Fifty-Eight
Sex is a teacher. It erases lines which should be erased. It opens the eyes to truths they did not wish to see if one allows the power of sex to work on him.
This is the beginning of the Age of Love, and we have come to give you pleasure.
- Honored Pol Kurusagan
YRRMARAYN
And then the sky was clear, and the demon was gone, and there was a voice, which she knew to be Inark’s, shouting: “Phineas’s web is gone. Quick, Anson! Quick to the water.”
In the barge they were hardly recovered, and the noise of battle resumed. Those on shore were scarely recovered either, and one of the bargemen said, “Your Majesty, where do we go now?”
“To the only place the Queen should be,” Theone said. “Row us to the quay so I can watch the battle.”
But even as they were turning the barge back, Theone saw the sky clouded by a new thing, and there were new ships arriving. As the new made Queen looked up, she murmured, “What in the hell is that?”
“Skyliners,” Maud said. “They do not have the mark of Rheged, but they are Royan, so we have help. As for the ships in the distance… That may be another issue.”
Ohean rode straight to the landing skyliners. Inark galloped after him. When the senior of the ships opened and Ralph Curakin came out, Ohean leapt off of his horse and into the tall man’s arms.
“Inark!” Ohean laughed, wiping tears from his eyes, “this is Ralph Curakin.”
They were on a battlefield, and he was aware of this, and yet here was Ralph, and when Ohean saw other ships he understood.
“Wolf is on his way.”
From his horse, Anson was blinking as he guided the stallion over bodies. He had thought he never wanted to see a war again, and the whole time he had approached this battle with dread, but now that it was here, there was something he could admit was joy, in the slashing of the sword, in the felling of an enemy, in Callasyl’s weight guiding his arm. This was the ancient land. This was the ancient land. This was the land he had always held. At the very border where Chyr and Westrial met, at the estuary, some ships even now were escaping down the river into the land of his birth, and he had sent men after them.
“Lord Anson! Lord Anson! I mean, Lord Iffan!”
Sebastian was riding toward them.
“Ships.”
Anson rode after Sebastian, and as they arrived on the beach beyond the harbor where Phineas’s ships were gathered, they saw new ships approaching.
“What is the emblem?” Sebastian said.
“A golden lion on white,” Anson said.
“For a moment I thought it was Solahn. I thought it was Banthra.”
“No,…” Anson shook his head. “But this is almost as impossible, for I never knew them to have ships. The Lion Head is the symbol of Zahem.”
Sebastian passed Anson the spyglass, and Anson frowned and then smiled as he looked at the deck of the first ship.
“What, my Lord?” Sebastian asked.
Anson passed back the spyglass, shaking his head.
“It is Zahem. And at the head of their ships is Dahlan, their Prophet.”
Phineas was so entranced by the defeat and destruction of Mozhudak at the hands of the new Queen, that he did not immediately notice Anson’s men approaching, Anson’s men cutting down the Daumans and the Black Hands, the Black Star and Gold Star eating up the troops, coming onto the quay.
“The shield,” the Master of the Hand said. “Put up the shield.”
Phineas, forgetting to be angry, immediately raised his hands and Urzad felt a shock, something pulled out of him, but whatever the sorcerer was doing, nothing was happening, and Urzad could see the confusion on his face.
“Her,” Hyrax’s voice was thin, and she pointed across the water. “That one, whispering spells.”
“She?” Phineas lowered his hands. “Some witch. Some girl.”
But Inark was standing on the quay and, just now, the barge with their Queen was approaching. But as Urzad turned to see Inark whispering, her eyes caught his and she seemed to be laughing at him. Their eyes were locked together and then she raised her hand and smacked the air, and Urzad’s head snapped back with the weight of the smack.
“It is close in here,” The Master of the Hand murmured. “It is… It is as if someone had lowered a bell over us. It is…”
“It is magic,” Phineas said, and when he turned about, though he could see nothing, he could feel it, and he could see his ships drawing tighter and tighter together, and now they were definitely losing.
“Look, look!” one called, and Phineas saw the sky darkening and the ships which would approach were falling back. Out beyond them the waves were growing choppy.
Phineas turned back to the shore, and on his horse, sitting still, his black face expressionless, was Ohean. In his hands he held a string, which he was tightening slowly, and with his mouth he was blowing.
Phineas said, in a small voice. “Damn him!”
Then, suddenly, Phineas screamed and the air scratched as he raised his sword.
“Ohean!” he shouted. “Damn you!”
And he was climbing over the sides of the ship, and Urzad was reaching for him, but Phineas said, “Remain here.”
Upon the deck, the Master of the Hands turned to Hyrax and said, “It is time we left.”
She nodded, and while Urzad watched them go down the deck, heading for another of the galley’s lifeboats, the Mistress of Women said, “Does the old plan still stand?”
The Master of the Hand stepped into the boat, and Hyrax joined him. He said, “It must.”
But then Urzad turned his attention to the boat where Phineas stood, enraged. The men were rowing him to shore, a fire was in his eyes and Phineas was shouting, “Ohean, bring me to Ohean!”
