OHEAN
“How long will it be before we reach the surface?” Kenneth asked Andvari as they trudged up the path. Here it had grown higher, and a little narrower, but it was cleaner. There was nothing that suggested these paths were natural, like the old ones they had followed, and there were no natural caverns they crossed into any longer.
“It depends on what you mean by the surface,” the Dwarf said. “For, as some of you may already have guessed, we came above the surface of the plains some time past. Now we are in the bowels of the Mountains your people called the Ystrad, and soon to come out of them.
“We will come out,” Durgan said, “through the Gate known as Falgri. Of old it was the way we entered the kingdom of the Wood Folk. The word should not have changed, and the passage should still be possible.”
The whole time they had walked on, Anson had been uncommonly quiet, and now Ohean touched him.
“Yes?” Anson said.
“You’ve been strange.”
“Tired is all,” Anson said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Anson squeezed his hand quickly. “Very sure.”
“What I don’t understand,” Theone was saying to Dissenbark in a low voice, while she touched the glowing stone, “is why it went dead on me. Why it did nothing the other night.”
“I have thought about this,” Dissenbark said, “and I was wondering if. maybe the Stone, or… the Lady, did nothing in order that I could do what I did. It couldn’t be that she was powerless. I doubt that. I think that maybe she retreated so that I could be… powerful?”
Theone nodded and said, “It is as good a reason as I can think. Better, in fact.”
“I knew a tiresome old priest who used to roam the country telling us to beg the Gods’ forgiveness for our sins,” Dissenbark said. “But I think that on the Day of Reckoning They’ll have a few things to answer for too, as far as I’m concerned.”
Dahlan shielded his eyes, looking ahead.
“What’s that?” Soren pointed ahead.
Andvari had already seen it, and Regni and Durgan had put up their hands, bidding the others stop. No one paid heed. Ohean walked at the head of them now, and suddenly he blinked to see green trees in the sunshine.
Stepping out the dark into the green day, the companions blinked in amazement on the abundance of living green. But soon after Anson, Conn and all the others saw everything else Ohean, Andvari and Durgan and Soren had seen.
Amongst the greenery were people. Many of them were not the height of a man, but all were taller than Dwarves and some were sapling tall, in brown and green that clung to them like bark or leaf more than clothing, as if some woodland god had painted their naked bodies in bark and foliage. From their close fitting skins sprung leaves, and small branches. They seemed as much part of the forest as any shrub or vine or tree. Wide eyed they were, men and a few appeared to be ladies, and some wore caps like the tops of acorns or like the tops of thistles and pine cones or a weaving of twigs, and now they were all looking at the travelers.
“Hail Andvari, King of the Underland Duergar,” one said, and the others stopped and bowed.
“Gennel of the Wood Folk,” Andvari returned the greeting.
“There is war,” he said, “and we have spoken with Maud of Thaary. She is defending the Crystal City. I made pact with her though it was against my father’s word. He said that this is a quarrel for men, and we should have nothing to do with it. I did not agree,” Gennel gave a short bow.
“And you wondered that men might come through these walls,” Ohean said.
Gennel nodded.
“Of old these were the paths the Royan built, all the way from what is now Solahn into Chyr.”
“And how far is Chyr, good sir?” Theone said.
“When you leave this forest,” Gennel told her, “you are in it.”
“This is Theone daughter of Essnara daughter of Jergen daughter of Ermengild, the Princess once lost,” Ohean said, “and I am Ohean, and these are my companions.”
“Then it is you for whom we have been waiting,” Gennel said.
“The Lady of the Rose is keeping company in the Wood and with her is your kinswoman, the Lady of the Rootless Isle.”
“Nimerly!” Ohean and Dissenbark cried at once, but Essily only wailed and put her hands to her mouth as one wounded.
“Mother!” Anson began.
Essily looked fragile and wounded, shaking her head, looking almost like an old woman.
“I did not dare to hope. I did not…”
“Lady?” Gennel began.
“This is the Lady Essily, one time Queen of Westrial and Princess of the Rootless Isle,” Ohean said. “Nimerly is her sister, and the two of them have been parted many years.”
“Lady,” one beside Gennel said, “we will take you to your sister, and straightway.”
While Essily was still weeping, she was surrounded by several of the fairy women, and moving far quicker than the humans were prepared to go, they bore Essily away across the glade.
Only Gennel remained, and he said, simply:
“Lord Ohean, there is much the Lady Celandine wishes to discuss with you.”
He looked on all of the companions.
“With you all.”
“I thought we would never again see the sun, and when I dreamed of it, it was nothing like this. Nothing like what we see now. Look, everywhere is green. Yellow green, mint green, deep greens, greens soft as blues, look at that water in the pools, black, the color of peat, the color of eyes and button mushrooms in the moss. The moss green again. Praise the Lord of all green things, praise him. Praise the Lady for all this,” Dissenbark sang, clasping her hands together as she turned in circles and they went in the company of the Wood Folk.
Suddenly Anson struck up a song:
Praise the Maker for his goodness
Praise the Lady for her kiss
Praise the Lord of all the Green things
Praise she who has born all this.
All the green times
All the verdure
All the lingering lustfulness
Praise the Maker of the Sunshine
Praise them all for all this Bliss!
He caught Ohean’s hand and laughed and now Ohean laughed and then the two of them surprised everyone, for they ran on until they stopped under a tree. Anson caught his Ohean’s face in his hands.
“Tonight,” he sang, his cheeks red, his eyes dancing, “you just wait and I’ll love you! I’ll love you wantonly like you never knew.”
