THE ROAD TO NAVA
“We’ve been traveling for the last day,” Theone said, once they were sitting outside of the vardo eating what Dissenbark and Anson had prepared.
“And I had been told, by this woman, Yarrow—”
“Yarrow!” Ohean interrupted.
“You know her?”
“Not by that name,” Ohean said, “but yes. She spoke to me, saying she would send someone to join me.”
Anson, who had seen no woman of any time come to them since they’d left the Isle thought, reminded himself that these days Ohean was not always simply Ohean. Had he met this Yarrow in a dream, or in another world?
“Well, I am that one,” Theone said, tearing the light muffin in two and dipping it in honey,” And I have found you. This is the first thing that’s gone right.”
“Surely not the first thing,” Dissenbark poured more of the creamy milk into the blue mug Theone was drinking from, and the dark haired woman smiled.
“Actually, many things have gone right, the greatest of them being finding my friend, Dissenbark. We met just as winter set in, and spent the time on a farm south of here.”
“They would have kept us,” Dissenbark said, “for Farmer Remor said he liked a witch to keep the milk sweet and charm the rats away. I set a blessing on his milk and on his meat, but said it was time to moving along. After all, the Lady Nimerly had sent me to the south some time ago, on a mission, and it was time to move on it.”
“Nimerly!” Anson said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Dissenbark answered. “I came to her after last year when there were fires all over Westrial and Cedd came to the throne. It was not allowed to burn witches, but arsonists they could and so many of us fled. I led many of my fellows sisters and brothers to the Rootless Isle. I stayed a little time, but in the end, I said I had to be moving and so she gave me this to do.”
“Then know this,” Anson said, “I am Anson Athelyn, brother of Cedd and Prince of Ondres. My aunt is Nimerly, and we have just left that same Rootless Isle. This man you see beside you is none other than the mage Ohean, and beside him is Lord Austin Buwa. We were given no specific reason to leave, but only sent south, or rather Ohean said we must go south.”
“And now I know we were to meet you,” Ohean said, simply.
“Oh, Ohean,” Austin said, amazed, “is this always how magic works?”
“No,” Ohean said at the same time Dissenbark did, and both of them laughed, ruefully.
“Much of the time,” Dissenbark said, “it does not work at all.”
Dissenbark headed back to the stove by the vardo, where Anson was frying flapjacks, and they heard him say:
“Dissenbark…? That’s an interesting name…”
“You are on some sort of quest,” Ohean said in a low voice, folding his hands together. “You are aiming to do something.”
Theone said, “Well yes.”
“And being pursued. Or you were pursued.”
Theone blinked at him.
“Look,” he said. “Your business is your own, and I will not tell you what you should and should not do. But the six of us are in this together, and I suggest you tell me what we’re going toward.”
Theone sat up and took a breath..
“I was going to do it on my own. I hadn’t planned on having to divulge my plans to… anyone.”
“Not even that girl. Not even that Dissenbark.”
“I didn’t ask her to come with me,” Theone said, desperately. “Or, you, begging your pardon. I was fine on my own—”
“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Ohean, disregarded this, and reached under his cloak, into a shirt pocket for an old cigarette.
“Well, at any road this is my thing,” Theone said. “This is my… task. It has to do with me.”
“Then why am I here? And why have I been sent. And why the rest of us and Dissenbark—what an awful name—to you, and why are we together?”
Ohean stood up. “My dear, you are on the Wind, now. You neither know where it comes from or whence it goeth. This is not about you anymore. If it ever was, which I doubt, and you need to know that.”
Theone blinked and cocked her head like a surprised dog, because she hadn’t seen Ohean light the cigarette, but there it was, smoldering, and then he said:
“Now, that’s what I’m going to tell you, and it’s for you to decide what you want to tell me. But I suggest you do it in good time, because I sense there isn’t much more time to lose.”
“Anson, Prince of the Scullery, come from the kitchen and rest a while,” Ohean said.
“See, he’s a good man,” Anson said to Dissenbark. “Always watches out for me.”
“You work too much,” Ohean chided, “I’ll not have you wearing your knuckles away.”
“Where is she?” Dissenbark shielded her eyes and looked about for Theone.
“Gone into town,” Ohean shrugged from where he sat on a rock.
This was the first warm day and the sky was a deep blue. Dissenbark looked doubtful, and Ohean said, “I’ll tell you what? If your friend has truly run off, she’s left her horse and things behind and you’ve got us now, so don’t worry.”
