The Changing of the Sun

by Lesley Smith

  “Yes, you just don’t remember,” he said. “That’s the price you chose to pay and this…dimension, this world of dreamers is too close to your own and the world of the living. Lines blur and memories bleed. After all, you could die in your bed and never know it. Many have, and it’s one kindness in a universe of suffering.”

  “So who are you then?”

  “I am the one person who shares your burdens.”

  “You said I killed you.”

  “You did.” It wasn’t recrimination, only a statement of fact spoken with the calm detachment of a teacher reading from a scroll about some event from the ancient past. “And, as a result, you have been—unfairly in my opinion—labeled as evil, callous and the very worst of souls. But what you did, you did out of love and that is never wrong.”

  “I killed you?”

  “Trust me,” he said, and his voice was suddenly filled with sadness caused by indelible and deep-seated pain; a memory that could never fade that scarred not just his physical form but his soul as well. “That was a blessing compared to the state I existed in before.”

  The memory sparked of his screaming as venom burned inside him. Unrelenting, an eternity of agony, and with her simple prayer for cessation to his pain she hadn’t just killed him, but had brought death into the world. Her other self, the Lady of the River, had sentenced every soul in the universe to taste its bittersweet tang and so they called her the Suffering Queen, the Dark Lady, She Who Thrives on Death.

  Some worlds took a more compassionate stance, seeing her as a psychopomp, a guide from here to there and a shoulder on which almost everyone cried. Some even embraced her as a friend, a kind spirit who took dying children without pain, or who offered a swift death to the elderly and sick. Those worlds, though, were few and far between. She was glad her sister’s favoured planet was one of them.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am so, so sorry.”

  “No.” He raised her chin up and was suddenly serious, as if he was imparting the secret of existence to one who had forgotten what it is to be born. “Never apologise. What you did, it broke the system and allowed another universe to be born. You set in motion a change which has allowed learning and accrued wisdom, and has brought cessation to unbearable immortality. You ended the suffering of more people than I can count, and that’s why I followed you. It was part of the bargain, true, but I would never let you bear this burden alone. I’m there for you as you were for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you, I always have.” He leant in, lips moving against hers like a warm morning breeze. “We’re two halves of a whole, you and I. It goes beyond time and flesh, beyond gender and circumstance, and your time with Senna, a brief as it might be, doesn’t concern me once bit, and I say that not out of jealousy or envy. I would love you even if you never spoke to me again, because I’m a part of you as you are a part of me.”

  “Are you really a memory, or just my subconscious?”

  “Do I feel real to you?” His hand on her arm was warm, the blood beneath his fingers hot. “It still doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t remember you, and yet I miss you so much.”

  “I could show you, if you wanted, who you are, or rather, who you were,” he said. “But it might hasten the degradation of your mind, of your brain. Is it worth the price?”

  “Maybe.”

  He looked at her. “I could show you that your love for Senna is not just some passing phase, if you wanted, that it matters.”

  “Please.”

  Instantly the world around them changed and they were in a temple with a high domed ceiling and a floor of polished silver-grey marble. As he led her towards a small alcove-chapel, her travelling boots clicked on the floor producing an alien but eerily familiar noise. Light streamed through the wall-high stained glass windows and illuminated thousands of dust specks floating on a warm, incense-filled breeze.

  “Where are we?”

  “Another world, another universe, where words rather than physical laws can fold and warp reality.” Her companion stopped and pointed at a statue. “Look. Their names are Hyreia and Zuraia, the Lovers. Hyreia is the healers’ goddess and Zuraia the lady of assassins and death.”

  The statue in front of her lit by candles that burned with eerie blood-red and blue flames, was of two women. The faces of these goddesses had been carved in stone but worn away over the years by sand carried on hot winds. Yet anyone would know them, their hands clasped and faces pressed together in a universal gesture of a beloved’s affection.

  They didn’t look Kashinai, not in the least, but there was something familiar about them. Jeiana looked and, even erased by time, she could see her own likeness in the goddess of death and Senna’s in the Lady of Healing. It made her feel good, and she asked the question that had begun to sing in her soul. “And you?”

