A Fading Sun

by Stephen Leigh

  “As you wish,” Voada told him. She gestured to the war chariot alongside Maol’s; Magaidh stepped down from her position next to Àrd Mac Tsagairt and strode toward Voada. In the midday glare, her anamacha was invisible, but Voada could feel its presence. “Do you remember what I’ve taught you, Magaidh?” she asked the young woman, who nodded. “Good. Then it’s time you demonstrate what you’ve learned for these Mundoa.”

  “Yes, Ceanndraoi,” Magaidh answered. Voada saw uncertainty in her eyes, and she leaned in close, gently touching the young woman’s cheek.

  “You can do this. I know you can. Elia is with you,” she whispered, and Magaidh nodded. She opened her arms, calling in her anamacha as Voada stepped back from her. She saw Magaidh’s gaze go distant as it entered her, no more than a shimmering in the air. Her hands began to weave a knotted pattern, and her voice—clear and loud—spoke words in an older form of the Cateni tongue. Magaidh’s eyes opened wide; she stared across the river at Nabi and his remaining troops, and as she did so, Nabi ordered the archers to ready another volley.

  Water lifted from the shallow bed of the Yarrow, the wall of it green in the sunlight and growing taller with every passing breath, fed by the water pouring downstream. Voada could see fish trapped within the wall, and more flapped helplessly on the wet grass and mud where the water had once been. “Loose!” she heard Nabi command the archers, and as the arrows flew into air, Magaidh gestured sharply. The green wall foamed, rose, and fell, engulfing the arrows, crashing down on the soldiers and sending them sprawling. Nabi was unhorsed and thrown down into the mud.

  Voada caught Magaidh as she staggered back from the effort. “You did very well,” she whispered in Magaidh’s ear. “You make me proud.”

  From his chariot, Maol gave a shout, and Hùisdean slapped the reins down on the horses. The chariots surged forward into the returning water of the Yarrow, splashing and churning white under the hooves and wheels. The mounted warriors followed, as did the warriors on foot.

  The Mundoan soldiers scrambled to their feet, nearly all of them breaking and running now, leaving their swords, spears, and bows scattered on the Yarrow’s bank. Voada saw Nabi trying to rise, only to be trampled and broken under the hooves and wheels of Maol’s chariot. The few soldiers who resisted were quickly dispatched. Maol called back the Cateni warriors who were pursuing the retreating backs of the rest of Nabi’s men. He pointed downstream: to the rising bluffs, to the temple atop them, to the cluster of dwellings they could see where the river curved away toward its source.

  “Pencraig is waiting for you, Ceanndraoi. Let’s go find its Voice, and then we can move on to Trusa and the Great-Voice there.”

  The battle for Pencraig wasn’t entirely bloodless. The remainder of the garrison had been alerted; they put up a running, grudging resistance as they retreated slowly up the hill toward the Voice’s estate, but it was mostly bodies in Mundoan armor that sent bloody rivulets running back down toward the river. Voada, back in Maol’s chariot, could only shake her head at the youth of some of them. So young, and too many of them just Cateni conscripts …

  That was yet another debt to be laid at the Voice’s door for payment.

  It was strange to ride up Pencraig Bluff once more, to see the buildings and houses that had been so familiar to her. It seemed ages ago that she had last seen them, but it had been less than a year. Halfway up the road to the temple, she looked down at the older section of the town. There were fires there, sending columns of smoke into the sky; there was also, she knew, looting and death there, but she had warned her people once again that she would not tolerate mistreatment of Cateni unless they actively opposed them. “Kill the Mundoa, but leave any Cateni who isn’t resisting untouched.”

  That resistance seemed to have melted away as they rose higher on Pencraig Bluff. Voada wondered if the respite would last, expecting the last remnants of the garrison to attack a final time at any moment.

  They passed her old house, the sign of the Hand freshly painted on the pillars of the gates, which were yawning open. There was no sign of anyone in the courtyard beyond, but the furniture there was new and set differently than it had been when Voada had lived there: no longer her home, but a stranger’s house. She wondered who this Hand might be, if he had a family as she and Meir had, and where he and that family were now. Maol noticed her attention as they moved slowly up the road toward the Voice’s estate, the road now empty of anyone, Mundoan or Cateni.

