It felt late in the day when Anson awoke, and then he realized that it wasn’t any sort of day. Thick light came through the curtains and he was on his back coming from the deadest sleep he ever slept. Ohean was beside him, equally dead to the world, arm bandaged, bandage wound about his head. And maybe he was so many things, and certainly he was his savior, but Ohean was his, plain and simple. He did not need to understand the rest of it. He kissed him lightly on the chest, over his heart. Before, in the nightmare time, he had almost died. And he could not lose him.
“Lose him again,” He murmured, giving a half smile at his own turn of phrase as he ran the side of his hand over Ohean’s chest.
“What’s that?” Ohean murmured, half asleep, clutching his hand.
Anson, who was preparing to get up, maneuvered his hand from Ohean’s and said, “Lose you. Never.”
He climbed out of bed stiffly and slowly dressed, pulling tunic and trousers over his bruised limbs, and then he stepped into the little toilet where he relieved himself and plunged his face in a bowl of cold water. Yes, he remembered now. He had a purpose. He had a favor to ask of Andvari. When they had finally come to bed, when it was just him and Ohean and the deep embrace had led to the deep kiss and passion, as they had drifted off to sleep, complete, whole again, Anson had prayed for a revelation.
Everything about what had happened was a matter of great confusion, or rather disbelief. What they had all seen, quite simply, was that after Ohean was struck, after Theone’s Stone had failed, that which had spoken so powerfully before, Dissenbark had stretched out her hand, Essily and Conn, leaning upon her, seeming to send their strength into her and from deep in her had come a mighty voice. Dissenbark had been still and firm as a stone and her hair was blown back in a devil wind. Mozhudak, eyes like storms, turned from Ohean and the others to her, and the two of them had been locked in battle until Dissenbark was failing, until Ohean had come up again. Anson ws scarcely aware of it.
The four of them, Conn, Essily, Ohean and Dissenbark, stood together, and Ohean’s knowledge, his words, his own strength from many lives, from the ancient time across the sea and over many worlds flowed into Dissenbark. Mozhudak’s scream had filled the world below, and to escape the web of sorcery he had shot up and out, screaming, only to disappear. Where he was gone, none could see. Ohean did not think well of it, but was glad that, at least for now, the Muspel were put away. Dissenbark had lain drained and passed out. The nut brown girl white as a Dayne, white as a sheet. Andvari’s chamberlain, Regni had taken charge of her saying: “She’ll need to rest a day or so.”
They were all so tired, but Theone was insistent on finding Soren, Arvad and Kenneth. It did not take. When the battle ended, no one was alone. In grim clumps everyone found one another, and it was as Dissenbark was being born away, like one dead, Soren limped forward, bloody, breathing hard, and Theone bade him lean on her.
“Where are Arvad and Kenneth?” she said, when Conn could not.
With one hand, Soren gestured behind him and breathed, “Take you… to them.”
“Are they—?” Conn began, leaping forward, though Anson touched his shoulder.
“No,” Soren said, “but Kenneth’s bad off, he is. Bad off in the heart, not wounded by a sword.”
Conn went ahead of them all. In a blasted alley, under a blown out building, Arvad stood over Kenneth who was rocking back and forth, his face blackened, and as Arvad knelt down beside him he was gibbering.
“My name is Ruval, my name is Ruval, my name is Ruval, my name….”
Arvad held onto his face and over and over again Kenneth gibbered.
“What did they do to you?” Arvad shook him. “What did they do to you?”
At last, Kenneth, who had turned away from him, stopped. He was trembling violently and he said, “They did not do anything to me… I… remembered. I remembered… everything. I was… I am, a Black Star,” he looked at Soren. “Just like you.”
Soren’s face grew sad, almost, Theone thought, as if he were about to crumple and weep, and he already looked so beat down. He kept nodding his head.
“All the things we did,” Kenneth began, snuffling up tears and mucus, “all the things on our hearts… when we get those hearts back. And no one knows. Do they?”
Soren was shaking his head and his eyes were wide and shining.
“No one knows, brother,” Kenneth said, turning his face away and weeping.
Theone looked to see that tears were running down Soren’s face and he was shaking and then she realized that Kenneth was looking at her, too.
“Theone,” he said. “Please, forgive me.”
“Of course,” she began, then shook her head. “But… why?”
“I,” Kenneth began. “As you know, as I think you do, Ennsalisa, what Dhalan calls Nava, was the city where the Blach Hand was created, but now none of us live there. There are four Houses, all on the Solahn border. You and Soren must have been at one. Well, I was at another. After you fled, my Master supposed that you were near our House. He sent me to kill you. I… I was coming to do that.”
Theone’s face changed.
“You…” she said, squinting, “I saw you when I scryed. That night when I took the red horse. You… look changed.”
“He has a heart now,” Ohean said.
“I was coming after you. I imagine almost on you,” Kenneth said, “when I came to the House of Yarrow. I slept and when I woke could remember nothing.”