  He directed her attention to the next shrine. The stature in that alcove showed a hooded figure with a crook in one hand and a lamb in his arms, another following in his footsteps. “I have no name here. They call me the Shepherd because I look after all the children of this world and give some a peaceful passing before they realise how harsh the adult world truly is.”

  The scene changed again, returning them to the star-filled river. The kerash was anchored in the sandy shore, an oar lying across the top. He was sitting on a rock, leaning casually as the breeze ruffled his long hair but did not dislodge the thong which held it in place.

  “Are you all right?” He asked gently.

  Jeiana found her gaze fixed on the dancing stars in the water.

  “Jeiana?”

  She looked up. “That’s not my name. I can’t remember what is, but I know that’s not my name.”

  “True,” he said. “That’s why it’s my job to remember it.”

  Then he touched her cheek, and, for a moment, for eternity, everything was as it should be.

  Divided Loyalties

  Be honest to your heart first, your elders next. But above all, listen to Aia and trust in her. If you do these things, never fear, and your soul will shine as brightly as the sun.

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

  The swish of the callow cane cut through Vashi’s screams like the branch cut through her skin. Her hands were bound above her head with thick twine, and she was forced to kneel naked with the blows falling everywhere, even the sacred line of her ieshiya. Tears dripped from her eyes, burning the welts on her chest and making the agony even more devastating. Darus moved and the soles of her feet screamed as a single line was carved into the delicate flesh there.

  “Stop.” Jashri’s voice was calm and the blows ceased.

  For a second Vashi wondered if the Oracle, if her aunt, had come to save her from Darus and the agony of his cane.

  Vashi went limp, her world reduced to agony and suffering.

  “You thought I wouldn’t know,” Jashri hissed. “You spoke of the prophecy to souls outside this temple! You broke your oath!”

  “No.” Vashi struggled to get the word out. “I didn’t.”

  “Then how did your bitch of a mother know?”

  “Indwelt…” was all Vashi could get out as the world spun around her.

  Oblivion reached out to her and she saw a man with silver-white hair, his hand reaching out to her. He had a kind face and his voice was gentle. The rest of his features were in darkness, black and almost not quite real. He didn’t look Kashinai and yet he was as familiar to her as if he were kin, even though she was sure she had never seen him before in this life.

  “Reach out to me, daughter, and your pain will end. I came for Iasei but it would be cruel not to offer you release.”

  Vashi struggled to focus and Jashri slapped her, getting much more satisfaction out of this than she had done hitting the girl’s mother. She hesitated to say ‘her sister’, that would make it too real, even in the silence of her own mind.

  The fresh pain snapped Vashi back to the present
and the man vanished, but she sensed his presence. He wouldn’t leave her until she refused his offer.

  “You broke your sacred oath, Sarivashi.” Jashri sounded so angry, so disappointed. “I had such high hopes for you!” She turned to her Chamberlain, voice sickened but glad of him all the same. Minions did as they were told, and he was a servant, just as Vashi was. “Do not kill her, Darus, but make her suffer. And when you’re done, have her taken to Eirian so she can learn what happens when someone crosses me.”

  “I will be done by the Parliament.”

  “See you are, but wait until after before you take the girl to the Tower.”

  “As you ask, Your Grace.”

  Vashi dimly heard the sound of the High Oracle leaving them, her sandals slapping against the cold stone floor. There would be no mercy, not for her. Then the branch fell again and her screams followed swiftly behind the sound of the switch as it cut through the air.

  As Thaeos set, the oracles slowly filed into their great hall. Eirian was nervous, apprehensive, the light of hope slowly dying inside her soul. The day felt heavy and they had all heard Darus beating one of the servants; the screams had rung out across the temple complex, despite the attempt to muffle the noise. He beat them regularly but this sounded like the screams of a dying forest cat, a truly horrendous noise that chilled her soul and served as a warning to everyone in the temple.

