The Changing of the Sun

by Lesley Smith

  She accepted Kadian’s help as he sat her up, supporting her back and head with pillows. He held the glass to her lips and watched her take slow, painful sips. Once that was done, she fell back, glad of the support.

  “Thank you, Kadian.”

  He smiled, and she realised he would make a fine healer. She had already noticed Senna taking him under her wing, and since she had awoken from her surgery, he had been nothing but attentive and kind. She wondered briefly if it was some way of apologising for his part in things but then doubted it. She suspected it was simply his kind nature.

  “Where’s Senna?”

  Chelle answered, gently placing her newest daughter in a make-shift hammock-cradle. “She’s trying to stop any more people getting sick.”

  Jeiana didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

  “You were just the first,” Kadian said solemnly. “Six other people lost limbs, one man lost his leg and died of sepsis.”

  “Aia’s Grace,” Jeiana was horrified.

  That was when her sister and the Edoi boy explained. Jeiana had been asleep for nearly three days and, in that time, Senara had been busy. She had quickly realised that an undressed wound, something as simple as a cut, could lead to someone’s death. After Jeiana, she watched as others became ill with a sun-borne infection.

  With the blessing of Lyse and Saiara, Senna set to work with the attendants to help her. She had the refugees go to the bathhouse and strip. There each person was checked for cuts, welts, bruises or tumours. The attendants were gentle, but careful, oil-covered fingers skimming over skin, and anyone with a burn-blister from their days in the desert or signs of blood-infection was passed to Senna to treat. She would cut out the tumour or drain the blisters, and then cover the wound and seal it with dressings and layers of clothing whenever the infected person needed to go outside.

  She recommended everyone keep as much of their skin covered by clothing as possible, but it would not be enough, and so the ritual continued twice daily, once at dawn and once at dusk. At first people were understandably uncomfortable, the elderly and the young in particular, and yet such was the trust that they all appeared without fail.

  Senna knew it was not enough. “Kadian, I need your help.”

  Kadian had become her apprentice. In the many years which followed, he studied the scrolls dutifully and collected necessary ingredients, which once saw him nearly die from being stung by a swarm of rather pissed off shamir. But he did what she asked willingly and showed no surprise when Senna woke one morning, still lying next to a sleeping Jeiana, and asked him to beg or borrow a large pot and a cook’s spoon then bring it to the nunnery’s kitchen.

  There had been a notation at the bottom of the scrolls, she had seen it while only a student, about a sun-repellant salve used by the Edoi who travelled through the plains and the desert. The Healer, whether he had been Uryen or not, had noted down various medicinal recipes used by the Edoi and also the other tribes and clans who crossed their paths. It was a mild thing, a barrier for use when swimming or driving a baelish but it was an idea, a place to start, and Senna quickly realised it might be their only hope.

  Most salves were made with a mix of pressed oil and shamir wax or sometimes, rendered baelish fat. All were water repellant and the mixture gave the resulting salve the perfect consistency, providing you added just the right amounts. The right salve could soothe a burn or bring a cyst to a head. It was one of the most basic things an apprentice healer learned, and one of the first things Senna taught Kadian.

  “We need to go out, to hunt for the right herbs and resins.”

  “All right.” Kadian grabbed his hakashari. “What do we need?”

  Senna paused. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Jeiana had interrupted, though she would not remember the conversation later. “It’s in my head, in my memories. I wrote them down but I still remember. I need to come with you.”

  “You can’t, you’re not well enough,” Senna spoke gently. “Rest, get your strength back.” Jeiana used her good hand and pushed the book. “Then take this.”

  Kadian took the book with its bent and dog-eared pages. He recognised it as being the indwelt woman’s most prized possession; for her to part with it, it must be something important she wanted to tell them.

  Jeiana passed out moments later. “Let me look,” Senna reached out, and Kadian handed her the book.

