The Changing of the Sun

by Lesley Smith

Senara moved long strands out of Saiara's eyes and began to brush out her hair. They were maternal cousins and shared both of their mothers’ fine hair. Senara’s was a deeper shade that seemed almost blood-red when caught in the sunlight while Saiara’s was paler and more like spun gold and fell down almost to her tail. Saiara had already decided to wear it in a long plait that covered her ieshiya, signifying her commitment to Caspa and to Ishvei, but it was also a simple enough style for a temple maiden to wear.

  Senna found weaving her cousin’s hair calming, and even Saiara quietened, wrapped in warm towel and probably grateful of the peace and quiet. The bathhouse was quiet, lit with candles and dominated by a great sandclock and a lightgate which let Kaiene’s light stream on the water, illuminating the steam. Senna had thought the place would be busier, given the number of temple maidens being initiated that night.

  “There are only five of us,” Saiara said softly.

  “Oh,” Senna said. “Then I understand why you’re so on edge.”

  “Were you like this on your initiation day, Sen?”

  “In Kodia’s temple…it’s different.” Senna chose her words carefully, thinking of how she had watched Lanna and Radoric lying together and then had begun her own physical instruction at their nimble hands. Both of them were several years older than she, but even now she counted them as more family than friends. The memory made her shudder as if a breeze had touched her ieshiya. “But, yes, I was nervous.”

  “It’s an amazing place, I can’t believe you still live there,” Saiara said. “If I wasn’t with Caspa… Actually, erm, even if I was…”

  Senara chuckled as she finished the weave, tying Saiara’s hair with a piece of leather and sealing it with wax and an emerald green feather. “You’re not the first to say that. It usually happens daily. Now, shall we get you dressed?”

  Saiara’s robes, the deep green of emeralds, were lying carefully folded next to her and her cousin was eying them with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

  “Yes.”

  The linen clothes fell around her like they were custom-made, and as Senna arranged the robes, Saiara’s back straightened and she became a different person. There was a confidence there which hadn’t been there a few minutes before. By the time Senna put the silver chain and the thumbnail-sized emerald around her cousin’s throat, Saia was no longer there and Priestess Saiara of Ishvei’s Order had taken her place.

  Senara looked at her proudly. “Ah, there’s the temple maiden I’ve been looking for.”

  “Really?”

  She tucked a wisp of hair behind Saiara’s ear and then stood back to assess her cousin. “Yes, I think you’ll do.”

  The Temple was packed with people. Lanterns had been strung to provide guiding lights up the main temple steps. The neophytes walked in procession, their attendants-to-be beside them, each glad of the covered walkway which protected them from the rain blanketing the city. Senara looked like she was swelling with pride when Saiara surreptitiously glanced over as they walked up the central aisle.

  Saiara was quaking and she was sure Caspa could tell. He smiled at her reassuringly and said, “It’s going to be okay.

  “I didn’t think I would be this nervous.”

  Ishvei—as first among deities in the Kashinai pantheon—towered over the assembled crowds. She looked beatifically down at them, holding out the circle of Aia’s mirror to remind all those below that, though disembodied, her mother was still with them, a tiny voice in their minds which helped guide them.

  Around her, in their alcove-shrines, were the minor deities, all gazing at them from behind stone eyes. The only ones who couldn’t be seen was Jaisenthia and her Ferryman, who were hidden directly behind Ishvei’s massive statue, away from memory and plain sight. Saiara never thought that was right, especially when death was as big a part of existence as being born.

  On the dais by Ishvei’s Table, the Matriarch of the Order of the Lady of Words was waiting for them. Rie was plump, pregnant with her second daughter, and recently elevated to her position after the the birth of her first the previous year. She wore green robes and a perfect emerald, with her hair bound back by a matching scarf and cascading over her shoulders.

  “Greetings, daughters and sons. Come forward, come!”

  She beckoned them up to stand around the statue and table in a semi-circle. Taking a gulp, Saiara stepped up and Caspa, hand still in hers, followed.

