by Judith Tarr
“When our king had been on his throne for two hands of years, the night that had been perilous became truly terrible. Until then the dark things had never come close to the city; they skulked along the edges and raided the border villages, but round about our walls, men were safe. In that year, the dark things raided closer, and took more men and women, and in their wake left a hideous slaughter.
“Word came in from Gebtu, from Ta-senet, from Ombos—even from the chieftains of the south. They were all beset. It was everywhere, that horror. Traders were few on the river; they no longer came from far away. Every man was driven into his own town or city. Each kingdom had no choice but to protect its own. Trade, embassies, even wars and quarrels—all were ended. The world had closed in upon itself, and we were shut within our own boundaries like cattle within the fences of a field.
“Here in Waset, as everywhere, people had begun to take refuge in the city, and little by little the villages emptied of their weak and their fearful. The brave and the obstinate remained, and fools who swore that there was nothing walking the night. But none of them walked or sailed far, not any longer.
“In that tenth year of the king’s reign, the river’s flood that gives us the rich black earth for the tilling, was the lowest that it had been in the memory of the oldest of the river-god’s priests. It barely rose above its banks, barely dampened the edges of the fields. The gods’ curse was on us, and for all that we did to propitiate them, they only sent us a plague on the cattle and an army of walkers in the night.
“The enemy had no face. It was shadow incarnate, darkness visible. It had no name to give it substance; it was living nothingness. But in that void were claws, and teeth to rend both flesh and souls.
“A priest went out one night. He was a very holy man, consecrated to our lord the sun, and the light of the god was upon him. He thought to speak with this thing if he might, to discover what it was, and perhaps to bless it and invoke the grace of the god upon it, and either overcome or destroy it.
“They found him in the morning with no drop of blood in his body, and his head sundered from it and laid in his lap as he sat against the wall of the city. His eyes had been taken away, made as if they had never been. To this day, men who saw it wake screaming from their sleep.”
There was a silence. Tears ran down the queen’s face, tracking through the paint which she wore like a warrior’s armor. Estarion did not mean to trespass, but her pain was so strong, her memory so distinct, that he saw what she saw: not the priest who had died before she came to be the king’s bride, but the king himself, drained of blood as the priest had been, but not only his head was severed and his eyes unmade. Each separate limb was torn from the rest. They had found every part of him except one, and that seemed a brutal mockery: his manly organ was lost, nor was it ever found.
All of those who went out with him were gone, save the men who had been nearest him. They had heard nothing, seen nothing in the suffocating darkness, until it was gone and the dawn had come. They were alone, with their king strewn at their feet.
“No one knows what this is,” the queen said at length, “or what it wants of us or of the world. The dark gods—they want blood and souls. Their needs are simple, their rites known, though spoken of in whispers. This seems to want what the dark gods want, but all efforts to propitiate it have only made the night more terrible. Sometimes it lets a fool or a wanderer live, or satisfies itself with the stripping of a field or the running of a herd. It has no pattern to it, no weaving of earthly sense.”
“And yet,” said a portly personage who sat not far from the queen, “it is not random or capricious, like the wind across the red land. It has will; it has malice, living and potent. None of us has power to stand against it.”
That was manifestly true. The only magic here resided in the cats who deigned to share Estarion’s lap. There were priests in the hall, but they were not mages; nor was there a mage anywhere among these people. They were defenseless against any power that chose to advance against them.
No, he thought; not altogether. The sun’s light protected them, and it seemed that the walls of the city had some power, too, or else the enemy did not choose, yet, to pass through them.
They were all staring at him. His expression must be alarming. He smoothed it and said, “I don’t know what power I have against this; but whatever I do have, I place at your disposal.”
They glanced at one another. These were courtiers, nobles and priests, and like all their kind, they were born suspicious. “Suppose,” said one of those nearest the queen—not the priest who had spoken before, but an elegant man in a heavy golden collar—“that you tell us who and what you are, and why you have come. With all due respect, of course,” he said, bowing in his seat.
Estarion bowed in return. “I come from beyond your horizon. My name is difficult for your tongue to encompass. Your lady has named me Seramon; that will do, if it pleases you. I am a priest of the Sun, and the Sun is my forefather. I was hunting shadow on the other side of your sky, and found it lapping the shores of this world. My own world is not yet threatened, but will be soon. If it can be stopped here—if it can be driven back—” He drew a breath. “What I am … have you workers of magic here?”
“Indeed,” said the priest, “we work magic, who serve the gods.”
Estarion raised a brow. He could hardly call the man a liar, but there was not one grain of honest magic in that well-fed body. “May I ask what you reckon among the magical arts?”
“He’s a spy!” someone cried, back among the pillars. “He wants to know our powers, so that he can destroy us.”
“I have no fear,” said the priest, although his breath had quickened a fraction. “Am I to understand, lord, that you also are a worker of magic?”
“I am,” said Estarion. “And you?”
“I am a master of the hidden arts,” said the priest. “In the morning, perhaps we may meet in a less public place, and speak as master to master?”