  Its leather was warped and the book bent from being stuffed in Jeiana’s pocket. Senna opened it to a page at the beginning, marked by a thin piece of ribbon, and saw the lists—two of them. One was marked with two flowers, one white, one red, and the second by a small drawing of the sun. Senna read the sets of ingredients and understood; one was a salve to heal and protect from the heat and anger of their sun, the other was an oil—two, technically—that would kill, quickly and painlessly when applied to the skin.

  She noted down the list for the salve, her mind already calculating ratios and percentages, and gently placed the book back with her lover. Jeiana would panic if it wasn’t near her when she awoke. The other list would come later, and it would change everything.

  Senna found her own hakashari, and led Kadian outside and into the forest.

  It took them several hours to find all the leaves and herbs, and Senna was glad the attendants had their own hives; a bowl of cooled wax waited for them when they returned, along with a bottle of callow-oil extracted from one of the trees that grew around Baaren. The attendants used both to protect perishable things like tanned leather and their walking staves from water and the harshness of all the seasons.

  She tried various methods but the one that seemed to work best involved crushing the leaves then letting them stew in the gently warmed oil as if you were making a tea. Finally, the salve was mixed and left to cool. Senna turned to Kadian and placed a sharpened knife in his hand.

  “Cut me.”

  He blinked and then shook his head. “Senna, no!”

  She turned and spoke to him kindly. “I need to test it. Its middle-day outside. Cut me and then we’ll see if the salve stops the cut getting infected.”

  “Senna, what if you’re wrong? We need you.”

  Rolling her eyes, she took the knife and then slid the sharp edge along the back of her hand. Blood followed the trail, welling up from the cut and suddenly her hand was covered in blood, she’d cut too deep and she swore.

  “Can you get me that cloth and the bowl of water? Quickly!”

  The boy jumped to attention. “Are you okay, Senna?”

  She patted the wound dry. The water had stopped the bleeding and the clotting process had already begun. “Now pass me the Salve.”

  He carefully picked up the small pot. It was tiny and made from glass, and the same size as the ones in Uryen’s kit, but he held it out to her like it was Kaiene’s hand written versions of the Sacred Scrolls or Jeiana’s precious notebook, something of value beyond worth, like baelish tears or the blood of a goddess.

  The Salve was warm on her skin and melted in an instant, leaving behind a glittering trail from the stardust pollen she had added. Then, pulling on her hakashari, Senna walked outside to greet Thaeos head on.

  Come dusk, she was smiling. The cut had healed over but, more importantly, her skin wasn’t even red. No heat-burn, no infection, nothing. That was when she began to circulate the recipe, to make as much salve as she could. That was how Senna became a living saint, saving thousands of lives while she breathed and millions after she passed over, ironically, from the very sickness she was trying to treat.

  A certain scent began to follow people. You could tell without even looking who had used salve that morning and, anyone without the tell-tale dusting of pollen on their skins was immediately asked to go to the bathhouse, for their own safety. The attendants were patient, helping people scrub dirt from their skin and then checking for any signs of infection.

  After the first few days, the first bodies had been transported to Baaren’s main burial groun
d. People stopped worrying about things as simple as privacy or personal space. The recipe was quickly taught and freely shared. This idea of a new kind of community, where each looked out for another, would soon spread like wildfire once their small enclave met up with the others waiting in Canhei, and Senara had casks of salve and attendants sent ahead to instruct the people; the sooner they passed on the message the more lives would be saved.

  After giving her a bowl of vegetable broth, Kadian helped Jeiana to the bathhouse so she could wash the sweat away and so the linen bandages on her stump could be changed and the dirty ones washed.

  “Do you want my help?” He asked gently. “Or I could ask Vashi if you prefer.”

  “No, come on, you’ll do perfectly well.”

  He helped her bathe, scrubbing the sweat from her skin and trying not to get the bandaged stump wet.

  “Ana!” Senna’s face seemed brighter than the sun. “Chelle told me you were awake. You should have called for me,” Senna chided gently.

