The Changing of the Sun

by Lesley Smith

  Jashri ignored the Goddess and spoke instead to her servant girl. “This girl, she has a name?”

  “Saiara, Your Grace.”

  “And her attendant?”

  “Casparias. He was confirmed minutes before she passed out.” Sarivashi sounded weary. “What would you have me do, Your Grace?”

  “Keep me abreast of when—if—she wakes. Send the companion to record any visions and test her. Until then, no one is to see her but Rie, not even her attendant.”

  “As you wish,” the girl said, and hastily began to close the door.

  “Sarivashi.”

  “Yes, my Lady?”

  “I’m afraid you will have to postpone your visitation with your family. I will need you until this matter is resolved.”

  The grief in the girl’s voice was palpable. Jashri was well aware Vashi had been looking forward to seeing her mother and her clan for an entire year, but she agreed regardless, her distress swallowed with formality. “As you wish, your Grace.”

  Jashri cried out in fury the moment the heavy door closed. She grabbed for one of the ancient codices on the windowsill and hurled it with all her strength. It slammed against the wall with a dull thump, and Raasha woke with a start.

  Aia spoke quietly in her ear again. Come now, daughter, can you honestly say you aren’t relieved another was called?

  Jashri’s rage turned to tears, and she collapsed where she stood, sockets burning as lightning split the sky.

  By morning the sky had cleared. The air was fresher and smelled of salt and sea foam. Jashri woke, still lying by the open window and wrapped in a summer blanket. For a moment she thought Vashi’s intrusion had been nothing but a nightmare, a dream that felt too real to leave her quickly. Unfortunately, she knew this was not the case and Jashri’s mood plummeted faster than a stone in water.

  She took breakfast in her chambers, preferring the solitude. At first she had hated it, the void between her own office and her peers, much less the lower members of the Temple of the Orders. Jashri felt like she had been elevated on a pedestal and was too high to jump down without being dashed to pieces. She wondered how Kaiene the Blessed had done it, survived in a world which decided she was something more than your average Kashinai.

  Sarivashi, her voice still tinged with tears of weeping from a night’s grief at hope dashed, cleared away the plates then helped the High Oracle dress. An hour later, as the bell rang for morning offices, Jashri was ready to face her world and her own uncertain future.

  The Day of Arvan’s Descent was misty, the fog rolling in from the delta and obscuring the city after the night’s rains. From the heights of the Oracles’ Tower you couldn’t even see the Echo Isles. Vashi stepped into the city streets, and it seemed like everyone was talking about the rumoured Oracle summoned into service, even though it had not yet been confirmed by Jashri herself.

  Until the High Oracle appeared on the temple steps to confirm or deny the rumours, they would flourish and thrive with each person who elaborated on the tale.

  The traders who knew Vashi, which was most of them by this point, wanted to ask her. After all, what better source than Jashri’s trusted handmaid? Except that they knew she would never speak of what went on in the tower; it was her most sacred oath and not broken lightly. Certainly not to feed the gossip-mongering traders of Aiaea.

  So she did her errands as if it was any other morning. Most of the traders had that particular grimace which said their heads were sore from too much drinking, and most were unwashed, still covered in pigments thrown over the dancing crowds. They all had unasked questions on their lips. She was polite, but did not tarry.

  She parted with coins, suddenly missing the nights when stories were currency. Of all the people in the city, she was the most wealthy on those festive days, but the memory did not make her happy. Today she was miserable.

  Jashri had forbidden Vashi her yearly custom to visit with her friends and family. It was a stupid decree. After all, the so-called Edoi district was a stone's throw from the temple and she knew all the secret ways in and out; the ones taught to temple maidens in need of release, a night’s wandering amongst the taverns, or to make a pilgrimage to one of Kodia’s temples. She abided because it came from the High Oracle, and yet it burned, even as Jashri trusted her to leave on errands, knowing Vashi would never dream of breaking her word.

  For a moment she wished she could.

  “Sarivashi!” Senara ambushed her as the girl was heading back to the temple. “Wait!”