“I would be honored,” Estarion said.
“Show us now!” cried the man who had spoken before. He had come out from the pillars and stood in the light: a young man no older than Daros, with the passion of youth and the suspicion of a much older and wiser man. “Show us what you are. But promise us one thing: that you’ll harm none of us here. Swear to it!”
Estarion bowed to that wisdom, however headlong the expression of it. “I will not harm you,” he said. “You have my word.”
“By the Sun your father?”
“By the Sun my forefather,” Estarion said.
He rose. Some of those closest drew away, but Tanit sat still, watching in silence. He stepped down from the dais into the space where the dancers had been. It was empty now, lit by a shaft of sunlight through the open door. It was still some time until evening, but the shadows were growing long. All too soon, the night’s terror would come.
He gathered the light in his hands and wove it as if it had been a garland of flowers. Breaths caught round the hall; he smiled. It was a simple magic, such as a child could perform, but it awed these courtiers. He bowed and presented his crown of light to the queen, offering it with a smile.
She stared at it. It shimmered, taking life from the Sun in his hand, the burning golden brand of his line. Slowly she stretched out her finger to touch the crown. It did not burn; that startled her. She lifted it with sudden decision, in hands that trembled just visibly. “It is beautiful,” she said.
“Beauty for beauty,” said Estarion. He flicked a finger. The crown lifted out of her hands and settled on her brows. Brave woman: she did not flinch.
He smiled sweetly at them all. “As for the great workings and displays of higher powers, I beg your indulgence; among my people they are not reckoned among the entertainments proper to a royal banquet.”
“And why not?” the young man demanded. “Is there truly nothing else you can do?”
“Hardly,” Estarion said.
“Then show us!”
Estarion sighed. He had been a fool to do as much as he had; it forced him to play out the game. He paused to gather the threads of his power. People were stirring, beginning to mutter. The boy with the loud voice curled his lip.
He never said what he had been going to say. Estarion brought down the lightning.
He broke nothing, burned nothing. When all of them could see again, they stared at the floor in front of him. In it was set the image of the Sun in his hand, as broad as his outstretched arms, gleaming like molten gold.
He raked his glare across the lot of them. “What more would you have, my lords? Shall I cleave the tiles under your feet? Lift the roof and leave you naked to the sky?”
“No,” the boy stammered. “No, no, my lord. Please pardon—I didn’t know—”
“Of course you didn’t,” Estarion said with edged gentleness.
That ended the banquet: even without the shock he had given it, the sun was sinking low. Those who did not live in the palace were eager to be home before the fall of dark. It could not be said that they fled, but they left quickly, without lingering over their farewells.
In a very little while, there was only Estarion in the hall, and the servants waiting to clear away the tables, and Tanit sitting like an ivory image. Her crown of sunlight had not faded with the day; it shone more brightly than lamps or torches.
He took her hands and lifted her unresisting to her feet. She looked up into his face—rather a long way, for although she was tall for a woman of her people, that was not even as high as his shoulder. But he never thought of her as small. She had a queen’s spirit, high and proud.
“You are a king of your people,” she said as if it had only just occurred to her.
“I was,” he admitted, “somewhat more than a king.”
“I see it,” she said, “like a shining mantle. You left it, yes? To become a god.”
He laughed in spite of himself. “I left to become a rootless wanderer, and then a shepherd. I’m no great lord of any world now.”
“A god is somewhat more than a lord,” she said. “You were sent to save us. The others don’t understand. They’re afraid. But you would never do us harm.”
“I would hope not,” he said.
The cats came padding down the table, among the plates and cups and empty bowls. The she-cat leaped to his shoulder; the he-cat sprang into her arms.
No magic? Maybe not as his own world would reckon it. But this queen of the people had power in no little measure. He paid it due reverence.
ELEVEN
WITH THE COMING OF NIGHT, SERVANTS DREW SHUTTERS across the windows of the palace and hung amulets and charms on the lintels of the doors. Priests walked the walls, chanting and sending up clouds of incense. Guards took station in strong-walled towers. The bright and airy city of the day became the fortress city of the night.
After so many years, there were few left who could not sleep even amid such fear. Estarion would sleep soon, but first he had to know what the night was in this world. He saw the queen to her rooms, but did not go at once to that which he had been given. He went up instead, to the roof.
The last light was fading from the sky. He saw the jagged line of cliffs across the river to the west, blacker than black, limned in deep blue and fading rose. Stars crowded the vault of heaven, not so bright as those he had known, but far more numerous, scattered like sand across a blue-black shore. This world had but one moon, smaller than Brightmoon, and wan; it rode high, but what light it cast was dim and pallid.
There was no other light in the world. The city was dark, walled against the night. Children here had grown to bear or beget children of their own, without ever seeing stars or moon.
Nothing yet stained the darkness. The night was clean, for a while. Not far away, a bird hooted softly, calling to its mate. Across the river he heard yipping and howling. Jackals, those would be: creatures like shrunken direwolves, scavengers and eaters of carrion.
