The Book of the Blue House

Connleth Himself

You ask me when it will happened, and I am telling you, it has already come, but you had not the eyes to see it.

Ifandell Modet,The Blue Temple Sermon

* * *

Those days of spring were nothing short of holy, when Conn was wrapped in the love of his friends, and though he did not love Matteo any less, the addition of Gabriel worked a strange alchemy on his relationship with Derek, for Derek had always been scholarly, and of the same vein as Gabriel, and they were all ware that Conn was fated to go north and study with Akkrebeth, and so very often their heads were pressed together in study or thrown back in debate. Cal, Matt and Lorne often shook their heads and Quinton said, “I feel like Conn has made you all worse, for there was a time when Gabriel was quieter, and when Derek would never dare to disagree with him.”

“Well, I am not afraid to disagree with anyone,” Conn said.

“And your lack of fear has made our goose with his pretty black lashes less afraid too,” he said, rubbing Derek’s shoulder and laughing.

“I declare,” Matteo said, “It is as if the three of you, bronze haired Royan, black haired Doman, and red headed whatever he is, share the same brain!”

The heads pressed together in study, were the same heads pressed together in slumber. Cal kept Derek’s old room now, and very often, in his old large bed, Derek, Conn and Gabriel lay asleep in each other’s arms. The only time this differed is when Cal came to join them. How varied and wonderful love could be if the heart was ready for it, how sad it would be to be parted from those whom he loved. And Nialla was pregnant now. Jon thought it would be a boy. For a month after the wedding, perhaps Jon had thought he would be a model husband. A married man, it seemed no longer fitting to be a temple dependent and he and Nialla had taken a garret apartment owned by Sara and Theo’s uncle, an old Marnen who had ceased shepherding and traveling, and turned to sedentary trade. Jon and Nialla always came to lunch as they had before, and one afternoon Nialla and Sara decided to keep company with Gabriel and Cal for the afternoon and Jon, looking desperate had asked, “Conn, may I see you.”

Conn, with a dizzying feeling in his head and in his loins nodded, and in the room where he had first come to Gabriel, Jon had gone down on him. He fucked him under the window. It took all of ten minutes.

“I guess we’re on again,” Conn said, trying to sound like a grown up.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever be over,” Jon said, using a cloth to wipe Conn’s semen from him. “Not really.”

So life ceased to be idyllic or simple, and Conn stopped thinking of himself as a good man. He didn’t love Jon, not like you love your beloved, and Jon was his sister’s husband. So he wasn’t a good man, or at least, Conn thought, he hadn’t become a good man yet. And part of him was fine with this. Connleth was thinking these things when he entered the sanctuary and saw, sitting in the middle of the floor, robed and hooded in black, the form he knew could only be Ash Errison, Akkrebeth.

It was like that first time, where Connleth did not want to to interrupt the master, and though he was now a priest, and every day felt himself a priest, he was sure another mystery was happening here and he needed to keep silent for it.

Akkrebeth rose from his meditation, and in his black robes crossed the long hall, his robes moving over the old flagstones. He came to the sitting image of Adaon and placed his hands on the knees of the God. Kneeling, he touched the base of the altar where incense and candles were burnt before him, and his hands reached into a something Connleth could not see, and then he brought from it, a great sword. Connleth had never had much causse to see a sword up close, and what he saw of the hilt was silverly like highly polished metal, and its edges were touched in gold. Connleth marveled that the sword itself was black until he realized this was the scabbard, and the wizard took it to himself, turning it around and saying, “Connleth, I am glad you are here.”

“It is time for me to go.”

But the wizard looked at him. He cocked his head and said, “You would be sad to go, of course.”

“Yes,” Conn said. “But you told me you would come back for a year, and it has been a year. More than a year.”

“Your heart is sad,” Ohean said, “but not completely.”

When Conn looked at him, Ohean said, “You still believe in innocence, and you have not yet learned the first lesson of nature, that all dragons teach and all wizards live. You live it as well, for once all Blue Priests were mages, back in the sunken lands, long ago.”

