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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “And he took his warriors and left Ulaid to take service with the great Mora Maev,” one of the Tana said softly.

  I looked across the room, hands pausing over the strings: it was spare, sinewy Easca who had spoken, a flavor of intensity I didn’t understand in her amber eyes. She’d been quiet since our first night out of Irisa: only Letitia seemed to mourn the loss of her kinsman Neide and our failure to give him a pyre more deeply. I wondered for the thousandth time at the way the right song will open lips that not even strong drink can move.

  “Yes,” I said to Easca. “And together they plotted the war and the ruin of Ulaid that was prophesied at Dierdre’s birth.”

  I shifted from toying with the chords to playing the progression as written, and brought in the melody with my right hand. The low, dark notes hummed through the harp’s sound chest, resonating against my clavicle; even the opening verses whispered the betrayal of men and the cruelty of gods. I barely remembered I had an audience this evening, half-losing myself in the song. It unwound itself under my hands, carrying me along. When it was over I lifted my hands from the strings and finally took in my audience again, awash in the familiar feeling that the harp had transported me elsewhere for a time. The Tanaan looked as worn by the musical journey as I felt—and Amien stood in the doorway, expression haunted.

  “My lord,” Tiaran said softly.

  I met her shining gaze.

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “It is only my pleasure,” I murmured; she shook her head.

  “Thank you,” she repeated.

  I offered her a grave nod. Amien cleared his throat, and a knot formed under my breastbone. The look on his face was clear: I’d been right about Vandabala, and the Tan’s situation was as dire as I’d feared. Amien stared at Letitia as if trying to figure out how to frame the news he must deliver—and sudden recognition flashed in his face.

  “Mora!” he said, something that might be amusement running beneath his tone. “I am a fool!”

  She frowned, puzzled. “I doubt that very much, my lord.”

  Amien shook his head. “The gem you wear.”

  Letitia touched the diamond that dangled beneath her torc. “It belonged to the mora Carina.”

  Amien nodded. “Iliria.”

  “What?”

  “Its name is Iliria. I… made it for her.” Abruptly his gaze was on something in the far corner of the room. “To use… in the war against Nechton. I didn’t realize—”

  Absolute consternation manifested in Letitia’s face; her narrow fingers closed around the gem as if she might pull the chain from her neck without bothering to unclasp it. “My lord Amien, is this—? The necklace is ensorceled?”

  The wizard shrugged. “It’s not a weapon, but rather… a tool. I’m sorry, this was not the time—there are other things… We should speak of this later, Mora.”

  Letitia nodded.

  “What I came to tell you—” Amien cleared his throat. “Mora, Vandabala—”

  She shook her head, pressing the fist that grasped the necklace to her mouth.

  “I understand he—took a minor hit with an enchanted blade? At your first encounter with the Bard’s Wizard?”

  Letitia swallowed, looked at the rug, nodded. In my peripheral vision I saw Mattiaci reach out and grasp Tru’s hand.

  “Mora, I’m sorry to say that—even though it seems the ghouls were not—feeding?—at the time… the blade itself carried a spell that is slower to work but no less deadly.”

  “But can’t you—?” A note of protest crept into her voice. “My lord Amien, if the Prince of the Order cannot rid a man of sorcery, then one must wonder—”

  Amien shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mora. Any explanation I could give gets very technical, very fast. The spell is a contact-spell—anyone who touched the weapon from either end would succumb to it. And it’s tied to a power source so dark I can’t even see what it is.”

  “But you must be able to do something!”

  Again Amien shook his head. “The spell’s got a nasty hook. It’s worked so any wizard who attempts to heal the victim—will become ensnared by the spell himself. I couldn’t heal Vandabala; I’m sorry. All I could do is go with him.”

  Letitia wrapped her arms around herself; the book in her lap slid down the silk of her skirts to the floor, and a map slipped out from among the pages. Iminor leaned down to reach for it, but she dropped suddenly to the floor and retrieved book and map before he could lay hands on them. She closed the book carefully and laid it with equally deliberate care across her knees, there on the floor, and looked up at Amien again. Her face was composed, but her eyes shone with unshed tears.

