A Fading Sun

by Stephen Leigh

  It was as if she’d scolded Orla. Magaidh ducked her head, the curtains of sun-gold hair hiding her face. “As you wish, Ceanndraoi,” she said. Her head came up again, her light eyes firm and steady as they searched Voada’s face. “But I won’t apologize. You told me when I first took my anamacha that they are dangerous, and I understand now how tempting it is to simply listen to the voices inside and do what they wish. I also know that the voices inside yours are far more powerful than those who inhabit mine. I worry, Voada, that I’m beginning to hear the Moonshadow in your voice and not you.”

  Her bluntness made Voada’s head snap back. She could see Magaidh staring at her anamacha, at how it seemed to cling to her. the voices shouted, nearly drowning out her own thoughts. Voada knew that voice. Knew it well.

  “No,” Voada said, not knowing who she was answering. She took a step away from her anamacha so that the cold and the voices receded. “Magaidh, I am not the Moonshadow. I am simply myself.”

  Magaidh held her gaze for another breath, and then the young woman nodded. “Good,” she said. “I don’t want to lose my friend. Ever.” She turned and began making her way down the hill toward their encampment. Voada reached toward Magaidh as if she could hold her back. She wanted to speak, to call to the woman, to apologize herself, but the words refused to come. Instead, she felt the cold touch of her anamacha and the chorused voice of the Moonshadow.

 

  Voada let her hand drop. She returned her attention to Trusa and the growing predawn glow in the east, and she imagined herself standing in the city.

  In that vision, there was blood pooling at her feet.

  Maol, with Voada in his chariot, led the Cateni army as it progressed inexorably down the long Great North Road toward Trusa. They could see the Mundoan cohorts lined up in neat squares on the fields outside the city gates. As before, Voada had lashed herself to the frame of the chariot so that her arms were free and her body stable enough to cast spells. She could already hear the sihirki shouting their own spells from the rear of the Mundoan army. A fleet of arrows erupted from the archers behind the Mundoan infantry, arcing up as Voada opened her arms to her anamacha and let herself fall into their world. She had promised herself that she would not call the Moonshadow, but she quickly drew energy from Iomhar, her hands weaving the air in front of her as the chariot bounced over the ruts of the road.

  A hard wind howled as she released the spell. It tore most of the arrows from the air.

  Voada could feel anger rising within her, a complex rage born of her conversation with Magaidh, of the disappointment she’d endured at Pencraig, of the resentment she harbored toward the Mundoa. All of her frustrations now sat in front of her, crystallized in the city and the thought of the Great Voice squatting somewhere within like a gigantic, foul toad, ready to hop away before the boot of the Cateni came down upon him.

  The Moonshadow’s voice, bound up with all the other draoi captured in the anamacha.

  Voada shouted back to the Moonshadow.

  But Iomhar didn’t come. In her vision of Magh da Chèo, the shades of the draoi within her anamacha shuffled around her, and the only one who stepped forward was the Moonshadow, her sun-touched hair the color of ripe wheat and a red setting sun, her eyes holding the deep sea.

  With that, the Moonshadow’s specter entered her, and Voada could not keep her out.

  They merged.

  They moved as one.

  Voada began to weave a new spell the Moonshadow fed her, one more powerful and difficult to handle than any she’d felt before. The heat of it threatened to raise blisters on her skin as she wove the framework, and the words that came from her throat seemed formed of live coals. The world in front of her threatened to fall away entirely, to leave her soul trapped in the otherworld of the anamacha. Faintly, as if she were seeing a taibhse in the sunlight, she could see Maol turning to her, his eyes wide as if what he saw frightened him. His mouth was open; he was shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear his voice over the roaring in her ears. Voada fought to retain herself, to keep some vision of what lay before her like a shield against the fiery chaos of the ghost world.

  She wasn’t certain whose voice that was: her own, or the Moonshadow’s.

