“Many come here,” the Friar said. “But in the last years many of Westrial have come from the east and the south fleeing lords who charged high rents and sheriffs who showed no mercy. Also, holy men, those who used to stay in the smaller Greenwood, have made their way here. And King Edmund of Englad, for over there, to the north east is Englad, and those who flee from that king’s justice make their way through the Fen Country up the river and, at last, into the Greenwood. Some pass through it to reach Chyr or Rheged. Some pass to stay in Westrial, but these days, now that King Anthal is dead and Cedd sits the throne some find Westrial not what it once was.”
“The King’s City is a good place for a man who is still free,” Derek said. “But it is not as it was. A pall hangs over it. The presence of Ohean and Prince Anson made it a place of light, but they knew when to leave."
“The world is on the tip of a great change,” the Friar said. “But at this moment, why speak of such things? We cannot change them except to pray for grace that they change for the better and the Gods give us such strength as we need in the morning to fight the battles we must. Right now there is life and light and cooked food, fried bread, new ale and friendship and song., Let us enjoy these.
Derek did not know how unrelaxed he had been until tonight with his belly full of food and half drunk on ale, pleased and sleepy by one of many cook fires. For, though many of these men were Michael’s immediate court, there were several who had simply come to live among them and were keeping their own fire and feeding their own families and Derek felt Alan’s hand companionably around him as they sat on blankets backs to trees, and he said, “So now we are in the heart of the Greenwood.”
“Nay, friend Derek,” Alan said, “Or rather, we are in the first heart and there is a deeper, truer heart.”
“Eh, what’s that?”
“Have you not seen the good folk coming through the forest?” Michael asked. “For you have been here several days. You almost miss them, Their home, Melinthindor , over the mountains in what would be Rheged if it were not theirs first, that is the true heart of the Greenwood.”
“Who goes there?” Quinton asked.
“None but those invited by the Ancient Ones. They came their long ago, in the first days of the Second Creation and you would take it at your peril to waltz right in.”
Alan began to strum his balisoo, and he sat up a little. He did not sing, but his instrument in the background as he told the tale.
“In the days of the sorcerer kings of Erech, long before the Night Wars or before the first of the white tribes came out of the North, there had been war between that line of dark wizards born of Daylan and their kindred, the Vomor, mightiest and eldest of the Erl, that is, the elves.
They remember the name of Aislinn, the one who dwelt alone, eldest of the Vomor and daughter of Ulle the Sea. Though Aislinn was an elvenmaid, she was the oldest and fairest living, and older even than Maia herself. She rivaled Mara for power, and in the early days of the world she did teach Laryn to sing and Nessle to be silent. She was a favorite of Elial and privy to the councils of Oromos Lord of the Sky.
And when that erl maid beheld the destruction of her people, she cried out, “Oh, my Lady and my Mother, avenge your people! For the Erechmen, once our kin and friends have betrayed us!”
And at once the waves of the sea rose up, and Great Ulle, Queen of the Deep swept the Isle of Erech beneath the waves.
All that survived were five ships, led by Osse, the prince whom Tiglash Pamanasher had expelled for saying, “The Vomor are our kindred, shame be on all of our heads if we make war upon them.”
And Osse and his line lived. They settled in the northern lands of the West. In time they came into contact with their distant kin to the south, the men and women of Enroghed whose queens and kings were of the royal line of Daia. And Osse’s people became the people of Assendath, golden of skin and red of hair. Their lands are warm and fair and they speak with dragons. Their people of power are women for the most part, called the Ruoada Whit, Red Witches, the Witches of the Place of the Lotus, and the Lady of the Lotus rules them.
But the line of Enroghed was descended from Niamh. She it was who would have been Queen in Erech long ago, but her brother deposed her, and there was great war. She left the city of Erech and settled at Dynas Parrian in the Southern Isles called also the Sunlit. There the true line thrived in the face of the false kings or Erech until the days of the Warrior Kings who put down all their enemies and ravished the Sunlit Lands so that the Queens fled to the coast and built up Assarnach. But in time they lost their power even there, and that is another tale.