  “How—long?” she said finally.

  Amien sighed. “A few hours, probably.”

  Letitia nodded. For a moment the room was silent. Amien moved as if he would withdraw.

  “Lord Amien,” she said suddenly.

  “Yes?”

  “Should I assume… that all our opponents’ weapons are so ensorceled?”

  Amien sighed again. “Probably.”

  11. Beyond Death

  I knew I was dreaming, because we were back in the little grove, Letitia and I, on the island that lies in the shadow of Ériu: Zephyr, perhaps, or Apilio. Tonight no circle of Tanaan clan leaders surrounded her, and tonight she wore the ceremonial mask of the Bealtan priestess: not a full-face mask, but the sort of domino that reveals the lower half of the face, adorned with feathers and jewels and the iridescent skin of something I would have guessed to be a dragon if such beings existed outside Hy-Breasaílian tales: all shifting in color and form in the way things will when a wizard steps out of ordinary reality into the places where the magic happens. I wasn’t wearing a mask: no priest this Bealtan I, just a man who would steal a bit of Bealtan love. Nevertheless I remembered the ceremony, because no man who performs that sacred marriage ever forgets it, and I knew the proper order of things here. I was not at all certain I would follow it. This was only a dream, after all.

  There are times when it is incumbent on a wizard to let the dream show him its own face, even though he knows he dreams: when it is a message from the gods, or a dream-sending from a brother wizard. But this was just a wish-dream about something that was never going to happen; Letitia would be at Aballo by Bealtan, and I would be far from there. So I stretched out a hand to trace the silken curve of her jaw, to follow the delicate line of her neck, to explore the exquisite structure of her clavicles and the little hollows beneath them that led inevitably to the wonder of her breasts.

  All at once the mystery of it caught up with me, and a tremor skipped up my spine; the warm scent of roses in summer washed over me, and sparkling delight wrapped itself around and raised rills of rapture all over my arms and back. My breath caught in my throat; her emerald gaze, somehow intensified by the otherworldly mask, transfixed me; and without waiting for the little movement of the head a woman makes when she is inviting a kiss I rushed in to claim it, and her wondrous flavors and textures exploded across my awareness. I should do this with style—such a wonder as the seeming myth of a virgin Tana demands no less—but between one breath and the next I was lost to reason, and the only thoughts I could form concerned touching her in ways that would make her tremble even harder than I. Gently I enfolded her, all the skin of my body singing to me the delight of hers, and drew her to the ground, knelt beneath her and drew her across my lap: in this, at least, I would practice the ritual properly, ceding her the control while I warred pleasurably to escalate the pitch. Even a man who may no longer be a priest should be allowed to worship. But suddenly Amien was there, in full ceremonial regalia as if he were on his way to call the Bealtan fires, and with one glance informed me that I was once again bollocksing things up. And just that quickly I felt myself begin to shrivel.

  Any man with a modicum of Talent and training should be able to direct the flow of a dream. It should have been effortless, aware of my dreaming state as I was.

  �
��Get out of here, old man,” I said, and willed him away. But he just frowned and shook his head.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” he growled. “What makes you think you’ve earned the right?”

  Letitia glanced from Amien to me, as if seeing me for the first time; astonishment manifested in her face. And then, without preamble, she was gone, leaving me kneeling naked and suddenly cold in the midst of the grass.

  I startled, suddenly awake in the pre-dawn light, profanity dying into a whisper on my lips. My heart pounded in my ears. After a few seconds I realized it was pre-dawn light I saw, and not the green of Amien’s wards: I threw myself out of bed, flung on my clothes and grabbed my sword, and raced downstairs before I’d fully buttoned my shirt. I pelted into the house’s narrow portico, just in time to see Tiaran cross the yard to the place where Amien stood at the center and take his arm.