  “This was once your home as Hand-wife?” he asked, though he kept his eyes on the road ahead and to either side.

  “Yes.”

  One side of his mouth lifted as he sniffed. “A Hand is evidently treated well.”

  “The Mundoa treat the Hand the way you’d treat a favorite dog; you’re rewarded as long as you do what they expect you to do and you don’t bite. Fail that …” She didn’t complete the sentence. She tore her gaze away from the house, staring ahead of them to where the Voice’s estate awaited. What happened to Orla? Where is Hakan? That’s all that matters. They could be here still, very near, and I might be with them today … and I will make Voice Kadir and Voice-wife Dilara suffer for every torment they’ve inflicted on them and for every day since they were taken from me.

  Voada set her mouth in a firm line, pressing her lips tightly together. Maol glanced once at her. He gestured to Hùisdean to move forward. The other war chariots clattered alongside and behind them. Warriors on foot moved quickly onto the grounds of the houses on either side, but Voada heard none of the clamor of fighting. The inhabitants had all fled elsewhere.

  A stone wall as tall as two men appeared to their left: the wall that surrounded the Voice’s estate. As they approached the marble pillars that marked the estate gates, Voada called her anamacha to her and found Iomhar among the souls in the otherworld. She began to prepare a spell.

  In her doubled sight, she saw that the gates of the Voice Kadir’s estate were closed … and heads suddenly appeared along the wall. Even through the roar of Magh da Chèo, she heard the groaning of bowstrings under tension.

  “Doineann!” she shouted, casting the power away from her. As the archers released their arrows, as Hùisdean and Maol belatedly raised their shields, a storm-wind went howling outward, and the arrows flew backward and scattered as the archers vanished. The stone wall bowed inward against the spell-gale and cracked, massive stones falling. As the wind screamed, Voada shifted her focus. The wooden, steel-reinforced gates rattled and chattered, then were finally torn from their hinges and flung madly into the courtyard beyond. Maol barked an order—“Forward!”—and his chariot was first through the gap and into the courtyard, Àrd Mac Tsagairt and Magaidh following close behind. The spell done, Voada hung in her harness, watching as fighting raged around her and Mundoan soldiers poured in from the sides of the courtyard. She saw Maol flinging spears and the maddened hooves of their horses striking wildly as more Cateni followed them, loud with battle-rage.

  And as suddenly as it had started, the battle was over. The Mundoan soldiers were down, as well as a few of the Cateni. Voada saw their faces staring blindly as they had at the ford, as they had in Muras, most of them too young or too old to be soldiers. Cateni warriors had already entered the house; Voada heard shouts and screams, male as well as female, and several of Maol’s warriors emerged again into the courtyard, dragging with them two couples dressed in Mundoan finery.

  One of the couples was obviously Cateni, and the silver wreath the man wore—the same wreath Meir had once worn—told her that they were the new Hand and Hand-wife. The other couple she recognized immediately: Voice Kadir and Voice-wife Dilara. Voada unstrapped herself from the rail of the chariot. She leapt down, striding toward the two captives with the bright robe of the ceanndraoi swaying around her, with the torc of the draoi around her neck and the silver oak leaf on its chain at her throat.

  She stood in front of the two and saw both recognition and terror wash across their faces.

  “Where are my
children?” Voada demanded.

  24

  An Empty Revenge

  “HAND-WIFE VOADA,” Voice Kadir stuttered. “We thought you …”

  “Dead?” Voada finished for him. “I’m certain that was your hope, but I’m far from dead. And I’m not Hand-wife. I am Ceanndraoi Voada of the Clans. I am the Bane of the Mundoa and the Vengeance of Elia. And I demand to see the children you stole from me. Where are they?”

  Voice Kadir looked at Dilara, and Voada saw a glance of despair pass between them. “Where are they?” Voada repeated. “If you value your lives at all, you’ll answer me.”

  “Hand-wife … I mean, Ceanndraoi Voada,” Voice Kadir said. He wouldn’t look at her, instead staring down at the bloodied tiles of their courtyard and the corpses of his guards. She could see his hands trembling. Dilara was weeping, her distress so loud that Voada thought they must be able to hear it at the river. The Hand and his wife were huddled together behind Dilara, clutching each other but otherwise silent. “I’m afraid … I don’t know …”

  “Answer me!” she snapped at him, the command echoing off the facade of their house and causing Dilara’s weeping to stop momentarily. “Where are my children?”

