The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods)

by Barbara Friend Ish

“You can’t see it from here,” she was saying. “And behind Ériu are Zephyr, Boria… and Apilio.”

  Praise Tella, a name I recognized from earlier: I scrambled to make a contribution to the discussion. “Where they grow silk.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which they trade with whom?”

  This earned me another penetrating look. “The other clans.”

  “Clans?” Was there no longer any trade with the other Tanaan nations?

  “Banbagor has not been in the habit of international trade since the beginning of my mother’s reign,” Letitia said, as if this explained everything. This unmarked boundary felt like a precipice. Tanaan should be accompanied by signalmen who can warn unsuspecting humans away from dangerous areas of conversation, the way harbormasters employ lighted buoys to keep ships out of the shallows.

  I bowed again. “I thank you for the tour, Mora. Your harbor is the fairest I’ve ever seen, made only lovelier by your radiant presence.”

  She smiled; I was headed back into safer waters. “I look forward to welcoming you to my home.”

  The barge docked in front of an octagonal tower of white marble decorated with reliefs that I guessed were wind gods. The three gods visible from the pier were busily summoning storms, dumping rain, and propelling a ship with breath from ballooning cheeks. The sundials mounted below them read slightly later than five hours past the zenith: twelfth hour, they would have called it in Ilnemedon. I couldn’t remember how they expressed time here.

  A pair of wispy blond Tans met the barge, long lines of horses in tow: far too many mounts for the small, exhausted party that disembarked. The stableboys’ high-planed faces shifted through puzzlement to horror as Nuad quietly explained that most of the horses must be led home riderless. Letitia closed her eyes for a moment, visibly struggling for control, then led the rest of the people off the barge. I waited until everyone but the tillerman gained the shore before coaxing my own horse down the swaying ramp. By the time I stepped onto the pier, the rest of the party had already mounted.

  “Sweet Lady,” Iminor said to Letitia, reaching across the space between their horses to gently grasp her hand. “Nuad and I will see to the security of the isle.”

  Letitia nodded, still downcast. “I’ll see you for dinner, then.”

  “If not sooner,” Iminor said.

  “The clan leaders—”

  “I haven’t forgotten. Remember Grandma is madding this month.”

  Letitia sighed. “Hurry back.” She watched Iminor and Nuad ride for a few seconds, then looked around at the remains of her escort. Her gaze settled on me. “Ouirr Ellion, would you ride with me?”

  “I would be honored,” I replied.

  Ériu House stood on the height I had seen from the harbor, surrounded by orchards and gardens as disorganized as Rishan’s environs at Tyra. Aromas of lilacs and apple blossoms filled the air. The slow ride up the height seemed to soothe Letitia; within a quarter hour she returned to hostess mode. As we crested the path to the orchards that surrounded the island’s summit, the house came briefly into view. As grandly scaled as any human royal residence, Ériu House was built of exquisitely-worked marble so pale it glows in the sunlight, even more delicately wrought than the structures in the city below. Cupolas and cornices, roofs and towers: all are carved of the same radiant stone, surrounded by a garden that was preparing to announce Bealtan with a riot of blooms. But the crest of the path leveled and passed into the orchard, and the house was hidden again.

  “I see now that you were right, Mora,” I said. “I should have saved my praise.”

  Letitia laughed. “The credit is due the mora Ernmas, Fíana’s third mora. I don’t know how many battles can be laid at the front steps of that house.”

  I gave her a quizzical look.

  “Ah, a tale that never crossed the mountains? That’s odd: supposedly one of the players did.”

  I found myself smiling. I’d used that sort of tale-tease more times than I could count. “Mora, if land-rule ever becomes tiresome for you, you should consider becoming a bard.”

  She granted me a flourishing horseback bow. “Mora Ernmas Ériu, the third mora of Fíana, wanted to build the finest house in the world. But the greatest architects and stonemasons lived in Fáill, so that was where she had to travel. Fáill was proud of its ascendancy, and the mora of Fáill was quite content that her house outshone Fíana’s; the architects and stonemasons held their secrets as closely as ever, and no amount of gold would buy Mora Ernmas anything more substantial than a meal.