  Vashi knew the woman was Saiara’s cousin, just as she knew what she was going to ask. Senna was the only one Jashri called for when she was ill, refusing to be in the same room as one of the male healers. She trusted Senara for some reason, as did Eirian and the rest of the sisterhood. They had exchanged the odd pleasantry when Senna visited the Oracles’ Tower, but Vashi was frankly surprised the healer remembered her. After all, she was only a servant and the temple was full of those.

  This morning, though, it was the last thing she needed. “Healer, I can’t help you. I know nothing.”

  Senna wasn’t going to give up at that. “Please.”

  “All I know is that she still lives, but lies comatose in the Halls of Ishvei.”

  “I’m a healer, not just her blood-kin. You’ve got to let me see her.”

  “I can’t. No one is allowed near her until she wakes.” Vashi bowed her head, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Senna watched as she hurried off, anguish burning in her chest, but there was nothing Vashi could do except get to work and hope the healer didn’t take her brush off for an answer.

  “Rie, you have to let me see her. I’m her attendant.” Caspa was trying not to let the anger overwhelm him even as he begged.

  “I can’t,” Rie sounded genuinely grief-stricken. “Her Grace has forbidden it.”

  “But you lead the Ishveian Order.”

  “And Jashri leads our entire society.” She gently laid a hand on his arm. “I understand your frustration, but there’s little you can do. She’s unconscious and stable. If anything changes, you will know before Jashri does, I promise you that.”

  “Mother,” he swallowed the terror. “What if she dies?”

  “Then it’s the will of the gods and Jaisenthia’s mercy. There’s nothing we can do to change that,” Rie said. “But Saia is strong. She’ll survive this.”

  “Then what do I do?”

  She indicated one of the stools grouped around a table. “Wait. It’s all any of us can do now.”

  Meresia of the Ifunareki walked with her daughter, Thressia, through the hallowed halls of the Great Temple. Her long robes provided a jolt of colour as she stepped through the crowds of Ishvei’s priestesses in their green robes. Thressia followed a few steps behind her mother, eyes wide, drinking in every sight, sound, and smell of this sacred place.

  Now, just at the Age of Maturity, it was her first time in a temple, and as she was becoming a woman, Meresia thought it important she begin to learn the tasks that came with being a clanmother’s heir. It still burned that Thressia was never supposed to be the heir, that mantle had been destined for her first daughter, now dead to the Edoi.

  They climbed the great stone staircase to the Hall of Oracles only to find Jashri’s High Chamberlain, Darus, waiting for them. Inwardly, Meresia had to repress a sigh, but was courteous as she addressed him. “Lord Darus.”

  “My Lady Meresia.” He bowed his head in a sign of mock respect. “I’m glad to see your travels have fared you and yours well. And this must be your daughter. Thressia, is it?”

  Beside her, Thressia dropped her eyes.

  Meresia suddenly felt protective of her youngest child. She felt like he was baiting her; Darus knew the name of her first daughter, both the one the girl had been born with and the one she now possessed. There was nothing to do but get to business, to not rise to his challenge. “We have an audience with Her Grace.”

  “I’m afraid she is otherwise occu
pied. Her Grace sends her apologies.”

  “Lord Darus.” Meresia began, trying to sound calmer and less angry than she was. Jashri had promised three days and this was the second already. “You understand the tradition? The High Oracle always has words with the Edoi so we might spread them to the populace on our journey.”

  “We could wait a few more hours, Mother,” Thressia suggested, one hand on her parent’s arm.

  Darus shot the girl a look, his voice laced with ennui. “Her Grace will not be able to see you today, my Lady.”

  “My Lord Chamberlain-” Meresia began.

  “Misha, Arueth. See the Edoi Clanmother back to her lodgings.”

  The guards prepared to escort the Edoi women out of the temple. As they passed through the temple complex, Meresia saw the girl now known as Sarivashi, once Adria of the Edoi. Her firstborn daughter saw her from across the crowded hallway, but the guards didn’t miss a beat as they escorted the Edoi visitors out.

