The Book of the Broken
On the Plains of Yareth, Oloreth moaned over his body in despair, wailing, “Truly thou were flesh of my flesh and soul of my soul. One who keeps faith is mighty castle, having found you, did I find my great treasure,”
- The Song of Oloreth
Cair Daronwy
“You are the Duke of Ondres,” Imogen pointed over the music of the banquet. “Directly south of your territory is the land of Sussail.”
“Our ancient ally.”
“Your ancient ally,” Imogen said.
Anson blinked at her.
“The history off Sussail is different from that of the Westrians, though we are related. The Sussail have a higher concentration of Royan blood, and they have ties to the old empire, and to Armor across the sea. Generally they have been closely allied to the Dukes of Ondres.
“Idris has told me—”
“Idris has told you much.”
“Be quiet. He has told me the Duchy of Ondres actually begins less than a day east of Kingsboro. It extends north to Tuland Wood and east to the border of Senach. Here, tonight, dancing with the woman with the elaborate pile of hair who is laughing a bit too much, is Baron Melbyn of Tuland. That laughing woman is not his wife, but Lady Rosebrer, the daughter of Baroness Farran. Also important is Lord Byinton of Chassanith, old family, many ties to Chyr, old Royan blood and you have already met the Lord Mayor, Fatgut.”
“I thought his name was—”
“His name is the right honorable Lord Mayor Robert Failgon, but you can see why they call him Fat Gut.”
At this point, cloaked in his dark red robe, Ohean came to them, joined by Idris, and beside them was a black robed man wearing a small black skullcap.
“Archmage Kyril,” Ohean presented him.
“He is the true mayor,” Imogen whispered, and Idris winked at her and then added, “Right, and let no one fool you.”
Kyril seemed grave the whole time he smiled, but bowed, took Anson’s hands and kissed them. “Your Grace, the King has been mocking me since he was a boy.” He looked to Ohean now and said, “Since they were both boys.”
“Mock?” Idris raised one eyebrow.
“And what have you been telling my little sister?” Anson said.
“Your little sister,” Idris said of the black haired young woman, “is a mighty strategist and a noble thinker.”
Anson looked from the dark, handsome king to his sister.
“What else do you think?” Anson said to Imogen.
“Let it be known by all you are here, and the Lord of Ondres. Then return to Ondres as soon as possible. Mobilize your army.”
“Mobilize.”
“There is talk of the new king across the sea, and of war to come,” Kyril said. “What is more, because of the will of your father, you have been given a fair position in Westrial, and no doubt the King may suspect his most powerful lords. It is no secret he has long suspected you.”
When Anson looked on the Archmage, the old man said, “Your Grace, I was surprised you came out of Kingsboro in the open. Many of us suspected you would immediately raise an army down south. Already the king is rumored to have made allegiance with Sussail. You must make your Duchy strong.”
“You say,” Anson said, “that my brother suspects me.”
“And I believe you know that I am right,” the Archmage said.
“But if I mobilize he would suspect me even more.”
“Suspicion is suspicion,” the Archmage said, “and if you are suspected, you might as well be ready.”
Imogen and King Idris nodded, and Ohean said, “If Cedd were to become suspicious, if he were to ally with Sussail, then Essail would not help us. Morgellyn and her husband would certainly choose Cedd over Anson.”
“Let us not speak of these things,” Anson shook his head. “They have not happened.”
“But we must speak of them,” Ohean differed. “We cannot ignore them because we do not wish for them to be true.”
“Well, then what would you do?” Anson said.
Ohean frowned, and he fixed his staff firmly before him, leaning on it.
“Ondres is a city and not a nation, and as you say, none of this has happened. You have no sisters to marry off. You cannot and would not marry off Imogen. The Rootless Isle would assist you. Chyr and Rheged,” he said, looking to his cousin, “will aid you. The northwest part of Westrial would come to you. Only you have to make their support known without it being known. You must let their allegiance to you be shown without it being shown.”
“Give Cedd no cause for war,” Idris agreed.
“But,” Archmage Kyril said, “Give yourself every protection against it.”
Ohean said, “There is a saying, from the Yellow Books. It is one on prognostication.”
“The telling of the future?” Imogen began.
“Yes. It says, roughly, that to see ahead is like any other kind of vision. Possessing vision does not mean you have the absolute ability to see. Some have better sight, and then, if there is a hill before you, you cannot see over it. You cannot see the back of your head. You can see in many directions. According to the Yellow Book the way that is the most predicatable, the safest, the most foreseen is the road to stagnation. The road than can be seen the clearest is the one to be avoided, and since we have already seen the road to Ondres, I say we take another one.”