  This is what will happen if you disobey.

  The Hall of Oracles was a beautiful room with a painted domed ceiling depicting various oracles and a crystal shard hung below the lightgate that provided a gentle light as the day dimmed. Eirian had listened to Khannam’s description when she was only a little older than Shaari and Saiara, it had stayed with her and she was glad of the years when she’d had vision. She could almost picture the hall but she was sure her mental image was nothing in comparison with the real thing.

  The oracles sat around a great stone table with a higher seat at one end: The High Oracle’s seat. She found it odd, for a tradition that had its roots in a blind bondservant, the lowest of the low, that this room was so elaborate and that the High Oracle was, metaphorically, above her sisters though they were all in precisely the same position. Eirian had never felt comfortable in that seat but tradition couldn’t always be broken, only bent, and even then there were limits.

  Kaiene had said all were born equal, that Aia treated priestesses, princes and paupers alike, regardless of the facade of social standing. Yet here, in this sacred tower, built on the place where Kaiene had spent much of her life before Ishvei’s arrival in poverty as the lowest of all temple daughters, lives were bartered and choices made that could affect an entire planet.

  “Saiara, please stand.”

  Saiara, sitting on a simple stool at the end of the table, opposite Jashri and directly in Erian’s eye line, did as she was told. Eirian had spent an hour making her presentable, if only to give the girl a tiny bit more confidence. Her hair had been pinned back with long carved sticks topped with polished caavashell and she wore a freshly laundered blue robes that only seemed to make her goodness shine even brighter; Eirian could hear it in her voice. As was traditional, her feet were bare and her posture meek, yet she was no longer a cowering wraith of a child, something more confident now dwelled inside her.

  “Saiara, tell me,” Jashri began. “Do you believe Aia speaks to you?”

  “I believe…” Saiara chose her words carefully, remembering Eirian’s advice to be humble, honest and true. “I believe Aia speaks to everyone. Some simply listen while others do not.”

  “And you, are you a listener?” Jashri’s tone was gentle but no one was fooled, least of all Saiara and Eirian. The moment the girl slipped up, the High Oracle would have her.

  “I try to be, your Grace.”

  “And your vision, do you believe it was of the future?”

  “I’m not sure, your Grace. But I am left with a lingering sense of doom, it grows by the day. She whispers to me: ‘Go north, return to Canhei.’ I cannot ignore what will happen to us if I do not heed her words.”

  “Which is what?”

  “We will all be killed. Aiaea will crumble and be swallowed whole while screaming innocents are ripped away by the tide.”

  “Do you believe you are the next High Oracle?”

  “It’s not about what I believe. I did not want this, I wished to serve Ishvei for all the days of my life. Yet I stand here, in blue and blind. I know my dreams are timeless and they echo inside my soul, I know I have lost my dearest love and my closest friend.”

  “Then be seated, Saiara.” Jashri waited a moment. “Sisters, do any of you have anything more to ask?”

  Shaari spoke softly, her words thoughtfully ordered. “How long do you think, until this calamity befalls us?”

  “We must be in the sacred caverns of Canhei by High Summer, when Thaeos is at his peak and the days are at their hottest.”

  “And did you really see a second moon drifting in the sky?”

  “Yes, I saw Thaeos destroy one of the worlds near us and the remains formed a new moon as well as belts of rock that enveloped our world. I saw the poles melting, land flooding and flaming rock falling from the skies.”

  “I’m glad you mentioned the second moon,” Jashri said. “I found a passage in the sacred scrolls attributed to Kaiene in which she details how Arvan spoke of a second moon. In past tense.”

  “I am aware of this passage.” Eirian sounded annoyed, even angry. “Where we are from, time is not a river but a great pool with its own eddies and currents. For me and mine, the past and present and future, they’re almost simultaneous. I can see two moons in the sky where now there is one and planets reduced to dust that will cradle this tiny world. I see the cataclysm of your sun’s anger and a time a hundred generations from this day when your people will stand on alien soil and dive through the ocean of the stars in siblings you don’t yet know you have.’”