Dissenbark didn’t say anything. She felt it disloyal to admit that, for a moment, she had thought that maybe Theone had run off.
“She had the look of someone who needed to be by herself,” Austin said.
An hour or so later, they saw the figure of Theone coming from town, her black hair all down her back, dust on her hem.
“Where were you?” Dissenbark demanded, wiping strands of orange hair from her face.
“Clearly I was in town,” Theone said. Then she said, “I must speak to Mage Ohean. May I?” she directed this to him.
He nodded and stood up.
“Anson?”
“I’m his,” Anson said. “I should never be away from him.”
“Well, then I’m not going to be the odd bitch left out,” Dissenbark threw her dishtowel against the vardo.
“For just the once,” Ohean said, placing a gentle hand on Anson’s shoulder, “we will be parted.”
Anson did not argue this, but only nodded, and even though it was a brief parting, Ohean found that it hurt him a little, having spent such a long time on the Island separated from Anson. He and Theone went off a ways.
“My father’s name was Heli and my mother was called Essnara. She was a princess of the royal house of Immrachyr.”
“Yes,” Ohean said, nodding. “She disappeared. They say she went to the South.”
“In search of the Jewels of Lia. She did not find them. She found my father and, in time, she died.”
“But,” Ohean said, “there was another of that house, Ethan of Meresell. He learned more about the wherabouts of the Beryls,” Ohean said to Theone’s surprise. “And he also disappeared to these parts.”
“I was taken,” said Theone. “After my mother died, the Hands took me to be raised as one of their Women. There, in the House of the Black Star, I met Ethan, and he told me he was going to find the Stones. He disappeared. But now I am going to find them, too. I don’t know what else to do. And I feel like I must.”
“Do you even know where they are?”
Theone said, ‘You know so much. All of these secrets and you know so much.”
“If you knew me better you would not be surprised by that,” Ohean said.
“They are in the Temple in Nava.”
Ohean bawked and made a strange noise.
“What?”
“You thought to walk into that place by yourself?” he said. The wizard shook his head. “Now I know why we were sent to you. You will need my help, and all of it, to enter that place. To take those Stones. Lia and all the Anyar be with us.” He shook his head, “It is a place of infernal enchantments.”
Theone was quiet a moment, then she said, “But you will help me.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s why I’m here.”
He was about to walk off when Theone called him again.
“Yes?”
She was quiet, then she put her hands to her mouth and said: “Ohean… this is my life. I have guarded this with my life. I am being chased.”
“Yes,” he said.
“How do I know…. That I can trust you?”
He neither smiled nor frowned, but there was something terrible in his face and then the enchanter told her: “Because I say you can.”
And with a ripple of his robes, he headed off toward the vardo.
The sun was landing on the leaves
And motes were turning in its beams
The water bubbled from the springs
When Laryn, coming from the woods
Goddess born
She taught the first young birds to sing!
O, katamasara
Ojealia fatassina
Mempledebe omna indras
Phenous
O, Lia, duart, Duarte,
Duara principina
O saladana
“That was a song!” Austin said, approving, as Dissenbark finished singing and they sat in the red light of the campfire.
“I believe it was a ballad by Judith of Basincourt. I learned it as a girl, back in Vand.”
“You’ve traveled along way,” Conn marveled.
“I don’t even know where Vand is,” Theone said.
To the southwest of Eshaan in Chyr. Some of the Chryan kings have come from there, but it’s its own territory, really. And it was the place of my girlhood. I’ve been traveling since I was nine,” Dissenbark, pulling her knees to her chest added, “That said, this is the first quest I’ve ever been on.”
“It doesn’t seem very safe,” Austin remarked said.
“It isn’t,” said Ohean. “And friend or no, when we get to Nsva—I will not speak its old name—I may ask you to part from me.”
“I will never part from either of you,” Austin said with a sudden fierceness. And then he remembered himself, ducked his head and said, “Please don’t ask me to.”
“You’re just beginning to have your life. I don’t want it cut short on account of anything I do.”
Austin nodded, but began picking up the plates, and Dissenbark said, “I know you must have something for us. Some sort of song.”
“I have no songs,” Austin said. “Not tonight.”
Dissenbark was about to try again when Austin said, “But my Lord, the Prince of Ondres is great a singer, as is Lord Ohean.”