  “Ceanndraoi!” The shout came from alongside her: Magaidh, in her husband’s chariot. She was staring at the inferno Voada held, her eyes wide with fear.

  Voada shuddered at Magaidh’s alarm. She screamed the final spell-words and spread her hands, breaking the webbing that held a glowing red sphere.

  The spell went careening away from her, Maol throwing himself down in the chariot as it did so, the flames nearly touching Hùisdean as he ducked down over the harness. The warhorses reared up in alarm as the spell passed over them, the sphere growing and crackling as it rushed toward the waiting army. Voada could see the ranks already breaking, the soldiers in the vanguard shouting and pushing against those behind and around them as they tried to escape the roaring sun hurtling their way.

  It struck them, the fireball exploding in their midst with a tremendous thunderclap that made Voada put her hands belatedly to her ears, that brought the charge of the Cateni to a momentary halt. Afterimages went from white to purple in her eyes, and when she could see again, the road all the way to the city gates was empty of anything but corpses and charred ground. The gates themselves hung askew and open, fire crackling along broken wooden planks.

  Voada hung in her bonds, only half aware, empty of power now that Magh da Chèo was banished from her mind. The anamacha slid away from her, and she clutched at it as if to draw it back into her.

  Maol and the other Cateni howled in triumph. Hùisdean slapped the reins on the warhorses’ backs, and the chariot lurched forward, jarring Voada as Maol grasped a spear and brandished it skyward.

  The Cateni charge resumed. With a massed roar, they hurtled toward the prize of Trusa.

  29

  A Voice Silenced

  THE RESISTANCE BROKE QUICKLY and wildly after Voada’s spell as the Cateni army pushed swiftly into the city and spread out. As with the villages they’d passed through, the Cateni of Trusa rose up at the same time, slaves and servants killing the Mundoa who had been foolish or brave enough to remain behind. Magaidh and the other draoi were casting their own spells, and columns of smoke began to rise from well within the city.

  It was obvious that Trusa was to fall and that it would fall quickly and hard.

  Voices called to Voada even as she watched her army swarm into the city streets, killing those soldiers who hadn’t already fled, looting the houses of the Mundoa, setting more fires. Trusa would burn to the ground, and she would rejoice in the ashes.

  Her anamacha touched her, cold at her side. It was the Moonshadow’s voice leading the chorus, ringing in her head.

  “Maol!” Voada had to shout to the ceannàrd to be heard even though they were in the same chariot, the din of their victory was so loud around them. “The Great-Voice! We need to reach the river, quickly!”

  Maol shrugged. “The city is ours. Let the fool run.”

  “No!” Voada screamed the word, using a touch of the power remaining within her to strengthen her voice so that it rang loudly enough that Magaidh, in her chariot several strides away, glanced toward them. Soldiers rushing past stopped momentarily to look. “I have given you an order. Do as I say! Hurry! The Great-Voice is our prize.”

  Maol scowled at that, but he nodded to Hùisdean, and the driver shouted to the w
arhorses. They surged forward, moving at a breakneck speed toward the Great-Voice’s palace and the River Iska. Voada clung to the railing of the chariot as they moved, the voices of her anamacha howling within her in accompaniment to the screams of the citizens of Trusa they passed. She saw Hùisdean heading toward the city gate of the palace, still guarded by Mundoan soldiers, and she shouted at the driver. “No! To the river! That’s where he is!”

  Hùisdean yanked hard on the reins, causing Maol to lose his balance and, cursing, grab at the rails himself. They careened around the side walls of the palace and down a narrow alley. Voada could see the River Iska’s brown waters ahead, mud flats glistening in its tidal flow while the palace’s high stone walls still loomed on their left side. Then the wall abruptly ended, and Hùisdean had to yank back hard on the warhorses’ reins in order to stop them from plowing ahead into the mud. Voada looked left; at a gate in the river wall of the palace, a tall, thin man in fine robes was being helped into a boat tied to a pier where a short channel had been dug from the low tide limits of the Iska to the palace wall, allowing boats to reach the steps of the gate even when the tide was out. The robed man was accompanied by several guards with gleaming mirrored cuirasses as well as a dozen or so other people in Mundoan finery.

