MEHTA
The next morning they actually knew it was morning. There was something less in the quality of the darkness, and here the air was better. Mehta stopped to wash her face in the dripping brook they had been following all this time that had wound its way down from the surface of the earth. All that morning they walked through a broad and increasingly rough, uncarved way, and black became brown and brown became gray and by the middle of the day they were seeing light, and then they were blinking hard, and a defile of brown and grey stones spilled out beneath them to a little brook, bordered by green.
“Where are we?” Rendan wondered.
“I do not know,” it was Yarrow who spoke. “I must get my bearings.”
“I smell that we are by the sea,” said Ethan said.
The enchantress nodded, and there was something dreamy and distant on her face.
“Since nearly the whole of Solahn is surrounded by the sea,” Allman said, “that tells us nothing, Lord. But I need to stretch my legs. I need to stretch my legs and then sit down a bit and regain myself.”
The others agreed to this, or at least Rendan and Ethan did. Yarrow said nothing at all, held, it seemed to Ethan, by the scent of the sea. Long ago she had come into the world from it. So said the ancient tales, had they all. In the beginning.
Mehta did stretch her legs and go to drink water. This water was fresher than what they’d had, and she came back up the little hill to where they had exited, taking off her boots and rubbing her feet. A new smell tickled her nostrils and she turned to look.
Kneeling before a patch of dirt was Rendan, dust in his hair, his jacket a little torn, but his face intent. Smoke rose from where he knelt and, curiously, she rose to stand behind him.
He did not notice her at once, and when he did he explained. “It is not hard to make a quick incense. This isn’t good like what they’d have at the temples. Or in my home for that matter. But there are plenty of flowers here. You see. We have come through safely, so it is right to give thanks.”
Mehta was about to say, “Let’s not give thanks just yet,” but thought better of it.
“Every man past the age of sixteen is initiated into the priesthood of Banthra,” Rendan said, “save he refuse. The last king to refuse was Norgan. He made the pact with Phineas and entered Chyr to steal the Stone and rule from Immrachyr until we were pushed out.”
“I never knew you were religious,” Mehta said, folding her skirts and sitting beside him.
Rendan closed his eyes and made a shape over the fire, whispering some words, she imagined, to close out the ritual. Then he said: “I am not.
“I’m just grateful.”
That afternoon they marched east and the wind was good and cool. Spring time had come in earnest. The grasses were high and so were their spirits. Mehta sang:
“Sol nasce
copa da árvore verde
chuvas torrenciais
para a terra
o café está quente,
o vento não é
“Yegal, isso é incrível!”
Seizing Austin by the shoulder, Skabelund cried out: “What is that? Back! Duck!”
He said “Duck,” when he realized there was no going back, because they were in open country.
“What did you see?” Rendan began. But soon enough he also saw.
Coming toward them, slowly, were men in white and blue riding on white horses and bearing broad swords at their sides, the points of their brass helmets peaking out white turbans, and in the midst of them was a white palanquin, and above the white palanquin flapped a banner and upon the banner was an orange tiger.
“That is of my house!” Rendan’s voice strained, rising up, but Ethan pulled him back.
Something of what had passed between he and Rendan on the night of the Alcot still remained, and Ethan ached, worrying for him.
“Your house is your uncle’s house,” Ethan reminded him. “You don’t know who that is!”
“It is coming from the west, not the east. If Bellamy was headed toward my home, I don’t think he would have reached it yet, let alone be strolling at his ease. No, I have to go.”
Rendan broke from Ethan to walk through the grasses toward the approaching party which still did not notice him. The herald was blowing a long, low horn to mark their coming and Yarrow said: “There is no harm. We are more than a match. Have you forgotten? I bear witch fire.”
They ran toward the party, Mehta catching up with Rendan, and just then the horn changed, and they were noticed.
“Stop! Stop!” Rendan called.
The face of the herald, a man in middle years, changed. He stopped. He called out, “Rendan! Prince!”
“Yes!” Rendan wanted his voice to sound glorious, but he was tired and it was more like a croak. He caught his knees and began breathing as he approached the dusty road clefting the great plain.