There was, from Kyril, from Imogen and Idris, a disappointed sound, But Anson said:
“To the Rootless Isle.”
Ohean nodded. “We will take the inner road. And because Kyril is here, maybe he will help with the old riddle, the song as you called it.”
“Pol’s song.”
“I will bring Pol here,” Anson said.
“What song are you speaking of?” Kyril asked Ohean, and Idris said, “We talk of strategies and you talk of singing. You truly are a wizard.”
But when Pol had come, and Austin followed, he said, “The old song? The one I sang all the time.”
“Truly I never heard you sing it,” Ohean said, “and I wonder if that was not meant.”
“If anything is meant,” Pol wondered, “if you believe in that kind of thing.”
“Save philosophical debates about belief for later, friend Pol,” Ohean said, “and give us the song.”
“My mother taught it to me,” Pol said. He did not sing, but recited:
First was the mage
Who moved from age to age
And second was his hero strong
Third was the starry maid,
who lived in trees,
whose wood would never die
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
Four is for the lady who fits inside
men’s hands
Who gave up arms and legs to
be an arm again
And Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
Five alive, the Great old Man,
the mighty Oaken Tree
Mighty rash, who bore the Ash,
and Ash and onto Thee
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
They say a man gave up his
land to be the Woman’s Key!
Oh! And Seven came down
Oh, and Seven came down
“The Seven!” Kyril exclaimed.
“Ohean said that before,” Anson said, “but he did not explain what that meant.”
“Is it holy?” Imogen said. “Like the Gods?”
“Not quite like the Gods,” Kyril said.
“And not a folk song, I’m guessing?” Pol said.
“No,” Kyril shook his head with a small smile, “save it is a song of the oldest folk of all. But if we are to speak of such things, let us not do it here, but in the House of Varayan where there are no voices to listen. The night draws on,” Kyril said, “Let us move now.”
They left the palace, slipping through bright lit halls into the large semi dark baileys from which lit windows high above peered down on them and, now they came into the city streets. In time, As the moved down the streets, Anson could see the spires of the Gadaral of Varayan rising in the night. Whereas most minsters Anson knew were long with towers toward the faces, this one was circular with one high ascending tower in the center and about it, the smaller chapels rising to make four great towers and then, between them, another four, smaller towers, all of them with bulbous onion domes colorful in the day and impressive in the night. The eye was drawn to it from across the skyline, and Anson said to the Archmage, “It makes me feel sacred in a way that no house of worship ever has.
“It is the Gadaral of the Five Flames, or the House of worship to Holy Varayan,” Kyril said.
They took the Raynan Road from the palace straight into Great Square where the bulk of the Gadaral watched over the m in the night. The front of it was two very long staircases one to the north, the other to the south of them, leading to a great balcony over their heads and over the square. They bypassed all this, and walking the length of the Gadaral, coming to a doorway in the side. Anson was surprised when the Archmage merely touched it and the door opened.
“It isn’t locked?”
“It’s never locked,” Kyril said. “Who would rob our Gadaral?”
Anson could think of several answers to this, but now they followed Kyril down a long hall and up a flight of stairs into another corridor that threaded and around and through ornate rounded chapels, their gold walls and jeweled treasures lit by swinging lanterns, and at last they arrived at a place where Anson nearly stumbled over the old mage, who had gone face down upon entering, and then Kyril knelt, crossing himself by the elements, and rose to dip his fingers in holy water.
Here, in a way, never seen in Kingsboro, was a glittering altar screen embossed with the shining images of Annatar, Amana and Addiwak, and before them burned five great lanterns.
“You have heard how the Gods came often to earth in many forms.”
“The Avayan,” Idris and Anson said together.
“They came as heroes and wizards and teachers, yes,” Kyril said. “Varayan himself had ten incarnations. But… and I do not wish to dwell on this, to make things more complicated, each of those incarnations was distinct. It was not like putting on wardrobe changes. Or if it was, each wardrobe change produced a distinctly new person.”
“So that…. Ahnar is not the same as the Ard,” Imogen said, “though they both share the nature of Varayan.”
“Yes, Princess,” Kyril nodded. “Precisely.
“Well, some of the mightiest of the Avayan are the Seven. They came into the world around the time of the Great Cataclysm, at the beginning of the Third Creation, when the world was nearly lost to evil. The Seven decided to remain in the world always, though they chose it in seven different ways. Some simply lived on as they were, some lived between the worlds, some became other things.”