  “There!” Voada shouted. “That’s Great-Voice Vadim.”

  Voada closed her eyes, letting the vision of Magh da Chèo fill her even though her exhaustion clawed at her. She felt the Moonshadow near her again, and this time she eagerly drew on that power, making the shape of a new spell, her lips speaking the words that came to her through the Moonshadow’s presence. The shape of the spell was complicated, with a lacuna set in the midst of it, unlike any spell she’d ever seen before. Even as she marveled at the intricate shape, her hands finished weaving the net and the last words left her mouth. She cast the spell just as the guards saw their chariot; two of them drew back their bowstrings, and the others charged toward them through the mud with swords drawn.

  None of them mattered. Voada released the spell, and the knot of flame and smoke sped away from her, the heat of it nearly singeing the manes of the warhorses, who whinnied in alarm. Voada loosed herself from the chariot, hopping down into the mud and starting to walk toward the Great-Voice as the spell touched the guards and the Great-Voice’s companions. They screamed in agony, their clothing immediately going to flame, their flesh blackening before falling away to leave white bone glistening underneath. The bodies collapsed into the Iska’s mud, the mouths of the skulls still open as the echoes of their screams reverberated from the palace walls. The wooden hull of the boat flared as well, the mast and sail going to quick flame. But the hole Voada had woven into the spell left the Great-Voice untouched. He was sobbing and wailing, even after all the other voices had gone silent, but his was a sound of terror and fear rather than pain. Frantically, the man tried to climb into the flame-blackened boat, grabbing at an oar and trying to row away. Voada continued to approach him as Hùisdean gingerly directed the war chariot along the mud flats closest to the palace wall.

  Vadim was shouting for help in a reedy, high voice and frantically flailing at the shallow water with his oar. No one was responding. The smell of fire and burnt flesh was thick around them. The tide-exposed river bottom over which Voada walked was pebbled and strewn with the detritus of Trusa, broken pieces of pottery and other trash. The mud smelled of dead fish and brine. She came to the stone edge of the canal and stopped. She stared at Vadim until his wide-eyed gaze dared to find hers.

  “Great-Voice Vadim III, you are the prisoner of Ceanndraoi Voada,” she said. “And you will pay in kind for what you’ve done to my people.”

  The oar dropped from Vadim’s hand at the words, and he began to scream.

  “The Great-Voice is more valuable as a hostage than dead,” Maol insisted.

  They’d taken the man into his own palace, now controlled by the Cateni. Voada was standing at the balcony of the Great-Voice’s private chambers. Everything about the room offended her: the extravagant opulence, the fine hangings around the walls, the expensive furniture, the obvious fact that it must have taken hands and hands of servants and slaves—all of them Cateni—to attend to it. Everything about the palace was an insult to her people, as Moonshadow’s anamacha—pacing the perimeter of the room—reminded her every time they brushed up against her.

 

  Outside, much of Trusa was burning, the sky nearly hidden by the drifting smoke. The smell of it couldn’t be escaped, and the fires were whipping up winds that coiled upward, the smoke wrapped around the flames like snakes. Even here, close to the river and behind stone walls, they wouldn’t be able to stay much longer. Glowing embers were drifting in the wind like red snow; they would inevitably alight somewhere flammable, and the palace would suffer the same fate as the rest of the Mundoan capital. As Voada watched, an ember alighted on the marble railing in front of her and expired into dead ash.

  “I don’t agree,” Voada answered Maol as she watched the ash fall away, leaving a smudge on the polished stone. She turned to him. “I didn’t spare him in order to give him back.”

  “Voada, listen to me,” Maol responded. “I know these people. I’ve fought against them nearly all my life. I know how they think and how they respond. With their Great-Voice captured, they’ll be willing to parley, perhaps even directly via Emperor Pashtuk. We can force change on them as payment for Vadim’s safe return. We stand to gain much of what we want without bloodshed.”