  “But while she was in Fáill, Ogma a Eithne, the greatest of Fáill’s architects, fell in love with Mora Ernmas. He followed her back to Fíana in secret and offered to build her this house. She paid him more than anyone had ever paid for a house, though he swore he didn’t care about the gold at all. The story goes that they made love in each and every room, in each staircase and alcove, before the house was complete.”

  Human folklore is full of men who succumb to the spell of Tana. They invariably destroy their lives to win these elusive creatures, and then one wrong word or unfortunate astronomical conjunction takes even that away. The Tana disappear; the men succumb to ruin. Why should the Tanaan tales be different?

  “Of course,” Letitia said, “there was war. As soon as the mora of Fáill discovered Ogma had gone to Fíana, she began a campaign to win him back. When Mora Ernmas announced her undying commitment to Ogma, the mora of Fáill sent no gift but war-chariots.“

  “So who won?” I asked.

  Letitia smiled. “Well, neither of them, really. In the midst of the confusion, Ogma slipped downriver to Bluewater and took ship to the Beallan lands.”

  For a moment, the surprise actually took my breath away. Stomach-aching laughter followed on its heels, beyond any hope of control. I clung to my horse, knowing I looked the fool; most of the Tanaan stared at me, amused but nonplussed. Didn’t they see the hilarity?

  “Ah, dear gods!” I gasped when I could speak. “Leaving both of them looking like fools! That’s the best twist in the tail I’ve heard in months! Rest assured the story will cross the mountains now.”

  The path climbed again; we entered the gardens surrounding the house itself. Somewhere beyond sight, a spring or fountain murmured. Lilac petals littered the path; blossoms on the verge of opening nodded on the breeze. The curves and cutwork on the house’s exterior gleamed in the sunlight, glowed in the shadows: as serene and sensual as an ancient river goddess bringing forth blessings in a headwater grove.

  “How tranquil this place is,” I said. “You’d hardly realize you were in a city.”

  Letitia nodded. “I’ve never been sure why they bothered building Tyra. There’s nothing here anyone would need to retreat from—well, except the clan—” She hesitated, mouth twisting: as if catching herself in an indiscretion.

  “A problem all royals share,” I said.

  This time her smile was one of gratitude. “Of course. How do Beallan royals handle the problem?”

  I smiled. “Build summer houses, mostly. The tanist of Ilesia—excuse me, the righ now—favors sailing expeditions.”

  “Where does he go?”

  “He won’t say!”

  We both laughed. The sharing felt more satisfying than it should have.

  Letitia reined in front of the house; the party stopped and dismounted. Tanaan servants streamed from the the front door, enveloping the shrunken group. Suddenly, for no reason I could discern, I remembered the horde of Tanaan servants who descended on me and the dead assassin in the guest room at Tyra. Among the People it is taboo for a person under a death vendetta to accept hospitality, Rishan’s herald had said.

  “Mora Letitia! Look at you!” a tall, redheaded Tana exclaimed.

  “Hello, Etan,” Letitia said.

  “Oh, can’t you just smell the estrus coming!” Etan cooed.

  “Etan,” Letitia said, warning.

  “Sweet Lord, yes!” another Tana said. “How she glows! Look
at the whites of her eyes — almost the same shade as her teeth—”

  “Flidais!” Letitia said.

  The group surged up the stairs; I stepped back, letting them pass.

  “Bet she’s been all over Lord Iminor!” Flidais said to Etan, nudging the redhead conspiratorially. “Oh, Sweet Lord, remember—”

  “Enough!” Letitia snapped, stopping. “Could we focus on what matters here, please? I almost got killed! My friends are dead!”

  “What?” Etan asked. Flidais clutched Letitia’s arm, staring.

  “Orna?” Flidais asked. Letitia shook her head.

  “Grian, and Aibell—”

  “And Sirona, and Caicer, and—” Letitia’s voice broke. “And the list goes on and on. And everyone who made it home needs to rest—Etan, please have the assistant chef prepare dinner tonight. Cainte is exhausted.”

  “Mora, no,” the chef said. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Not with the clan heads—”

  “Haven’t you trained her, then, Cainte?”

  “Why do you shame me, Mora? Let me cook.”

