Mortal Suns

by Tanith Lee

  As we rode from Oceaxis, he had already decided on a portion of his course. He had Daystar wives in Uaria and Oriali, little girls he had wed deliberately too young, then garlanded and gifted, kissed on the lips, and left intact with their families, until they should be fifteen or sixteen, as old as his present Sun Queen, Calistra. But with Artepta a betrothal had been arranged, a princess of eighteen years, daughter of one of the triumvirate Pehraa, their kings, who ruled always by three, and whose bloodline had run also in Udrombis. This princess had been kept for the Sun House. Artepta was a powerful and isolate land, peaceful and slow to move, but with a vast army of priest-warriors, and the capabilities for many things, which the scholarly reckoned above anything known elsewhere. Esoterica, magic, marvels of architecture and science, and weapons, too, beyond anything employed in the upper Sun Lands. One had heard the tales of what Arteptans were. Udrombis had been an awesome ambassadress, though only partly of their blood. And I do not forget Torca who had enabled me to walk, and helped drive Klyton from his Kingdom.

  Klyton said to me, “I must marry this woman, and perhaps another daughter, from one or other of the three kings. Don’t mind it that I seem to value these women. You see why.”

  I was meek and affectionate, pliant to his will, trained like the dog. And so much had gone against him. I must not, even in the slightest thing. It was not that I had come to be afraid of him, not yet. But, as once before, I seemed not to know him. He radiated a hard and fascinating light. Not much more than a thousand men, some three hundred of them Sirmians, had followed him from Oceaxis. Those held by the fire of him, hung from his Sun, now too brilliant, and now in cloud.

  We had been making for Sirma, so it was thought. Then Klyton drew us up again, northeast, to Belba. He had said to Adargon, no ship would have put out from Oceaxis for the Island.

  At Belba, he gave the bulk of the soldiery over to Adargon, and in the wagons put presents, selected on the night we chose our possessions for our future life. “Go and speak to them in Artepta. You have my letters to the Pehraa. Add what you like. Only the facts. You only need set them out. I am King. Artepta is always gracious, and worships justice, and so on.”

  With about sixty men loaded on the larger Bulote ship, a vessel of two oar-banks and double sail, Klyton put himself and his household, such as it now was, with ten guards, into the lesser galley that had fifty rowers and a single sail the color of brown Bulote mud.

  Our ship had for her figurehead the goddess of the river up which they had sailed into the Lakesea. They wreathed her but bound her eyes. They did not want her to see the direction they were steering her. Which was to the Sun’s Isle where a piece of the Sun had fallen, in the time before time.

  They had called their council in Oceaxis. By then, a deputation had come from the Sirmian troops in Akhemony led by a kinsman—so he called himself—of Klyton’s: one of the spear-wife Bachis’s uncles. He declared the Sun Lands would be plunged into anarchy if the King was no longer King. But the Sirmians were thought mostly savages, and did not have the weight of savage Ipyra, who had not yet learned the plan. If Klyton sent the Karrad-king, my grandfather, any word, I do not know. Probably not. Ipyra might fly either way, to Klyton’s standard or back into her rebellions.

  The days dragged on for me there, shut in the tiny continent of my royal rooms. Food was brought, elaborate and artistic, and I shared these feasts with my dog and my two women, Choras, who was ten, and Nimi who was only a year or two older. One of my new guard came in to remove the dead turtle. My throat closed and ached at this, but no tears would come. He said he would have them scour out the precious carapace, and bring that back to me. Then I felt a piercing. I told him no, she must be buried with her shell intact upon her. But I saw his eyes. So I said, distractedly, I had changed my mind, we would see to it ourselves. I did not want to offend him, because danger seemed all around. Nimi and I carried the turtle to a huge chest, and put her down on silks, and covered her. Choras sprinkled spices. We locked and sealed the chest from the air, and got it away into the vacant rooms my women had occupied. I wrote on the lid in the script of Akhemony: A faithful one lies here. Leave her untouched. Alcos emai. Ancient queens had buried pets in this manner in the distant past, having the caskets installed later in their own tombs.