  Jeiana slept for most of the night, oblivion pulling her down as if a bag of stones had been tied around her waist, ankles, and tail. She dreamed that her beloved, whose true name eluded her, was rowing across the River while she was still standing on the shore. He would not come for her yet, not until she had seen Saiara and so many others to the Riverbank first.

  She woke to the cool touch of dawn. The windows were opened and she could smell cooking meat and bread hanging on the air. Senara, oddly sullen, was handing out wooden plates of bread, fruit, and what smelled like baelish cheese to the patients, and Jeiana nearly snatched the plate from her fingers as soon as it was offered.

  “Good morning, Ana. How do you feel?”

  “Better, thank you. May I call you Senna?”

  “All my friends do.” She relinquished the plate and Jeiana pulled a chunk from the freshly-made loaf, imprinted with the symbol for the Hall of Healing so the baker would know where it was destined to end up.

  Senna nearly snatched it back. “Slowly! Slowly, or you’ll choke. Have you never eaten before, Ana?”

  “It’s a recent thing, and I’m so hungry,” she replied, biting into the red fruit and savouring the sweet juices as they ran down her chin and throat. “What is that?”

  “You’ve never had an ataani fruit? Are they not available to the Seaborn?”

  Jeiana shook her head even as her memory scanned the remembered images of the market stalls in Gehol. “No.”

  “They’re good for you, plenty of energy in them. You should eat more.” Senara presented her with a second fruit and a glass of water. “Eat well, Ana. We have a small bathhouse that I can show you afterwards. I’m sure a bath would help, and I want to change your bandages again and check on your wounds.”

  Jeiana decided to ask the question on her mind. “As you wish, Senna. My apologies for asking, but are you all right?”

  Senna said quietly, “My mind is on other things this morning. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  The bread, fruit, and water filled her stomach and Jeiana felt renewed. For the first time she noticed that only one of the raised pallets near her was occupied. An old man was lying still, his head supported by cushions. The part of Jeiana that wasn’t Kashinai knew that this man was lying on his deathpallet, half here and half on the Riverbank.

  Jeiana went to his pallet and pulled up the chair. The man was comatose, unmoving, and his breathing was shallow. She was not Uryen, she could not see into the body or deduce ailments with physical contact, but she did know the living from those who were about to die, and this man fell into the latter category. His breathing was shallow, his cheeks hollow and death practically enveloped him like a shroud.

  She reached out and took his left hand. His skin was clammy and she wondered if there was something raging inside him, some sickness which would end his life. A part of her wanted to know, wanted to ask Senara, but the other part of her, the one which answered to a billion names and answered the endless cries for compassionate mercy didn’t need to know. The information would not heal him, or speed his passing.

  But she could.

  It took just a moment, a kind touch that released his suffering soul from his living tomb. His breathing slowed and his body relaxed as the life which had been woven into him slowly bled away, the worn strings snapping. Then he was gone, and for a while, she sat with him.

  “He’s gone, hasn’t he?”

  Jeiana looked up to see Senna standing and nodded. “Yes. A moment ago.”

  “Good, Karos deserved his rest. May the Lady and Lord show him the way across the River of Stars.” Senna said with respect, and signalled to some other priestesses who were helping. “Go bathe, we will tend to his body.”

  Jeiana stood. Her role ended here, and she accepted that.

  The bathhouse was not actually a separate building, but a large circular room with a deep pool at its heart. Steam rose, dancing in the sunlight which streamed through a lightgate. Jeiana let her dress fall to her ankles and stepped out, feeling the heat and the humidity condensing on her skin. Her tail, a new thing for her, followed obediently behind her and she wondered at its purpose. Was it to aid balance, or convey emotion? Or was it simply something different, to mark the sun-kissed ones out amongst all life in the galaxy?

  There was a sluice which would lower an ornamental jar filled with heated water. Jeiana pulled the chain and stood over a grate as the water rained down on her. She scrubbed her skin and washed the sweat out of her hair, using her nails and a rough square of cloth to remove dead skin so she might feel clean down to her soul.