“What does that mean?” Pol interrupted.
“They put their power into other things,” Kyril said “They became… sources, objects. It is all very strange. The most prominent of them chose to be born always human, or more or less human, which necessitated coming back into the world again and again.”
“First was the mage
Who moved from age to age,”
Austin said.
Kyril nodded.
Austin said, “The Mage is First, then his Hero strong. The Third is the Starry Maid who lived in trees. Then the Fourth is the lady who fits inside men’s hands—maybe she became one of the objects, whatever that means. The Fifth would be the Great Old Man, and the Sixth is the man who gave up his land to be the Woman’s Key. But who is the Seventh?”
“I always though the seventh was the woman’s key, and the sixth was the man,” Pol said.
“No, Pol,” Austin said, quietly. “That’s not it. That’s not what’s going on in the song. That is all a description of the Sixth.”
Pol’s eyes widened, but he knew not what to say, and Kyril said, “You are right, young friend. Your friend has most of the song, but not all of it, for the whole song was never taught to him, perhaps on purpose. I believe the song has a geasa on it.”
“A what?” Austin began.
“It’s a type of a spell,” Imogen said before Ohean could. “Some magic woven into its magic to prevent certain things from happening. In this case,” the Princess decided, “comprehension.”
“Yes,” Kyril said. “Or how else would Ohean not know it?”
“There are many things I do not know,” Ohean said. “Like the story of Sevard. Until now.”
“True,” Kyril said, “but you did not even hear it sung around you. I believe in a way the song may have been hiding itself from you, for doubtless, you are the First. The mage who moves from age to age.”
“And then I—” Anson began, but then he stopped.
“My prince,” Kyril said, “if Ohean is the mage there is no reason you are not the Hero Strong. The entire song you shall now hear:
First was the mage
Who moved from age to age
And second was his hero strong
Third was the starry maid,
who lived in trees,
whose wood would never die
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
Four is for the lady who fits inside
men’s hands
Who gave up arms and legs to
be an arm again
And Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
Five alive, the Great old Man,
the mighty Oaken Tree
Mighty rash, who bore the Ash,
and Ash and onto Thee
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down
They say a man gave up his
land to be the Woman’s Key!
Oh! And Seven came down
Oh, and Seven came down
Of all of them I’ve spoken
Except the one who’s broken.”
Ohean nodded his head, as if he was waiting for something, and Kyril nodded as well.
“My Prince,” he said to Anson, “I have something for your eyes alone, if the King and the Lord Ohean do not mind.”
But Ohean was already leading them all outside, and Kyril said, “I will return him to you in a moment.”
Alone with Kyril in the silent nave, Anson looked on the rich and glittering space. He watched while Kyril knelt before the silver altar and ran his fingers over the ribbing, for it was made of what seemed many intricate, rounded bars, but suddenly, Kyril grunted, “Thirty seven,” bit his lip and tugged, and one of the bars came out instantly to be replaced by one which ahd been repressed behind it.
“Yes,” he breathed, and as the old man rose, giving himself leverage with the altar rail, and bowed before the ikon screen, Kyril handed the bar to Anson who murmured, “A sword sheath.”
The scabbard was weighty, and as they stood before the lit altar, Kyril said, “This is the scabbard to Callasyl, one of the Three Swords made from time out of mind.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Kyril said, “for though you are Royan, you were raised Sendic. The Kings of Locress held onto this until Avred Oss, and though some tales say that he tossed it into a lake, some say he tossed it into the sea and still, some say it was stolen after his death and disappeared among the Sendics. Since then it has faded from history, and from our lore.
“But then Ohean told me of the sword he had come seeking for you, the Sword of this man called Sevard, and that it was of great power, great magic, and that it was not of Sendic origin, but rather of Royan.”
“And on that, you wondered if this,” Anson touched the sword at his side, “might be the sword Callasyl?”
It seemed to make littler difference. After all, beneath the magic of the stories, a sword was only required to have good heft in the hand and cut what it must. The origins did not matter. But Kyril’s expression did not change.
“The Lady of the Isle in those days was Morgan, sister of Avred Oss. She had taken this scabbard from him and tried to take the sword, for she had heard it would be lost and wanted it in her keeping, to pass onto other kings. She believed there would never be a King over all Ossar again if the sword was lost. Coincidence or no, she was right. But Morgan spoke of two other swords, and that one day, Callasyl would be given to a prince of the two bloods who would come as Lord of Ondres, and Akkrabeth would be at his side, and that once given to him, that sword would never be lost again.”
“And you believe that I am this prince?” Anson said.