  As for the doves, they never returned. Like the doves, my women. It interested me vaguely when we were on the road from Oceaxis going South at first towards Sirma, that Bachis the spear-wife, and her child, had managed to keep most of their small retinue. She might as well not have bothered, for Klyton set all but one girl and the Maiden loose on the road, as too much baggage.

  I had told Klyton, in their hearing, that Nimi should now be my Chief Maiden, and Choras a Maiden too. Nimi blushed with delight. Her mercenary innocence warmed me. Choras only gazed at me raptly. To her I was almighty, having rescued her from Koian Thon. I would do no wrong, and could, ultimately, never myself come to harm. And this unmercenary faith chilled. But I scarcely noticed. They were only there, with the dog.

  Through all the days and nights until that afternoon, I had not seen Klyton. He had penned me one letter. He told me he was sorry for my discomfort. It would soon end.

  Then, when he came—without all the customary flurry, for no one was there to make much fuss—he had people with him. A guard, and a secretary, an old slave he had kept by him since boyhood. The slave took an itinerary of my wants, and Klyton led me aside into my—our—bedroom, where despite the ravishing food I was brought, no one had been to sweep or tidy, to see to the perfumes for the bath, or clean it.

  “Calistra—”

  This was when I saw again that I did not know my husband. He burned so bright. He laughed and the shining coins of his laughter struck the walls.

  “I’ve brought you down. The God knows, no fault of mine. Trust me, it won’t be for long. Isn’t that what the hearty peasant says to his wife in the bad year when the orchards don’t ripen? The God’s Heart, Calistra. What can I say?”

  Then he told me they had made the fake Amdysos High King, that he was to be crowned Great Sun. Certain of the princes, jointly, would rule for him, until his recovery was complete.

  “Recovery—what, put back the crushed brain and sew it in, as they do in Artepta? This mad, crippled stick—because of a shower of thunder-stones blown in from some fire mountain of Ipyra—yes, that’s what Torca—even Torca—says they were. Volcanic debris. And for this—for this—But then, Torca believes that obscenity is his true King. I know Torca. He’d never sink down to this unless he did believe it.” And after that, pacing across the room, Klyton began one of his speeches, which till then I had not heard. How the gods had chosen him, making him wait, preparing and purifying him, snatching Amdysos away, the sacrifice, leaving the enthroning world to Klyton. And this—this was some aberration as if some word spoken in a fever were taken as the pronouncement of destiny. The fever would pass. They would see what they had done. Then they would cry after Klyton and he would forgive them, and gather them again into his hand.

  I listened. The dog listened. Outside I heard the old slave talking sensibly to Nimi.

  Did I grasp that Klyton’s golden sentences were only decorated ribbon’s tied about a rotten fruit, as they do it in so many markets in time of festival, to hide what must at last be smelled and seen?

  That night he appeared again the beautiful young god I had married. He pushed me backwards on the stale bed, and mounted me as an animal does. But, I was all his, my sex at least knew him well. We struggled to the Paradise of the flesh, and then he slept exhausted at my side. And once two tears ran from his sleeping eyes. I saw, for that night I did not sleep at all.

  Next day, the old slave, Sarnom, came alone and told me with a gentle courtesy I should select what I must have. His face was like a mourning carving. But old men and women, I thought, often looked sad, as sometimes they looked wicked.

  I chose what I predicted I should require for the trek to Sirma. Here, I had been, tol
d, we would go—to find friendly loyalty, and an army, whereby to persuade mistaken Akhemony.

  What did I hold inside myself? Only a heavy dread that was not completely real. For I, too, had been led into the Sunlight, and gained what I should never have had. Surely, surely, the gods who helped me, would not leave me in this plight?

  Outside, the gardens smoked still on the shore. What I had seen there so often, removed in an hour.

  I offered to Gemli and to Lut. Both seemed like little made things of stone and wood. Not gods at all. But did the air hear? The moon-glow on the floor? The gods were presently engaged. Soon they would recollect us.

  That night. The night when I had chosen what I should need and want, finding only later I had picked out usually nothing of any use, leaving behind me the dearest and the best. Alone on the bed, the covers thrown away, the hearing air so hot, so merciless, and the crack of moonlight streaming through the outer room and under the door.

