The Book of the Blue House

The minster bells were still ringing, and Conn, his sister on one side of him and Derek on the other, had that strange sense that came upon him every Annatide, or even when walking in the blue black winter nights under a cold sky, that all things were well, and all would be remade in the freezing cold.

Gabriel had become quiet, drawn into himself, and back straight.

“Now let us praise the Lord of Love,” Gabriel began, raising a hand and lifting his eyes, “And let us praise the holy families of the High Gods. Blessed be the Anyar and the Vanyar, and Blessed be the Mahran. And praised be the Avayan, the avatars of the Holy Gods who come into the world, and blessed, blessed, blessed be the Amanyar, the Seven Great Avatars of the Gods.

“Praised also be the Nassisti in Heaven, and bless we all the Nayavaran on the Earth, those mighty and divine spirits, and blessed be their first children, the spirits of the mountains, and the waters and the forest and most blessed be their last children, older than the race of men, called the Elves, the Fair Folk, the Erl and the Shidhe. May they all bless me in this holy telling of the coming of him whom we called Adaon and whom others call Annatar, the Lord.

“Maia, shining as the sun, appeared in heaven, and the moon was under her feet. She was wearing on her head a victor’s crown of twelve stars which she cast off, for she was pregnant and was crying out in the agonies of giving birth.

“Then came the huge, fiery-red dragon with ten horns, Kilmankankairo the Father of Dragons, he who was born from Chaos, and he was wearing seven royal crowns. The dragon’s massive tail swept across the sky and dragged away a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon crouched before the woman who was about to give birth—poised to devour the baby the moment it was born.

“Now Maia was one of the Vanyar Gods, the daughter of Mountain Amana who is the lady of desire. She fled Kilmankankairo. He drove her from land to land preventing her from finding a place to rest and give birth and cursed the world that no land might be provided for her to bring her child into the world. Thus, her sister, Laryn, fell to earth as the floating island of Solea, eventually providing her with refuge.”

The island of Solea, so it was said, took immediate root, and it grew and grew in size. It was the oldest of the Royan kingdoms, from which they people of Chyr had comes ages and ages ago, so long ago even the Blues who had built this temple had not arrived in the east.

“She gave birth to a male child,” Gabriel sand, “Adaon, the Lord, who is to rule and shepherd every nation with an iron scepter. Maia took him into the wilderness, where Amana had already prepared a safe place for her daughter and her daughter’s son. But on her way there she passed through Lyssia. She grew thirsty and asked for water, but the peasants tried to prevent her from drinking from their well, so she turned them into frogs. At last she reached the home of Mountain Amana. There Maia was nourished by the Nayavaran, and they nourished her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”

Then came the part which was celebrate in the Three Days, which Conn had loved as a child, but which had always made Nialla shiver.

“Then a terrible war broke out in heaven. Erkovan and Eskovan the captains of heaven, and their hosts, fought against Kilmankankairo and the lords of Koronzon, that is the Great Pit of which we do not speak. The dragon and his servants fought back. But they did not have the power to win and they could not regain their place in heaven. They sought of snuff out Belmarine and Elladyl, the lord of day and the lady of night, and all the starry hosts, but they could not. So the great dragon was thrown down once and for all, the father of serpents, who bore yet more serpents, both in body and soul, and spread chaos all over the earth, which the Anyar and the Mahran would have destroyed, but said the Vanyar, wisest tribe of the Gods, from darkness and chaos grew movement and light, and so they remain to this day.”

Back home, Annatide morning had been the time for gift giving, but Nialla did not wait to give Conn the coat she had bought at Great Market and he gave her two bronze combs for her hair. Derek have him three wellbound journals and a set of pens.

“That’s too much.”

“Because you’re always writing,” Derek said.

And he gave him a jacket as well.

“But Derek—”

“Because it’s winter.

The next day was filled with feasting and laughing, and all the services were in the sanctuary and all attended. Once Conn looked over many heads and saw one bronze haired like him and Nialla and bronze skinned like Quinton.

“It is Prince Anson,” Quinton said of the plainly dressed man.

But the Prince, despite his good looks, brought no attention to himself, and in a house full of beautiful men, he would not have.

The Temple was closed for anything but worship in the sanctuary on Annatide, but it was two days later that Quinton told Matt he would attend him in the Blue rooms.

The Blue rooms began on the first floor of the Temple and did not go past the third. They were separated from the regular sleeping rooms like a square inside of a square, and it was only by doors which opened on one side, from the resident rooms, that a Blue could cross into them. Someone coming through the Black Door essentially entered a very different Blue Temple which was built separately from most of the temple and coiled within the living space, for the Blue Temple was large, a great square of a building. The living rooms were all on the outside, so that all the priests, postulants and novices had windows to the world, but the inside space was for the rooms of visitation, which were filled with lamps, but possessed no windows. For the first time Matt entered into the tlus space and Quinton simply said, “Observe, love. And come when I call you.”

He stood on his tiptoes and kissed him, and then they entered a lobby where others were sitting. Gabriel was there and so was Cal, and there were several Blues Matteo had never met. They were all in a windowed room, sitting about playing chess or reading, some of them scribbling in journals while some were frankly coming out of bathrooms naked, or coming out of hallways equally naked and rumpled, and no one seemed to care, so Matt decided not to care either.

A tall dark man with a face flat as a door came by and whispered to Quinton, and Quinton nodded and then gestured for Matt to follow him.