  “And now to bed, my friend,” she said with firm gentleness. “My men have the watch.”

  He smiled down at her, a tenderness I had never seen in him playing about his lips. “Witch. I am undone.”

  She chuckled. “You stand with your back to mine. And take a nap for a few hours. Come.” She drew him across the yard while he cast a final glance around the wall. Men stood atop it, silhouetted against the dawn-streaked sky; early morning light traced the curves of bows and the pommels of swords. It looked so ordinary that the reality of it hit me like an unexpected charge: those were Tanaan men up on that wall, I was on the wrong side of the mountains, and none of those men was likely to have any real idea what to do if something more dire than a boar approached this place. Warfare had ended here—at least until the Bard of Arcadia turned his eye on a Tana who could do him no conceivable harm.

  Amien let Tiaran draw him up the steps into the portico—and finally caught sight of me, where I stood paralyzed just outside the door.

  “Gods grant you strength,” he said: the traditional blessing a wizard gives to a colleague who steps up to share the burden of warding a place for safety. But his tone made it an accusation, and his black eyes might have melted steel. I stepped back without thinking, glancing involuntarily at the floor. Tiaran’s gaze swept from him to me, the light of analysis in her silver eyes.

  Rest well, my lord, I should have said: it is the traditional response. But my throat was full of guilt, and I could only stand mute while he stepped inside.

  When their footsteps receded behind me, I sighed, buckled the sword belt around me, and finished buttoning my shirt. I should bind my hair back into a tail, but I’d left the thong inside and had no desire to risk encountering Amien again: I crossed the yard, found a place in which someone had stood a ladder against the wall, and climbed up to walk the perimeter.

  Dianann looked peaceful from here: dawn stretched peach and pale green across the river, less than a quarter mile to my right; mist rose from its rippling surface. Rice fields spread out from the base of the wall to the terraced slopes half a mile or so to the west. At the top of that ridge a lone cowherd was already driving three dozen head—bizarre that after so much time I still tallied cattle automatically—up to the day’s pasture. Squint, and I might imagine myself in some remote corner of Tellan. I shook off the dread that thought engendered and began pacing the top of the wall.

  There were no dust clouds in the distance, no telltale sunlight on metal: none of the indications that a force is moving in the vicinity. The Tans on the wall gave me wary looks and wider berths than necessary on the narrow walkway as I passed, while I took in the appalling nature of the weapons they carried: the bows were functional, sufficient for hunting, but every edged weapon I saw looked as if it had been pulled from some trunk not opened in centuries and returned to service with only the barest of preparation.

  Lady, have mercy on them, I thought. Let us be gone from here when the Bard’s Wizard finds us next.

  I followed the curve of the wall northward, scanning the northern and eastern horizons. Across the river, homesteads dotted the areas beyond the rice fields, surrounded by pasture lands, well-maintained groves of oak, and fields of something I couldn’t identify at this distance. To the north similar farmland followed the curves of the river, until the elevation on the eastern side of the river dropped away to a valley still cloaked in early-morning mist. Beyond that valley, I knew, lay the great city of Arian, tonight’s destination. Anticipation mounted in me again: today, finally, we would enter the central territory of the Tanaan nations: the great inland sea of the Devadore and the summer capitals of the Four Realms. I’d spent years reading about those places, about the magnificent cities on the Devadore and the sacred isle at its center. These were the great centers of Tanaan learning and culture, and I had many questions that could be answered nowhere else. I peered at the northern horizon, hoping to catch some glimpse of the fabled orichalus roof of the Fíana winter palace: legend holds the gleam is visible as far away as the isle of Ilunmore on a clear day. But the weather to the north was too cloudy, or perhaps the elevation here was insufficient: I saw nothing but grey skies fading into grey morning mist.

  Reluctantly I tore my attention from the places I hoped to see tonight: the collegial centers of the Tanaan brehon and bards that are mentioned in the histories; the elegant architecture and tree-lined boulevards of the courtly district. The Tanaan sentries on Dianann House’s northern wall were as wary and ill-prepared as their counterparts on the other side of the house; below, inside the wall, the kitchen gardens and stables were quiet.

