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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  Now, inexplicably, I was embarrassed. And at least some of the rumors were true. The song wormed its way through my brain again:

  Earth’s treasure, Sea’s delight,

  City of Wind and Soul of Fire

  Who treads here will return transformed

  Or mad, or not at all.

  How could I walk away from this? Wasn’t I smart enough to handle it? Gods only knew whether a human would ever receive such an invitation again.

  What the hell.

  My room didn’t look any different than it had twenty minutes ago; but while I was out, Fíana’s numinous quality had begun to reassert itself. The decanter of wine on the desk beside the door gleamed; the facets of the glasses beside the decanter sparkled. The fireplace offered a warm welcome, already stocked with firewood and flanked by tools that were as pristine as if they had never been used. The hangings on the walls, the wardrobe across from the windows, even the washstand in the corner: all were worked with artistry and unabashed grace, fitting for the residence of a legend. Even the transparent blue haze at the edges of my vision seemed to belong in this magical realm into which I’d stumbled. I pulled off my jacket and began unbuttoning my shirt.

  A garotte flashed past my nose on its way down from the top of my head. Without thinking I tucked my chin into my chest and threw myself backwards. The assassin and I fell, the garotte finally loosening from my neck as I tumbled sideways and cracked my head against the the footboard of the bed.

  I rolled into a crouch. “What the fouzh is this?” I barked.

  The assassin advanced again. I tried to grab his head, but he blocked my left arm and and gripped my right, throwing me across the room. I landed in an upside-down heap against the door, remotely aware of my own stupidity, righted myself as quickly as possible and scrambled to my feet. Before I found my footing, the assassin was on me again, all shadowy clothing and standard black hood; we crashed backwards across the narrow desk.

  My head slammed against the carved marble of the wall; my scalp scraped on the rough textures. The desk shuddered; the decanter and glasses on its surface chattered. I grabbed the decanter by the neck and slammed it against the back of the assassin’s head, showering us both in wine and shattered glass. I thrust the assassin away and pushed myself to my feet as the man tumbled to the floor. Wine ran into my eyes.

  The assassin swept my feet from beneath me; the desk rocked as I bounced to the floor. The jagged neck of the decanter rolled from my fingers. I scrambled backwards and grabbed it, leapt to my feet, and launched myself at the retreating assassin. The man seized a poker from the rack beside the fireplace and spun towards me, swinging the implement backhanded like a farmer wielding a broadsword. I ducked under the stroke and drove the broken neck of the decanter into the man’s neck. The assassin staggered backwards, then swung the poker sidelong and connected with my skull; pain exploded through my head. The man dropped to his knees, the poker falling from his hand; my own vision was wavering, but I reached down and jammed the neck of the decanter in more deeply, twisting. I shoved the man away as my legs crumpled beneath me.

  At first my only awareness was of pain in my skull. Gradually I remembered the pain was an indication of a problem I hadn’t yet solved: I opened my eyes. This was even worse; there was something in them that stung. Half-blind, I stumbled to my feet and crossed the room to the washstand; splashed water on my eyes, picked up the towel and wiped my eyes until they were clear. The towel was bloody now: no surprise there.

  I put a hand to my head, experimentally. There was a tender area roughly the size of my fist, which was puffy, and a sticky gouge more than half the length of my thumb. At least it was all scalp: there would be no need to explain it to anyone, once I’d gotten cleaned up. Gods knew Rishan and his staff weren’t going to be interested in discussing this breach of security with anyone, either. My hand came away covered in blood and shards of glass. The towel smelled of wine.

  I looked towards the spot in which I’d fallen. The rack of fireplace tools lay toppled on the hearth; the poker had landed a short distance away. Blood pooled on the hearth and soaked into the rug. But the assassin was not in evidence.

  I reviewed the situation again. The towel in my hand was covered in blood; my shirt was stained with wine. The rug was even bloodier than the towel. My head was tender to the touch. Everything added up: the fight I remembered was real. But the man who had bled to death on this rug was gone.

  I shook my head. It hurt. This conversation with Rishan was going to be even less pleasant than the last one.