Tough Conn would gladly gainsay Derek or Gabriel, he knew better than to try this with Ohean, and the sorcerer patted the ground that Conn might sit down beside him.

“How old were you when you came to this place?”

“Seventeen.”

“I thought as much. And now you are… nineteen?”

Conn nodded.

“When you came here you were all innocence, or what you thought was innocence. You were good and pure, or what you thought was goodness and purity. But you were nothing, because you were unfinished. You knew nothing, had done nothing, and now you have done so much, known so much, known so many men.”

When Ohean said it, despite his training, despire his usual happiness, Conn felt himself going red, and Ohean said, “If you were to go back home, back to that little village from whence you came, you would be stoned. You would be a horror to your family. It is the thing you and Derek Annakar have in common.

“The other thing is that you both believe in innocence, both believe in being tatnished. Somewhere in you, you know that something has…. Tarnished you. Made you less pure, less simple. And you think that if you come with me and learn wizardry you will put behind you the confusion of the Blue House. There is a part of you that longs for that. Or am I wrong?”

Conn was startled by Ohean’s words. Every sentence that he spoke was as if Ohean new him more and more, new him truly and spoke his own thoughts.

“But you have mistaken innocence for ignorance and dis ease with your nature for being tarnished. You don’t understand you must go on being what you are being to become what you are.”

While Conn was still working this out Ohean held the length of the sword, black and black on black, a hilt that came to an end with a crossed circle and blue winking jewel at the heart of the cross.

“This is Reaver the Sword of Night,” Ohean said, “and I have come for it and not for you. I will need it in the days to come, and I will need you. But it is best that you remain here.

“I speak with your Abbot and… I see. You are not solitary now as you once were. You are part of a thing. You are part of a three headed flower. If I were to take you I would destroy the rose. If you had not come Derek and Gabriel would not be as they are, as they will be. When you come as a mage, they will come with you.”

“They are… They are Domans.”

“Did you think only Royan blood held power? And, at any road, it is this ancient land, this place once called Ancharan that puts magic in the blood of those willing, and I doubt very much that they are pure Doman. They are part of you, and even that had changed them. They will come with you and you will all come as mages.”

Ohean stood up, “But I will not come for you now. I had a little work to do, and I have seen such things in the fire and in the water, that I know wars are not over. I have one more journey to make and when next I come, I would that you all were ready? Can you promise this?”

And Conn said, “Aye, Lord.”

All the last year he had feared and hoped for the return of Ohean and now there was only a joyous hope. Part of him had wondered if what he was forming with Gabriel and Derek and with Matteo as well, could remain strong, and now he knew they would not be parted. That thing in him that whispered that what one loved was bound to be damaged was now silenced. As he walked up the steps of the Temple toward the second floor and now to the third, the guilt, the shame, the uncertainty in him died. Jon and his desire was not a cause of dizzying worry. He was not weak or wounded or lessened. He was strong and becoming stronger, and Ohean had not told him that it was in his power to look into water and flame, to see the paths of men in the paths of the birds, because Ohean did not waste words and he knew that deep down Connleth knew these things, knew his power.

He was contemplating this when he looked up and was nearly startled by Gabriel and Matt and Derek looking down the stairs at him, trying to push the worry from their faces.

They know. They know Akkrebeth is here and expect him to take me.

They were trying bravely to smile, except Matt could not and he looked more like a sullen wolf than ever.

And then Conn burst out laughing, and while Gabriel and Derek’s smiles changed to something real, but still confused, Matt frowned in irritation.

“What did Akkrebeth say?” Matteo demanded.

Conn ran up the last of the steps and took them all in his embrace, and all was well. Everything was well.

“Brothers,” he said, kissing Matt and stroking Gabriel’s hair, Derek’s neck, “Oh my lovely, lovely hearts. My very brothers!”

Our time in the Blue House is ended though, amongst others, we will meet Conn, Derek and the others again. We will return to Westrial and the city of Kingsboro in The Book of the Blessed.