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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “We can exchange songs later,” she said, and laid the harp on a chair.

  The love of a Tana didn’t measure up to the rumors. It was pleasant enough, as loving with any experienced and willing partner is; but the mystery the stories suggest simply wasn’t there. Even her body held few surprises for a man who had spent enough time studying those attenuated forms to develop a sense of how they must look beneath their clothes. Had I truly come out here hoping the enchantment in the songs was real? Of all men, I should have known.

  6. This Sort of Thing Never Happens at Home

  As I approached the reception room in which Letitia’s dinner guests were to gather, I heard the sounds of a harp. Good: there would be at least one familiar face present. I found a pleasant smile with hardly any effort and stepped into the doorway, discovering the room already full of elegantly-dressed Tana: Macha of course, occupied with playing some song I must find time to learn; but no one else I recognized. All the Tana looked up as I stepped into the doorway; every conversation in the room expired simultaneously, and I found myself confronted by a dozen pair of otherworldly Tanaan eyes.

  I’d seen this sort of speculation on entering ballrooms and reception halls across Ilnemedon: I knew what it meant. I’d bedded one of their own, and the tale had spread in the faster-than-time-itself way of particularly juicy gossip. Now everyone present was trying to figure out whether I was worth the effort, whether Macha had satisfied, and a minor host of other questions I was too ignorant of their politics to work out. I filled the sudden stillness with the most elegant bow I could muster and said, “Good evening.”

  A chorus of Good Evening and speculative glances echoed back, so I stepped into the room. Someone else crossed the threshold on my heels; I turned to see Letitia. She was once again dressed in a gown befitting a mora in her home court: ornately-woven silk in a palette of blues that made the emeralds of her eyes sparkle like stars on a moonless night. But even those eyes couldn’t keep mine from the distraction of the necklace she now wore beneath her torc: a finely faceted teardrop diamond, roughly the size of my thumbnail at the base, which was certainly enchanted, sparkling with energies of unfamiliar and fascinating flavor. She met my eyes; her tense distraction dissolved into a regard that made the tales of Tana one hears in the human lands flit across my mind. She’d heard the gossip, too: this was evident in the odd mix of speculation and disappointment in her eyes.

  “Ouirr Ellion!” she said, sealing the spell of her otherworldly gaze with a smile, and took my arm. “Have you met everyone?”

  “Not yet,” I said, smiling down at her, and let her introduce me all around.

  Tonight she seemed to have worked out appropriate labels: I was introduced as ard-harpist, which position she explained well enough that I didn’t feel more than a moment’s impulse to correct her. Most of the Tana around her turned out to be Fiana’s clan leaders, who seemed to occupy a position somewhat greater than a human tiarn: evidently these women were the leaders of what they call great-clans, each of whose septs seem to be as numerous and diverse as the clans of any human nation. Letitia introduced all the clan leaders by name, but they fluttered around like so many birds; I found it difficult to sort out which was which. I just smiled and bowed to each of them, content to remain no more than a matter of base gossip in this company. One price on my neck was enough.

  Letitia had just introduced Tiaran, the leader of Clan Dianann, when Rishan stepped into the doorway. Instantly his animosity prickled like the charge of lightning across my skin; I lost track of the old clan leader’s too-penetrating silver eyes, meeting his venomous gaze. I nodded politely, but he spoke telepathically to Letitia, eyes on me the while.

  *Daughter!* he broadcast, the thought carrying a wealth of horror and disappointment. *What is that zhamin doing here?*

  A frown flickered across Letitia’s face; she smoothed it away. I tried to pretend I hadn’t heard the transmission and turned my attention politely on Tiaran, who appraised me thoughtfully. Her eyes made me feel the need for a mind-shield, but a mind-shield can deaden the awareness to more than consciously-expressed thoughts; and clearly I’d missed some subtext during my last encounter with Rishan, which was the last time I’d used one.

  “You’ve had a long journey, young ouirr,” Tiaran said.

