We are told that all things began in darkness, and so do all things end. All initiation is a return to the dark, so that what had grown old, moving toward death might begin again.
-Ifandell Modet, The Discourse on Ritual Initiation
THEONE
“You must go down to see the prisoner,” Hyrax said.
“But I am with child,” Theone said.
“Yes, I know. I did not say lie with the prisoner. I said go see him. Take him his food. You talked to him a while, did you not?”
“He spoke to me.”
“You have an effect on men,” Hyrax said, seeming slightly perplexed over this.
“Go to him and learn what you can.”
“What if I can’t learn anything?”
But why had she asked that? Didn’t she want to see him?
“Theone,” Hyrax said. “Go.”
So she came down there, and while she was putting out the food, Ethan said, “I knew you’d come again.”
“I’ve been gone a while,” Theone said. “I’ll be having a child.”
“Congratulations?”
Theone laughed. “No, I am not unhappy.”
“You love him? Don’t you?”
When Theone said nothing, Ethan said, “You shouldn’t be afraid. After all, your mother loved your father, and that’s why you exist. It’s why you were born free, and why you’ll be free again.”
Theone nodded. She had not known she loved Gimble until then.
“Do you have time to hear a story?” he said.
“Yes,” said Theone. “Is this about what you were going to tell me before?”
“Yes. Partially,” Ethan said, putting down his bread. “Or at least, it’s the story of the story of what I was going to tell you before.”
Theone, knowing she had permission to stay with Ethan, pulled her skirts under her and sat down on the floor across from him.
“What do you know about the history of the world?”
Theone opened her mouth, but then she said, “I know nothing. I never thought of it.”
“Or where men came from?”
Theone looked at Ethan. She had never wondered any of these things, not until now when she was asked about them. And she said, “I know nothing.”
“Long ago we did not come from here. Once men lived in the Utter East, the land of the Gods, which is to the utter East. But they were expelled from there, and on five ships crossed the sea. Their leader was Mahonry. He was the father of my people, and of your people, who are the Ossar. From them came the ancient lands of Laudinekke, Varakke and Great Cenar, the heart of the world. Your mother was a princess of the Royan, and her people held the Star of Addiwak.
“The Beryl, as it is called, was one of the four gifts of the Vasyar. Mahonry had many sons who had many sons and so forth and then in time those kings died out and there was, in the house of Essen, only one daughter. This was Ennar and she married Conrad, who was a star.”
“A star?”
“Yes. One of the race of living stars, the Kuaelar. He fell to the earth and she married him, and their son was Julian the Hammer. From them came the house of Alcontradi, that is the House of the Stars, and Julian’s great granddaughter was Teahana, who loved another of the Kuaelar. He was Jaeseth, and they stood against the Otuns, those terrible elemental spirits of the North, back in the Second Time of Trouble.
“The Otuns, the white men call them Jotuns, are the mighty Giants, terrible spirits of the fire, the ice and the mountains. Their brothers are the Woses, the Wild Folk of the Forests, and they are distant kin to the Gods. The mightiest of them in his day was Jumutankandi. His sister was Scaelahn, goddess of wind and ice, and in his rage he reached up and blackened the sun. Teahana and Jaeseth went to destroy Jumutankandi, and they cried unto the Gods. Addiwak, called Ylial, who is Mother of the Star Gods stretched out her hand from the Veil of Hiding, and she touched sixteen stones and so they glowed. These stones were a guide through the dark, and Jaeseth took also the Sword Callasyl. With these, Teahana and Jaeseth crossed the land. They crossed into this land and beyond, into the high north, and entered into Jotunmark. In time they slew Jumutankandi and restored the light. These stones they placed in the Shehalan, that is the The New Palace, the Crystal Place in Yrrmarayn, the original capital of Chyr, where Teahana lived as Queen with Jaeseth as her king. Their children were called the House of Liahandran, and they reigned for many years.”
Theone had nodded frequently, as much from manners as anything, and now she wondered, What is he getting at? But she did not speak. She continued to listen to the man who, after all, was imprisoned in the depths of so great a prison with no one else to hear him.
“Another day came when the House and the land were old, and the royal house grew corrupt. For the Century of Bitterness a series of kings sat on the Crystal Throne, not a one of them reigning beyond ten years, not a one suceeding father to son, and no Queens. The last of these rulers is called Elrehad the Unrar. He succeeded three of his uncles though his father was never a king. Elrehad refused marriage to a princess of the Royan, but made a pact with a Solahni princess. Because of this, the land fell to her uncle, who was Raienell. The Solahni overrode the whole land, and their mightiest soldiers were the men of the Black Star.”
“All the princes, all the dukes, all positions and lands of power were taken by the Domans, and for near a hundred years we were heavy under their foot.”
