The Book of Battles

OHEAN

“Can I hold you while we sleep?”

“You are a very peculiar boy.”

 

“Sir, what did you say?”

Ohean shook his head as they continued to walk through the trees.

“He is hearing the voices of his other lives,” Nimerly said as they stepped through the trees.

“Should we even be here?” Pol wondered.

“Yes,” Ohean and Nimerly said at the same time, though Anson did not speak.

“You should be here,” The enchanter said, “though you should not touch the tree.”

They were just beginning to see it, impossibly wide, wide as many men and bent and gnarled its branches knotting through other branches, its limps wide as some trees, higher up, Anson noted, wide as roads, and it only went higher and higher. He craned his neck.

“You are wondering,” Nimerly said, “why you could not see a tree of such a height from a distance.”

Before Anson could say anything, Ohean said, “It’s height reaches out of this world as does it depths.”

“As does it sides,” Meredith murmured.

“Yes,” Ohean said. “As does its sides, its branches. This is the world tree.”

“Yggdrasil,” Anson said.

“Yes,” Nimerly said. “The Northerners call it that. It is also known as the Omphalos, the navel of the world.”

Here the leaves were always falling and as Anson looked on them he thought they were gold. It was as if it had just rained or, on closer thought, as if someone had painted a portrait of it just raining, and in the bowls of the tree roots were pools of water. Ohean, now in his white gown, mantle left back in the House said, “And so I drank.”

“You drank once.”

“As a boy, when I was not supposed to. And learned more than I planned. ousin, now you must drink and learn all.”

“In the stories,” Anson continued, “there were three sisters, the fates of the future, the past and present who guarded the sacred well that Vadan the God of Magic and Knowledge came to.”

“Well then know that I am all three of those sisters right now,” the auburn haired Nimerly said, dipping her pewter cup into the clear water in the bowl of the tree. And at this moment, Ohean is Vadan. Drink,” she passed the dripping cup to her cousin.

Ohean did not hesitate. He drank. He drank quickly, surprised by his thirst.

Anson remembered how Father Vadan hung himself on the tree to gain knowledge for the whole world. Ohean stretched himself out to encompass the tree, to place the side of his head against it.

“Mother,” he murmured. “Be a door for me.”

It was so silent. Anson actually heard a leaf come, twirling slowly to the ground.

“Mother,” Ohean said again. “Be a door.

“Motheerrrr—”

Ohean’s voice was caught in a shriek and a shout, but all this was lost in a ripping, a darkness, a rumble of the earth and a lightning shaft through the sky.

It was gone quickly and then Meredith gasped and Anson ran to Ohean who lay unconscious on the ground.

“He did not hurt himself,” Nimerly said, her hands moving about his head.

“We cannot wake him. Only make him comfortable. His journey has begun.”

  

THE DAUMAN MARCHES

Theone was not a witch, but she was what they called a Talent,  one whom witchcraft and magic seemed to sprinkle from time to time. She’d been around it so long some of it stuck to her, and for good or ill she was surrounded by it. There was just enough to, in this gutter water, with the smell of hay and dung and the lowing of animals all around her, do a scrying. When she was younger she thought it was unreasoned dread or paranoia that led her to do things. Now she realized that it was another sense and one she wished she could control, that warned her.

She lit the lantern, keeping it away from the hay. Only this red light was illuminating the water, and she waited. The trick was to wait. People were so lazy, and yet waiting was the hardest thing to do. She waited till she got drowsy, and then she blinked.

In the water, such a dim shadow she almost missed it, suddenly she saw, darkly, a man at a table. He was thin and pale like her, and smoking a cigarette, listening to another man who was blathering on about something unimportant. Theone knew it was unimportant. And then at once the man shook his sleeve and Theone’s eyes widened, but she didn’t break away from the water, or else the vision would go. And then it might not come back. There was, on his wrist, the Black Star. And suddenly he looked up. He looked right at her. He was looking up as if trying to focus, as if almost seeing, and then Theone plunged her  hand in the water and broke the vision.

“He’s near,” she said. There was no need to question if he was near or not. Of course he was or why would the water have showed him?

Theone stood up.

“I’m tired,” she said in an angry tone. “I’m so fucking tired!”

Should she stay here for the night? Or should she run? This vision seemed to imply she should run.

“I could take a horse.”

She had stayed off of horses, though.

“If he is in a tavern then it must be in that last town I passed. If he is there this night then he’s not riding at night.”

The fact was she was afraid of night. She was afraid to go anywhere at night. If this Black Star didn’t catch her, something else would.

“Well,” Theone murmured. She closed her eyes and nervously whispered some enchantment over herself. “Mother, protect me. Mother, protect me….”

It was a half hearted spell mixed with a half hearted prayer and almost no faith. As Theone approached the horse she suspected would be red in the light of day, and spoke to her soothingly, she reflected that the Mother had never been very good at protecting her before.

The next morning and the sunlight that came with it brought back memory, and with memory came pleasure, and neither one of these was useful. This is why lovemaking wasn’t useful. That is why it should rarely happen. He willed himself to unarousal and rose from the bed of this silly man, this blond man, ignoring anything good or charming about him or his body. After they’d sat smoking and drinking in the common room of the inn, the man had told him everything, and the less he gave the more this one gave. He said his name was Jim, and in return he was given a name: Ruval.

Out in the world it was easier to have a name, and so he decided he would be Ruval. He pulled on his things quickly. If Jim woke up, then Jim would ask questions. He might be soft and sweet because the less you wanted a man, the softer and sweeter he would become. And Ruval, who did not believe in kindness, also thought cruelty was a waste of time. Anything unnecessary, anything that got in the way was to be shunned.

And so he left.

Back in his rooms he thought of that brief waking up moment when he had forgotten that he had forgotten, when he was remembering who he had been, and there was a field of grass, green under the great yellow sun, and the sun was on his skin, and he remembered the smell of sweet breath and he remembered, or at least dreamed of, lovemaking. That was why this kind of thing was dangerous. That was why, back in the House, they had sent the Women to you once a week, and then once every two weeks and then with increasing rarity. If you had a lapse and went to them, so be it, but it was frowned upon.

“They don’t do much for me,” he told his Master.

The Master had said that was good. It meant he would never be controlled by sex. The Master understood so little.

By the time the sun was fully up, Ruval was on his horse and riding down the main street and out of town. Jim had told him everything. There had been a black haired, black eyed girl. Beautiful, almost frightening if he understood what that meant? Ruval said he did, and that was so. She had been grimy and ragged, but full of power and quite obviously on a mission. Jim had asked if he could help her. She said thank you but no. She would not stay in towns. She was on foot. She was headed southeast along the Corzan Road.

Ruval trotted quickly, but always looking on either side of the road. If she was walking, then he could easily overtake her. By the time the sun was full up, he was long out of town. He had not asked much about this woman. He had been given her face, and the order to kill her, bringing back her heart and her head. Inquisitiveness was not appreciated and, at any road, Ruval hadn’t any. He knew his orders. He’d carried them out for his Masters many times before.

There, in the sunlit distance, was a farmhouse, and beside it the red sides of a barn. It was bright as blood in the deep blue morning light, and spurring his horse and wrapping himself tighter in the cloak, Ruval rode toward the farm with the closest thing he could feel to cheer.