This is the tale of what became of the Elves of the Vomor, those who remained of the once great cities of Los Bannados and San Dramacar.
The last of the princes of Los Bannados was Araw the Black, and he was young by erl standards, though to the reckoning of men who now live, older than many nations when the armies of Erech waged war upon the Vomor, and were mighty enough in arms and in magic to defeat them. Araw was of the house of Erech, for his mother was Branwen, the many times great aunt of Tiglash Pamanasher, and when Los Bannados was laid waste, Araw fled with his mother and sisters and those who remained of Los Bannados and they went into the mountains where to this day the last of the Vomor still have cities. There are many tales told of the Vomor under Araw, those who survived Los Bannados and of how for many years until the time of Ohean the Mighty, there was war between the men of the West and the Vomor of the Mountain Passes, for the Vomor memory is long, and Araw could not forget the grief Erech had caused, even once Erech was no more.
Of the High Folk of Los Bannados only the White Men of Sparhahn and the Gold People of Assendath have much of a shared history. The scions of Los Bannados do not enter into the histories of the Plainsmen, or the Enroghedi and Engladmen until the arrival of Iaryn.
In the days when all of the West was united against the threat of the Resurgency, Iaryn the daughter of Araw sailed down the River Ilam in a green barge, surrounded by dark haired maids, the color of nuts, all in white, and where the boat sailed, lotuses sprung up out of the water in it’s wake. Araw did not wish for the aid of the elves of the South, but his daughter went against his wishes to procure their aid. And this is how she met and loved Mendrick King of the Ildor, and their child was Indul, whose name means Nightflower.
And now comes the tale of the founding of Melinthindor. For the other city that had fallen to the Erechmen was San Dramacar, and some of the Vomor went to live in the place now called Amlahn, but many went to their cousins the Ildor, and to the woods south of the Ildor land. Some went far south to find new seas saying that the Vomor were a sea people as the Ildor were wood people and the Ystrad mountain folk, and that the Vomor would never be happy again unless they were by water. However this ran, those Vomor followed Yvandom into the south, and they have never been seen again.
However Yvandom’s brother was Yhavo, who many now know as Ivo—the exalted one—and he was a mighty warrior, the son of the King of San Dramacar, and many said that had he been old enough, then in the days of the last war, San Dramacar may not have been defeated. But in this time of war, Ivo was leading the Ildor and the Vomor, and this is how Indul found him, and loved him and they went on many journeys and defeated many wicked sorcerers and powers and monsters and even elves, but in the end they returned to the West Wood and Ivo united for himself the Vomor who remained in the woods and some of the Ildor and they established Melinthindor.
Before the supper was done, Michael had surprised them by saying that they might wish for bathing and that when the company bathed they went down to the very pool the Lady Mariamne had been gazing into.
“Why the surprise?” she asked.
“I thought it was sacred.”
“And so it is. But is the body not sacred? You are a Blue Priest after all, surely you know that?”
Her face was not mocking, but it laughed at him.
Before the music he had seen Niall and Jon go in that direction, and now it was late and many were going to sleep. Mariamne had said “I have left clothes and soap stones and many good things, and there is a hot spring connected to that pool so it is always a warm place.”
When Nialla and Sara had come back from it they were laughing and combing their hair with Mariamne, and Derek imagined they were both glad to have a bath. But as for him, he was glad to have a doze and drink too much and it was only now, as he felt himself getting a second wind, and others seemed to be dozing in corners or on piles or three by three in the red light of the old fire, that Derek thought it was time for him, at last to clean, and he felt his body itching, his civilized body tired of the country dirt.
He was surprised by the light he saw, surprised that paths were lit in the forest and the path to the pool had torches on either side lighting the way. Truly this was a place of enchantment. He came down the decline and in the night where something were lit by white stars high above and the grass was golden red from torchlight, all things seemed different. The pool glittered in the dark, and Derek stepped into the waters. Sighing as their warmth melted away the day that had passed, he squeezed his eyes together and dunked his head and thought, “There is more than just the dirt of the day that clings to me.”