  “You come here, barefoot and in your robes of office, to enter into Ishvei’s service as her maidens and their attendants. Welcome to your new lives, my children.” Rie said. “Attendants, please step forward and take the oath.”

  Caspa let go of Saiara’s hand and she watched him approach the matriarch. His attendant’s robes were black; a long tunic fell over carefully tailored trousers, his feet bare, and his tail trailing behind him. His hair was cut short, his uniform covered his ieshiya and he looked smart, more like a priest than her rock.

  She felt proud as he spoke the oath. “I, Casparias, a foundling son of the city of Aiaea, do swear in Ishvei’s name to serve my temple maiden, to aid her in all endeavours and to walk beside her until all the days of my life are done.”

  Her smile as broad as the Weeping River, Saiara hugged Caspa and only then remembered it was her turn. Her eye fell on Ishvei’s table, the simple, plain altar where their ink brushes and sacred paper waited next to the cup and a decanter full of green liquid. The cup was the one Ishvei had used while staying with Jadias’ family at their bakery and the liquid…well that was the mystery, to drink and be inspired by the Lady of Words.

  Saiara was dreading drinking that stuff, liquid inspiration or not. It was the colour of herbs or water after flowers had drooped and died. Other priestesses had told her it tasted like soured baelish milk, the kind of taste that was like a lightning strike in your mouth. In her nightmares, Saiara had taken the cup and drunk deep, then thrown up all over the assembled attendants and maidens.

  “And now, daughters, step forward. Inspiration calls to you,” Rie said, beckoning. “Come, don’t be shy.”

  Jassica went first, then Ballia, and then it was Saiara’s turn. A fleeting look at Caspa and the mental reassurance that it was a couple of seconds of her life that she would never repeat, that was all she needed to sit in the correct position in front of Rie.

  Then she spoke her oath: “I, Saiara, of the clan Evastas of the city of Aiaea, pledge myself to inspiration’s service as one of Ishvei’s daughters.”

  “Then receive her blessing,” Rie replied and handed her the cup, filled with no more than a mouthful of the strange green liquid.

  No one knew what the potion was, but it certainly contained some kind of hallucinogen. Some even said it contained a tincture of Riverweed, the most lethal of all the poisons. Saiara didn’t miss a beat; she accepted the cup, mentally held her nose, and drank. It tasted as vile as she had been promised, like the worst and most bitter of draughts proffered by healers. She swallowed, determined not to throw up, and took a moment to find calm before looking up at the matriarch.

  It was over and the temple mother spoke.

  “Welcome, Saiara, to Ishvei’s service.” Rie set an inkbrush and paper in front of her. “Now, create in her name on this holiest of nights.”

  Beside her, Jassica was already writing down a poem in beautiful cursive, and Ballia had started sketching. As Rie moved on to conduct Esha and Pennei’s induction, the paper began to swim and bleed in front of her eyes. The world slowly spun as her stomach protested and her brain screamed. She picked up the brush, dipped it into the ink and didn’t even have time to mark the page before the seizure hit her.

  Green-tinted foam began to seep from her lips as Saiara fell back, twitching as though electrocuted. Her back arched and Caspa grabbed her, trying to hold her down as her body shook, and he tilted her head so she didn’t choke on her own vomit. Esha, who had just taken her draught of the potion, went white, convinced she was seeing her own fate in her sister-prie
stess.

  Senara dashed from her seat as Saiara went still. As still as if her soul was pulled on unseen winds.

  Saiara found herself drifting in the cold darkness. Space loomed vast and silent, lit by the twinkling of stars and the glory of Thaeos, the Sun Lord, who sustains the life crafted by Ishvei.

  As she floated, released from gravity’s hold in the depths of the dark, Saiara saw Kaiene, Coronis’ lone moon; the purple-blue eye of Aia’s first Oracle spinning lazily around Ishvei’s World. Far off, twin-ringed Henam turned, liquid and gas burning purple-blue, while the dead worlds called Eien and Shadra burned, too close to Thaeos to support Ishvei’s creations.

