“Go to him,” Anson told the enchanter. He added, “After all, this is why we came.”
Ohean nodded, and removed himself from the table threading through the guests. Anson watched as he approached the man Ralph, and saw Ralph, one foot before the other, bow. Well, yes, whatever else Ohean was, he was a prince, the grandson of the old King. They spoke a moment, and then Anson watched as his lover, mantled in black that was lined in gold, removed himself from the hall to a balcony, arm in very formal arm with Ralph.
“So that is the Prince Anson,” Ralph said.
“It is.”
“He is fair,” Ralph allowed. “I knew you had returned to Westrial. I thought that you had done it for him.”
“I did it because of duty and to attend the dying king.”
“Yes,” Ralph allowed. “But also for him.”
They had come through the many pillared doors to the portico that overlooked the city. Now Ralph took a cheroot out of his pocket and lit it. Ohean could already smell the smoke of sweet tobacco. Ralph was quietly puffing.
“There is no good way to put this,” Ohean said.
“Then put it the bad way.”
“The sword,” he said, “the sword at your side you said was mine when I needed it again.”
“You need it again,” Ralph looked at him, unamazed.
Ohean nodded.
“I knew you would,” Ralph said, “and I knew you would have to come back to me for it. I did not know you would belong to someone else, though.”
“And you did not know the sword would be his.”
Ralph blinked.
“The inscription,” Ohean said. “I did not know what it meant. The sword is his.”
Ralph’s eyes changed and Ohean said, “What is it?”
“Friend,” Ralph said, “we were lovers. You are a great mage. The greatest. Do not think I learned nothing. One does not just happen upon a sword of legend, especially not if he is a mighty mage entangled with a half Royan prince born from a king and a priestess of the Rootless Isle.”
Ralph quickly, without looking, while the cheroot was firm between his lips, unbuckled the sword and handed it over. Ohean was surprised by the size of it.
Ralph looked at him directly, concerned.
“What is happening?” Ralph said. “The mages say they see signs everywhere. What is happening?”
“Truthfully, I do not know,” Ohean said, pulling the heavy sword into his robes.
Ralph passed Ohean the cheroot, and when he smoked it, the dampness at the tip was comforting. They looked over the city, passing the cheroot slowly back and forth, letting out great roils of white smoke like dragons.
At last, Ohean spoke. “What are you thinking?”
Ralph’s eyes twinkled in the night.
“I am thinking of us,” he said. “Of that very last time when we were together. And of this night, this very perfect night when things are being reawakened. About how I still love you. The life we had is too beautiful to put behind us and be forgotten.”
It seemed that Ohean was about to say something else, but then he only shook his head and said, “So much is.”
“Light a candle?”
“Just one candle,” Ohean said. “So I can watch you undress,
“Undress with me.”
It had been a year since the day when the Dayne ships had crashed on the shores of Cair Daronwy. Ohean, long and dark, fell on his back and opened his legs to Ralph. It was so quick, and they were so quickly out of themselves. Faces lifted to the ceiling, then looking out of the window to the sea beyond. Ohean looking down at Ralph’s mouth opened in ecstasy. Ralph, so much bigger than him was always so careful of him, but now here he was, almost bruising him, large hands firm on his shoulders, thrusting quickly inside of him, Ralph came with a violent, vulnerable shout, body quavering, eyes wide open, hands in the air.
Ohean had wanted this for well over a year. It had always been on the edge of his thoughts and now this was more than a miracle, the together again in Rheged in those first rooms they’d shared, in this beautiful, soft, strong bed, the whole night left to them, now Ohean on his knees, hands treasuring the muscled back, strong shoulders of his lover, engulfed in the heat of his tightness. Last time it had been Ralph who fucked him. Now the orgasm was like a sharp magnet that tugged at his balls and turned his cock into something large and cosmic, slick and throbbing. The orgasm pulled itself out of Ohean, causing him to go into a violent seizure and then, eyes gazing at the light of nothing, he knelt there still, too taken to even move. It was Ralph’s warm, large hands that moved him, put him on his back. He felt Ralph riding him, cock against his cock, lubricated by the slickness of his semen. They moved together in that incredible heat until cursing and swearing with a staggered, oh—fuck—my—god-god-god-damn, Ralph came again. He came hot, the liquid flowing between their stomachs, to their chests.
“I missed you,” Ohean said. “Why did you leave me?”
“You needed me to. You needed to go to the Tower and learn what you hadn’t before.”
“And you needed to become you.”
“Yes,” Ralph turned his large back, firm buttocks, the backs of his strong thighs to Ohean. He murmured, “I suppose.”
Ohean touched the back of his neck and said, “I am not blaming you. It’s only… you needn’t act like what you did was so entirely selfless.”
“I didn’t know who you were,” Ralph said. “Not at first.”
“You mean a prince.”
“A prince would have been a little thing,” Ralph turned to him. “To call in ships from the waves and cause them to crash against the shore… I did not know the fullness of what you were.”