  The moonlight had blackened over in one spot.

  Waking, I saw, and then that a woman stood up straight there, in her black robe, the gems lit like dark moons on her wrists, fingers, at her throat. It was Crow Claw. Now I imagine that she spent some of the ten years of her earthly wandering, prescribed by God after death, there in the palace at Oceaxis. This accounts for her ghost, the intrusions she made on us

  “What do you want?” I said. And sitting up, “Have you brought some better tidings?”

  The dog saw her, too. He did not seem alarmed, his tail even quivered, as he watched her, head on long paws.

  “What’s your name?” said the witch, as long ago, in my childhood.

  “You know my name. Calistra.”

  “Sun Queen Calistra. No. Now you’re Cemira again.”

  I started violently, and made the circle.

  She shook her head. “Remember, the Cemira is one of the Secret Beasts of Phaidix. Both names are yours. Shun neither.”

  She had sung me to sleep in that long ago.

  Not now.

  I said. “Why are you here?”

  “To bid you farewell, Great Queen. I’ll see you no more.” The mooolight caught the side of her crone’s face, as with a living thing it would. But she looked younger tonight. Not any older than thirty years. This was curious. No one had ever seen her young, since her death. “Nothing ends with death,” said Crow Claw. “Even the unborn don’t end there.” She pointed at me. Involuntarily I glanced down, to look where her ivory claw indicated. But nothing was there, beyond my own slender shape, the dirty pillow.

  “Crow Claw,” I whispered, “do you speak with the gods? Do you see them walking? Beg them for me to give back to him what he’s lost.”

  “But,” she said, “he has lost nothing at all.”

  I cursed her, and she was gone.

  We behold and cling to the rock, but the rock is a vapor. We tumble through space, shrieking, and in the night that is All-Night, open our wings. But the promise we are born with, in the land of illusions we forget.

  The dog licked my tears, disliked them, and moved away. I held myself firmly and pushed off the weeping. Tomorrow we would go to Sirma. I was a Queen, and must act as a Queen would, even in exile.

  Under the mud-brown sail the rowers sang and the oars churned and the sea had a flat poisonous iridescence. We had been two days on the water, and one night between.

  The Sun’s Isle.

  Here the thunder-stone had rushed from the Sun. A priesthood, it was said, had tended the place for centuries, and always they died, the young, the vital, died on Sun’s Isle. Animals there were monster-like, mythical. Few came there now. The force of that chip of the living Sun sucked out the life of men. And we were rowed towards it. It was the hub of the universe.

  I sat under an awning, looking at the Lakesea. I had never before crossed it. The atmosphere had by now a peculiar glimmering film. Last night the stars had seemed of a thousand altering colors. The fish they had caught today was unnatural. It was the size of a calf, and almost snapped the line. It had three eyes and two mouths each packed with pearly teeth, that the pearl-loving men of Bulos pulled from the jaws.

  But, they did not eat the fish and threw it back. By then it was dead. Things were done too late, or not at all. Nimi had had a terrible dream. The sky was torn open and a flaming creature dropped to the deck.

  The Heart Drum of Akhemony had been audible at Belba, yet on the ocean it grew muffled, unknown, more distracting in its change.

  Klyton talked to the captain. He had charmed them all, even in their superstition and unwillingness. We would sight the Island by Sunfall, or with the dawn. Ancient maps described it. It had the shape of a huge lizard lying in the sea.

  2

  In Bulos, they drive out the Scapegoat every year at winter. They mark a ram, or other animal, or even a criminal, and tie him with little tokens written by the priests, notes of various sins and omissions. Then they thrust him away into the river marshes among the man-high reeds. Possibly the Scapegoat dies then, of cold or hunger, or eaten by wild dogs, or large water reptiles. If a man survives, he never goes back. Ten years after, if they knew him, they would kill him, for bringing home their transgressions.

  Perhaps the Bulotes no longer do any of this.

  But I was thinking of it in the Bulote ship.

