The Book of the Burning: Chapter 3

The One is the Two is the Sisterhood

is the Raven is the Mother Forever!”

The one is the two is three

is the Sisters are the Mother

are the Daughter are the Unseen

are the All Seen is the Light is

the Dark is the Woman and the

Man and the Lovers,

far below and up above,

is the lyre, is the drum,

is the death dealing wheel,

is the four, if the five,

is the smoke and the sixth,

is the fire and the storm,

is all born forever!

BOOK SEVEN

Far More

Than What

We Give Them Credit

For

Forty-Two

We praise you, our Mother, for by your very movements were we created. By your very being do we have being, and in your very life do we have life.

- Prayer to Amana

NAVA

After a whole day of sitting at the head of the vardo, Ohean yawned and crawled back into it for sleep.

“Theone, wake up and drive.”

Theone was glad to do anything, and she got up immediately and went to the head of the wagon while Ohean rolled over and slept straight away.

As the sun was setting, Ohean stirred and looked up to see Anson.

“What?” he mumbled. “You don’t have to check on my safety while we’re in a moving wagon.”

“I know that,” Anson said, sitting down beside him. “I didn’t come to protect you.”

“You just came to look at me?”

Anson grinned and said, “Yes. That’s it. Do you mind it?”

Ohean chuckled and pulled his knees to his chest.

“I wish I could be you,” he said. “Just for a moment. Just so I could see what you can see when you’re looking at me.”

Anson lay down beside him and squinted.

“Sometimes you look very old, but then sometimes you look younger than me. Then I want to protect you.”

“You don’t—”

Anson put out a hand.

“Is this where you tell me that I don’t know you? That I don’t know where you come from. You’re right. I don’t. But you can tell me, can’t you?”

Anson was quiet and said, “I do remember my mother. I remember Essily telling me how all of us lived before we were born, across the sea. And that souls who find themselves together, who love each other, have always been together. That everyone who belongs to you in this life belonged to you before.

“If that’s the truth,” Conn interrupted. “Have we all always been together?”

“I’m afraid so,” Ohean said.

“To hell with you,” Anson cuffed him lightly on the shoulder.

Conn said, “Ohean, what’s a wand?”

“A wand…?”

“I had once heard of sorcerers who loved men the way you love Anson, how they used them as a Wand. And… I didn’t understand that.”

Ohean’s hand turned limp and Conn repeated, “Ohean?”

“Did anyone ever tell you about the High Ones? About the making of the world? Elladyl, the mother of the Star Gods, the Mahran. Addiwak, the Mother of All?”

“Some. A little.”

“Addiwak the Mother of the Universe brought forth the High Ones, but the great mystery before them is that of the Twins, sometimes called the Brothers, or the Lovers. They are not spoken of often but in magic circles, they are called the Blue Bird and the Serpent. They discovered love with each other, and that love produced the universe. Because of the strength of the love between an enchanter and his lover, or two enchanters, there are some magicians who intentionally use others to increase that power. When an enchanter takes a young man, his servant, to himself to increase his power, or to work spells through him, he is called a Wand. This is a practice of southern sorcerers.” Ohean shrugged. “Or greedy ones.”

“I have never heard of this,” Anson murmured.

“Because I have never spoken of it, and will not soon after. Anytime an enchanter takes a beloved, then what passes between them in the night can be used for powerful purposes,” was all Ohean said.

That night was a warm one, and nobody cooked because there was enough ready made food and they were all thinking of Dissenbark, whom they had left behind, and the city of Nava that was a day before them. All about them was wide space, and they had passed the occasional farm, but now there was nothing, just grassy land off the road. Behind them, the blue and black mountains still stretched, snow veined, and Theone asked Ohean what they would do when they came to the city.

“Nothing in haste,” he said. “I hear there is a hotel near Temple Circle. We will go there. I went inside that temple years ago. But, as I said, it has been years. I do not know what has changed. I do not know where the Stone is. I say we camp out in the hotel for a few days. I say we put a strategy together.”

“And then we enter the Temple,” said Anson.

“Yes,” Ohean said, after a while.

“We enter the Temple,” Anson said again.

“It’s so final,” Theone said. “Isn’t it? I mean, I’m aching. I’m literally wanting to bang my hands into a wall or something because when it’s all said and done we will enter the Temple, and my stomach is sick just thinking about it. I need to do it. But…”

“Yes,” Ohean said. “Well, we won’t fail.”

“How do you know?” said Anson.

“Because I am with you,” Ohean said.

Theone said, “Anson, do you have a song for us?”

“I had a story,” Ohean said. “Anson can rest. We can all rest, and I will point out to you the stars in the sky. See, that one there? That is the Hammer of Conrad, the Star King who was the father of your own house, the Alcontradi. He and his Queen built Yr Mahrain, the Crystal City by the Sea, and there they hung the Stone of Elladyl. In days gone by she sent the Avayan into the world with it, a gift to men.”

“The Avayan,” Conn remembered, “The various incarnations the gods undertook to enter the world and aid all people.”

“It has been taught that Mahran and the Kuaelar dwelt in Kokaubeam, in the realm of the Stars, and the Anyar and Vasyar lived in the Sea beyond the Sea in the realm of Varanesse. On the Earth, of old, were the ancient powers, those dark things under the earth, and below them the demons of fire, and across the mountains the Giants, the Etins of Frost and Cold, of Wind and Woe.

