YRRMARAYN
On the ramparts she stood between Maud and Ronnerick. Last night the battle sirens woke them from their sleep and Theone had quickly dressed and looked from the palace walls to see that, at last there was a battle on the water and the night was filled with the light of burning ships. While Kenneth and Soren had gone out to fight, Theone had, still not certain of herself, half commanded, half asked to be taken to the outer city walls to stand on the Sea Gate.
What she was being told confused her. The only thing that stayed in her head through the night was when they had sought Anson and Ohean, and it was reported they were nowhere to be found. In his rage Soren had cursed them both and Inark for good measure, and then he had gone out with Kenneth. Kenneth commanded Arvad to protect Theone and Arvad had blinked in disbelief.
“I go with you,” he said.
Kenneth protested, but the only thing Arvad would say, firmly, was, “I go with you.”
At last, half afraid, but not having the time or the energy to gainsay him, Kenneth had taken Arvad with him.
By the morning a tight ring of defense was drawn about the city and battle was in earnest, the rmies of Meresell and Golden Height holding Phineas back, joined with the Black and the Gold. At first it was difficult and strange to tell them from the Hand, and Theone, on the outer most wall, overlooking the sea, was dependent upon heralds to come frequently and report to her what was happening.
But when the sun was high and day began, a young maid came running to her crying, “Mistress, mistress, the sight is glorious.”
And that was when she and Maud and Ronnerick had mounted a chariot that went over the broad city walls and rolled to midway past the shore, halfway into the plain, and they saw Ohean, brilliant in white and silver and Anson, a King, Callasyl shining in his hand, cutting his bright way to the ships. He was coming closer and closer when again the familiar bomb burst exploded, but this was no bomb, and Theone, with strange terror in her heart saw what she had seen beneath the Throndon in the land of the Dwarves. Bursting up, fiery whip in his hand, darkening the sky, was Mozhudak.
He had leapt onto one of the Chyran ships and it cracked as he made his perch. Many men jumped over. What happened to the rest, she could not say. From that perch, beside Phineas’s ship, his whip flicked any approaching. And his bolts of lightning blackened the earth.
“Why does he not touch the city?” Maud wondered.
“Do you want him to?” Essily asked.
“No,” Maud sounded offended. “But, still it would be good to know if we are truly safe.”
“This city is ringed about with spells, not least of all mine, Nimerly’s and Celandine’s.” Essily said. “It can fall, but not as easily as it did before. And not—” she waved a disdainful hand toward the great monster who took up the whole of the deck of a ship. “to him!”
“I hear you, daughter of the stars!” a voice bellowed. “I hear you, witch of the woods. Where are you whose voice I hear? Why will you not leave your crystal protection and come to me?”
The voice was a great, sizzling, electric roar, like the crack of the whip. Theone fought the urge to cover her ears and Maud was visibly winded by it.
“Where is that Ohean! Where is that black spider, the wind bird, that witch’s son who dared challenge me beneath the earth? And where is that witch? Come to me! I dare you!”
Theone looked below. The more she peered the more she saw a shimmering border between Anson and the armies of Phineas. But now Phineas’s men were coming in closer, hacking her people as they screamed.
“My people,” Theone murmured.
And then she said, “I wonder that this demon who calls himself a god does not call upon me?”
Maud looked at her.
“Ronnerick,” Theone said, “Prepare my chariot.”
The old man’s eyes went wide and Maud said, “What are you doing?”
“I am the Queen. This is my land. These are my people. I have an old quarrel with the Black Hand, and their god. It is time to resolve it. I am going to dress. Prepare my chariot. Prepare it now.”
Though Ronnerick was slow to obey, the squires set to, and she followed them, a maid at her heels.
Maud caught her sleeve.
“Theone, you know nothing of battle.”
“Maud, you know nothing,” Theone said, “of how much I know of battle. Or do you think I spent my childhood as some pampered thing in a palace? No, I spent it fighting for my life. This will be the last battle. At least for a time.”
“But Soren…” Maud began, doubtfully.