  Arian would be quiet tonight, perhaps all but empty for the season. I knew I shouldn’t expect too much, knew I would be better served to plan the training I would finally do for Letitia’s contingent this morning than to cast my mind forward and form expectations that would leave me disappointed in all the little ways Irisa had. But when had a human harpist ever visited Arian and heard the Tanaan bards in their own enclave? How far into the reaches beyond the human knowledge of history did their eipiciúilae and learning go? Did their bards know the true history of Hy-Breasaíl, and how would that history compare with the few garbled scraps we humans have? How was it possible I could afford to stay there only one night?

  If I survived the trip to Aballo, I would have to make a point of returning to Arian. Perhaps in the fall.

  If I were to survive this trip, I’d better put some thought into training the remains of Letitia’s contingent. Properly-trained knights would have spent months drilling on unit tactics; human knights who aspired to commands of their own would have been educated in at least the core philosophies of battlefield theory and served as junior officers in campaigns run by their elders, their betters, or both. All I could do this morning was distill the corpus of knowledge Letitia’s knights should have, down to the core that might allow me to keep her alive all the way to Aballo. I needed to preserve their lives as long as possible, of course—if for no reason other than the fact that she really couldn’t afford to be more thinly covered than she already was. But there was no question which life must be preserved at any cost. The question, as usual, was why.

  I walked the wall; my mind ran over all the same strategic terrain it always did. Finally I decided, for at least the fifth time, to focus our scant training time on unit tactics: teaching them to form proper ranks and useful defensive formations, focusing their minds on the unit rather than their continued fascination with distinguishing themselves and building their own reputations. As if any of them was likely to survive long enough for their reputations to matter.

  My throat knotted; the faces of the surviving Tana in the contingent flashed in my mind. Broad-faced, steadfast Tru; sinewy, brooding Easca; quiet Bruane with her red-gold hair and brows that resembled the wings of some exotic bird: how was it possible that I could allow them to continue on a mission few male warriors could be expected to weather, when I knew their lesser strength was likely to be the first thing overmastered in any encounter? How could I ask as much of them as I did of the Tans? And how would Letitia surv
ive if I tried to spare them?

  It was a problem I couldn’t solve. The only sane thing to do was to set it aside. Every commander knows that some of his men will die. I couldn’t spare any of them and hope to protect the rest. But there was still a knot under my breastbone as I climbed down the ladder at the northern edge of the gate, crossed the stream that slipped across the kitchen gardens and through the portcullis before spilling into the river a dozen feet outside the wall, and made my way to the stable.

  Quiet hung in here, broken only by the sounds of horses in stalls; sunshine filtered through unglazed, open-shuttered windows to cast beams of light through the dusty air. The stablemaster and his hands must be up on the wall carrying obsolete weapons and watching for things they would have no clue how to address: it would be unreasonable for me to demand that one of them come down and tack out my horse for me. I plucked a winter apple from a bin beside the door and strode down the dimly-lit passage, peering into the stalls.

  Finally I spotted my horse: he seemed pleased to see me, after his fashion, and eagerly accepted the apple I offered. Today he seemed not particularly put out by taking the bit: progress.

  “Well, then, old man,” I said to him, hefting the saddle into place. “Ready to show those other fellows the ropes?”

  He snorted; I shrugged. It was a ridiculous question: this horse had been bred for racing, not battle. When I bought him this winter, there had seemed no reason to choose a practical beast over one that was a pleasure to ride. I could only see my own folly in hindsight, as usual.

  I patted his shoulder and bent to fasten the girths. The ground shifted beneath my feet; blue haze gathered at the edges of my vision. I staggered away from the horse, straightening up; the beast whinnied alarm; a sudden rush of air at my back announced the attacker behind me. I shifted to grab the assailant and threw him over my shoulder; he collided with the horse, who squealed, reared, and bounced the man back into my face.