As he blew water out of his mouth and shook it from his hair and eyes he blinked, and was nearly startled. But a Blue Priest was trained in poise and trained to give nothing away and so he merely said, “Alan.”
“What are you doing?” Alan asked him.
“I could ask you that,” Derek said. “In fact, it would make more sense if I did ask you that.
“I thought it was clear. I saw you naked and in this water, and so I came to you.”
“That as it may be, I am not working as a Blue.”
“Then do not come to me as a Blue, and at any road, I am working as a Green.”
“Youi are a Green Priest?’
“We are all Green Priests,” Allan said. “I choose you. Come to me, let your body and your heart remember what it’s forgotten.”
Derek opened his mouth to say something that he immediately knew was prudish.
“You are in a conundrum, your body confused, your mind knit up because you have stopped being who you are, because right now you are like all the men who come to your Blue Temple.”
“Conn and I are… Not as we have been. We parted poorly.”
= “Yes, I thought as much,” Alan said. “Only, this path you take and the heaviness you feel. It is not for him. Your bath was for me. Only you did not know it.”
Allan was fair. He was like a taller, darker version of Quinton. He smelled of the lavender and in the water and his breath had the faint scent of wine. Derek longed to touch him and, at any road, Allan’s hand had reached under the water and grasped his penis.
“Will you tell me to stop?” Allan asked him.
But Derek had lost his voice. He was a Blue Priest. He should have known the first rule, why priests traveled together, why they regularly had sex rather than steering away from it. He felt like all of himself was melting into the large hardness in Alan’s hand, Allan pulled Derek to him, and as if he were starving, Derek’s body clung to Allan. His hands ran up and down his back and he pressed his face to Allan’s, thrusting his tongue in in his mouth, receiving Allan’s hungry kisses.
When they could separate for a moment, Allan said, “The moss, the moss and the bushes, shall I take you there under the trees?”
“Take…?” Oh, is that how he meant it. Derek felt cheap and light and he climbed out of the water into the coolness of the night, not caring about the chill in the air, not caring if anyone saw them. He thought of Conn and their argument, his frustration over how far they felt from each other, and with a desperate fury, he pulled Allan to the mossy ground and gave himself to him.
Here, in this place, Conn felt as if he were missing something, and missing it for no real reason. For no real reason he had parted from Derek and agreed to stay in the vale beyond, and he could hear the music now, hear the pulsing of the celebration calling to him.
“I’ve lost it,” he realized.
Like Anson, who for the protection of his sister’s virtue or Myrne’s virtue, had separated himself from the wildness he had known so many times, Conn had lost his wildness, perhaps even become proud of his studies with Ohean and imagined it eclipsed his dedication as a Blue.
He rose from his pallet, his body thrumming, and followed the music, but no sooner had the music caught him, than his eyes beheld antlers, the great tree like rack of a stag, and as he approached slowly he saw the stag was on the body of a man, naked in the night, the moonlight on his pelted flesh. Conn followed him through the branches, neither of them making noise. He followed him up a hill until, the leaves and the moon and trees blurred his vision, and this time when he saw the man there was no rack. There was broadness of back in the night, loveliness of form and for a moment his eyes understood. One man, on hands and knees, pumping up and down, riding another who lay like a starfish beneath him, mouth open.
It was Ohean, and Anson was beneath him, and he knew he was not intruding, that this was a lesson, His mouth was dry, his cock stiff.
A hand lay gently on his shoulder and he turned around to see the planed features of Thano.
“Little one,” he said,” and the nightlight shone on his grey eyes.
He moved from Conn and held out his hand and the two of them went through the trees. In the distance Conn heard the song:
Ay hay, alay alay alay
Ay hay, alay alay alay
Nijow, ahana aravay
Ay hay alay alay alay
Thano undressed, and Conn lifted his robe and Thano made a pile in the leaves and branches. There he lay, opening his legs and Conn climbed between them, his hot body pulsing, the need in him burning as Thano received him, and for all of that night Conn remembered his fragility and the strength found in admitting desire.