  I felt my eyes seize on the place in which a new tooth was growing in her mouth: a pale sliver protruded from the spot in which an incisor was missing, looking for all the world like that of a child in the throes of cutting permanent teeth.

  *That gentleman saved my life,* Letitia broadcast, in tones of long-suffering patience. *He is my guest.*

  I wrenched my attention away from Tiaran’s tooth and tried to fix it on her face without giving in to the entrancement her eyes invited, barely hanging on to the conversation I was supposed to be holding.

  “Yes,” I said. “Almost a month now. I rode through the old Essuvian rangelands and Banbagor; someone here told me I might find the mora at Tyra, so I rode out there.”

  Rishan broadcast the equivalent of a violent head-shake. *Listen! You don’t understand what you’re dealing with!*

  “And find her you did,” Tiaran said. A certain abstraction in her gaze made me suspect she was as able to hear and distracted by the silent argument being broadcast around us as I.

  Rishan was still ranting. *He should not be in your presence! Particularly not under these circumstances.*

  I nodded. “Though not until I was on my way back here. We met on the river, as she sailed home.”

  Oh, sweet Lord Endeáril, Letitia thought: clearly not an intentional broadcast, merely a thought fueled by frustration. Please get me through to Bealtan.

  A Tan was expected to be insane on the eve of his daughter’s first Bealtan, I remembered. I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for Letitia.

  “Odd that you missed one another on your way out,” Tiaran observed.

  *Papa,* Letitia broadcast, obviously marshaling her patience. *You’ve got this all wrong. He is not—*

  I nodded. “I can only guess they sailed straight past me while I crossed one of those places where the trail leaves the bank.”

  *Zhamin are animals, each and every one. They do not respect our ways.*

  Was it true what his herald had said at Tyra: that among the Tanaan, a man with a price on his neck was not supposed to accept hospitality? Letitia had made it all seem of no consequence this afternoon. Or had I been merely hearing what I wished? Maybe I should have stayed outside, found some other place to lodge in the city, made my way upriver to see the other Tanaan nations.

  Letitia cast a dark glance across the room at Macha, who was suddenly very busy playing. She didn’t understand what Rishan meant; she thought his only agenda was her continued virginity. I felt a blush begin to creep up from my neck.

  “What made you decide to travel so far from your home?” Tiaran asked.

  *Already he—* Rishan broadcast.

  *Papa, enough!* Letitia snapped. *I’ve heard all about it already. He saved my life. You owe him thanks. Stop being rude!*

  I couldn’t speak truthfully about anything tonight. “Some centuries ago, the mora Carina was a client of the Harpist Gorsedd,” I said, willing myself to meet her eldritch eyes.

  The old Tana smiled knowingly. “That’s only an errand. I asked you why.”

  “Just needed a change, I suppose.”

  Tiaran cast me a dubious glance. “Whatever you run from only winds up following you.” She glanced past me, at Rishan; Letitia followed the old Tana’s gaze and flushed. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  *Daughter—*

  *Stop embarrassing me in front of Lady Tiaran.*

  “Letitia,” Rishan said, somehow managing to infuse the name with both cold and an odd deference. “A moment, please?”

  Letitia’s mouth twisted. “After dinner, Papa. Our guests have waited long enough.”

  Suddenly Macha stopped playing, as if she’d absorbed some cue
that eluded me; Letitia drew herself up with all the grace of a riga and walked from the room, staring pointedly at Rishan until she passed through the doorway. I stepped aside, allowing the clan leaders precedence, but Tiaran claimed my arm and pulled me into the midst of the progressing Tana, a cat’s smile playing about her lips. Rishan followed us into the corridor.

  “I owe you thanks,” Rishan said. His manner would have been considered faultless in the high court of the ard-righ at Teamair, but the tension around his otherworldly eyes suggested the words passed his lips with all the pleasure of a kidney stone. “I understand you were the one who recognized the sorcery during the attack on Mora Letitia, two nights hence.”