He hooked his arm in Ohean’s, and as they walked on the path lowered, a black, lush road through high, deep green trees. In the distance were fallen logs, delicate ferns, diamond weaves of spider webs like cloaks. Dissenbark began a song. Arvad sang along.
My temple is above
My temple is below
My starry Lady’s with me
Wher’er I may go
Her love it has brought me
Through the wind and the snow
My temple is above!
It is below!
Anson’s hand was frimly gripping Ohean’s, and as they walked together, Ohean said, “Long ago, in this wood, there was a day like this. The birds sang sweetly as if Maia had just stepped forth in the first morning of the world, and the warmth of the day was… thick like honey… it was thick and good like honey. The world was sweeter then.
“There is so much, so much I have to tell you,” Ohean said.
“There is something, and I do not know how to speak it. But I must be certain.”
“Ohean,” Anson sounded, for once, petulant.
“Give me this, love.” Ohean said. “You’ve given me so much give me this last. I promise I will tell you everything that is in my heart.”
As Dissenbark walked the wooded path, she noticed it growing broader and flatter under her feet, and where there had been toadstools, now there were creatures with mushroom colored faces, black eyes, and caps, red and white, toadstool shaped. Where there had before been plain trees, now they looked down at her and the bark patterns twisted into black faces. Everything was alive here. Here the water seemed to sing.
Cotton dandelion fluff fell, and when she brushed it from her face, Dissenbark saw the shadow of slender beings floating down. There was a subtle music the air make passing through trees, and the willows in the distance were slow, patient faced women. Everything was aware here. Where once were dragonflies, now, larger, were dragonfly winged creatures passing among the flowers and over the water.
Dissenbark opened her mouth to sing and she had no words, only melody. The living trees were painted deep gold by afternoon sun, and now even Soren, who had the least sight for this place, blinked as one and then several of the trees stepped aside, not ripping the land, but their roots coming up smooth and delicate as they made an avenue and, at its end, under a great oak with leaves of gold and copper sat three women, and for a moment, Kenneth saw, as he had seen before, wings, like dragonfly wings or like insect wings, floating slowly behind the one in her rose colored gown. The more he stared directly, hoping for certainty, the more the wings faded until they were not there. But when he turned his head, there they were from the corner of his eye. The next lady would be tall and wide as a man if she stood and her hair was dark auburn, nearly brown. This, Ohean and Dissenbark, and even Anson knew for Nimerly, Lady of the Rootless Isle.
But the last was bare armed, her limbs like btonze, and she wore a light gown the color of dawn. Her hair was thick white gold, more white than gold, and Kenneth cried:
“Birch!” the same time Anson blinked in wonder on his mother.
But it was the pinked robed woman of sometimes wings who spoke.
“And now you are all here. Lord Andvari, Lords Durgen and Regni, forgive our intrusion on your land.”
“There was no intrustion, Lady.”
“Rest yourselves,” she said. “And all of you. Soren, and Arvad, and also he who shall be King and she who will be Queen, Ermengild’s heir. Conn the Blue Priest and Dahlan, head of is people. And Dissenbark, whose deep cries of power below have reached our ears. And, not least at all, the Lord Ohean, come again.”
“Lady,” Ohean bowed, “it has been many years since last we met. You spoke of a King and a Queen.”
“Yes,” Arvad said. “When Soren marries Theone, he’ll be King, right?”
Soren blinked. This had never occurred to him. But Dissenbark pointed out, “if the Lady had meant Soren, she would not have addressed him. Anson is the one she never spoke of.”
Nimerly sat beside Essily, both of them hands clasped, looking like queens. Nimerly’s wide eyes rested upon Dissenbark, pronoucing the words, “Little Sister.”
The Lady Celandine raised her liquid eyes to Anson and the soldier blinked.
“Soren will not be King,” she said. “As Bellamy will not be King. How can something so plain be hidden from one who was accompanied by the mightiest of the Five?”
Anson blinked stupidly and Regni, tugging at Anson’s sleeve, said, “Can it be? You never told him? How could you not have told him?”
Now Ohean looked truly flustered. The Lady did not. She was not gloating, but she was not upset either. She said, “Often it is those who are close to a thing who are not permitted to see it, no matter how wise or great they may be. It is fitting. It fits.”
They were all looking at Anson now, Theone’s mouth open in slight surprise. Miserably, Anson touched Ohean’s shoulder.
“I must speak to you. Now. And not tonight.”
He pulled him away from the company and the Lady said, as Nimerly began absently sifting leaves and twigs on the ground beneath her, “As long as Fennel has brought you to me, because he knows the way, maybe he will be glad to show you places of rest and places where you may bathe and prepare for feasting. For we will feast this night. And council, yes council.”
But as Fennel and the others were leading them away, Nimerly, still dropping little leaves to the ground, said:
“Dissenbark.”
The witch woman approached, trying to make some order from the tendrils of her ginger hair.
“We are the same. We are First Kin, come from the Earth. That is a fair name you have.”
Dissenbark went red and murmured, “My Lady, I was always given to believe it was a silly name.”
But now Dissenbark saw that this whole time, the Lady of the Rootless Isle had been dropping little twigs and stones, and now she looked down to see her name spelled out on the ground.
DISSENBARK
“It was not silly,” Nimerly disagreed. “Only overlong. But the true name, the name of power has always been in it, and you will always be known by it.
And as she spoke, the Lady began to sweep away letters, brushing awar a D and then a B, next an S and so forth, until only a few were left.
I N ARK..
“Say it,” the Lady Nimerly said. “And become it. If you will.”
“Inark,” Dissenbark murmured, “My name is Inark.”
And so it was.