  “Well,” Rishan said. “Here we are again. What have you done with tonight’s body?”

  “I rather thought you had it,” I said.

  7. Goodbye, Hello

  I took my time in the all-but-empty dining room, savoring the only hot breakfast I was likely to get in half a twelvenight or more. Morning sunlight cast bright slabs across the dining table and sparkled in the glass beside my plate. The pounding in my head had receded to a dull ache, and a day of fresh air would rid me of the rest. It would be a relief to finally put permanent distance between Rishan and myself.

  A footfall sounded in the doorway; the muscles between my shoulder blades tensed in anticipation of another uncomfortable conversation. But the Tan in the doorway was Iminor, whose clothes already exhibited the tattletales of time spent on horseback. Relief made effortless the smile courtesy demanded.

  “Good morning, sian,” I said.

  “Good morning,” Iminor replied, with a typically reserved answering smile. “I thought I’d be breakfasting alone, I’m so late.”

  “But you’ve been busy,” I said. “I have no such excuse.”

  Iminor shrugged and settled into a chair. “There’s always more to do at home than on the road. By tomorrow I’ll be as much at ease as you.”

  “I had no idea a royal consort would work so hard.”

  Iminor shrugged again. “I’m not royal. I’m sure there’s nothing I can tell you about this situation, ouirr; it means I’ve got to work twice as hard.”

  “Indeed,” I said, nonplussed, and sipped tea.

  “Well, it comes with the territory, doesn’t it?” Iminor said earnestly, meeting my eyes with the first frank gaze he’d volunteered. “Were it not for the Deluge, Letitia’s consort would have been a royal from Fáill or Muir or Banbagor. That’s my great good luck, but I’ll spend each of my days earning it.”

  This was not the first time the Deluge, whatever it was, had been mentioned in passing; but the name matched nothing in the scant Tanaan history I knew. Now I wished I’d thought to ask Macha about this topic rather than the matter of the Tanaan succession: she was the only Tanaan I knew who didn’t grow prickly for incomprehensible reasons, and there was no way I could jeopardize this morning’s fragile, unlooked-for rapport. Maybe if I kept him talking he’d drop clues I could use.

  “Earning it?” I echoed.

  “Why do the goddesses elevate any of us to such positions? Nobody knows.”

  This wasn’t true: I knew a man was born royal if a god or a goddess looked favorably on him, if his fate furthered Their designs. And he retained that status only as long as he continued to do so. But it would accomplish nothing to point this out. I toyed absently with a breakfast roll, appetite waning.

  “Being royal or semi-royal or royal by marriage means we have an obligation to serve our people,” Iminor continued. He had never looked me in the eye for so long. Rishan must be keeping quiet about last night’s assassin. “It’s the one true justification for having been set apart.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And not having been born to this position, I’ve got to work twice as hard simply not to be judged insufficient.”

  “Landing in a place to which you weren’t born is a profoundly uncomfortable thing.” A truth on either side of the mountains, apparently.

  “And yet I’d do twice as much, were my lady or the Holy Mora to require it. The gift I’ve been given—” He m
eant Letitia: I understood. “Is worth ten times what I could ever give in return.”

  I smiled ruefully. “It’s a wise man who appreciates what he’s got without having to lose it, sian. I wish I’d been half as enlightened as you when I was your age.”

  The stablemaster and his crew swarmed around the yard in front of Ériu House, preparing the mounts and gear for Letitia’s retinue. My own horse wasn’t in evidence yet, though I spotted my harp case and pack amid the caravan-load of gear waiting in the portico. Rather than standing and staring at the Tans as they worked, I wandered down the garden path again, too restless to go back inside.

  Countless songs and apocryphal stories swirled around in my head: human wizards drafted into wars between Tanaan courts; human women kidnapped, sometimes willingly, by Tanaan righthe as concubines or brood mares to supplement the shaky Tanaan reproductive ability; human champions seduced by Tanaan morae to further their ambitions. How many of those stories began with something as simple as an invitation to ride to the neighboring court? Was I going to spend Bealtan celebrating the old rite among the legendary Tana—or risking my neck in support of agendas I wouldn’t understand until too late, if at all?