“But…” Theone began, “Did you say Daumans or Domans? For I knew of the Daumans as a child. The land east of us is called for them. They came to it three hundred years ago.”
“The Domans were the people in Solahn connected closest to the Black Star, and it is they who Daumany is named for.. The Daumans are named for Daumany. But the truth is, that land called to them, though they did not know it. Many of the Black Star, most now, have Dauman blood, for the Domans were their ancestors. They returned to it three hundred years ago. Some went to the north and still some remained in Solahn, and though some of them had forgotten what they were or the spelling of their name, the enchanters, the priests of darkness, who controlled the Black Star… they never forgot.
“When the Doman were expelled however, they took with them the Sixteen Stones and the Beryl.”
All of these names, and all this information, had rolled over Theone’s head, and she was now completely lost, but when Ethan said, “Are you still with me?” she lied and said, “Yes.”
“It was King Phelan, with the aid of the great mage, Akkrebeth, who put down the Domans at last. They recovered all the great stones. Unfortunately, the city of Yrrmarayn was destroyed. Now, Phelan built the great city of Immmrachur, which is the capital to this day. In it he hung high the Beryl of Ylial and it remained until the time of the Remulans when, before the Hidden Tower and the Rootless Isle were established, the Beryl disappeared.
“And this was…” Theone began, still not entirely sure if she was interested.
“Seventeen hundred years ago.”
“People have been looking for it for seventeen hundred years?”
“No,” Ethan said. “When Ermengild, who rules now, became Queen, she chose to rebuild the old Crystal City, Yrrmarayn, but she remained in Immrachyr. She vowed that until the Beryl was returned, no one would rule in the Crystal City, and her son, Prince Theo, sought out the stone, then died. Later his daughter, the Princess Jergen, sought it as well. Before she left, she went to seek out Akkrabeth for his blessing.”
“The wizard during the time of Avred Oss?”
“Yes. But he was also Arsennon in the time of Phelan.”
“I do not understand.”
“He had been reborn,” Ethan said. “When Jergen went to find him, he was only a little boy. He may not even remember that she came to him.”
“Reborn?”
“Third was the starry maid,
who lived in trees,
whose wood would never die
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down”
Ethan sang.
“Some are reborn,” Ethan said, “though most cannot remember their lives, and perhaps he cannot either. It is said that there were Seven.", especially, who would remain always in the world to help, and he was one of them. Akkrabeth lived after Phelan. He lived several times. He lives even now under the name of Ohean Penannyn,” Ethan said, lifting his jug of water and taking a drink.
“The Princess Jergen came here. And you know her story.”
“She eventually called herself Essnara,” Theone said. “She met my father, and they escaped and lived together with me. Until she died, and then I was taken.”
“Yes,” Ethan said, nodding. He chewed on his bread and then, disinterested, he put the bread down on its cloth.
“But she never found the Beryl.”
“No,” said Ethan.
“She came all the way here,” Theone said. “But she never even learned where it was.”
At this, Ethan’s expression changed.
“What?” Theone looked at him.
“That your mother never learned where the Star of Ylial is kept,” Ethan said, “is not true.”
YARROW
In the middle of the night, Yarrow rose from her bed. She’d only had a light nap, nothing that would put her under for the night, and she crossed the room and, opening a drawer, pulled out a long black wand.
As she left the room, the wand took on a faint glow, and she went down the hall, and then down the steps and into the parlor where this man called Ruval slept. He slept on the pallet in the middle of the room. The wand was white now with pale fire, the walls white blue, and Yarrow walked about him, slowly tracing a circle around him.
Slowly, the air about him glowed with a pale, shimmering light, like moonlight on water. In Yarrow’s hand the wand glowed with starfire and she said, “You, who call yourself, Ruval, awake.”
With no yawning, he woke, and Ruval stood in the starlight, turned white by it, not blinking, his black eyes looking at Yarrow steadily.
“By Kokobeam, by Addiwak, by Olea, by Shinehah, by the Crown of the Kuaelar, by the power of all the Stars I adjure you hear me.”
Dumbly, Ruval nodded.
“Thou who barest the Blackened Star, the Dead Star, the Eaten Star, thou who hast been consumed, be thou unconsumed. Forget thy quest and forget thy duty. Forget all things. Know no thing. Return to the beginning. This, I command by the White Star and by the Black Wand. Hark ye?”
Ruval nodded again and Yarrow, letting the wand fall said, “Then rest. For Indul of the Ancient Wood commands it.”
And Ruval sat. And as the stars and the starlight faded, he climbed onto the pallet and slept again.
In the darkness again, Yarrow held the wand lightly to her, and then nodded to the sleeping man, and returned upstairs.
TIME FOR A BREAK, WE'LL BE SEEING SOMETHING NEW NEXT WEEK