  Letitia sighed. “At least get her a bath, Etan. Ouirr Ellion—” She paused, looking around, finally spotting me. “What are you doing down there?”

  “Mora, I—” What did one say in this situation? I’m afraid I can’t come in because of this price I hadn’t realized was on my neck? That just sounded stupid.

  “When I was at Tyra,” I began, “Mor Rishan made it clear—”

  “Oh, fie!” Letitia said, descending the stairs again.

  “Well, his herald said—”

  “Ouirr Ellion!” Letitia stopped less than a pace away from me and tilted her head back to meet my eyes. She laid a delicate hand on my arm; the rest of the world disappeared.

  “You must understand,” she said softly, “a woman’s first Bealtan is a rocky time for her father. He cannot be held accountable for what he says for at least a month beforehand.”

  Several seemingly-unconnected facts coalesced in my head. Tana don’t function the way human women do; they come into sexual maturity almost a decade later, into estrus only once a year. Of course that time must be Bealtan! And all Tanaan still celebrate the old Bealtan rite, which the human religion reserves for the wizards and the righthe. A memory tried to breach the surface of my mind; I fought it back down.

  “The fact that my Bealtan is also my investiture—” Letitia glanced away, shaking her head. It was too easy to imagine how she would look in the glow of a Bealtan fire. No wonder Rishan was on edge.

  “Papa is impossible right now, ouirr Ellion,” Letitia said. “It is not his fault.”

  Were this true, and none of what Rishan had asserted at Tyra valid, his herald would be far from the first retainer required to spout nonsense by a nobleman’s temporary insanity.

  “He is concerned for your safety, I’m sure,” I said.

  “If anyone is improving my safety, it’s you. Please—” She took my arm in a gesture both courtly and disconcertingly sensual. “Come inside.”

  I should refuse, but I really didn’t want to. “Lady, it is impossible to tell you no.”

  “Just as it should be,” she said, throwing me one more intimate glance. She escorted me up the stairs, past the staring knot of servants and retainers, and into the house’s reception hall. The walls in here were the same as the house’s exterior: so pale that sunlight seemed to glow right through. An immense chandelier of transparent glass hung above us, singing softly in the breeze.

  “Ah,” I said. The chandelier chimed in response to my voice. “I feel as if I’ve seen this place before.”

  “Then it’s tied to your destiny.” Letitia smiled as if she were reciting an amusing superstition, but I found myself staring at her, the cold hand of some unknown god on the back of my neck.

  She shrugged. “That’s what the wisewomen say.”

  I nodded. The people on the stairs followed us inside, finally, and the chandelier chimed again.

  “Ouirr Ellion Tellan, these are Etan and Flidais a Ériu. Etan is Ériu House’s seneschal, and I commend you into her best care. Etan, please ensure that the ard-harpist’s every comfort is attended.”

  “With pleasure, Mora.”

  “Welcome to my home, ouirr Ellion,” Letitia said, ensnaring me with her emerald gaze again. “Be at rest here. I look forward to seeing you at dinner.”

  I bowed. “Your hospitality is legend.”

  5. Into the Mystery

  Ériu House seemed a world away from Tyra. A pretty, pale-haired Tana brought a tray of fruit and cheese and a decanter of wine to my room before I had so much as settled in there; Etan, the ageless blue-eyed seneschal, offered me a bath and a guide should I wish to explore the city. I gratefully accepted the bath, but not the guide. It would feel good to spend a few hours in one place.

  After a bath I wandered the elegant corridors awhile, then walked out to the broad portico overlooking the gardens. Evening cast rich golden light over the riotous flower beds and seemingly-random paths; the breeze set flowers dancing and lifted my unbound hair from my shoulders. I breathed in lilac and narcissus, mind turning once again to the assassin at Tyra and Lady Tella’s intervention to spare my life—and the attack against Letitia. Tempting as it was to see a connection between Letitia’s enemy and mine, I knew better than to imagine they might be the same person. Even extrapolating from the formerly-human ghouls sent against her to the conclusion that her enemy hailed from my side of the mountains would be a logical error. It was much more likely that some other Tanaan royal’s mage had chosen to reanimate human rather than Tanaan warriors as a matter of simple political expediency—or that some Tanaan royal or tiarn had hired a renegade human wizard.

