The Book of the Broken

Cair Daronwy

That morning, all in white, the Princess Imogen departed from the great brass doors of Pennllwyn, descending the long stair between her brother the Prince Anson, himself all in white, and the mage Ohean, all in scarlet, his scarlet hood thrown back from his newly shaven head. In their party were Pol and Austin Buwa, dressed smartly with daggers hanging at their side. They came down one low flight of steps, and then turned to another and then down another, and all the time the long writhing stones sculptures of feathered serpents flanked them, their scaly lengths descending either side of the steps like massive bannisters so that, when they came out onto the Great Avenue of the Dragon, the faces of those painted protectors glared in a fury that was comic and in a comedy which, looked at too long, became fury.

The bells were ringing from the carillon behind Five Flames with its eight swirling onion domes ringing the high spire, and an hour earlier, from another section of the palace, King Idris, the Princess Sayaana, Ralph Curakin and many others had departed into the ancient house of worship. The façade of the House was two great staircases rising to a central tower, but these they rounded and came to what was truly the main entry, and as they entered, the choirs began to sing, and torchbearers led Imogen into the heart of the temple.

It was unlike the open great abbey in Kingsboro. This was a series of domed chapels connected by corridors, and though many might see into the central part of the temple, few could actually enter. Imogen was led through the honeycomb of connecting chapels while the choirs sang

 

I on pokazal mne chistuyu reku vody zhizni,

prozrachnuyu, kak kristall, iskhodyashchuyu

ot prestola Boga i Agntsa.

 I ne budet bol'she proklyatiya; no prestol

Bozhiy i Agnets budut v nem; I slugi yego

 budut sluzhit' yemu;

 I oni uvidyat yego litso; I imya yego budet

u nikh na lbu.

 I Dukh i nevesta govoryat: pridi. I pust' tot,

 kto slushayet, skazal: Pridi. I pust' tot, kto

 zhazhdet, pridet. I kto khochet, pust'

svobodno prinimayet vodu zhizni.

 

They sang in a tongue older than the Royan usually spoken and, curiously, Anson was able to understand a few words. It was from The Book of the Bride and he murmured:

 

“And the spirit of the bride said, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come.”

 

In the height of an early summer day, where the sky was deep and clear blue, and the sun shone on the waters, in the secret of the House of Varayan, in candlelight, darkness, incense and hymn singing, Imogen walked about Idris seven times, and their wrists were joined by a silver chain, and then she was wed to him, and next she was led into an even more secret place. When she came out into the day, a crown was on her head and Anson had the curious feeling that she was no longer his. But how could she be? She was Queen of Rheged. As the people cheered, Anson turned to Ohean and said, “This means we should go.”

Ohean nodded, and Ralph was behind them.

“I would like to go as well. If you will have me.”

Anson looked to Ohean, uncertain, but Ohean said, “We will have whoever wishes to come.”

 

Herreboro

From Herreboro Monastery, Abbot Cuthbert watched the long train of men in brown, walking in the deep valley path below. They raised their torches high, and were headed to one of the meetings he had heard about for some time. The monasteries were empty theses days, and when some said that the new God was losing to the Old Gods, Abbot Cuthbert merely said that the Gods were one.

 

“Do you know what this is?” Cynric Yoreson said, holding out his coin.

“It is the coin of the Dayne, the coins they had when King Sweyn ruled.”

“Was King Sweyn really a good man?”

“King Sweyn,” Cynric said, “was a conquerer, and he was a murderer, but he practiced the old religion, and this coin bears our sign. When all the coins in Hale and North Hale bear this sign again, then will we truly be free.”

“Hold your tongue,” Signy said.

“Wife, I will not,” Cynric said. He was gentle faced, not tall,  young, possibly twenty five, with blue eyes, straw colored hair and a strong build. He did not smile often, not because he was unpleasant but because he was shy.

“If we have to be silent, then we are not free.”

Now he did smile, lifting a little girl onto his lap.

“We are free when we can remember. I will tell you the tale of the beginning of things.”

“Not those ancient stories,” Signy murmured.

“Yes, the real stories, the true Gods we forgot, who we loved when the Wulfstans ruled us, and we were free and not under the thumb of Edmund to the south, and when the Baldwins didn’t make unholy alliance with the monasteries.”

“Tell me the story,” the little girl demanded.

Cynric lifted her up and laughed.

“I shall, my girl.

    

“It was Time’s morning,

When there nothing was;

Nor sand, nor sea,

Nor cooling billows.

Earth there was not,

Nor heaven above.

The Ginungagap was,

But grass nowhere.”

 

Many ages before the earth was made, Niflheim had existed, in the midst of which is the well called Hvergelmer, whence flow the streams: Svol, Gunnthro, Form, Fimbul, Thul, Slid and Hrid, Sylg and Ylg, Vid, Leipt and Gjoll, the last of which is nearest the gate of Hel. Still, there is before a world to the south called Muspelheim. It is light and hot, and so bright and dazzling that no stranger, who is not a native there, can stand it. Surt is the name of him who stands on its border guarding it. He has a flaming sword in his hand, and at the end of the world he will come and harry, conquer all the gods, and burn up the whole world with fire. Thus it is said in the ancient songs:

 

“Surt from the south flares

With blazing flames;

From the sword shines

The sun of the war-god.

Rocks dash together

And witches collapse,

Men go the way to Hel

And the heavens are cleft.

 

All giants have

Come from Ymer.

And on this point, when Vafthrudner,

the giant, was asked by Gangrad:

Whence came Aurgelmer

Originally to the sons

Of the wise giant!”

 

“ I do not know why you fill her head with such—”

Cynric looked at his wife sharply.

Signy blinked at them and sat down.

“Now I shall teach you,” Cynric said, “And now you will listen. Both of you.”

Now Signy did not speak, and now Cynric’s poet voice took on a measured cadence.

“Next thing was that when the rime melted into drops, there was made thereof a cow, calledwhich hight Audhumbla. Four milk-streams ran from her teats, and she fed Ymer. On what did the cow subsist?  She licked the salt-stones that were covered with rime, and the first day that she licked the stones there came out of them in the evening a man’s hair, the second day a man’s head, and the third day the whole man was there. This man’s name was Bure; he was fair of face, great and mighty, and he begat a son whose name was Bor. This Bor married a woman whose name was Bestla, the daughter Ymir; they had three sons,—the one called Wode, the other Vile, and the third Ve.”

“The Gods!” Little Ingrid clapped her hands.

“Yes!” Cynric said to his daughter, “Yes, the very Gods.

“The sons of Bor slew the giant Ymer, but when he fell, there flowed so much blood from his wounds that they drowned therein the whole race of frost giants; excepting one…”

And so, all that night, Cynric told the ancient stories of their gods, and as night deepened and his wife Signy was long asleep, he came to the end of the great saga of the gods and heroes.

“And then,” said Cynric’s daughter, “came the Ragnarok, where the Gods died and the new ones came.”

Cyrnic made a great intake of breath, but Guerric, the old house servant, said only, “Bless, you child. That is an old untruth. No, the Gods live. The Gods are all around us.

“They wait only for us to give up the monasteries and the priests, give up Inglad—which belongs to the Ayl,  and break ties with the civilized men of Ambridge. The Holy Gods wait for us to return to them,” Cynric said. “And return we have.”

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NOTE: I have recently finished the rough draft to Here, In This Place, the story of Kruinh, Dan Rawlinson, Laurie, Chris and the entire Vampire Clan in Blood Saga. Look for it some time before summer  in the next year