“And so you left me.”
“I had to,” Ralph sat up, beautiful and naked, his knees drawn to his chest. “I would have cramped you.”
“Ralph!”
Ralph looked at him sharply.
“I,” he repeated, “would… have… cramped you. Plain and simple. You could not grow into the Great Ash Tree with me at your side.”
Ohean crawled across the bed to the large, longer man, the more handsome man as Ohean saw him. He turned his face and kissed him full on the lips, and then lay down beside him and Ralph lay with him. At last, Ralph climbed on top of him, making a space for himself between Ohean’s legs, shivering as Ohean ran his hands up and down his back. They were like that for some time, Ohean under the heat of Ralph. Then, at last, Ralph got up. He returned a few moments later, tall, nude, clean, with a white cloth for Ohean.
It was hot and moist and Ohean cleaned himself up with it. Ralph stood before him. He had the most beautiful penis, still firm, still erect and bobbing, balls hanging in their dark brown sack, the hair of Ralph’s loins darkly red-brown, and beautiful. Swiftly Ohean took Ralph in his mouth. He needed Ralph.How rare this was for him. He wanted Ralph so much that Ralph came back to the bed and their fooling around turned into second sex. In the aftermath of it, in the late night the two men lay damp and hot and naked, tangled together, barely breathing.
Ohean tried to laugh and sat up.
“What about now?” Ohean asked. “Now that we are both men?”
Ralph looked away. When he spoke he said, “You are great and powerful now, going all through the Old Kingdoms. I heard you had spent the summer with Queen Ermengild, finding out what had happened to her daughter, and—”
“Now it is you who do not wish to be tied to me,” Ohean interrupted him, not accusing, simply sussing the truth.
“Ohean.”
“You said it right the first time. I am a great enchanter. You cannot hide the truth from me. You cannot dress it up in bows and think I will not see it. It is you who want your freedom now.”
“Ohean, we are both still so young, and so out in the world, doing very different things.”
“We are not so young,” Ohean said. “And I am not so foolish.”
Then he said, “Come to bed. You were not my first lover and you certainly will not be my last.”
Ralph, tall, strong, a warrior with a warrior’s body, suddenly looked like he would weep. Quickly he slid onto the bed. He pulled Ohean’s warm body to his. It was important they be as close as possible. It felt so good to hold him, to be near him. He kissed him very softly and then squeezed Ohean.
Ralph told him: “We could be together in the future. When we are both ready.”
Ohean blew out the candle.
“No, Ralph.”
As Ralph held Ohean, his very body changed, his disembodied voice in the dark, changed.
“I am the great mage, growing greater. I chose you. You could not bear me. I will find someone who can.”
This night, in Cair Daronwy, so many years later, the air was perfectly still now and Ralph said, “Neither of us is young.”
“Speak for yourself. I am of the Rootless Isle,” Ohean said. “We do not age like others.”
Ralph cleared his throat and turned to Ohean. “I will say it and say it clearly. I was a fool. I should have never walked away from you.”
Gravely, Ohean nodded. His arms were crossed under his mantle, holding the blade of Sevard close to him.
He said: “And I should never have given you this sword.”
And then he turned and went back into the hall.
In their chambers, Anson took the sword in his hands and drew it out slowly from the sheath, the light of the lamps catching on the blade. Anson could see the sword was made of a material like grey and silver waves breaking over waves, more waves underneath as if he were looking on a silver sea. Etched up and down the blade in a long thin hand, were words he could not say.
“The legend says that the God Wode planted this sword in a tree?”
“Yes,” Anson spoke, paying more attention to the sword than his lover.
“But not that he made it?”
“Eh?”
“But not that he made it?” Ohean was louder.
Anson looked up, still dazed by the blade in his hands.
“Ohean, love,” Anson looked up at him, though his hands still ran along the mottled pattern of the blade, “it is a story, and a story of gods the Sendics stopped worshiping long ago.”
“And yet,” Ohean noted, “there is the sword, and it is very real. So, again, in your story, Wode did not make the sword?”
“I do not know,” Anson said. “According to the saga, he walked in, planted it in a tree and left. The truth is, he did not even say it was destined for his descendents… of which, I imagine, I am one.”
Then Anson said, “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because the sheath is Sendic,” Ohean said, and that is all I have ever paid attention to. I knew little of swords. But that sword—”
“is not a Sendic sword,” Anson finished.
Then he said, “I mean it is now. Now Sendics make their swords like this, but by the standards of what we lived like back in Dayne. The Sword of Sevard,” Anson pronounced, “is a Royan blade.”
“It is half Royan and half Sendic,” Ohean said.
“As am I,” Anson finished.
Suddenly, Anson said, “And you took this from Ralph?”
“It was mine to take, yours to take back.”
“And how was it? Seeing him?”
“I needed to see him,” Ohean said, “to know how much I love you. Shall we go to our rooms now?”
Anson nodded, eyes hooded.
“We shall.”