  “Ceanndraoi,” Voice Kadir began. He lifted his gaze to hers and dropped it again. He licked dry lips. “Hakan … Well, Hakan … It was Officer Bakir’s suggestion, after all … He was sent as a slave to work the copper mines, and he … You see, I was informed there was a tunnel collapse, and he …” Kadir lifted his face to Voada once more. His eyes pleaded silently. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Voada’s breath caught in her throat. Dead. My son is dead. And worse: a soul that died trapped underground could never find the sun-path. A soul there was doomed and lost, never to reach Tirnanog and never to be reborn unless the body could somehow be found. A wail of grief was torn involuntarily from Voada, and she couldn’t see through the tears that filled her eyes. She felt Magaidh’s arm go around her waist and Maol’s hand on her shoulder. She let them support her while the anguish and loss and rage buffeted her, an emotional storm that threatened to overwhelm her and take her spinning away with it. She felt the cold touch of her anamacha as well, drawn to her by the turmoil inside.

  The voice that dominated the chorus was the Moonshadow’s.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Voada answered.

  “Ceanndraoi?” she heard Magaidh say, and Voada took in a long, gasping breath. She pulled her shoulders up. She stared at Kadir.

  “And Orla?” she managed to ask, trying to control the quavering that threatened her voice. “Where is my daughter?” I don’t know if I can bear it if they’re both dead. I don’t know …

  The Moonshadow. Insistent. Voada heard the voice and her promise and made no effort to push her away. Her voice was a comfort.

  “Orla?” Kadir said. “We don’t know …” Voada heard Dilara sigh, and she looked at the woman, who held up her hands as if in supplication.

  “Sub-Commander Bakir took her as his second wife, to attend to his first wife and their children,” Dilara said. “But he left Pencraig moons ago, under orders from the Great-Voice to join Commander Savas. His family traveled with him at least part of the way. Orla went with them. She was …” Dilara stopped. Her hands dropped.

  “She was what?”

  “She was with child. At least that’s what Bakir’s first wife told me.” Dilara started to lift her hands again, then brought them protectively around her waist. “That’s all I—we—know.”

  Voada could feel the slow rage building inside herself. It seethed in her voice, and her anamacha moved nearer to her. “So my son was enslaved and killed while my daughter was violated by that savage Bakir, the man you sent to plunder my house and steal everything I once had, who killed Una and slew our dog, and who took great pleasure in beating me nearly to death. Did the two of you hate me and Meir that much?”

  “No …” Kadir began, but his voice trailed off. “No,” he repeated in a near-whisper. Dilara went back to sobbing.

  “Ceanndraoi, what do you wish me do with these people?” Maol asked, his voice stern and almost eager.

  Voada looked first at the Hand and Hand-wife. “You’re both Cateni?” she asked them. They nodded mutely. “The silver wreath of the Hand was my husband’s, and I claim that. Then you’re free to leave here. If you wish to join us, you may do so; if not …” She shrugged. “Then go where you will, but know that the Mundoan world will be shattered. I intend to destroy it entirely.”

 

  The Hand lifted the wreath from his head; he passed it to Voada, the weight of it heavy in her hand. The two slipped by the Voice and Voice-wife, past Voada, and through the ranks of the Cateni, who moved aside to let them pass.

  “You’ll let us go also?” Dilara asked hopefully. Voice Kadir slipped the golden wreath from his forehead and held it out to Voada. She only stared at it.

  the voices of her anamacha shouted as one, with the Moonshadow’s predominant among them, and Voada spoke as one with them: “No.” The golden wreath dropped from Kadir’s hand, clattering on the tiles. No one moved to pick it up. “We still have business to attend to.” Voada turned her back on them, gesturing to Maol and the others. “We’re going to the Temple of Elia to reclaim it,” she said. “Bring these two prisoners with us.”