  “You were busy. Kadian told me what you’ve been up to,” Jeiana said. “You have higher priorities than me at the moment and he’s doing pretty well.”

  Senna knew Jeiana was right, that these days Senna had to put her patients before her lover. This would change in time, of course, but now that Jeiana was on the mend, she could relax a little. “Let me change that bandage of yours.”

  “Do you mind if I?” Kadian had gone that pale colour again.

  “Go, before you vomit,” Senna dismissed him. “Time will help, I think, and proper training. We’ll sort him, dearest. Now then, this may hurt but I’ll be quick.”

  The wound was healing nicely even if Jeiana sucked in a breath that was part shock, part reality implosion at the sight of her severed limb.

  “I can still feel my fingers,” she said. “But they’re not there.”

  “That’s normal, it will fade.” Senna stroked her hair with one hand, a calming gesture that did little to soothe her lover’s soul. “But the wound is healing well. That’s a good thing, we just need to ensure it’s kept covered.”

  By late afternoon, Jeiana was able to get up and the world didn’t spin so much when she moved. Her gait, though, would take longer to recognise and adapt to the loss of her left hand. Her balance was off and her brain still remembered her hand; if she didn’t look down she could forget it wasn’t there.

  Kadian brought her water and simple, nourishing broths. “You have to get your strength back, we’ve moving on soon.”

  “All right, I know.” She took the bowl with her right hand and watched him watch her drink. “Satisfied?”

  He nodded. “Senna’s treating a couple of the walking wounded from the last caravan to come in, she’ll be back shortly. Until then she asked me to watch over you.”

  “And Vashi?”

  “She’s sitting with the oracles, with Eirian, Lyse, and Saiara, taking notes of the discussions.”

  “So I have you as a sitter?”

  “Senna has…taken me on as a trainee.” He looked distinctly nervous and uncomfortable at saying the words out loud, as if they bound him like a promise. “She says it’s the best way for me to recover from assisting in your surgery. I need to learn and, in all honesty, what use is a calligrapher in the world to come?”

  “I could use one, if Senna doesn’t mind my borrowing you now and again.” Jeiana indicated her stump. “That was my good hand, my writing one.”

  “I already spoke with Eirian about it. It’s the least I can do, after all that.”

  “Her blessing is important to you?” Jeiana found herself confused by his remark. “Because you’re Edoi?”

  “She was our Oracle, the first Edoi called since Terani and she was the one who predicted the Night Plague. And even though she’s descended now Eirian remains a guiding force.”

  “The Night Plague…” Jeiana thought, in the miasma of half remembered conversations as her other self, she remembered Uryen and Ishvei speaking of it in some other time and place. “When the Edoi founded Abbia?”

  Kadian nodded. The good Edoi child in him had listened to all the stories each night around the fire, and the adult in him still found wonder in many of them. “Having seen it with your own eyes, can you understand why we call it sacred ground?”

  “Do you believe in the gods, Kadian?”

  “Does it matter? The sun still rises each morning. We don’t have to believe Thaeos is a Starchild. I believe the Bard and the Healer walked the world, I believe he raised a child from death and that she told stories to calm the populace and together they led us to Abbia. It doesn’t matter what name I give them or whether they were gods or just gifted Kashinai, they’re a part of our history.”

  “That’s a good way to think of it,” she said. “Now I need your help. My time is running out, Kadian, and I need you to gather some things for me. Can you do that?”

  “I can try.” He sounded wary. “Why?”

  “There is one last gift I have to give, before I forget. I promised Lyse it would be this way.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kadian asked, and he sounded afraid of her answer.

  “I’m to grant her the death she’s been asking for since the day Darus mutilated her.”

  Kadian had been gone less than an hour when Vashi gently tapped on the door, carrying a tray of herb tea and pillow rolls. The smell made her stomach knot, like a hungry animal wakened by the need to hunt.

  “I wanted to see how you were.”

  “The oracles don’t need you?”