  Did I say to myself that Klyton was the Scapegoat of Akhemony? A council of old men and priests had asked of him that he go away, perhaps to an estate at Airis, or better, to Sirma, where the Sirmians had given him land before even he was crowned King. Nexor, when unwanted, had been disposed of in just this way, into Ipyra. Klyton called his men, such as would go, and left. And around his neck were hung the stooping eagle, and the flight of firebolts, the drought that was beginning, and any other unlucky thing.

  The second vessel had dropped behind yesterday but now, as the Sun began to rise at our back, we saw her again. The ships hailed each other with horns. A dismal mooing.

  It had not occurred to me that Klyton could have resisted his dethronement and expulsion more vigorously than he had. Even there, on the ship, it did not. I saw Akhemony had closed to him like a door. He knocked and shouted, he raved. There was no answer so he came away to find a battering-ram.

  During all the short voyage, the sea had been odd, so very flat, the waves scarcely stirring. No birds were seen once we were an hour out.

  The dawn Sun looked very red, but as it lifted into the sky, it metamorphosed. The sailors started to cry out and call prayers. The Sun—behind us, reflected before us on the flat and half-dead sea—was an emerald. Its path was the shade of fresh grass. This lasted for some twenty heartbeats, the Heartbeats of the Mountain. After that the greenness dissolved and the Sun was the Sun, only dull, the track on the water faint as if under a skim of oil.

  In silence, when we turned again, we saw the Island, the Sun’s Isle, pushing from the sea before us.

  To me it seemed to have no particular shape, despite what had been said, only a dark scoop of land, with night still caught around its skirts.

  Soon I could make out the sluggish waves dragging up on its rocky beaches, with hardly any frill of foam. Big stones stood out into the ocean, shapeless, or weathered into low arches. Even now there were no birds. But a scent sighed off the Island. It was rich and heady, as of perfumes and citrus fruit, and then like burning incense mixed with alcohol. And then it grew sweetly rotten, like decayed flowers.

  A natural harbor had been shown on the maps. Here the sea was deep enough for the ships to stand close in.

  The maps also stated that a hale man could walk round the entire scope of the Isle in a day. To reach its center where the Sunstone had fallen, took half a day. The ancient temple was planted there, and even in quite recent times, less than fifty years before, one man had dared the Isle and seen it, the Stone lying in its cradle. But the country was unsafe. They said three-headed beasts roamed the Island with snakes for tails, and womanlike things with snakes for hair, and a white lioness that h
ad leapt down from the Daystar after the Stone.

  Klyton left all but fifteen of his men on the ships. We heard later, aside from their captain, the soldiers had drawn lots, to see who must go. This was allowed.

  After Sun’s Isle we would sail down the great river to Bulos, and so press on, marching overland to Artepta. But Klyton wanted his omens first.

  Sarnom went ashore with Klyton. The slave had declared he would go. But Partho, the Sirmian boy, who seemed at all other times in love with Klyton, had become sick and was left on the galley.

  Klyton sat down with me under the awning.

  “Calistra, I know you can’t walk far over this terrain. But will you come ashore? I’ll leave you ten guard. And the others will be near enough on the ships.”

  I replied, “Yes,” not considering. We were adrift wherever we went. And I have said, I did not want to cross him.

  “You’re brave,” he said. “You always have been. But if they see it in a girl, their Queen, it will give them courage. And besides, besides … We’re far away from the Heart.” He looked out to the crinkled water, the Island beach where, as we could now make out, the mass of a forest descended. “I dreamed once that I flew with wings—did I ever tell you? I should not have done. But you anchored me to the earth. It was you. I don’t want moving water between us. If you will.”

  His tone was thin and wooden. He smiled, as if he had said something mundane.

  “Whatever you want, my lord.”

  “Dulcet Calistra, like the dove. Look, do you see the shrine there, and the path like silver for your silver feet?”

  I stared. There was a sort of building above the beach. A sort of path. Would I be able to manage it, even with my cane?

  He read my mind. “No, of course. One of the men will carry you over the pebbles.”

  Nimi approached when he had got up. I told her she must stay on the ship. But she shook her head. She put her chin back and said, sternly, I was the Queen and must have an attendant. I realize now her bravery made any of mine into a grain of dust. I was bemused. And she had heard, in her short life, all the stories of the Isle, which I never had.