“Rendan!” a voice cried from inside the palanquin.
The curtains flew open and a woman who looked one part terror, one part disbelief and the last part joy looked on him.
“Mother,” Rendan said, coming toward her. “Lady! Banthra and Nyiss be praised for the sight of you!”
UNDER THE EARTH
These paths were different from the ones they had traveled before. They were high and straight. cut with walls of polished white-gold stone. Torches burned clear in the walls, and by this new light Theone could see the Small People, little men, squat and wide eyed for the most part, m.any with wide, short faces like exaggerated ovals, ears like trumpets, all with lambent eyes.
“I am Andvari,” the chief Dwarf said, “And I am king of all these people.
“We were not seeking your injury,” he continued, speaking to Ohean. “When the Lady spoke out of the Stone it confirmed what we had heard.”
“And what had you heard?” Ohean asked him.
“That the paths we had built long ago in the service of the Shadowed One had been entered by Ohean. That he and some others had, at last, gone down and taken the Beryl belonging to the Lady of Heaven. The Shadowed One is not, of course, the only one of the Fire Devils, but he is the greatest. When the Jewel was taken the Muspel were roused. They cannot, by the curse laid upon them, leave the underground lands anymore than we can. Less, actually, for we can travel above ground if we wish, for a time.”
“Well, then wait?” Dahlan said while Dissenbark nodded beside him, “are they after us too?”
On their way down the path, Andvari looked after her and said, “They were after us. Their rage was at us. As far as they could see, we had failed because we built the Passes. We built the foundation of the temple. We built the labyrinth. That was in my father’s day.”
“Your fa—” began Soren. “But that was… In the Time of Trouble. It was… more than twenty five centuries ago. It was…”
Andvari’s round, white, yellow eyes looked at him and he said, “Compared to you we are a long lived people. My father lived in the days of the curse, when Kavana condemned all of us to remain under the earth so great was her rage.”
“This is a story I have heard many times,” Anson said. “But never the fullness of it.”
“If there is time then I may tell it, or perhaps where you are going someone will tell it.”
As they walked on, Theone said, “It is good, then, that you have found us. If you had not found us maybe they—the Muspel—would have done so.”
“It is possible,” Andvari said, “But it would have taken some time. For as the passes you were in are outside of our kingdom and our Ways, so are we outside of the deep lands of the Fire Folk.”
“Are they really made out of fire?” Dahlan wondered.
And confusingly, Andvari said, “Sometimes yes. But, certainly not always.”
Now they were before a great door of frosted silver, and the shining tendrils of a silver vine wound all the way up the height of the bevilled door. A red bearded Dwarf stepped out and he, like the rest of them, had a broad chest. His knotted biceps were folded in front of him, and he carried a short hammer wih a broad head. Lightly he hit the door and pronounced a word, and then, soundlessly, it swung in, opening to the deepest, greenest garden with the clearest brooks any of them had ever seen.
First there were the Twins, the Lovers, the Brothers,
the Blue Bird and the Serpent. They were all that was
and there love was all that was and before them
nothing is known, though some say they were always
loving each other and bearing each other forth.
In time they came together and from their lovers union
was born the First Daughter and the Second,
the Lower and the Higher, the Mistress of the Stars,
and the Mother over the Sea and they are called by men
Maia and Elladyl, mother of the waters, and mother
of the Stars.
Now this is the number of the children of Elladyl,
called the Mother of All waters, Selu, Vara.
Aiuryn, and born of them the Younger Gods: Kavana,
Banthra, Nar, Famke, Ahnesse.