“Soren commanded you to stay here.”
Theone smiled and shook her head.
“Soren is many things,” she said. “But what he is not, is my lord.”
So saying, Theone turned went on her way.
Maud looked to Celandine, Essily and Nimerly who had been silent this whole time.
It was the Lady of the Rootless Isle who spoke at last.
“This is her hour,” Nimerly said. “The Queen has returned and she must go out to meet the monster.”
“But she need not go alone,” Essily said. “I will go with her.”
“No,” Celandine said, firmly. “You have been parted from your sister too long. I will go.”
“Well,” Maud said, with very little hesitation, “If you go, then I will go too.”
Every night, as they had come closer to the city of Yrrmarayn, Phineas had taken Urzad to himself. There had been passion in it, and something of love, but also there was the excitement and of course the building of power. Every day Urzad felt himself thrumming with the power that Phineas built up in him whenever they made union. Today he was three fourths high and one part humming under the grip of Phineas’s hands on his shoulders. They flowed in and out of each other, and every part of him sang. This morning, when they had come out to the deck from their usual joining, Urzad had been higher than ever, so high his hair stood on end. Now the power thrummed low in him, but still higher than ever before, still so that he accepted everything, much the way he would in an hallucination. Still so that when out of the Throndon had risen the Dark One, though there had been fear, there had been amazement, and when Mozhudak, big as a castle, had landed on the Chryan ship sending men jumping and screaming and, supposedly, many dying in one moment, Urzad had not been terrified. He had not fainted. He had only thrilled, the way his master thrilled.
When the bolts of his whip had landed as lightning on the earth and done away with the Chyrans who had come too close, when he had sent those approaching scurrying, he rejoiced. When Mozhudak, the Great and Terrible, had come to their aid, flogging the Chryan ships with fire, Urzad beheld this in wonder and was filled with the same praise his master felt, and when Phineas had, in mighty power, drawn a crystal web between himself and the Black and Gold Riders led by this King who had come out of nowhere, that had been his pleasure too.
And then everyone’s attention shifted. The city of Yrrmarayn was built on four great hills, but the greatest was at the center, the Roston, and there were four concentric walls about the city, the outer one, naturally being the longest and the thickest along which chariots rode. Many towered and several gated it was, and the east walls extended out into the water itself, where green algae climbed up them. In the midst of this wall was a great gate and this was the Sea Gate. Composed of three gates, the first strong and solid opened to the beach and then the next, equally solid opened onto the water and there was a long, narrow, guarded canal through which ships sailed and at last came the barred gate, the Gate of Morian, which lifted up out of the water, and was lifting up now.
When Phineas grew quiet his whole ship was quiet and Mozhudak was appeased, and the armies grew quiet though none but those before the Gate could see what was happening. Out sailed a barge, and on the barge were three women, one bronze skinned with black hair curling down her back, and Phineas’s eyes widened with rage as he saw she wore the Beryl, and behind her a wheat haired woman from that accursed Ilse of women as sure as she was from anywhere and, beside her, a red headed woman whom he recognized from gleaning the dreams of Ethan of Vand when he was a prisoner, as the Princess Maud of Thaary.
“Theone!” the woman beside Urzad said. “That is Theone!”
“Who?” the Master of the Hand turned to her.
“Jurgad’s daughter, the one who escaped, whom we sent the Hand after. Only he disappeared. That is her. That is Theone.”
“And she wears our Stone,” Phineas murmured, his hands falling.
But from above, a terrible voice bellowed, “My Stone!”
And when Mozhudak howled, all the ships shook, and there was a great wind, and the barge threatened to overturn. Maud caught the sides, but Theone, small as an insect, raised the Beryl hanging on her breast.
“Star and no Stone am I,” she said.
And though she had not raised her voice, everyone heard.
Now, on the ship which was for him little more than a raft, the blackened form of Mozhudak lowered. He was terrible, like a cat before the smallest of mice, but Phineas’s mind rebelled against saying he was like anything. Like a great lizard before a bug, like a lion before a kill. He was all of these things, and all of these images folded away. Those great, dry, bat wings, folding against his back.