Anson stopped in the middle of polishing the blade that glinted in the night, smiled and said, “Surely, Ash would like to sing.”
“Surely I would not,” Ohean said. “Anson, I know you have a song, and I would to hear one from you.”
“I suppose I do,” the Prince of Ondres said, and it seemed to Dissenbark the handsome, bronze haired man made much pretense of not wanting to sing it.
“It is by Delloran, the poet mage who was devoted to Ahnar. It is not sweet like some of the old ones. It is a poem of passion, and I learned to sing it young.”
“Sing it,” Theone said, “Or say it. For us.”
“I will stand,” Anson said while Austin stopped in the midst of cleaning the dishes, and Austin who had risen to pack away the uneaten food stopped as well. Anson added, “And probably sway a bit. And… No, I will do a newer poem. Let us save Delloran for later.”
They all nodded to this.
Anson closed his eyes, and chanted.
This is not the beginning of the end,
but rather end of all endings
the beginning of all beginnings
the winning of everything lost which
we were told, in faith, is always found again
every soul
is found again
all love lost
is found again
all chains bound are broken
all deficits compensated
all hungers, all thirst sated
amidst six jugs of water and the mother
of God
even every lost sock
every strayed thing
since we strayed from that first Garden
is found even now in the desert
that water, should become living water
should become wine, to become blood
and become body, and flesh, and my eternal
body joined to yours
that our tears,
poured out for a thousand days in darkest dungeons
in minds for years beaten and pillaged by dread,
by disappointment,
that our sweat, secreted from bodies demoned by panic
must become living water
that is the inevitable miracle of this wedding day
“That…” Theone began, “was…”
“It was damned beautiful,” Dissenbark said.
“Anda,” Ohean said, tenderly, “Who made that poem?”
Now the Prince of Ondres, warrior that he was, went red.
He said, quietly, “Why it was me, Ash.”
“Sing me that song again, Anlah,”
Ohean burrowed into the covers like a small animal and Anson, pleased to please, “I got another one, if it makes you happy?”
Ohean nodded and Conn said, “I’ll not sing it, cause the ladies are sleeping. I’ll whisper it to you.”
You brought me here that I might love you
and not that I should please myself
but that you should please me
and I would delight in your light
until this moment I knew that
if I walked, dusty footed to the Mount of Iru,
proof of a love I had not felt,
then after they peeled me from the weary rocks,
and well after this weary life
you would reward me
not with the sight of love
but with the love
but the love is now
now the possession, and from the corner
of my eye the procession of torch bearers
and sweet singers
water lingers in the bottom of baptism jars
before its transformed to sweet and heady wine
and this is the time of song and sense,
desire deep as well, water washing out all hells
that fired every mind, burnt every foot that
traveled on this road to the wedding
you should have called you kiss a wedding tent,
you should have called your arms a the love long meant,
descending, burning with goldenfire,
lift the veil
When he was done, they both heard a light snoring in the corner of the vardo, and Anson crossed the wooden floor to look down at Connleth beside Austin.
He looked down at him tenderly, wishing for something. Thinking of touching his cheek, but instead he only said, “Good night, friend,” and then climbed back to his bed pile with Ohean.
The vardo was divided in two sections, and in the darkness of one, Dissenbark said, “Now I understand?”
“Understand?”
“Why you are the way you are.”
Theone squinted in the dark to find Dissenbark, and waited for the other woman to continue.
“I was always…. Loud, too trusting maybe. You,… you don’t trust anyone. You’re not open. I guess you never had a girlfriend. Or never knew what one should be. From what you said. The Women you talk about are the only women you’ve ever known.”
“And my mother. But every woman I ever knew was a Woman, one of those. To me they’ve always been one and the same. Even my mother. She was one. So, I don’t know anything else. You, and that lady I stayed with, Yarrow. But then she’s more than a woman, I think. I’m sure.”
Dissenbark nodded.
“And you lost your baby. And your man. You’ve got deep hurt,” she said. “You and that Anson. His hurts are deep too.”
“I think he’s good,” Theone said. “I think they all are.”
“Oh,” Dissenbark said.
Then, “Well, the Master Ohean is a great mage. I can tell that. The whole West knows of him and on the Isle he was all they spoke about. He is not like the witches in Westrial and the Sussain lands. In Royan country they’ve got real men of power and I know he’s one.”
“I know you are right,” Theone said with a small smile. “And yet, mages don’t know everything. They can’t.”