  I probably ought to be worried.

  “Ouirr, good morning,” Letitia said.

  My head followed the sound of her voice, of its own accord. The Tana stood at a branching of the path, on the fork I would not have taken on my own: mysterious emerald eyes illuminated by filtered sunlight, river of golden hair braided into a thick plait—and, by all the gods, wearing pants. It was an eminently sensible wardrobe choice for travel; I had seen Letitia’s guardswoman Tru similarly attired. But on Letitia, pants left me no recourse but to stare.

  “Now, that just isn’t fair,” I said. “How do you expect the Banbagor spies to concentrate on their work?”

  Letitia laughed and took my arm; a thrill rippled through me.

  “Ouirr, even on this side of the mountains, we know enough to mistrust the honey-tongued harpist,” she said, guiding me down the path on which she stood. “Come with me; I was just about to visit the Mora’s Spring.”

  The path opened into a small grove of apple trees. Bees buzzed among the blossoms. At the center of the clearing stood a small outcrop of pale pink granite, which water or tools had carved into a series of descending pools. A spring issued from a cleft in the rock, spilling down through the small pools to fill a larger basin below. Narcissus bloomed around the perimeter of the basin, their perfume so heady my brain whirled. An odd seductive power pulsed here, in much the same way as at any human sacred site; but it felt different from any such place I had ever visited.

  “Come,” Letitia said again, releasing my arm. She bent to grasp and dip a small metal cup into the water. “The Holy Mora welcomes all travelers.”

  She offered me the cup; once again I could see the alien priestess who stood naked in the midst of a secret grove. I took the cup reverently, in both hands, sipped and handed it back. The water was as cold as mountains in winter, fresh and flavorful as only spring water can be. Her fingers brushed mine; her gaze captured me, making it impossible to look away. She drank, too, eyes still on mine.

  “Your wonders never cease,” I said. “The power of this place is so different from our sites.”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “The energy here is all about… the opening of ways. Inviting things into themselves, creating space in which things can become. It’s almost the opposite of the power sites Beallan wizards use. That magic is about bending reality to one’s will. Creation or destruction by force. This feels… upside-down.” I smiled; she returned the smile, but now I wasn’t sure my words had made sense to her. Maybe it was just that these weren’t mysteries she was allowed to discuss. “In a rather wonderful way.”

  “Mora.”

  I looked towards the entrance to the grove. Etan was there, still-faced as any human righ’s courtier. Abruptly I was aware of how close together Letitia and I stood; but to back away now would be an admission of things I didn’t want to confess.

  “I am sorry to interrupt,” Etan said. “Your caravan is ready. Shall I assemble your retinue?”

  “Thank you,” Letitia said, smiling as confidently as if she stood within a hand’s breadth of men not her consort every day. Etan curtsied and withdrew.

  “Right, so,” Letitia said. Her mouth twisted into half a smile; she reached up and touched my forehead. “The Holy Mora’s blessings on you, traveler. May you find the path easy beneath your feet.”

  I stepped back and bowed. “Thank you.”

  Letitia smiled and took my arm again and led me back out of the garden. The house yard was even more crowded than a few minutes ago. Not only horses and stable hands but most of Letitia’s retinue stood in the yard, restless; suddenly the unease I should have been feeling all morning crashed down on me. The horses in the front half of the train seemed agitated, as if there might be a snake nearby; the stable hand holding mine looked on the verge of losing control to the stallion’s vibrating nerves. Iminor’s and Nuad’s were faring better under their riders’ experienced handling; Letitia’s was fretful but well-controlled. I added the stable hand who drew my horse to the list of people who would be relieved by my departure.

  “Zhev,” Letitia whispered, hesitating. She was abruptly pale.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Stupidity,” she said, barely more audible. She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. “Do you know, for a moment I actually expected my companions to be here.”