  “You don’t sound like a warrior,” she told him.

  “That’s exactly what I sound like,” he answered. “A good warrior knows the cost of war and when to end it. I’m not afraid of fighting—you of all people should understand that—but I’m also not afraid of peace. We’ve been given a gift here. Let’s use it. And if they refuse to parley, well, then we fight.”

  The Moonshadow’s chorus was louder in her head than Maol’s real voice. She spoke the same words. “We can’t trust the Mundoa. They lie. They’ll make promises to us, but they won’t keep them. We have to smash them entirely.”

  Maol shook his head. The scars on his face stood out starkly against flushed skin. His armor was soiled with blood and soot. “I would trust Commander Savas, Voada. Completely. He’s a man of honor, and he’ll keep any vow he makes. You’ve indicated to me that you feel much the same.”

  Voada swung her arms wide. “Savas says the right things, and yes, he was kind to Meir and me when I met him. But …” She spoke the word heavily, with a sigh. “I trusted a Mundoan’s word once, a Voice’s word, and it cost me my family and nearly my life. The Great-Voice must pay for that, because the Voice of Pencraig was just his echo.”

  “Revenge is a fine thing, Voada. I know that. I’ve acted because of that desire many times myself. But right now, we have a chance to do more, and we should set that revenge aside. You want to hurt the Great-Voice? What do you think will hurt him more than being the man who surrendered to the Clans and lost the Mundoa part of their empire? I’d be willing to wager that the Emperor will end up executing him.”

  The anamacha had come around again, sliding into Voada and out again with its whispers. “If he’s going to end up dead anyway, then let’s not wait,” she said. “This is my decision, Maol Iosa. You’re ceannàrd on the battlefield, but the battle is over.”

  “Battles are not always won on the field. Sometimes they’re won elsewhere, too.” Maol spread his hands in supplication. “Voada, Ceanndraoi, I beg you to listen to me. The Great-Voice is more valuable to us as a hostage than as a casualty. Trust me on this.”

  < … This isn’t what you want, what we want … > The voices warred inside her, tearing at her. She felt like she was being pulled apart. “I do trust you. I couldn’t h
ave asked for a better ceannàrd, and it’s obvious to me why Greum Red-Hand chose you. But in this …” Voada pressed her lips together as the chorus of the Moonshadow’s voices whispered in her head, and she found her own voice speaking the same words. “What you’re suggesting isn’t what we want.”

  “It isn’t what you want,” Maol responded. “That’s the issue. Or is it that it isn’t what your anamacha wants?”

  Sympathetic rage surged through Voada at Maol’s implication. She felt the temptation to move her hands, to say the spell words that the anamacha howled, to take the energy that they offered her. She clenched her fists, forcing her hands to remain still, but she could hear the echo of their harshness in her voice. “The Great-Voice dies, Maol. He must die.”

  Maol seemed to sigh. “Voada, I’ve spent the last stripe making certain that the Great-Voice told me everything. Commander Savas has left Onglse and is already here in the west of Albann Deas. We both know the commander isn’t a trivial opponent. We couldn’t keep him off Onglse, couldn’t stop him from taking our fortifications. Now he’s here. If you execute the Great-Voice, we’ll end up having to face him again. With the Great-Voice as hostage, Savas will hesitate, and he’ll be willing to parley. Without a hostage …” Maol shrugged. “We need to leave, Ceanndraoi, whatever you decide, because Trusa is burning. I need to see to my sub-commanders and our army. I only ask you to think about this decision. I’m going down to the river gate with the Great-Voice. Voada, make whatever decision about the Great-Voice that you must, but you need to come with me. It’s not safe here any longer.”

  She knew he was correct about the danger. Ash and sparks were falling heavily over the palace now, and the buildings outside the walls were aflame. The city burned before her.