  Before she’d allowed anyone to enter the temple, she’d had Maol drag Voice Kadir into the woods just behind the temple. There under the oak tree with everyone watching, she’d directed him to dig with his hands. He’d protested, but Maol had shoved him down, and the frightened Kadir had scrabbled and clawed at the dirt with soft hands until—his robes soiled, his hands filthy and bleeding—he had uncovered the wrapped statue of Elia. Voada had taken it from him before he could unwind the cloth around it. She began walking toward the temple, the rest following.

  Voada heard the sigh from her anamacha as they entered the temple. Seeing the temple again brought back all that had happened to her, all the losses that had so drastically changed the path of her life. She stepped into the cool half darkness, the four windows illuminating the sun-paths, the open roof allowing the sun to play over the central altar but leaving shadows elsewhere.

  There were no taibhse waiting for her this time. No anamacha. The temple seemed so small and insignificant after Bàn Cill.

  “Bring the Voice and his wife here,” she said, going to the altar. The two were alternately pushed and pulled forward by Maol and Hùisdean and thrown down on the temple floor near Voada as Àrd Mac Tsagairt and Magaidh watched in silence. Putting down the still-wrapped statue, Voada picked up the ceramic bust of Pashtuk from the altar.

  “This is an abomination,” she told Kadir and Dilara. “This filth doesn’t belong here in this sacred place, and I intend to destroy every image of this man in Albann Deas.” Deliberately, she spat on Pashtuk’s face, raised the bust above her head, and threw it down onto the marble tiles. Pashtuk’s visage shattered as Kadir and Dilara raised their hands in defense, and jagged shards of fired, painted clay struck the Voice and Voice-wife like a hard, sharp rain. Voada ignored their cries. She crouched down and reverently unwrapped the statue of Elia, nearly smiling when she saw the chipped, faded face and body. “I will have Your statue restored, Elia,” she said aloud to the image of the goddess. “You’ll be magnificent again, and You’ll once more have Your crown of gold.” She placed Elia on the altar. “There. You are where You belong once more, and that’s where You will stay. We’ll find You a proper menach to care for You and this
temple, to set the dead on the path to Tirnanog and to chant the rites of the seasons. You will have draoi to protect You. I promise You that.”

  She stepped back, looking at the altar and the temple. But then the brief satisfaction she had felt fled, replaced by the anger and grief that still filled her, that had never left her. “This place is soiled,” she said. “It needs cleansing.”

  “I will wash the temple myself, Voada,” Dilara husked out. “Maki and I … We’ll sweep it and clean it …”

  “That’s not the cleansing it needs,” Voada told her, her voice flat. She pointed to the Voice and Voice-wife. “Get them up,” she said to Maol and Hùisdean. “Hold them.”

  Her anamacha slid alongside her, sliding partially into her. And another, stronger voice added,

  Urgently, Maol and Hùisdean grabbed the Voice and Voice-wife and dragged them to their feet. Voada stood in front of Voice Kadir, who was held by Maol. He had voided his bladder; she could smell the urine and see the spreading stain on his clothes. She lifted his chin with a hand, staring into his eyes. “You are no longer the Voice of Pencraig,” she told him. “You are no longer anything at all. You are filth, like Pashtuk. You are vermin that must be removed from existence.”

  Still watching him, she slid her knife from the sheath on her belt. Without warning, she slashed it across his throat in a single, savage motion. Kadir made a strangled, wet cry as blood poured over Voada’s hand and the knife, as bright red sprayed her clothing and face and spewed onto the floor. Maol released the body as Dilara screamed. Kadir’s blood pooled on the tiles and slid thickly around the shards of Pashtuk’s bust.

  Voada stepped over his corpse to stand in front of Dilara, who was sobbing in great, gulping heaves while Hùisdean held her tightly. Voada grabbed the woman’s braid and pulled it back hard until her eyes bulged and the tendons stood out in her throat. “Your husband was simply a fool,” she said softly into the woman’s terrified face. “But you … you are worse than a fool, because you’re intentionally cruel. You don’t deserve the quick death I gave him. Your death should be as slow and miserable as my son’s was, as awful as the abuse that my Orla has suffered.” Dilara tried to speak, but Voada pulled harder on her braid, choking off the woman’s voice. “You don’t deserve a quick death, creature, but I’ll give it to you anyway. Let your blood and that of your husband wipe away the Mundoan taint in this place. In Elia’s temple.”