  Emptied, the mechanism reset and fresh water began to pour into the upright jar. Jeiana wiped water out of her face and, clean, she went to soak in the bath, slipping into the pool with little more than a ripple. The hot water was just the right temperature, hot but not too much so. A layer of coals, white hot but not flaming, kept the water warm for hours after the fire below the bath itself had died.

  Mortality, no, corporeality, was odd. As she lay back and let the steam seep into her pores, Jeiana tried to remember everything she had put in this mortal head to help her. Most of it hadn’t made the transition, but that wasn’t surprising. The brain could only hold so much, and she had tried to keep the most important things in the forefront. She wondered how damaged hers had been, how much oxygen had been deprived from Jeiana’s body and for how long? Could it have broken the connection and sent that much information spinning into the ether?

  She could still see the outline of the timeline, of the brightest stars on this world who would be key to helping it survive. A litany of names that seemed so inconsequential now: Saiara, Senara, Chelle, Casparias, Vashi, Eirian. They were the important ones in this particular story. In generations yet to come there would be Jannah, little Cera, An’she and Sarai, Kella and Teyha. After that…the names faded but the souls she recognised.

  Before, she had been able to see how each of these souls twisted around the other, how threads were woven which would recreate a world on the brink of oblivion. The broken threads left her frustrated, tiny snippets of information and locations. She had the vaguest sense of time, of where she needed to be and when, as if Aia herself was whispering in her ear. The Kashinai said Aia spoke to everyone and she wondered: Did that include her, an impostor in a borrowed form?

  Of course it does, my dearest one. The voice was in the back of her mind, sounding like her own—well Jeiana’s—and a mix of a dozen other half remembered voices.

  She reached for a towel, then winced as she realised her back was aching again, the carefully placed bandages were soaked through. “Oh, this is not good.”

  By the time she got herself dressed, the wounds were beginning to burn and she stumbled back to her pallet. One of the male healers called for Senara and she realised the middle-aged woman was the one who ran this place.

  The healer helped her back onto the pallet and Senara hurried over, her robes swishing behind her. She thrust a small glass into Jeiana’s hands a
nd said, quite briskly, “Drink this.”

  Jeiana gritted her teeth, and drank what turned out to be a very bitter brew. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Yes, but in five minutes it will have started working. Hopefully it’ll kill the infection and dim your pain.”

  “Can I have some water?”

  Senara’s assistant poured a glass of iced water which Jeiana downed in one gulp.

  “Thank you, Telan.” It took less time for Senara to change the soaked bandages, and the healer tutted as she discarded them. “No wonder. You soaked the wounds which disturbed the healing process.”

  “It’s hard to bathe otherwise.”

  “I know, and I promise not to hold it against you. You can’t help how Ishvei made us, Ana.”

  “You do have a point.”

  Senara re-covered the wounds and then pronounced judgement. “There’s a small infection. I can give you tea to make which will help, or you can come back here each morning and I’ll make it for you.”

  Jeiana felt something inside that coloured her soul with the strangest feeling of delightful kismet. “I’ll see you in the morning then.”

  Saiara came to slowly. Her head ached and her stomach felt hollow, like the draught she’d consumed had burnt right through her innards and into her soul, leaving nothing but air and space behind. She could smell vomit and the incense burned to hide it, but the room was dark, the blinds drawn, and she wondered how long she’d been unconscious.

  She moaned, the noise sounding like the cries of the dying.

  “Saia-child?” Rie spoke softly, words thick with fear.

  “Mother Rie?”

  The matriarch sounded relieved, and Saiara was glad. “How do you feel child?”

  “I had horrible dreams, Mother, of Thaeos and his fury.” She was shaking, still unnaturally cold.

  Rie sounded worried. How long had she been unconscious? A day? A week? Months? “Child, can you see me?”

  “It’s dark, Mother. Perhaps if you lit a candle?”