“My lord, I do.”
“Cousin, a word,” Idris King of Rheged spoke, tall and mahoghany dark beside Imogen of the black hair and cream colored skin.
“This word is for Anson as well,” the Princess of Westrial said.
“Sister, speak.”
“We would wed,” Imogen said. Then she said, “We will wed. I will marry Idris.”
“That’s the wisest thing we’ve heard all day,” Ohean said.
“I…” Anson began. “I suppose we could write Cedd and-”
“Am I a slave?” Imogen demanded. “Or a child? No, I will wed this man, and I will be his Queen, and you will stand as relative in the Great Gadaral.”
“You will cause Cedd displeasure,” Ohean warned.
“And Morgellyn will laugh and Hilda will nod her head with approval. Cedd will burn with rage and keep it to himself because that is all he can do, and his anger pleases me nearly as much as Idris’s love.”
“This was not the way we planned to come to you,” Idris said.
“And yet,” Ohean nodded.
“Then have my blessing,” Anson said, “though you clearly don’t need it.”
At this Imogen threw her hands around her brother’s neck.
“Of course I need it, you ass.”
As Imogen clung to Anson, Ohean said to Idris, “Brother, how soon will the wedding take place?”
“How will I ensure a dowry?” Imogen wondered.
“I don’t need your dowry.”
“But I do,” Imogen insisted.
“Once you are wed, Cedd will not have the nerve to deny you a dowry, and a great one at that,” Ohean said. “And now that he is marrying Isobel, she will not allow him to deny you.”
In their chambers, Ohean took the sword in his hands and drew it out of Sevard’s scabbard slowly, the light of the lamps catching on the blade. Anson could see the sword was made of a material like grey and silver waves upon waves, and etched up and down it, in a long thin hand, were words he could not say.
“When I knew it was Royan, I hoped, but did not dare to say,” Ohean murmured.
“This is the sword Callasyl, which even the Towers and the Rootless Isle believe to be lost.”
Even as he gazed on the blade he handed it reverently to Anson.
“It was forged in the morning of the world. This is the sword that slew Dragon Imbeth, and its daughter sword is the Reaver, made from one of Embeth’s teeth, its scabbard from Imbeth’s very flesh. The last sword was Taquatal, made from the spikes of Imbeth in the time of the Devastation. Those three swords were born by Corum and by Calum and their descendants though, in the days of the Empire, they were separated.”
“What became of them?”
“They were apportioned among the scions of Corum and Calum. Callasyl remaining in the hands of the Kings of Locress, never to depart for the West, but in those first days when the Sinercians came, the Royan who departed for the West, never to be conquered or joined either to the Sinercian Empire of the Sendic kingdoms, took the other swords. Reaver passed into the hands of the Queens of Chyr while Taquatal passed into the Kings of Rheged. All three swords are lost now. Well,” Ohean corrected himself, “the other two.”
“Kyril said all three would come to me,” Anson murmured as he sheathed the sword and the brilliance of the blade disappeared into the slightly lesser brilliance of the patterned sheath given by Kyril. “That is, if I were to become king,” he chuckled.
“Do not pretend to laugh it off,” Ohean said. “Many times have men found themselves walking in a time of legend, and we may well be walking in one again. The prophets of the Zahem have proclaimed a great day.”
“I would not put much store in the Zahem or their prophets,” Anson said.
“Then put your store in me,” Ohean said.
When he had spoken so, Anson became serious as well and said, “But of course.”
Anson’s eyes fell on Ohean and they rested on him for some time.
“I believe in the song, Ohean,” Anson said. “In everything Kyril said. “If any of this matters,” Anson gestured to the sword, “then we need to find out who the other five are, and especially the seventh.”
“We should go to the Rootless Isle.”
But Ohean shook his head.
“When the mages and the enchantresses split in two, they divided their magical lore as well, that no one might, attacking them, possess the whole of it. The women and men go back and forth, but I believe if I never learned about the Seven in all my childhood, then it is the Hidden Tower to which we must travel.”
“Will they allow us all entrance, I wonder,” Anson said.
Anson looked over Ohean for a long time, but his companion did not speak right away.
“You want to know what I am thinking,” Ohean said. “I am thinking all that Kyril has done this night, and all the prophecies whispered to you for the first time are only the seeds before some great matter, unseen and yet undone, and we should not consider anything, no matter how grand, that is spoken of you, or of this city. What remains for us is to look at the present and at the matters now arising, and to wait in readiness. We must journey to the south, but the next storm, as far as I can see, blows in the North.”