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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  We started down the road again, more slowly this time. We crossed a broad bridge flanked by low, relief-carved walls, of which entire panels had fallen away. I looked down, but what the space suggested had once been a river of respectable breadth and depth was now a sad furrow of black basalt carrying only a trickle at the very bottom. On the far side stood a once-grand, circular building of pale-pink granite. Carvings of snakes wound up the blasted pillars; the roof had been wrought in the shape of an immense rose, but half of it seemed to have melted away. As one, we reined and stopped, gazing at it. Any temptation to walk inside was quelled by a huge gap running straight from the center of the portico to the gaping door.

  “The Precinct of Tiana,” Iminor murmured. “I wonder if Her moon-temple stands.”

  We wouldn’t find out today, I knew: that temple is the centerpiece of the island’s southern quadrant. Or had been, perhaps. Subdued, the party continued on the southwest road, crossing another barren river-ring to the Precinct of Lys. It hadn’t fared any better than its sister. All the structures here were of bluestone where the Precinct of Tiana was pink granite, and all the motifs I saw in Lys’s territory spoke of the archer, the owl, and the hunt; but their great goddess had been just as unkind here. Grottoes lay smashed; elaborately-carved stelae canted at insane angles, partially submerged in the basalt. I thought again about what Amien planned to do this evening, and cold gathered inside me.

  In the Precinct of the Sun we turned south, onto a road that followed the curve of the all-but-empty river channel. Here, everything was worked of red stone: marble this time. In the Tanaan system, the Sun belongs to the great goddess Dana, but that hadn’t spared this precinct Her wrath. In the sun-circle that stands at the entrance to the Temple Mount’s Outer Way, five of the fourteen standing stones leaned against one another like men stumbling home from a tavern, three lay smashed across the broad ceremonial road, and two were missing altogether. Most of the capstones lay in surprised tumbles at the circle’s edge. We stopped again, and this time Amien slid from the saddle. I sighed and followed suit, and we stood as near the center as fallen stelae would allow, looking around. Westering sunlight sliced between two of the canted stones, casting the wizard’s steel-grey hair in gold.

  “Great Lord Ilesan,” Amien said, in a tone that made it into a prayer for understanding.

  I shook my head. “Wrong Person to ask.”

  “Ah, dear gods, these alignments…” Amien shook his head. “I had hoped—” He waved unsaid words into nonexistence and returned to his horse. I looked past the remains of the ring, to the mountain on which the temple stood, wondering.

  I knew what it is to be so angry that rage drives everything, of course. But I also knew that, even when rage pushed my conscious mind to a perch from which it did little more than observe the madness, I never lost the ability to choose my actions. I might do any number of unacceptable things in the name of anger; but even for this mortal, there was no such thing as true loss of control.

  Who would do such a thing to Her Own sacred site?

  I would get no more answers than Amien, of course. Finally I climbed back into the saddle, and we rode on.

  The Outer Way to the temple spirals up the mountain like the inlays in the Barrow. We alternately walked and rode, giving the horses what rest we could; but the long northern day was drawing to a close, and we must reach the summit before it did.

  It is one thing to read about a temple being carved straight into the heart of a mountain; another thing entirely to see it, to ride the broad spiral up its exterior that is the least of its wonders. Even in ruins, it robbed me of breath at every turning of the path. I wished I might have another day to walk its corridors, to see the places where the sun can be sighted at known times from any given point within, even in the deepest depths; to watch the constellations climb into the windows created for them and mark the passing hours by their dance. As the northern and eastern sides of the mountain sank into twilight, I spied the lights within the mountain, recognizing the same unreal flameless glow cast by the lamps at Ériu House. Now, finally, I understood what I saw: yet another of the ancient Tanaan’s forgotten magics, which still went about its business without any help or attention from those who no longer remembered how it works.

  Finally the Outer Way crested the summit. We stopped and dismounted, looking across the shallow platform that capped the mountain. An immense sun-circle of bronze-flecked goldstone had once stood around the now-bare ceremonial ground; the remaining stelae and capstones gleamed against a sky streaked with every possible color of gold, orange, and red. The only thing standing within the wrecked circle was a pale blue-grey stone. I wondered whether it really was the Tuaoh.