Tonight he did not wait for the shadow. He was more weary than he had wanted anyone to know. He would rest, if he could, and in the morning, call on the priest who laid claim to magic.
He slept after all, as deeply as if drugged. If he dreamed, he did not remember. When he woke, the shutters were open; sunlight poured into the room. Servants were waiting to tend him, and there was breakfast: the perpetual bread and beer.
He felt sleepy and slow, but he roused as he ate. He must be as keen of wit as he could be before he faced the priests. They, even more than courtiers, drove straight to the heart of any weakness.
The servants saw to it that he was dressed in kilt and belt and broad pectoral of gold and colored stones. They plaited his hair with ropes of gold and red and blue, and painted his eyes in the fashion of their people. They declared him beautiful then, and fit to be seen, but insisted that he not go alone.
“That would not be proper,” said the eldest of them, a man much wizened by years but still bright of eye. He crooked a finger at one of his subordinates, young and strong and as tall as men grew here. “You belong to him. Serve him well, or pay the price which I exact.”
The young man blanched slightly, but bowed and acquiesced. He carried a fan and a rod like a shepherd’s staff, and walked ahead with an air of granting his charge great consequence.
Estarion was glad of the guide, and somewhat amused by the swagger the man put in his stride. He reminded Estarion a little of Daros, in his youth and bravado and his conviction that if he must be anything, it must be bold and bad.
The city had a temple for each of its nine greater gods, and a lesser temple or shrine for a myriad more. The temple of the sun was the largest and highest, a good three man-heights of hewn stone in this city of mudbrick and reed thatch. Its walls were thickly and brilliantly painted, inside and out; whole worlds of story were drawn there, tales of gods and kings.
Estarion, priest of another sun in another sky, found this place remarkably familiar. Its priests wore no torques like the one he had given to the altar of the god when he left his throne, and they shaved their heads and wore no beast’s flesh or wool, only cream-pale linen and reed sandals. Yet their chants and the scent of their incense recalled the rites of his own god; their temple with its progression of courts was rather like the Temple of the Sun in his own city.
He was at ease but not complacent when they came to what must be the shrine. It was a long hall, its roof held up by heavy pillars; a stone image stood at the far end, and before it the table of an altar.
Priests stood in ranks in front of that altar. They were all dressed in simple linen, all shaven smooth: row on row of shining brown heads. The priest whom he had met at the banquet was seated behind and somewhat above them, surrounded by a circle of older and more august priests.
It seemed Estarion merited a full conclave. He decided to be flattered rather than alarmed. There was no more magic here than there had been in the queen’s hall; what little there was, he could attribute to the cat which, having followed him from the palace, now walked haughtily ahead of him down that long march of pillars.
He halted at sufficient distance to keep all of them in sight. The cat sat tidily at his feet. It was the he-cat; he had, between last night and this morning, acquired a ring of gold in his ear. It gave him a princely and rather rakish look.
The priests regarded all of them, Estarion and the cat and the servant with the staff and the fan, as if they had been the children of Mother Night herself. They had heard the tale of the banquet from the one of their number who had seen it with his own eyes. They were afraid; and fear, in any mass of men, was dangerous.
Estarion smiled at them. “Good morning to you,” he said.
The priest from the banquet bowed stiffly. The rest did not move or speak. They were a guard, Estarion began to understand; a shieldwall. Those whom they protected might have laid claim to a dim and barely perceptible glimmer of power. In Estarion’s world it would not have sufficed to make its bearer even the least of mages, but here,
maybe, it was remarkable.
Two of them boasted this ghost-flicker. One was an old man, toothless and milkily blind. The other was hardly more than a child. Estarion inclined his head to each. “My lords,” he said.
The young one started visibly. The elder’s clouded eyes turned toward Estarion and widened. Estarion saw himself reflected there: a pillar of light, towering in the darkness.
The old man came down from the dais. The younger one made as if to guide his steps, but he took no notice. He could see all that he needed to see. He stopped within reach, peering up, for he was very small and shriveled, and Estarion was very much taller than he. “You,” he said in a thin old voice, “are nothing so simple as a god. I cry your pardon for the foolishness of my son; there are some with eyes to see, but he is not one of them. He does mean well, lord. Do believe that.”
“I believe it,” Estarion said. The plump priest, he noticed, was struggling to keep his temper at bay.
“We will not be mountebanks for you,” the old man said, “nor strive to awe you with our poor powers. Some of us may be willing to learn what you can teach. Most will refuse, and I think rightly. Men cannot and should not pretend to the powers of gods.”
Estarion bowed as low as to a brother king. “I see that there are wise men in this country,” he said.
“Ah,” said the old priest, shaking off the compliment. “I don’t call wisdom what’s only common sense. Any one of us can turn a staff into a snake, or water into blood—but you, lord, could overturn the river into the sky, and set the fish to dancing. We’d all be wasting ourselves on trifles. There’s only one thing I would ask of you.”
“Yes?” said Estarion.
“Promise,” said the priest, “that whatever you do here, whatever you came for, you will do no harm to our people or our queen.”
“I do promise,” Estarion said.