He scrambled out of the boat as it crashed into the pier, and fought through men, chopping, blasting with magic, butting with his shoulder until at last he stood before the wizard wrapped in silver white upon a white horse.
“That is His horse!” Phineas breathed out. “And that is His cloak.”
“He is gone from this world’s realm,” Ohean said, sparing Phineas only a brief look while continuing his magic. All about them the screams of battle continued. “And now it is mine.”
Phineas’s voice shook and he said, “Get off that damn horse!”
“And?”
“And fight me.”
Ohean blinked at him, nodded, and then slid off.
“Fine, Phinlyn,” he said. And as he said it, he flung the string away, blowing hard on it, and the sky cracked with thunder so out in the distance a storm began. It howled far quicker, and more powerfully than anything Mozhudak had done, and now the air was cool and the sky was graying.
“We will begin the battle,” Ohean said, “Now—”
But even as he spoke, Phineas raised his sword and ran for him, screaming, more like a child than a sorcerer, and as he lowered the broad, black scimitar, Ohean lifted a finger and the sword turned against Phineas, a black adder, striking at its master’s face. Wild with rage and confusing, Phineas struggled to get if off while Ohean, calm, made a winding motion with his fingers, tightening the serpent. Now the snake was a chain of metal and then Phineas, white faced and bound tight, murmured words and it burned away, a brief fire. He raised his hands, but Ohean raised his as well, and this went on until anyone who saw realized they must have been pitting their strength against each other. There was an explosion, and Ohean leapt away.
“Halt!”
“What? Is it too much for you?”
“You know better than that, Phinlyn.”
Ohean reached into his cloak, and though he did not seem to pull out anything, when he tossed it there blossomed a web of light over them that no one could enter, and as he was casting the edges, Phineas leapt at him with a strangled shout and grasped his throat, beating him, murmuring, “Take off that cloak! I’ll have an end to you. You thief! You would be master,” and he was pummeling him, full of rage, as if they were children, brothers long separated now scrapping, and as Urzad stood on the ship’s deck lending his strength to Phineas he realized that, in some way, this was true.
Ohean rose up, giving as good as he got, and then Urzad whispered a charm to Phineas and Phineas prayed, “Lend your strength,” and they were saying it together, and Ohean’s eyes widened in shock.
“Yes,” Phineas interrupted himself, “you were so sure,” and as he spoke over Ohean, between his fingers there formed a gleaming, silver chain, and it was lowering over Ohean, snaking about him and Phineas smiled and said, “Ah, yes, you know that is it. You know there is one spell that binds you. You never learned what bound me. All the time you spent saying that old name, Phinlyn, Phinlyn, Phinlyn. But you never knew what bound it. Or bound the new one.”
All the time Phineas spoke, the chain bound Ohean tighter, and the starry web grew thicker and brighter, Ohean showed no expression, and Phineas said, “Let no one ever say that Ohean Penannyn did not know how to die. I do not think I could pass out of this world so easily, myself.”
While he spoke, a glittering, serrated blade was forming in his hands, but even as it glittered, it blackened to the darkest iron.
On the deck, Urzad, who was finishing the spell, who had given the name, who was speaking through Phineas, one with Phineas even now, saw Ohean smile that foolish smile, and murmur, “You talk too much.”
And then, at the tip of his Urzad’s ear was a sharp blade and a voice said, “And always choose the wrong side.”
And with that, Anson’s dagger went through Urzad’s ear, into his brain, and his eyes crossed, looking at a sky eyed King whose face had no mercy. Urzad was dead, and noise broke through the silence again. There was screaming and fire, and the ship was taken. Zahem, Gold Stars and Black Stars were everywhere and below, on the beach, Phineas blinked in amazement, but Ohean had no time to be amazed. He took the dagger and thrust it in his chest and Phineas stifled a scream, putting his hands to his chest as the lights of the dome died. Now others were coming through. Now Ohean was bent over him, and he was trembling. Blood came from between his teeth.
“I… never knew what death would be…” Phineas said, his eyes terrified. “We didn’t start out as men… I didn’t know I had become one… until now.”
Ohean’s eyes were wide and his face hard, someone was shouting his name and running to him. Above, in the clouds there was an explosion of thunder and now, softly, rain was falling.
Phineas’s hands scrabbled to touch Ohean’s and for a moment Ohean thought of withdrawing it.
All around there were shouts of battle, and Ohean could tell that Phineas’s men had lost. He knew the day was safe. He knew, somehow, that Anson had saved him.
Phineas sat up, spitting up blood and holding the knife deep in him as his fingers and his chest went red.
“Stay with me?” he said.
This was the last thing he wished to do, but this day would live with him as long as he lived, and now Ohean knew he would live on and on, again and again, and this man before him would never come into this world again. He was not Ash or Ohean now. He was the thing he had been from ages of ages even before he had come into this world. Beyond vengeance was mercy, for the Age of Love had begun. So as the sky darkened and the rain began its heavy fall, Ohean put his hands on Phineas’s head and said, “Yes.”