  Her companions of the chamber: I had almost forgotten about those deaths. All the Tana waiting to travel with Letitia must seem pale substitutes for the young, vibrant ladies with whom I’d seen her giggling on the evening we met. I laid a hand on her arm, wishing the rules of propriety would permit me to offer better comfort.

  “This grievance had better be big,” she said. She lifted her chin and straightened her spine.

  “Good morning,” she said, pitching her voice to encompass the yard. Everyone responded in kind. She released my arm and walked up the length of the nervous incipient train, introducing or re-introducing me to everyone: Cainte the chef, who sported a sword on which she rested a hand, meeting Letitia’s gaze with a challenging look and daring Letitia to object; the new herald Boanna, who wore pants and a long-tailed coat in the typical style of heralds on the road—but whose personality was lost to me in the intellectual dissonance of a Tanaan herald wearing what the back of my head knew to be the Aballo colors, despite the fact that they were clearly Fíana’s colors as well; Etan’s assistant Flidais, the new guardian of Letitia’s chamber, who accepted the reintroduction in a gentle way that made it clear she didn’t expect to replace Letitia’s recently-deceased favorite; and three fresh-faced daughters of the Ériu clan, who were aquiver with their opportunity to serve the mora as maidens of the chamber. Except for Flidais and the new maidens of the chamber, Letitia was the only one among the party who wore neither blade nor mail: her vulnerability made the skin on the back of my neck crawl, even though I understood this was a part of the bizarre protocol we must follow.

  “And of course you remember Nuad, Fíana’s armsmaster,” Letitia said. Nuad and I exchanged bows again. “Nuad, are you ready?”

  The armsmaster nodded and laid a soothing hand on his nervous horse’s neck, battle-bound blond hair bobbing against his white-and-gold enameled armor. “Your guard will meet us at harborside.”

  “Carina?” someone behind me said. The consonants were properly formed, not elided as Tanaan usually render them. “Lady?”

  I turned towards the voice. The front door of the house swung open, and Rishan and Etan stepped out to the portico. But it was impossible to focus on them: the person standing behind Letitia, hand tentatively outstretched, was Amien.

  “Amien?” I blurted.

  The wizard wasn’t looking at me: rather at Letitia’s back. His head snapped around in my direction, and our eyes met.
Power rattled up my spine; buried memories of magic dashed themselves against the inside of my skull. Amien seemed not to have aged in ten years: his unruly lead-grey hair and age-lined face were the same as ever. But his typically regal bearing was blunted, as if he were unsure of his reception, and his black eyes were full of pain.

  “What the hell?” Amien said.

  I shook my head, swallowing a torrent of words. Halfway to Hy-Breasaíl wasn’t far enough by half.

  “Ouirr?” Letitia said, turning to me. As her face came into view, the wizard’s equine visage shifted into crushing disappointment.

  I cleared my throat. “Mora Letitia Ériu a Fíana, allow me to present Amien Cughlin, Prince of the Aballo Order.”

  More arcane energies knocked against my awareness: black and red crowded around the edges of my vision, coalescing into a fog that even mundane eyes might see. Letitia granted Amien a deep nod; the wizard stared at her for a moment before executing a courtly bow. The new herald yawned audibly; Nuad blinked and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “You are—Carina’s daughter?” the wizard said, voice even more gravelly than usual.

  The power at my periphery wasn’t Amien’s: his signatures were all in greens, and he avoided anything that hinted at darkness as if it might kill him. So why did I feel I knew this energy swirling through the Ériu House yard?

  Letitia nodded; Amien glanced away, swallowed, and returned his gaze to her face.

  “Then I believe the news I carry is for you.”

  All three of Letitia’s new maidens of the chamber tumbled gracelessly to the ground; the herald staggered, reached out to support herself against her horse’s flank, and collapsed. A cocktail of lavender and valerian washed over me, and a circuit completed itself in my brain. Somewhere far away, a wizard whose name I didn’t know had launched a briocht of irresistible sleep, channeling it through something I could almost sense nearby. There were no undead Wild Hunt here today, but the mechanism and the author of this working were the same. The wonder was not why I recognized the signatures, but why it had taken me so long to place them.