  “Lyse is resting, she’s a frail thing really,” Vashi set the tray down. “It’s not much but even I know you can’t go eating roast baelish or the delights of a Fenoian feast with a stomach so empty. So we start with tea and bread.”

  “You’re kind, Vashi.”

  “Could I sit and speak with you if you have a moment?”

  “It would be nice to have the company. I feel so disconnected, not just from myself but from the caravan. I worry I’ve waylaid you all too long.”

  “Never. Baaren was clear when Senna and Kadian rode in, Lyse and a skeleton staff remained and they’re all on baelish riding to Canhei. You need time to rest and we’ll stay until Senna says it’s safe to go.” Vashi indicated the older woman’s stump, not sure what to call it without causing offence. “How’s your…are you in pain?”

  “The tea Senna left me helps, but I imagine the memory of the limb will be with me the rest of my days,” she said. “But that’s not what you came to ask me, is it Vashi?”

  “When I was dying, I saw him, your Ferryman,” she said slowly, sounding the words carefully as if they belonged only in her mind. “He offered to let me go with him…to walk away from the pain.”

  “He will do that,” Jeiana smiled, his memory a ghost from a dozen dreams. “Why didn’t you go?”

  “I couldn’t leave, not when Saiara needed me, not without saying goodbye to Kadian and my mother,” she replied. “How many days will I live?”

  “Had Jashri not kept to her own selfish path, she could have lived to a good age. She would have lived beyond this cataclysm. You have all the time she will never use, more than enough to see your own daughter have a child of her own. If we can survive this, of course, and truthfully I don’t know who will and who won’t.”

  Vashi felt a weight lifted from her soul. “Ah, that’s good. Though I hadn’t quite thought ahead that far.”

  “No one does, what is the point in spending days not yet lived?” Jeiana said, rubbing the remains of her arm as if it pained her. “All we can do now is endure. I do not know what will happen tomorrow or the day after, only that we must wait for this to pass.”

  “I’m glad you’re still with us.”

  “I won’t be for much longer. Would you take a message to Lyse for me?”

  “Of course.” Vashi waited for instruction. “What words would you have me give her?”

  “Ask her if she’s ready. Tell her I will be with her at dusk.”
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  “Ready for what?”

  “She wants to die and I’m going to grant her that, before I forget myself completely. I’m going to show those who would need to know how to kill, how to release, those who are suffering.”

  “I’ll go and tell her. You know Senna plans to leave tonight?” Vashi asked.

  “I had a feeling about that, yes. Thank you, Vashi.” Jeiana said, and turned to finish her meal. She would need Kadian’s knowledge, and his hands, if she was to be ready by nightfall, there was so much to remember and all too little time.

  The Silent Ending

  Know that as there are beginnings so there must also be endings.

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

  Lyse slept uneasily; Jeiana’s screams had sent her into nightmares. It had reminded her of the day Darus had come to Baaren.

  She had seen him, of course, and not with her seer’s sight but with the eyes of a dennabird.

  “Cie, they’re coming!”

  There was something odd about the blind woman telling her attendant when visitors came to them. Lyse was rare even amongst the oracles; she had never had eyes of her own to see through and, instead, borrowed those of others now and again. Now in her middle-years she couldn’t do it for long, a few handfuls of minutes and no more than three sets of eyes in quick succession. The pain in her head, the screaming agony behind her eyes was worth it, to be as a bird; to walk without fear and to be free of a broken body which no longer felt like her own.

  She could still taste the copper-rich blood as she nearly drowned in it. She’d seen him coming, but mind-reading was not her gift. Darus had come with all pomp and circumstance in his travel-worn robes with a small retinue, including an Edoi guide to hold his baelish by its reins. Everyone knew the sigil of Jashri the Found, and the townsfolk had known a long time that there was a seer in their midst, a promised Voice who loved them too much to leave for the unknown south.

  He had hidden his intentions from everyone, even from Aia.