  If so, it was shorter than I had expected, no taller than me. Veins of brilliant colorless crystal spiraled up its length, catching all the hues of the sunset.

  “We’ll stay here, outside the circle,” Iminor said. He spoke quietly, but somehow his voice carried. Finally I realized how strangely still the air was for a mountaintop. Was this, too, some trick of ancient engineering? “The mora-in-waiting must be the only person to step into the circle until the goddess has had Her say.”

  “Her say?” Amien said.

  “The mora-in-waiting comes up through the Inner Ways and crosses the circle to the Tuaoh Stone,” Iminor said. “The stone creates a connection between the mora and the goddess. If the goddess approves the choice, She gives a sign.”

  “Such as?” I found myself speaking just as softly as they.

  Iminor shrugged. “The Stone has been known to hum. Sometimes it’s just that everyone on the summit feels Her Presence and approval. For one mora—Boanna of Fáill, it might have been—the Tuaoh’s veins began to glow.”

  There seemed to be a great deal of room for interpretation, especially if the sun hit the stone just right. Iminor nodded as if he’d heard the thought.

  “This is the same type of stone the central shaft of the Gáe Assail is wrought of,” he said. “There are stories of the core glowing through the cutwork on the housing, when the Spear was well-wielded by a mora in battle…” He cast a questioning glance at the wizard, who nodded thoughtfully, eyes on the putative Tuaoh Stone.

  Was the stone magically responsive, then, like the crystals that are the hearts of flash-weapons? Might it, too, store and then release energies on command? In a certain respect, the stones at any sacred site can be thought of in that way; but now I began to suspect this was a more powerful or at least a more responsive stone than flash-crystal. Were the effects in the Tanaan histories the results of true interventions by their goddess, or just tricks of magically-knowledgeable women? If there were some trick to it, how could a Tana born long after a prohibition on magic be expected to have the knack?

  On the other hand, if their goddess were not actually involved, whatever its innate power, the stone should be safe for Amien to use to launch a dream-sending to Sanglin.

  I couldn’t decide whether to hope for the Presence of their goddess to bless Letitia’s candidacy, or not.

  Suddenly Letitia was there, stepping out of some alcove to our left, walking slowly up the steps to the platform. She was dressed like a mora again, in a simple but elegant gown of white silk. Sunset light illumined her unbound, golden hair, tangled in the torc at her throat. Easca, Tru, and Bruane clustered in the doorway behind her. Everything was quiet as she crossed the platform and stopped in front of the stone. Finally, after an interminable second, she stretched out a hand to touch it.

  Nothing happened.

  My heart ached for her: I couldn’t have named a greater pain than rejection by one’s goddess, unless it was suffering that rejection in public. I must find some quiet moment to tell her my theory about the operation of the stone: that this might not be about her malevolent goddess at all.

  After a moment that stretched until I could barely control the impulse to intervene, she withdrew her hand, tilted her head back to look at the sky. I stole a glance around the s
ummit, seeing puzzled analysis in Amien, heart-wrenching pain in Iminor, quiet horror in most of the knights—and a strange stillness in Easca. Unexpectedly Easca caught my gaze; she flushed and looked away.

  “Right, so,” Letitia said finally in a thready voice, spun on her heel, and walked back across the platform towards the door to the Inner Way.

  “By your leave, Mora…?” Amien said quietly.

  Her head whipped around in his direction, astonishment displayed in her face.

  “I should try to get a message to my second,” he finished.

  She nodded curtly and stepped down to the narrow margin around the sun-circle; Amien drew a deep breath and walked to the stone.