  Saiara felt herself being pulled away from her home, a puppet on a celestial string. Space loomed, and for a moment she perceived her place in the universe, a tiny, frail mortal being. She, and other sentient souls like her, would live, love, die, and be reborn. Through her reverie, Thaeos shone, but she had the distinct impression the Sun Lord’s focus was not on Ishvei’s World. Then she remembered the words of Kaiene, from the oldest sections of the Sacred Scrolls, where she spoke of the future yet to be:

  “‘The universe, though vast, did not betray Ishvei, and Thaeos could not find his beloved Lady. For the Goddess had returned to birth her child in realms higher than mortals and star-gods know. So it was but a matter of time before He turned His gaze back upon her favoured world. And he raged.’

  The great yellow-red star turned on its own axis, flooding her body with warmth and sickly heat. Saiara sensed the star-god within, but terror struck as she realised a single giant eye, the shape of her own but with a red-gold pupil, had turned to look at Ishvei’s World. The Starchild was staring at Reshka, His anger smouldering like magma under a mountain. The ice at the top of the world, in the Frozen Land to the north, melted, and the sea rose up in anger. Lush plains became a great desert, rivers boiled and animals died, cooked alive. Finally the great Temple itself flooded, the statue of the goddess submerged beneath the water, never to be seen again.

  Part of her stood in Aiaea; watching the city swallowed whole. Another shard of her soul was in the deep desert; watching sun-worshippers falling to their knees in horror as the earth split beneath them. Then she was on the coast, on the Echo Isles, watching the great wave moving towards an unsuspecting city. She could hear screams, music and cacophony mixed together as ancient creatures were ripped from their home deep beneath the sea. The flowers in Abbia’s great bay would run red with sap and blood this year…

  Suddenly Saiara was pulled back, floating once more in space. The Starchild’s eye blinked and Thaeos’ attention shifted, his anger bubbling anew as he sensed Saiara. His voice echoed in her mind, furious: You!

  Thaeos’ rage threatened to send her spinning into infinity, and she tried to protect herself despite having no tangible physical form. Thaeos loomed large, an enraged parent towering over a disobedient child. He was focused on her, only on her. No mortal could or should survive such attention, and Saiara shrank back into herself, unprotected and terrified. He was so large it was impossible to see anything but light. There was no darkness, not anymore, and as the heat of his gaze struck, she heard herself screaming in terror and pain, her eyes burning in her sockets.

  It was the last image she would ever see.

  Dreaming in the Darkness

  Remember, for all the happiness enjoyed, there must be suffering endured in equal measure.

  The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.

  The dawn would come clear and bright, but that night torrential rain blanketed Aiaea as if someone had delivered a mortal wound to the sky, filleting clouds as if they were fish. Lightning had lit up the horizon, creating arcs of energy as it hit the Sea of Reeds. The smell of the charged air cast a blanket over the city and the populace watched from the safety of their homes.

  Summer rains were common, even storms, but this felt different. As if the gods were moving like the Edoi across the Azure Grasslands. Something was wrong; the balance had shifted and the winds of change were blowing across Reshka.

  Jashri, High Oracle of the Disembodied Goddess, had been awoken by the noise and the smell of electrified air wafting through the open window of her private rooms, and from that moment sleep evaded her like a serpent hiding in long grass. She hated the tiredness that came with the depths of the night, and the knowledge that rest ran from her only made things worse.

  Her dreams had been dark. She had dreamed of tides, of crying children and the songs of the dead. The dream haunted her even as it vanished upon waking, but she could sense that ring of truth. It was more vision than the subconscious ramblings of those wading in the River. It had haunted her for years, even though she had thought it banished when the people of Abbia had been evacuated before the Great Tide had struck the city years before. Her vision had already come to pass so why did it still torment her?

  She always dreamed as if her eyes still worked. She could see ghostly images which seemed more real to her than either her memories or her imaginings. These dreams, she knew, were the whisperings of Aia in her ear. But the Prophecy of the Wave, that had been years previously. She had saved the city of Abbia in the north and for that had been elevated to High Oracle. Why did the dream continue to haunt her? Was it just the memory or did it still mean something? Jashri cursed at her inability to divine the dreams.

