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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “Sian,” I said, offering him what I hoped was a courteous nod.

  “Nice to see you’re alive,” he replied with his usual gruffness. “I’m here on behalf of the gorsedd.”

  Of course: it is incumbent upon the ard-harpist to participate at the Moot, though none but the righthe may vote in the election of the ard-righ. The lords of the gorsedd would have felt the need to send someone. I decided not to ask whether they had voted me out in my absence. I wasn’t sure how I would feel if they had: hurt and offended, of course, but once I got past the insult? I set the question aside.

  “Just so,” I said, nodding. “Did they send you with any sort of consensus?”

  He shrugged. “No one favors electing the Bard to the throne, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  A laugh escaped me. It sounded no more than half-human in my own ears. “Indeed.”

  If I intended to invoke the position of ard-harpist as my token of admission to the Moot, I should clarify my status among the gorsedd. But the question was too difficult to ask in the midst of this crowd, the decisions into which it would force me beyond contemplation this morning. Instead I turned my eyes to the road ahead.

  “You’ve been riding with the Lady of Finias?” Caern said after a moment.

  I glanced at him and nodded. Any harpist worth the branch he carried would have had a song already more than half composed; would have stirring tales of battle and honor to pass along. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “How long have you been riding?”

  I thought back. “A month, maybe?”

  Caern cast me a thoughtful glance. That last question had probably been a prompt to tell my story or at least relate some heroic anecdote.

  “A difficult journey?” he said after a moment.

  I glanced at him. He recoiled at whatever he saw in my gaze.

  “Her enemies are serious about their objective,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me.” I dropped back, worked my way across the ranks until I could fall in beside Coran’s armsmaster Den.

  “Lord!” He turned a genuine smile on me; something in me relaxed. The energies of the knights he led felt much more natural against my awareness, a welcome buffer against the continuing maelstrom of irrelevancy just outside their ranks.

  “How are you?” I said, and settled in to let him talk. He’d always been a font of the sort of information generals crave; today he was as cordial as ever, but aware as any courtier of the crowd around us. He had grown into his new position, too; it raised in me a senseless nostalgia for the armsmaster who hadn’t thought beyond the well-being of the man he served. Today I heard only news fit for public consumption: the convoy of ships that had carried Coran and his court from Ilnemedon to Grannos in Ebdani; the terrible storm they had endured at the mouth of the Ruillin. But the way his dark eyes met my gaze said he was giving me intelligence between the lines, and he wondered whether I’d absorbed it.

  I had: for a righ on his way to the Moot to bypass the theoretically neutral port of Bealingas, the traditional landing for righthe on their ways to the Moot, for Deneth Cooley’s harbor at Grannos spoke volumes about the strength of the kharr in coastal Usdia. How badly did it chafe Coran to accept Deneth’s protection for his ships, when they would both stand as serious candidates at the Moot? But if Bealingas was not secure, to do otherwise with half a hundred noncombatants in tow would be insanity.

  I should cast the decision as evidence in Coran’s favor: the grace of a leader who would see to his people’s safety before his own pride; evidence of the ability to coordinate his efforts with his peers, so critical in a man whose position comes from election rather than conquest. Assuming I was able to speak with any sort of grace about the prospect of Coran ascending the throne. That was by no means a foregone conclusion. I was proud for my friend, but the idea of him on the throne made me ache for an excuse to draw my blade.

  I tried to focus on the storm they had endured en route instead: counting the days of their journey and ours, confirming the connection I suspected.

  “We saw that same storm at Ballarona,” I said quietly. “That was the night the city fell.”

  Den met my eyes. “Ballarona? Ah, no.” He grimaced, shifting in his saddle in a way that bespoke a desire to return and secure Ilnemedon. “Lucky the Lady had the Prince with her, then.”

  “Indeed.”

  Den nodded. For a moment we rode in silence, dozens of other conversations threading around us. Most of them were too trivial to focus on. Even the ones regarding the Bard and his wizard were so far afield of truth or relevance that I found myself kneading the reins. When had I picked up that destructive habit? I forced myself to stop.