“Star and no Stone and I,” Theone repeated, and whether it was her, or the Beryl no one could say, and all around her the water did not move, it was calm, and it seemed about the three women and the rowers of the barge there was a soft light which Urzad could not stand to behold.
“You have crept beneath my house,” Mozhudak’s voice was not a roar, but this time a deep and a very seductive purr. It filled the earth. “And you have taken what was mine. You have dared to defy my rites, and my symbols and defile my labyrinth with your hands.”
“It was mine long before you dreamed to claim it. Thou child of filth, thou offspring of the abyss who would be a god, whose only power was ever to maime and twist those things which were not thine. I rebuke you. You cannot come against my city, nor my land. Turn about. Go away. Leave us.”
Now it was evident that the line where Theone ended and the Beryl began had been erased, for this woman was fully Theone, smiling, full of confidence, not at all possessed.
About them the storm raged and some of the ships closest to the walls did what they could not to crash. The woman, Hyrax, who stood on the ship beside Urzad fell over and righted herself on the deck.
“Give to me the Jewel. The Jewel was mine. The Jewel desired by me. Long ago, I sent men into this City for that Stone, and I shall wear my Beryl, my Peace, this day. I shall place it upon my throat and sleep in the Labyrinth of Peace Again.”
“I warn you,” Theone spoke again, and again, though her voice was not loud, all could hear her, “do not lay a hand upon me. In those days I was at peace, but I will not suffer your hands again, anymore than I shall suffer the feet of your servants in all the Land of Ossar.”
Now, like a great tower, like a storm, he rose up, raging, the sky snapping with lightning, darkness descending. Behind Theone, Maud, who could not regret her courage as much as she tried, squeezed Celandine’s hand and wondered what kind of woman she would be if she had simply stayed on the wall.
RETURN TO ME THE JEWEL!!!”
And now the walls of the city shook, and those ships which had tried to hold themselves back crashed into the Sea Walls. Men fell from horses. Grass, far off, went flat.
Did he know who she was? Could he understand that as long as she was united to the Beryl she was Elladyl, the Lady Herself? Or did it matter to him? Had he ceased to understand what a Goddess was? No matter.
And because it did not matter, Theone shrugged, and she said, “Well, if you want it, then take it.”
And then there was great laughter and the sky quaked, and it was like the thunder storm that shakes houses and makes children hide under their beds and he said:
“Well, then I will.”
And slowly, like some pestilence out of the sky, came his arm, and a hand, and it went to the barge, and though some of the young men rowing tried to move to protect her, Theone said, “No. Fall back. This is how it must be.”
Essily and Maud did nothing. Maud and Theone looked, with absolute fascination and terror into the face of Mozhudak. And then, for a moment that was very like that first time years ago, when she had been sent into Soren’s room, not knowing him, calling him Gimble, afraid, and he had stripped naked before her, and stripped her and was about to enter, she awaited his touch, and she shuddered with disbelief as great fingers hooked about the Beryl, and as they did, up from her came a screaaaaaam.
It was a deep scream from out of the depths. It went all through her and out of her and pulsed through her like light, and then it passed out of her, and when she opened her eyes she saw te scream was coming from Mozhudak. It was the same scream as when Inark had struck him in the land below. But this one was greater, and the Beryl was snapped from her neck, and it was in his hand, but he was screaming with pain, and slowly turning the same burning blue as the Beryl, and then blue white, and then utter white, and then fire and more fire, filling the sky with white, white light, and there was a joyous huming and Essily, who knew the Star Magic, gently touched Theone.
Star and No Stone am I
Forged in my infancy
On the anvil of the morning
Risen to never fail
Long in black night I travail
I am the light and song
I am the Heart of Elladyl!
And then there was only the gentle snowing of starlight, stars like bright flower petals, and from them, to the open hands of Theone fell the Beryl, still warm, still humming, In its facets she saw a smiling face and she thought it was her own, save this grave and lovely woman wore a crown of stars.