  “Yes, that’s the passage,” Jashri said.

  Eirian shook her head, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. “Arvan wasn’t speaking metaphorically, he was simply trying to describe time’s flow in the gods’ realm to a mortal. I—and various scholars will back me on this if you care to check the commentaries in the library—also believe he was speaking about our future, not the past.”

  Shaari and Keiue added their voices in agreement.

  “Be silent! I am your High Oracle and until I speak otherwise, until I stand on the steps and announce my successor, you must obey me. I am, frankly, disgusted by your lack of faith and support in me. I am Aia’s Voice!”

  Eirian stood up then, making even Jashri jump. “Jashri, you know she is your successor. Why not do the right thing and simply stand down? If you do not then it is not just your life you forfeit but those of the millions across Reshka who must be warned. Think of them!”

  “Be seated, Eirian!” Jashri sounded furious and it wasn’t really surprising, no oracle had ever confronted her in this way, not in public…or as public as the sisterhood allowed. “Now, if you are all finished. Let us cast our votes.”

  The voting system was a veil of democracy. Each oracle would vote yea or nay and all the oracles—including Jashri but barring the dying Iasei—were sitting ready to cast them. The process was simple and it was also part of why Darus had been admitted to an otherwise private session. He would record the vote and Eirian was keen to see it was a fair thing, even if Darus had his own bias.

  “If you believe Saiara is to be High Oracle, raise your hand.” Jashri said. “Darus?”

  “Four vote yea, Your Grace,” Darus said.

  “Iasei has already voted ‘nay’. I, however, as the current incumbent, have the casting vote.” Jashri seemed oddly solemn and yet every woman who had voted yea suddenly knew this had been planned. “I, Jashri the Found, forty seventh High Oracle of Aia, vote nay. This session has ended, please return to your cells.”

  “Jashri!” Eirian’s voice, thick with anger and f
ear, nearly broke. “Don’t do this!”

  Chaos erupted with the entire sisterhood disgusted at the blatant fixing of the vote. Iasei was practically comatose and neither Eirian nor any of the others believed she had come around from her death-pallet to give her opinion on some young woman she had never met. Iasei hadn’t woken in week and Eirian wondered why she was lingering…only Jaisenthia would know that, of course. Such was the privilege of the gods.

  “I’m sorry, Eirian,” Saiara said quietly as they sat in their prison. “I’ve failed.”

  “No, you haven’t. She was never going to give up the position,” Eirian said. “I had hoped…but she would not be swayed.”

  “Can we do anything?” Shaari asked.

  “I don’t know.” Eirian was trying to remember everything she had learned during her own time, learning law and statute. She had asked Khannam to teach her the rules but it had been decades, her memory was not as it had been. She knew the tome she needed, The Rites of Ascension, but the closest place with a copy was the library. “There was something, but I’ll need to have codices brought from the library. I have the names of the tomes. Has anyone seen Vashi?”

  “Not since lunch,” Shaari said. “She’s probably running errands. If I see her, I’ll have her find you.”

  “I have a feeling Jashri’s not going to let even me out,” Eirian said, thinking of the screams and glad of the darkness beginning to devour the city. The noise, the anguished cries had stopped, but their victim’s suffering still lingered on the air. “Though today, I would rather be inside, I think.”

  “Mother Eirian?” Darus’ voice broke the silence. “I bring a message from Her Grace, Jashri the Found, Voice of Aia.”

  The formality was not lost on her. “Speak, Darus. My patience wears thin tonight.”

  “Her Grace asked me to send a message. She hopes you heed it well.”

  The High Chamberlain dropped something heavy on the stone floor. The noise made Eirian shudder, then she heard his footsteps moving away, stomping through the hall. It was only when Eirian stood and found the broken mess of bloodied limbs that she cried out, startled by the unexpectedness of the body even as her mind connected the dots. Aia whispered even before her fingers felt for a pulse and found blood instead, and the thin silver collar still around Vashi’s throat.