  “Lord,” Den said. “Did you ride all the way from Finias?”

  I nodded.

  “Did your contingent include anyone I might know?”

  “No.” A small, untoward relief engulfed me. “Fortunately, sian—no.”

  I nodded to him and rode forward again, settling in beside Amien. Too late I realized someone among this incessantly political mob would certainly over-interpret my claiming that spot; but to try to correct the tactical error would only add fuel to whatever fire I’d just started. I sighed; Amien glanced at me.

  “What?”

  “Civilization,” I groaned.

  He nodded. “Uisneach will be better.”

  A humorless laugh escaped me: Uisneach would be even worse. I tried to think of someplace that actually would be better, and failed. I longed for some quiet place in which to hide.

  A little distance before the Teamair gate, we parted company. Coran invited me and my companions to attend tonight’s Bealtan fest at Ilesia House in Teamair; the thought of it made the desire to bolt rouse so fiercely in me that it required all my will to simply remain still, to maintain a courteous façade while Amien smiled and thanked him for the invitation. Of course we must attend; nothing else would satisfy protocol but to answer the invitation of the ard-righ-apparent with grace.

  Worse, I knew both Amien and Coran would withdraw from that party early, leaving me to contend with Ilnemedon society alone. Coran would slip out to perform the traditional pre-coronation Triple Sacrifice, and Amien would most likely be the wizard to administer it: Coran was ard-righ-apparent, after all. Amien couldn’t officially sanction it, but neither would he let it pass him by.

  “Ellion.” Coran reached across the space between our horses, grasping my arm. I snapped unwilling out of the abstraction that had snared me, meeting his troubled eyes. “Will you have a glass with me before dinner?”

  If only I believed it would be a quiet interlude between old friends, I would have leapt at the chance. In any event there was no turning the invitation aside, not with hundreds of eyes on us.

  I offered him a horseback bow. “It will be my pleasure.”

  Uisneach surprised me. I couldn’t have said what I expected of the place; but whatever my expectations had been, Uisneach ground them underfoot with a chuckle I could almost hear. The hill commands a view even more extensive than Teamair. But where the plateau atop Teamair is crowded with regular, meticulously-maintained squares and roads, and houses that are palaces in all but name, the long spiraling path up the hill of Uisneach ends in a broad expanse of green. Atop that summit, the only visible features are the Mooting Rock the gods Themselves fashioned in the form of a throne, the immense ageless oak that spreads broad limbs above it, and the lone wooden building the wizards occupy when in residence there. The quiet of the place enfolded me, even while the Presences of the god and goddess Who held this place infiltrated my consciousness. They surprised me, too, though by now I should have expected it: the Presences Who regarded me from some place no mortal eye can grasp were not Lord Ilesan and Lady Tella.

  When you perform the sacred marriage, who does it serve? Are you even sure with whom you lie?

  Pain gathered in my chest. Amien reined at the edge of the summit’s clear expanse, drawing a deep, satisfied breath.

  �
�Welcome,” he said, looking around at us. “Without all of you we would never have come this far; thank you. We have room for all of you in the Mooting House, if you’ll stay with us.”

  “Thank you,” Letitia said softly; I echoed her words. This might be a reasonably quiet haven, if I could manage to avoid whatever wizards I knew who had made the trip.

  “It would be a pleasure, my friend,” Rohini said. “But I must find out what the situation is with the clans before I can say for certain.”

  Amien nodded as if he’d expected the answer. “And, Mora—” He turned his penetrating black eyes on Letitia. “It would be our privilege to host your Bealtan observances in our sacred grove.”

  Dread burst inside me. It was Bealtan Eve, wasn’t it? The night for any ruler to renew his or her bonds with the land, to rededicate his rule to the gods. After all the dreams the idea of this night had sparked in me, the reality brought only pain. Of course Letitia must observe Bealtan with her consort, in public ceremony. There could be no stolen pleasure for anyone else. Terrible, unanswerable need crashed through me: I couldn’t look at any of them. In my peripheral vision I saw Iminor glance away.