“Amana is the Goddess of Earth, and she is the world. This world is the Mother of Men. The Vasyar came to help them and to guide them, but in time men wanted to be rid of the Gods. They wanted to live on their own, and the Vasyar, sensing this was wise, heeded them. All except Tethys who is the Sea, and the other Gods who by their nature are already part of this world. And Kavana remains, living beneath the Great Fire Mountain, and Mount Korumdumon, and some say that Nar took the form of a Bear and still lives as one in the north. But most others left. And with them the Children of Men who would not live in a world without them. Also the Children of the Gods, the Feri Folk, left.

“On their way across the Great Sea, which is further than the Sea you know, they were met by Mikail, who is the Warrior and Gatekeeper of the Gods, and he told them that, as Men and Feri were born on Earth they must remain in it. So Amana caused Varanesse, the Furthest Isle to be raised up, and here stayed men and Fey and along with them those Gods who had left the world, but would not leave those devoted to them. Though in time both men and elves would return to the world as great warriors and enchanters, in Varaness remain the Holy Vasyar till the appointed time.”

“They live in this world?” Theone said.

Ohean nodded.

“That their light might never disappear, the Vasyar live at the lip of this world, and often, it is said, the oldest of the Feri, Famke and Laryn and Ahnesse still walk upon it, visiting the children of men to aid them.

“But during the time when Mozhudak the Demon of the Pit was roused, they stayed away, knowing the power of Gods and Demons at war would ravage the world. So that was when the Amanyar came.”

“The Amanyar?” Theone said.

“The Seven,” said Anson.

Theone turned to her and now he spoke.

“As has been taught by the Royan, the Gods came back into the world again and again as avatars, for they had forbidden themselves to live in the world directly, such was their power. But the Amanyar were different.”

“Were they the children of the Gods?”

“All are the Children of the Gods.”

“You know what I mean,” Theone said. “Were they Feri? Or were they the men who had left the world with the Vasyar?”

“Not all were Gods, some were the Feri and some were men and all were full of power, sworn to always be in this world in one form or another. The avatars pass, the Seven are always here.”

“What they were in that world is unknown, and unimportant. But what they became in this world were the enchanters, the heroes and, sometimes, the enchantments themselves. Those are their stars,” Ohean lay on his back and pointed out seven spinning stars, lined up like a snake.

“Arthyr, Istaryl, Mahonwy, Tanquaril, Merrilyn, Phellyn and Owen,” Anson listed them.

The last name he said like a whisper. Theone did not ask, and Ohean did not answer. Under the starlight, Conn watched as Ohean turned on his side. One by one, under the light of th stars, the others went to sleep.

KENNETH

In the middle of the next morning, Kenneth was walking south, out of the direction of the sun.

“All I have is this sack, and this cloak and a purse full of money, and good directions. By my blessing you will never lose your path. The Gate of Daumany is three days away by horse, and through that an additional four days before you come to the city by the salt sea that they now call Nava. That is by horse. On foot I don’t know how long it will be.”

Yarrow kept to herself that there had been a horse, that h had arrived with one, black as night and Yarrow had bed him that first night when, as Ruval, he had stayed with them. There was a powerful and alien enchantment upon the beast, unsettling even for Yarrow. The next morning it was gone, and she never knew where it went or who might have taken it. Her magic might have found out, but whenever she thought of that, something pushed her mind from searching.

Kenneth found a bower and sat under a tree to eat and doze. All the day he had been thinking of errant knights on quests, and this was strange because he couldn’t remember ever being told such stories. Under the tree he dozed and remembered the cards in Yarrow’s house from which she read the future. The first was the Fool, with a bundle over his shoulder. The zero card, the beginning before the beginning. That was him. And there was the Four of Cups, the young man sitting under the tree gazing at the three cups, not seeing the fourth behind him. There was something he could not see. Not just yet. Some wish he did not have the imagination to wish for. It would take care of itself, that’s what Yarrow would say. The world took care of itself.

Someone was tickling his head.

“Stop it now,” Kenneth murmured.

The tickling went on, and finally Kenneth, making a slight swipe at the top of his head, woke up and looked to see a horse nuzzling his head.

“Oh, my…” Kenneth sat up.

It was a black horse, and the horse snuffled him and then nuzzled him, and then it kissed him.

“You’ve been sent to me,” Kenneth decided.

“Well,” he said. “Do you have a name?”

When the horse said nothing, Kenneth said, “Until the other day I didn’t either. May I get up on your back, please? May I? Thank you. Shall we go this way?”

And the horse obliged.

“We’re going south. We’re going toward the Dauman Gate. Now that you’re here it should take two days. Maybe a little more. Whaddo you…. Ah, but you know where you’re going don’t you?”

As they rode through the empty land, Kenneth said, “Well, my name is Kenneth…. Sooner or later I guess we’ll find yours as well.”

“If he has a name, he hasn’t told me,” a woman’s voice cried out.

Kenneth turned around and saw at the other edge of the clearing, Birch, from Yarrow’s cottage.

“It came to me,” the wheat haired woman said, “that you should not wander alone, newborn that you are. So I set out after you, and on my way met this esteemed horse.”

“Then he is yours.”

“He is ours. I believe he can sit two. Shall we travel?”

Kenneth was glad not to be alone, and glad not be alone with Aunt Birch. He broke into a smile.

“We shall.”