  I bowed, but the shocked exclamations and rustling of silk among the gaggle of Tana entering the dining room robbed the gesture of impact. By the time I had straightened up, only Letitia’s eyes remained on me.

  “It is my pleasure to serve the mora,” I said, meeting her enchanting gaze. The slow smile on her lips would have ignited an entire cord of wood.

  “Sorcery?” shrilled one of the Tana, a creature even more angular and elongated than the rest.

  “Now you understand why I have been so distraught, Scene,” Letitia said.

  “Sweet Lord, yes!” Scene said, twisting a handkerchief in her long fragile hands. “I would have been absolutely devastated to think that one of our Fíana sisters would do such a thing!”

  “Though it’s hardly more comforting to think of Banbagor engaged in the practice,” said Tiaran.

  The Tana around her nodded fierce agreement, but once again I was confused. All the songs and histories—the Breasaílian histories in particular—portray the Tanaan as great mages. When the Tanaan took Hy-Breasaíl from the demons who held it before them, it was their magic that carried the day. The humans who took Hy-Breasaíl from them were only able to defeat the Tanaan mages because of Talents who took their secrets to their pyres. And yet this was far from the first indication I’d had that the Tanaan were steadfastly averse to magic. Were the songs I had learned yet more lies? Or had something on this side of the mountains changed?

  Inside the dining room, Letitia settled in her place at the head of the table. Rishan took up the opposite seat. The Fíana clan leaders, Rishan’s herald, and a group of Tana who apparently constituted Rishan’s and Letitia’s shared staff sat down around them. I, who had for some reason been blessed by the gods, was seated in the Tanaan place of honor for a guest, at Letitia’s left hand: sufficiently far from Rishan that the ill-will in the old Tan’s stare didn’t do more than redden the tips of my ears. Iminor and his distrustful blue gaze, seated directly across from me, seemed almost benevolent in contrast.

  “How did you recognize the sorcery for what it was, at distance?” Rishan asked as the servants began pouring wine. “Is that sort of thing common among—” His gaze flicked briefly from me to Letitia; the word zhamin hovered in the air of the room, but something in Letitia’s answering stare seemed to rob the old Tan’s intent of its charge.

  “Bealla?” he finished.

  Letitia sighed.

  “Well,” I said, toying with the stem of my glass. “I wouldn’t say common—and what does generally occur bears… little resemblance… to what we saw.” Half a twelvenight among the Tanaan was improving my ease with the language, but when conversations progressed beyond pleasantries, I still found myself racking my brain for words.

  “Arcane attacks against Beallan great houses are fairly rare,” I continued. “There are—strict codes governing how magic can be used in warfare; wizards are enjoined from making direct attacks on… magical noncombatants.”

  I frowned. “Though recently, of course, the Bard’s Wizard has broken all those codes…”

  I glanced around the room: all the Tanaan regarded me expectantly. All those weird eyes staring at me ignited a little spark inside me, as if I had been magically transported to the famed battlefields of Maige Tuireadh.

  “Ah, I see I’ve been remiss,” I said. “Has news of the war not crossed the mountains?”

  “No,” Letitia said, as if grateful for the distraction. “What of this war?”

  “A rebellion,” I said. “Led by a… an insurgent called the Bard of Arcadia.”

  Letitia was suddenly intent.

  “Arcadia?” Iminor echoed, puzzled.

  I shook my head. “A mythical place. There are those who say it’s real, those who maintain it’s a—” I concluded I just didn’t know the word I needed and threw in the Ilesian word, hoping my audience would follow. “Cipher for Hy-Breasaíl—well, for what Hy-Breasaíl should have been, in their estimation…”

  “A cipher?” Iminor repeated, forming the Ilesian word carefully and looking even more perplexed.

  Damn. I shrugged. “You’re not expected to believe the man is really from a place called Arcadia, nor necessarily that he’s a bard at all. Certainly he’s not a gorsedd harpist… It’s—a code, a kharr code.”

  Iminor nodded, still puzzled. Letitia was profoundly thoughtful.