He looked to Essily. “She must have enchanted me.”
“Something like that,” Essily said, nodding.
“Yarrow took me in. She sent me in the direction of… you,” Theone said to Ohean.
“I told her that two would come to her,” Ohean said.
“I said the first must be sent after me, the other after her, And so she did.”
“And she took away my memory,” Kenneth said, in amazement, “so that… I could have my heart.
“She could have killed me. But…”
“She’d rather you be healed,” Ohean said.
They were quiet now. All that could be heard were the sounds of burning and Arvad sat beside Kenneth and touched his hand.
“How can you?” he said. “Knowing what I am?”
Arvad said nothing, but continued holding his hand.
“I almost wish,” Kenneth confessed, “that she had killed me instead.”
Anson found Regni, whose hair was ice white and stuck out in spikes all around his oblong head. His eyes were nearly on stalks and Anson thought he was being stared at severely until he realized this was what the Physic probably always looked like.
“You’re here to see your friend?” Regni said.
“Not exactly, though yes,” Anson said.
Regni looked at him and Anson said, “Let me explain.”
He sat.
“We were told that… by the Jewel that… It speaks.”
“Yes,” Regni said. “It is Elladyl’s Beryl.”
“Well, it speaks with her voice except for last night, which I do not understand. But… it said, or she said that here we would learn about the missing prince. That there would be a King and a Queen in Chyr and it would be here we would learn who would be King. You know, since Theone is going to be Queen. We guess. I mean, we think.”
The whole time Anson spoke, Regni stared at him with increasing severity until finally he said, “I thought you would never shut up.”
“Well,” Anson said. “Now I have.”
“And you have come to me because?”
“Because you are the loremaster,” Anson said. “And should know things like this.”
“But you are with the greatest of loremasters,” Regni said, “and he does not?”
Not knowing if he was being mocked or not, Anson said. “Please, lord, if you can… tell me anything. I hoped to surprise Ohean with some news.”
There was an unreadable look on the old creature’s face, and then he sighed and said, “What do you know of when the Five first came into this world from beyond the sea?”
“It is said they came during the Time of Trouble,” Anson said. “I don’t ask Ohean much about it because… that’s not who he is to me, you see. But that is the story.”
“And what was Ohean’s part? That you know?”
“He… he, well, he came and he met Iffan and Iffan was a Chyr prince, a son of Mahonry and Famke. He helped Iffan become the first king.”
“What can you say about Iffan?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Anson waved that off. “I was raised away from all that. In Westrial.”
“Say what you can,” the Dwarf charged him.
“Oh,” Anson said, noting the change in the Dwarf’s voice. “Well… It is said that he loved Ohean, Owen. That was why he had no sons, but that his sister’s son, Itham, became the next king. Some say Iffan died, but some say he went into the Cave of Crystals, that Ohean made it for him and he slept there, and one day Ohean would wake him, and he would be King again.”
“Do you believe that?”
Anson affected a bright laugh and said, “If it’s true, I’ve got some competition.”
“Do you believe it?” Regni said in a voice that allowed no humor.
And this time Anson found himself answering, seriously.
“When I look into myself I… no sir, I don’t believe I do. I believe that Iffan died. There used to be two rulers at a time in Chyr. Iffan’s sister was his queen because Ohean was his lover. And then Iffan died and Itham took the throne. But the stories said he would come again. The Book of the Bright Sun says he will come again and not die. I do believe that much. But I don’t understand it.”
“Then understand this,” Regni said. “In other lands another tale is told. Not that Ohean came into the world to help in The Time of Trouble and met Iffan, but that all of the Five came into this world for no other reason than to find their lost loves. For in the First World they had been with their beloveds, and in this life were determined to have them again. Owen crossed the sea to find Iffan, and his whole life he remained with him, and they pacted that as they would live in this world, they would always come back into it together It is said in the land of Solea, and under the earth, there will come Iffan, even after Ohean himself has put away the memory of him, for grief is hard and hope is harder, and this time around Iffan will not die, they will never be separated. If you understand what I have told you,” the Dwarf said, “then you understand everything you need to know.”
“But I—” Anson began, but the Dwarf said, “and know this also, Chyr is the oldest of all the Royan nations. A thousand years ago the Ayl came to the New Kingdoms, and for six hundred years before that the Remulans spread their empire, but even then, Chyr was old. Even then, Chyr was three times as old as Westrial is now. And in those days Chyr was wider. It took up much of what is now Rheged, spreading to the north, and it spread to the east as well, and it was there that the King ruled, while the Queen ruled in the West. But in time that land in the east separated. It separated so long ago that those people forgot they were once Chyr, though their kings remained. And that land is long gone, though, again, the blood of those kings remains.”
“Locrys,” Anson said. “Locrys was the other Chyr.”
“Yes,” Regni said.
“And Iffan did not rule at Immrachyr at all, did he?”
Regni shook his head.
“He ruled at Ondres.”