  Naturally the idea of a renegade wizard put me in mind of the Bard’s Wizard, the man who had assassinated the ard-righ on Ardan Eve—and the upcoming Moot. Agitation swept over me; I strode down from the portico and out to the disorganized gardens.

  All the royals in the human world must be preparing to leave for Teamair, along with every trader, mummer, and pickpocket—and every patronless harpist, druid, or champion—who could possibly make the trip. Coran would sail out of Ilnemedon within days. Deneth Cooley of Ebdani, who was working day and night to look unaware of his planned nomination to the throne of the ard-righ; Ilesia’s sworn enemy Conwy of Deceang, who would stand for the post as well; even damnable Uncle Pariccan: they would arrive in plenty of time for the festival. I should have been there, too: not as I was now, deposed and disgraced. I should have been there as ard-righ-apparent. This should have been the greatest month, the greatest Bealtan of my life. I seethed as I hadn’t in a twelvenight, scattering the artfully-arranged gravel paths as I paced.

  It was far too easy to imagine the scene developing at Teamair even now. The next month would be an endless series of dinners, tournaments, parties, and other ostensibly social gatherings at which deals were brokered, would-be retainers sought patronage, and tiarn and righ angled for the best alliances they could make. The ard-harpist ought to be there, even if the man from Tellan couldn’t. Would the rest of the lords of the gorsedd send someone in my stead? I had forgotten how not to care.

  Gradually my anger cooled towards something heavier but no less painful: just as always. I began to see the garden again, to absorb the artful chaos of it, to hear the birdsong and feel the soft harbor air. Undisciplined tree cover encroached much closer than the distance of a bowshot on the house, compromising household security and infusing the garden with a warm spice aroma. The pale peppery fragrance of early spring flowers blended with the forest aroma, a herald of oncoming bacchanalia. By Bealtan this garden would be a botanical orgy. Within the twelvenight Letitia’s staff would string holiday garlands: a ritual that would be repeated in every hamlet, city, and capital across the world. How would they decorate Teamair this year, with no ard-righ to have final say over the theme?

  What would it be to celebrate Bealtan at Teamair and Uisneach as ard-righ-apparent? The we
ight in my chest increased; imagining splashed across my consciousness before I could forestall it. The grand parties hosted by all the serious candidates for the post of ard-righ would be the least of it: everything of importance would take place away from the crowd. The Triple Sacrifice: by tradition the ard-righ must perform the ceremony on Bealtan Eve. A holdover from the old religion, it would be blasphemy on any other night, even though the men who perform it no longer invoke those old Names: facing down the stallion singlehanded, dedicating one’s killing strokes to the gods; waiting while druids remove the hide of the sacrifice and a wizard dreams prophecy within.

  On an election year, each of the serious candidates for the ard-righ’s throne finds some quiet place in which to perform the ceremony on Bealtan Eve. For the ard-righ-apparent, the presiding wizard would be Amien himself. Had that sacrifice been mine to perform, there would have been a depth and richness of shared experience between me and Amien: one such as there hadn’t been since the night of my initiation into the Order.

  That had been a Bealtan Eve, too. I had been the last to know what Amien planned. I’d been expecting a Bealtan Eve observance of the sort men outside the initiate are supposed to perform: dedications to Lady Tella; stories and songs of the Lady’s Champion, the hero Cúchulainn. Not until later did I understand the nature of the true Bealtan Eve observances and how closely the illicit ones attempt to imitate them.

  Memory infiltrated me, surrounding me with the stone-walled arcane workshop in which I’d studied at Aballo. The place bore Amien’s unmistakable stamp; his energies lingered on the leather bindings of books and the very stones of the hearth. But the signatures of all the previous Princes of the Aballo Order resonated in this place, too.

  Aballo had been empty all day. Most novitiates and initiates spend Bealtan at home; most of the wizards in residence leave the isle to fulfill holiday duties in places without permanent druidic appointments. The halls echoed with quiet. I couldn’t figure out why Amien had kept me and the senior members of his workshop at Aballo; I couldn’t understand why Amien delayed lighting the Bealtan fires, summoning everyone to the workshop at sundown instead.