  “At any rate… Five years ago the kharr—the rebels—overthrew the capital of Uxellia. Since then the rebels have taken the entire nation of Uxellia, as well as cities in Dáirine and Gavnon—and the Liis region. This winter they—” I still didn’t know the Tanaan word for assassin; who would have thought I’d need it? “Murdered the ard-righ. Intelligence suggests Dáirine and several cities in the central region may be about to fall. The Prince of the Aballo Order has called a Grand Moot for Bealtan, at which the College of Righthe will elect a new ard-righ—and define their… strategy to eliminate the kharr. It’s not my war, not by any stretch of the truth—”

  I spread a regretful smile around the room. “And—I apologize—not exactly dinner-table entertainment. Clearly the City of the Winds is the place to celebrate Bealtan this year.” I offered Letitia a little salute with my glass, feeling Rishan’s glare.

  “We don’t share your taboos about serious conversation over dinner,” Letitia said, shooting Rishan a warning glance. “Please continue, if you would. Your rebels are breaking the rules of war?”

  I nodded. “Their leader—this so-called Bard of Arcadia—has recruited a renegade wizard to his cause. No one seems to know who he is, but evidently he’s a man of considerable power and little regard for humanity. The things he does are—totally unacceptable. Wizards are required to take an oath at initiation…” I shook my head. “I couldn’t give an accurate count of noncombatants—noble, common, and bondsmen alike—he has killed.”

  “The rebels have a grievance?” Rishan asked. His tone was oddly mild.

  “No,” I said, then hesitated. Once again I wished for a signalman to show me a path through Tanaan waters that wouldn’t exhaust my welcome.

  “Gentles,” I said slowly. “I respect the fact that the Danaan have their own gods…”

  “Goddesses, mostly,” Letitia said quietly.

  I met her eyes. “Just so. But the kharr have a false god. They bring his image into town on a cart. What begins as a traveling… unsanctioned—devotional… becomes a—” Once again I had completely exhausted my meager command of the Tanaan language. Was the word I needed shared between our tongues, as so many of the words having to do with religion are?

  “Saturnalia of the worst sort.” This time, it seemed, I’d gotten away with it: everyone appeared to understand. “All dedicated to this—god. At some point in the revel, there’s a sort of… tidal shift in the city. The fortunate loyalists are the ones who get out.”

  “Beallan history has been a long series of religious wars,” Rishan said. The condescending curl of his lip made me want to rearrange his expression by force. “The Ilesians, for example.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, with a smile I didn’t feel. Only Rishan would reduce the arrival of the true gods to an internecine squabble. “And Nechton.”

  Rishan glowered.

  “So you’ve seen this sort of thing before,” Letitia said, laying a hand on my arm. Her ey
es held absolute fascination; a thrill swept through me. She would make a particularly satisfying conquest, if Rishan knew what was going on. Just one more reason, as if I’d needed another.

  “Arcane warfare?” I said, deliberately turning my full attention on her. “There are countless tales, at least half of them… unsubstantiated. The Aballo code prevents the wizards involved in an arcane battle from talking about it to anyone outside the initiate. When it’s done properly, only the wizards involved in the battle are certain it’s taking place at all. At this moment I can’t recall any truly blatant arcane battle more recent than Nechton’s War, and most of the really noteworthy displays seem to have been much earlier.”

  It was a pity, really. The spectacular arcane battles described in the older histories never lose their power to thrill.

  “For example: the storm that foiled the Cullinn righ’s final attack on Tellnemed during the Ilesian War—an arcane storm. It rained rain, but also slugs and firespiders and mud. That was less… subtle than what you’ll usually see today, but quite effective. Even today, though, wizards use weather to—influence—the outcomes of battles on the field.”

  Finally I realized there was no hope of expressing myself precisely in this language. I could only use the words I knew to their best advantage. I relaxed, relieved of my usual harpist’s compulsion to find just the right word, and allowed myself to simply tell the tale; I paused for a sip of wine.