  I had never attempted a dream-sending from anyplace but Aballo, and then only as a training exercise; nevertheless I knew the drill. Amien proceeded exactly as I had been taught, settling himself in a meditative posture with his head and back against the stone and his eyes on the setting sun, removing his mind from ordinary consciousness and entering the trance-state of aisling, which is the most effective for sending a dream. I couldn’t have guessed at the dream-sending’s precise content: nasclethéana tend to develop shorthands that serve them from the ceremonial circle to the dreams they send one another when apart. But I knew the intended message: Relay to Brinner, House Healer to High Chief Rohini of the Essuvians: Amien asks the High Chief to meet him and the Lady of Finias at Goibniu, eight nights hence.

  When he stretched out his awareness to encompass the stone, I felt it, a tingle against the edges of my awareness and a flavor of lightning on the air. I’d been wrong: if there were a trick to using the stone, this operation should have set it glowing or humming. I felt Amien’s mind wrap around the stone, felt the way he called its power into himself so he could bounce it back out to the aether as a sending strong enough to reach a wizard at the other end of the world. Suddenly a pulsing, blue-lightning flavor blanketed the mountaintop, and Amien was slumping to the ground.

  I had never heard of an earth-power nexus too strong for a fully-trained wizard, but it seemed clear: he was overwhelmed by this one. This wasn’t that gentle upside-down power I kept tasting in the Tanaan lands, but something huge and raw. I shouted, but Amien didn’t hear me; without further thought I bolted up the steps and across the ceremonial platform, throwing my consciousness between Amien and the stone, making myself into a wedge that might wrench them apart.

  Something started to hum.

  I reached the stone; I leaned down, scooped up the wizard, turned back the way I had come. He was lighter, wirier than I expected; the hum seemed to be coming up through the soles of my boots. It filled my ears, escalating to a roar like a cannon; all the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention. It was exactly like the split-second between tapping into a stormcloud and bringing the lightning to ground.

  I swore and ran, racing off the platform and ducking Amien behind one of the remaining stelae. As suddenly as it had started, the roaring stopped; the lightning gathering on the mountaintop dissipated. I brought the wizard to the ground as quickly and gently as possible, knelt beside him, laid an ear against his chest. His heart beat wildly, echoing in my throat. His skin was far too pale.

  “My lord?” I said. “Amien!”

  He didn’t seem to hear; I sent a thin thread of consciousness into his. His mind still echoed with the preternatural roar.

  When it came to telepathy, Amien was deaf as a twenty-year-old dog. There was probably no point in trying to send him composed thoughts. But some part of his rattled mind was aware of my presence; he stirred, there on the ground. I smoothed a hand against his hair.

  “There, now,” I said softly, mind still half in his. “All is well. Breathe, and come back.”

  His eyelids fluttered; he startled into consciousness, nearly launching himself to his feet. I laid a hand on his shoulder, holding him fast.

  “A moment, my lord,” I said. “Do you know where you are?”

  He shook his head slowly, there on the ground. “I dreamed—” He drew in a surprised breath. “Fouzh. I’m here. That was… I’m not sure the message got through.”

  “Perhaps we’ll try again at the Nemetona on the Black,” I said gently.

  He nodded. The color was returning to his face.

  “It is the Tuaoh,” he said. “On Hy-Breasaíl, it used to roar. You’ve read Pirtanien?”

  Oh, damn, I had. Before they moved the stone during the Fall of Hy-Breasaíl, before it took on the name Lia of Fáilias and evidently lost its voice, the god-stone’s recognition of the righ had been marked by a sound described as a dragon’s roar. Finally I realized the Tanaan weren’t so much watching Amien as staring at me.

  Dear gods, would this day never end? How many ways would the hideous gods of this place find to torment me? It was nothing but a tease, to dangle righship in front of me in the Tanaan lands.

  Still, that sad part of me who would perform any feat necessary to return to the place that should have been mine: he was ready to leap at the chance, ready to imagine a scenario in which the first righ of the Tanaan in millennia might be elected ard-righ at Teamair. I wanted to knock my head against the stone beside me. Gods, I was a fool!

  I shook my head: it started out directed at Amien, but after the first shake I was shaking my skull at the whole ridiculous situation.

  “There were several different stones that were claimed to be the Tuaoh after the Fall,” I reminded him. “The Lia of Fáilias was only the best known.”