  Outside the air was no longer as cool as it had been in the evening. Now it stank of humidity broken. Thunder rattled and rain battered against the carved window, making the glass vibrate. She sat in the dark, listening to the rhythmic noise, using it as a meditative aid. The pigments and colours she remembered from her childhood, the ones which painted the streets of a city she had never seen, would be washing away by now. The rains seldom came this early, this year’s Festival of Arvan’s Descent and probably Nyssa’s Conception the following day would be wet ones. Still, the oracles had played their part and stepped out amongst the populace. Their part was done now for another year.

  In the darkness, she could hear Raasha burbling softly, purring and breathing intermingled to produce an almost musical sound. The small, elderly forest cat was curled up on the end of her pallet, dreaming of chasing forgotten things. Jashri patted the sleeping feline and then rose, padding to the window seat, feeling the warm rain on her face and the energy in the air.

  She still remembered the day Eirian had gifted the cat to her, the first of many lessons a High Oracle must learn in order to guide her people. Yet the little cat had been a true friend to her during the nights when she was too afraid to move or to breathe, lest she drown in panic and half-remembered nightmares.

  Jashri thought of Eirian then. Her predecessor had experienced a vision of the Great Quake before Jashri was even born and it haunted her still. Not everyone had been saved and the ramifications had been felt even in Aiaea, where much of the artisan’s district had been gutted by fallen buildings and fires. To the north, the former city of Erathi had been abandoned; only ruins left after the earthquake destroyed the ancient buildings. Indeed, the old woman seemed grateful when Jashri had taken her place.

  She had accepted her fate, the passing of the mantle, in a way that Jashri herself never could.

  Jashri missed watching lightning. As a child of the Cavari, rain had been an infrequent occurrence around the oases and Pesh was no exception. They had sand and clay, and a spring too, but rain…that happened perhaps once a generation. Lightning they had in abundance during summer storms that lasted days.

  Her mother had taught her it was the gods’ footsteps as they crossed the River of Stars which marked the boundary between their most favoured worlds and the higher realms where they dwelled. She had loved the stories of all the worlds, of the equine herds who roamed the forests of Kodia’s World, or the books of knowledge in the libraries of the planet favoured by Arvan.

  Before her eyes has been taken and she had entered Aia’s service, she would spend hours reading the writings of Kaiene the Bless
ed. The tiny temple in her village had offered sanctuary, and she was as much a devotee of Ishvei as any artisan. As a potter, Jashri had chased inspiration and ridden it across the desert.

  She had always felt a kinship with Kaiene, who—through her beloved Jadias—had written down many stories told to her by Ishvei herself, and her favourites had been of the living creatures who swam from the seas and into the River of Stars beyond. The Kashinai are not so different from the children of other worlds, the Goddess had explained, even if physical forms might differ. But stories were for children and she had long ago left that world behind.

  She thought of the night she had lost her eyes and shuddered.

  Jashri ran her hands through her long hair. Sleep had fled and she had the feeling she would see dawn before she could rest again. A part of her wanted to call her handmaiden, Sarivashi, to braid her hair in her favourite net of sea-picked pearls. Her office was heavy on her soul tonight, a small part of her wished for peace. Her burden seemed heavier with every passing day, and yet the idea of losing it was just as abhorrent.

  “Your Grace?” Vashi knocked hesitantly. “Forgive my intrusion so late, but a messenger has been sent for you from the Temple of the Orders.”

  “It’s all right, come in Sarivashi. I was awake anyway,” she said. “And what do my sisters in Ishvei’s service have to say to me at this time of night?”

  “A dedicant of the Mystery has fallen ill and lies comatose, Your Grace.”

  Jashri’s head shot up, eyeless sockets wide and looking straight at her servant. “What?”

  “Rie herself says the girl runs a high fever and hasn’t woken since the ceremony.” She was suddenly hesitant, as if she knew her mistress wasn’t going to like her news.

  That’s how it begins. Aia’s voice was in the back of the High Oracle’s mind, sounding just like her mother, like Iasei the kindly crone. An Oracle has been called into My service.