes being worked in the world already. The true wisdom was not in causing magic to happen, but in opening ones eyes to the magic already taking place. It was, as Jasper said, all about walking the world in a magical way.
One did not cause the enchantment, but allowed the enchantment to happen to him, around him, through him. If Ohean had said these things, really, if anyone had said them, they would have made little sense or had little impact. It was in this silence, the dailyness of confronting himself, that wisdom began to grow in Anson.
“In the Communion we were taught that Varayan went to the Land of the Dead to win life for us, but he went for himself. He went because he had to see what was in the shadows. He went for the same reason I am here, wrapped in a shroud and hungry, stripped of all titles, all the titles that made me bitter and proud and angry because, though I was Prince, I was not King, though I was royal, my mother was never acknowledged as Queen, though I was Royan, there was no magic in me. There was no peace in me when I ran from my darkness, when I whored in my darkness and drank through it, so I came here. This is what Varayan was doing as well.”
“And who did he meet?”
“I cannot say.”
“Who did you meet?”
“I will not say.”
The Elder continued only by chanting the rest of the story.
Thus father Enlil did not help in this matter, so she went to Urim.
Father Oromos answered Nayvan: "What has my son done? He has me worried. What has Ahnar done? He has me worried. What has the lord of all the lands done? He has me worried. What has the Red Priest of Ardu done? He has me worried.". He removed some dirt from the tip of his fingernail and created the Jara. He removed some dirt from the tip of his other fingernail and created the Tura. To the Jara he gave the life-giving plant. To the Tura he gave the life-giving water.
“What has Inana done? He has me worried. What has the mistress of all the lands done? He has me worried. What has the hierodule of An done? He has me worried. He removed some dirt from the tip of his fingernail and created the kur-jara. He removed some dirt from the tip of his other fingernail and created the Tura. To the Jara he gave the life-giving plant. To the Tura he gave the life-giving water.
Then father Oromos and the Great Mother, Amana of the Many Shafts spoke. “One of you sprinkle the life-giving plant over her, and the other the life-giving water. Go and direct your steps to the underworld. Flit past the door like flies. Slip through the door pivots like phantoms. The father of death, Ostos, on account of his children, is lying there. His holy shoulders are not covered by a linen cloth. The hair on his head is bunched up as if it were leeks.”
"When he says "Oh my heart", you are to say "You are troubled, our Lord, oh your heart". When he says "Oh my liver", you are to say "You are troubled, our Lord, oh your liver". He will then ask: "Who are you? Speaking to you from my heart to your heart, from my liver to your liver? If you are gods, let me talk with you; if you are mortals, may a destiny be decreed for you." Make him swear this by heaven and earth.
"They will offer you a riverful of water. Don't accept it. They will offer you a field with its grain. Don't accept it. But say to her: "Give us the corpse hanging on the hook." He will answer: "That is the corpse of your Lord." Say to him: "Whether it is that of our king, whether it is that of our Lord, give it to us." She will give you the corpse hanging on the hook. One of you sprinkle on it the life-giving plant and the other the life-giving water. Thus let Ahnar arise."
The man arose and left him, and Anson felt lighter than he had in days. He went walking all day and when he returned there were three candles, bread, cheese, mushrooms and water and a thin, hardbound book. He lifted the slim thing and opened it.
The First Red Book it was called.
He sat down and began to read.
In the nighttime darkness, the shadow came and Anson did not deny him. Him, Anson was sure, and was it Ohean? Ah, but how long had it been since they’d been together? But… this was not his body, his solid body, wide shoulders, stout trunk. This was a lithe body joining to his, and so long kept from union and company, his penis arched up aching, and he almost cried when the lover engulfed him, rode him. He lay on his back enduring it as long as he could and, at last, turned the lover over and began to plow. In the midst of it he was aware that this was something he had never experienced, for he was never a man to deny his true nature. He had never been with a woman and this, indeed, was a woman, Her woman’s body was there under his hands and she cried out as he spent himself on her, burst, at last, feeling his semen well up and shoot, so long damned up, feeling the orgasm thatvmade his feet clinch, his body arch, feeling all his strength fly out of him there, feeling himself crumple in on himself like a dead bug, only weaker, only with no casing.
She made no noise. She simply got up and left.
A passage from The Red Book drifted through Anson’s mind.
The mushroom of a morning does not know what takes place between the beginning and end of a month; the short-lived cicada does not know what takes place between the spring and autumn. These are instances of a short term of life. In the south of there is the Tree whose spring is five hundred years, and its autumn the same; in high antiquity there was that Serpent, whose spring was ten thousand years, and its autumn the same.
He felt strange, lift and free, but troubled. Every other night the lover came with hands and mouth, pleading, never speaking after fucking ended. Anson had never known a woman and didn’t really long for one now, wondered, if he had seen her, would he be pleased? The fact that he was doing something so contrary to him made him feel a way a he could not describe, The solitude of each day was broken by an almost solitary sex where he knew not what happened with his seed or whom he was spilling it into. He thought, often, of not doing it again, but then, every night, he fucked her so hard she cried, and every night, when she left, he felt as alone as an abandoned baby. The days grew heavy with loneliness as they grew light with freedom, and when the boat came and on it was a man in white and grey, he let down his hood and proved to be, of all people, Ohean. Tears sprang to Anson’s eyes.
“Man yourself. Do not be a weeping baby for him!” Anson chided himself.
“You have done it!” Ohean cried, as he held onto Anson and Anson, breaking his promise, wept in his arms. “You have passed through the Ordeal. Tomorrow there is only the ritual, and you will receive the white robe, and then after that we must talk of all that happens in the outside world, for it is, at last, time for us to return to it.”
Anson parted from Ohean.
“But what is it?”
“Many things,” Ohean said, as he led Anson into the boat.
“Wolf and Myrne’s armies have taken North Hale, and they rule in Kester as Queen Myrne and King Osric. Edmund’s forces, with Daumany for support, hold onto the south part of Hale and war has been engaged for months. Rheged and Elmet are on the side of the Wulfstans, and Essail and Westrial remain neutral.”
“Is that all?” Anson said to cover his surprise. He would need to know so much more. Wolf, young Wolf, the servant of Ohean, and the distinguished Myrne now King and Queen in the North.
“There is more,” Ohean said, though, and Anson waited.
“Your sister Morgellyn is now Queen Regent of Essail. Stephen is dead, and she reigns in place of her oldest son.”
Anson’s brow knitted, “I can’t say I care much for Stephen’s passing, but there is pity for my neice and nephews.
“Then what do I do?” Anson began. “All of this was kept from me.”
“You needed to do all you have done in the last eight months,” Ohean said. “As for Morgellyn, we do nothing, and there was nothing you could have done. What follows is what we will soon decide.”
END OF PART ONE