  He just gave me a quizzical look.

  “My lord, I’d like nothing better than to get you off this summit,” I said, changing the subject. “Can you walk with me to the Inner Way?”

  The wizard smiled. I’d seen that look before, too. I still wanted to knock my head against a stone.

  15. In the Abode of Immortals

  The interior of the temple yet retained the exquisite design and delicate carving I’d read about—where it wasn’t crumbling into heaps of debris. We camped for the night in the topmost chamber, surrounded by an arcade of windows situated to frame the zodiacal constellations as they performed their nightly dance. An open, circular hearth at the center of the round would have provided warmth, had there been wood available. The group clustered around it anyway, faces illumined by the ancient arcane lamps, gnawing on jerky and hardtack and swapping stories about what they’d seen on their sacred isle. Amien allowed himself to be persuaded that rebuilding Letitia’s wards might wait until he’d slept, and curled into his bedroll in a shadowed corner. Letitia picked up her pack, announced her intention to meditate, and walked down the stairs leading to the next level. Every time I looked up from the horse-tack I was feigning to clean, I heard some conversation abruptly cease, found some Tanaan knight pretending he or she hadn’t been staring at me.

  “Well, then,” I said when frustration began making my hand itch for my sword. “I spent years reading about the structures of this temple. I’m going to go see how much of what I read was true.” I climbed to my feet, nodded to the group, and walked down the staircase opposite the one Letitia had used.

  At first I just paced, trying to outrun the anger. Gradually the bubbling ire quieted, and it became possible to pretend I was in this place alone. I began to truly see the galleries I traversed. Tales I wavered on the verge of identifying marched, danced, flew, and battled their ways along the inner walls, facing down the arcades that opened on the stars. Ancient arcane lights concealed behind columns and places less obvious bathed the crumbling frescoes on the ceilings with crisp, unforgiving illumination. The galleries sloped almost imperceptibly downward; gracefully curving staircases eased more abrupt transitions. Every so often, an arcade opened into an alcove, creating a space like a balcony that might have been intended for meditation or simple, pleasant stargazing. In one such alcove I discovered Letitia.

  “Sweet Lady Tella!” I blurted, unaccountably startled.

  Her head jerked upward; for several seconds she stared up
at me from her seat on the floor. As the pounding of my heart slowed, I took in what I should have seen immediately: she had changed back into her travel clothes and re-plaited her hair. The enchanted gem that had once belonged to Carina dangled between her hands, catching and fracturing the white-golden light of the lamps. Gradually it dawned on me that I must be the last person she wanted to see this evening.

  “Your pardon, Mora,” I said quietly, offered her a brief bow, and turned to retreat. I would find my own alcove in which to hide. If only someone had thought to pack a skin or three of brandy.

  “What happened in the Barrow this afternoon?” she said, forestalling me.

  Oh, damn. “What?”

  She cast me a glance that left no doubt she saw through the pretense of confusion. “I’ve been hearing some interesting tales. You found the Lady’s Underground Ways? Or was it the House of Donn?”

  “Dear gods,” I sighed. “I caught a whiff of mine-gas. I suspect Amien did, too. Maybe some of the knights, as well, if you’re hearing stories like that.”

  She stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. I returned the gaze without knowing why.

  “Who are you, Ellion Tellan?” she said.

  I had sung this moment in a dozen songs. Bizarre to be standing in the middle of it. I knew my lines; I was to confess the truth of everything: the way the goddess Called me from Tellan to Aballo, the hundred ways She publicly marked me for Her own, the twelvenights Amien spent trying to persuade me to stay on after my initiate, his obsession with my succeeding him to the Prince’s throne despite the fact that the stars marked me for ard-righ. Letitia’s lines were equally inevitable; but the redemption they offered would be nothing but lies.

  I manufactured a laugh. “There’s a question for the sages.”

  She stared at me.

  Finally I shrugged, spreading my hands. “I am what you see. A man with a penchant for wrecking things who managed to get thrown out of his own country. A professional liar, as all harpists are. Someone who would be more than he is.”