These are the Vanyar and the Vassar,
and Selu was the Mother of the Earth,
and the Earth is her garment,
and her daughter
was the Great tempestuous Kavana
Kavana of the shaking mountains
Kavana of Great Rages
The Red Woman
The Vengeful Lady
Whose snaking hair is Fire
Kavana the Queen and Lady
Of the Tiger God
Kavana who entered his world,
seeking her brother Nar
To Conn some of the names were familiar, each name of each holy one spoken was like an enchanted key opening some door, and his mind went ever to the Twins, that the world as it was now began when two, like himself and Derek, lay down in love together, and it had continued when their children, two maidens, had of their own accord brought things into being. Only after two men had loved, only after women had born of their own, did the way of man and woman come. He thought of every time he’d made love, of those nights with Derek and Cal and even Jon, his brother in law, when the power of sex drew him into corners and back rooms. He considered Ohean who sat over there in the garden, watching over Anson, thosr great and powerful men who had made love to him all night in a cart under the stars at Turnthistle Farm. His peis rose, going firm in contemplation. Could that tenderness have created a world as had the Twins? They were like the Serpent and the Blue Bird. The Serpent and Blue Bird. Serpent and Blue Bird, the idea slithered through his head, fluttered in his brain.
In the first Age after Mahonry came into the world,
then did the Shadowed One, the one of Smoke and Fire
rise from the earth, the height of a mountain
with a whip like lightning. Oh, Mozhudak and he dared to
wound the earth.
These were the deep creatures of the pit
and they arose against Selu, against the precious earth
and all the creatures born of here, against the fair folk
and the men of mountains and overhill.
They arose against the children of men,
who in the very making were of this world ,
not of the one from which they traveled,
and her is where we here of Sindri
who condemned the sons of earth.
Sindri mighty duergar lord took to wife the Svart elf,
Saxoninga, stepdaughter of the
Shadowed Demon Lord, and for her sake and the wish
for riches made his pact that all the Dwarves would
fight against all men and fair folk.
Only his brother Brokk stood against him.
So slew he him and banished them,
his followers far to the north.
Now come they, Sindri, sending all his people
to build the mighty passes under earth, to forger the
weaponry all dark and iron dull for
the folk of Mozhudak,
and also for those men who followed him.
From them, from ancient origins come
those folk known as the Hand.
“I had heard that Nava was ancient,” Dahlan said. “That when we came to it, it and the temple already belonged to Solahn. But in our stories the Prophet made it holy and consecrated it to God. We ignored that Nava had ever been a city before we came.”
“But how could you ignore it?” Theone wondered, “When you saw Black Hands around the Temple everyday.”
“There were many things we ignored,” Dahlan said, “simply because we were told to.”
Soren looked to Kenneth.
Kenneth said, “I thought…. But… I did not know where we came from. I knew we were Daumans, but…”
At this, Andvari broke from the rhythm of the poem and said, “Now the blood of the Hands is mostly Dauman, but the Hands, like the Temple and the priesthood were before Daumany or even Solahn.”
He sang:
Out of the ruin of Talmaze went the Men of Gozen
and settled they at the mouth of the Bay of Enlad,
and there they built the city that would be
the place of Mozhudak.
There, at the mouth of the world of the damned
they worshiped and there he leapt from the earth.
There they served him and made their pact,
half the priesthood, half the soldiers,
this the origin of all Hands.
The place they lived of old
was Enrick Elkanahir
though now men call it,
fairer, Nava.
And in those days the tale is told in Chyr,
of Iffan the Star King and of Owen
Who with might put down the dread deep power.
But under the earth is told the rage of Kavana,
who descended from her mountains all in flame.
At this, Theone imagined she heard screaming far off, now shouting, but she shook her head and laid it against Soren. Soren was a Hand and so was Kenneth. Maybe she was a princess of Chyr, the Princess it seemed. But her father and his father and the father before that had also been Hands. She was as much that as anything else. And apparently they were not Daumans, though by now they had Dauman blood. They were something much, much older.
And in her rage she charged the sons of Sindri
to be sealed beneath the earth and never,
unless called to leave that place of hiding
and then only for the period of six days.
This is her wrath and this her warning,
and only the children of Brokk
from this were freed—
This may have been near the intended end or not, but at this point a much rounder Dwarf broke into the garden,shouting, and other were running behind him.
“The Muspel!” he cried. “The Muspel are coming. They are already burning the palace. Come, Andvari King! Let us fight!”