  Letitia sighed. “Thank you, my lord, but no. We are a very long way from Fíana; I do not ascend the throne tomorrow. There will be no official observance for us tonight.”

  Amien nodded. “Well, you will find no lack of parties this eve. If you don’t find amusement at Ilesia House, Ebdani House and Deceang House will certainly be hosting fests as well. I’m afraid things here will be quiet; the members of the Order have observances we must uphold.”

  “That is not necessarily a bad thing, my lord,” Letitia said quietly, finally looking at him again. And at last it occurred to me that she must also mourn the throne she would not ascend tomorrow; that she no longer expected the life she’d been promised, even did we manage to win this war. It was unfair for me to compare my situation to hers; she had done nothing to deserve her disinheritance. Still I felt a strange closeness.

  Four men crossed the gentle slope from the wooden building Amien called the Mooting House to the place in which we had paused. Wizards, all of them: I smelled the power long before they drew close enough for me to identify. Amien swung down from the saddle as if reaching his destination had restored his vitality; I climbed to the ground, too, hearing the rest of my companions do the same. By the time I’d gained the ground the wizards were close enough for me to see their faces, and it took everything I had to refrain from climbing right back into the saddle and cueing the horse for speed.

  Why did it have to be Sanglin? If there had been any number of moments when I found it possible to imagine Deaclan as a nasclethéan, by the time I was nearing the end of my initiate it had begun to seem that Sanglin should dissolve his partnership with Amien and devote himself to practicing with me. Even Amien had seemed to see the inevitability of it. I didn’t recognize any of the men trailing his wake: two must have passed through Aballo well before my tenure there, while the third was likely just past his initiate. But Sanglin bore me sufficient animosity for all four of them: the sudden agitation in his stride sent his bright red hair blowing back to reveal the hard, angry line into which his jaw had settled; the glance he cast me would have melted steel.

  “My lord!” he said to Amien, sparing the old man a genuine smile and embracing him without preamble.

  “I see the place still stands,” Amien said, not releasing him. I heard the grin in his voice.

  “Barely,” Sanglin said lightly, stepping back. “You’re here just in time.”

  “You can say that again.” Amien was still grinning. “Mora Letitia Ériu a Fíana, Lord Iminor a Dianann, Chief Rohini Lanas, and Lord Ellion Tellan—” Now the wizards I didn’t recognize were staring at me. With the Lady of Finias in their presence, what they found most fascinating was me. I feared to imagine what people at Aballo had been saying. “—allow me to present my second Sanglin Uaridnach; Domnall Techtmar, House Healer to Vellabor; Echach Duin, master of advanced studies at Matach; and Túathal Ua Machí, a member of my workshop.”

  They all bowed courteously enough, even Sanglin; though now that we were in proximity he refused to look at me. Within a minute everything had been arranged: Túathal was to conduct us to the stable behind the Mooting House, where we might see to our horses, while Domnall and Echach would ensure enough rooms were prepared. Rohini shifted restlessly.

  “I need to see to my people,” she said.

  “Chief, you and I have an engagement,” I reminded her.

  Her mouth twisted. “It’s not nec—”

  How many times had Amien seen that protest before? He apprehended instantly what I was about and laid a hand on Rohini’s arm.

  “My friend, will you indulge him? I’ll sleep better tonight.”

  “You won’t sleep at all tonight,” she rejoined.

  “All the more reason.”

  She cast him a dark stare.

  “What if I helped?” the wizard said, as patient as if she were a fractious child.

  She blew out an exasperated breath. “I give you ten minutes.”

  “Oh, your generosity is boundless,” Amien said, and led us to the Mooting House while Túathal showed the Tanaan to the stable. I hitched my horse to a simple post in front of the long, low structure, resolving to return as soon as I might: it is the way of Aballo that every man does what is necessary for himself. I knew we’d find no servants here, and no one would tend my horse in my absence. Inconvenient though I’d found the practice when I first arrived at Aballo, I had soon seen the peace and freedom in it; now I realized it was another of the things that had informed my life after I left.

  Aballo had become a part of me, even while I thought it an aspect of a closed past; evidently I had become a part of Aballo, even while I stood disavowed. I had no idea what any of it meant: I followed Amien and Rohini through dim, quiet corridors, a strange foreboding prickling up my back. The spaces were too small; the shadows of these corridors would have concealed a dozen assassins. It would be far too easy to simply torch the place while half the wizards of the Aballo Order slept, and the gods they relied upon were not in residence here. The need to protect this place and these people from some phantom of my derangement itched on my palms, and though I saw it for the exhausted affliction of too long a siege, I couldn’t push it aside. I chewed on my lower lip. Finally we reached a door that looked just like all the others. I followed them into the room behind it.

  It might have been a dormitory cell at Aballo, except in wood: a single window illuminated a spare, narrow chamber that housed a bed, a small table with a single chair, and little else. From his pack Amien drew a healing kit; he motioned Rohini to the bed. She cast him a dark, silent stare, stripped off her armor, and sat.

  I knelt beside her. “May I see?”

  The taut lines of her shoulders softened; she drew up the front of her shirt to expose her midsection, revealing an angry slice, broad rather than deep, that disappeared beneath the waist of her pants.

  “You need stitching,” I said, looking up into her face.

  “I know,” she sighed.

  “May I?”

  “Thank you,” she said, the words another sigh.

  “Lie back, Ro,” Amien said gently.

  Once she surrendered, Rohini was a simple patient: she barely flinched at the numbing salve I spread along the edges of the gash, didn’t complain at the long series of stitches the wound required. I found myself diffusing into a strange quiet occupied only by the work to be done and my hands doing it, emerging from that half-trance into a melancholy longing for the singleminded existence whose possibility I had always sensed but never laid hands on at Aballo: wishing I might somehow trade the trappings of wealth and position I’d accumulated in Ilnemedon for an opportunity to pursue the Work in peace, knowing even as I formed the wish that the longing I hung on this place was for a thing that would never exist outside my own mind. Aballo is as fraught with drama and politics as Iln
emedon, in its own inbred way. The only real difference would be the constant occupation with the processes of a faith whose tenets had seen far too many assaults by contrary truth of late.

  Even could I find some sort of release from my vow, however much I might desire it there could be no place for me here. I tied off the stitches, rearranged Rohini’s clothes into a semblance of dignity, climbed to my feet. Now, suddenly, she smiled.

  “Thank you. That was excellent.” She glanced at Amien. “Do you need to re-do my wards?”

  Amien’s shoulders sagged. Of course he did; but he had little more strength than required to keep his feet. Why hadn’t he let me attend him?

  “If you would lean on me, my lord,” I said softly.

  He glanced at me, something deeper than humiliation in his face. He raised his eyebrows and turned his gaze on Rohini.

  “Well, then, this is the room where facts remain under lock and key,” he said wryly. “You were wise enough to trust Ellion with your injury; now I need to trust both of you with mine. He’s right: the… I took a couple hits of the arcane variety myself, last night, and I haven’t regained my strength.”

  Alarm flickered in Rohini’s eyes, but she covered it with a smile. “We are a pair, as usual.”

  He produced a wan smile of his own. “With the loan of Ellion’s strength—and his presence here—I can do it. Or I can call on my second, Sanglin—”

  Rohini shook her head. “Let’s keep the number of people who know any of this as small as possible.”

  She began wrestling with her boots, and hissed at renewed pain; I knelt before her again. This time she accepted the help without a fight.

  “I should sit with my back to yours,” I said to Amien. He nodded understanding and knelt to wait for her; I settled behind him, my spine against his sinewy back—and as I opened my awareness to him, I saw: the same energy I’d rechanneled for Iminor now swirled in him. I drew back and spun to face him, surprising an exclamation from Rohini, who was already more than half undressed.