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

by Barbara Friend Ish

I waited out in the house’s front yard, away from the sights and smells of dead assassin, while servants heated enough water for me to bathe. Mountain air lay cold across my bare skin. I watched Telliyn climb towards her zenith and paint the disorganized garden in pale light, turning Lady Tella’s intervention for me over and over in my mind.

  Wake up. What did that mean? A simple enough instruction on the surface, it had been sufficient to save my life; but nothing She said had only one layer of meaning. Was this a call to return to Her service, to rededicate myself to the vows I’d taken at Aballo so long ago?

  That was wishful thinking. I could return neither to Aballo nor to Tellan. Nevertheless the memory of the night She called me to Her service washed over me, and the mountain chill of Tyra became the fierce caress of the wind off Lady’s Lake on the Tellan family estates; the lush terraced gardens spread out below me, awash in moonlight and sparkling with the dancing jewels of countless fireflies. A cloud descended from the mountain on the opposite shore to kiss the surface of the water, and awe shivered through me.

  Moments like this were why the Tellan family lands are sacred ground. That land and those lakes belong to Lady Tella; the Tellan clan are Her elect. Lady Tella and Ilesan, the Lord of Gods, created the universe out of chaos, with the tumultuous embrace of Air on Water. Air belongs to Ilesan; Water is Tella’s. Rivers, lakes, and seas are Hers. Places in which Air touches Water are sacred; this low cloud touching Tella’s high mountain lake was an echo of the moment of Creation.

  Rather than pulling on my jacket against the unexpectedly fierce cold, I let the wind blast into me, feeling it as the power of the Moment. Lady Tella, always a benevolent presence at Sliavtel, gathered around me so closely that my mind exploded with rapture. Joy tingled in every portion of my being.

  *Ellion.* This was my Lady’s voice in my mind. I’d heard it in dreams for longer than I could recall; this was the first time She’d spoken to me while I was awake. The brandy glass slid from my hand. If it landed on the stone of the terrace, it made no noise I could hear. *I require you.*

  “I am ever Yours, Lady,” I said, as remotely and perfectly conscious as if this, too, were a dream.

  *Not fully. Not yet. Come to Me.*

  There was no need to ask where She wanted me to go; the mystery of the wizards’ retreat had occupied my dreams for months. How long had I been waiting for this Call without realizing it? How long would it take to reach Aballo?

  But just as quickly as it came over me, the moment collapsed, and I stood covered in blood and an improvised blanket kilt, outside a house of no security and little more welcome, aching for Her hand to settle on me again.

  Wake up. If it wasn’t a summons, what did it mean?

  By the time the servants had heated enough water for me to bathe, dawn cast pale shimmering light on the windows. Evidently they were cold-hardened by the long mountain winter: it never occurred to any of them to light the brazier in the bathing room until I finally asked someone to do it. I remembered a time when I was less affected by cold than anyone I knew; now I saw how soft I had become in Ilnemedon’s southern air.

  Finally things in the bathing room were as settled as they were going to get: I dismissed the servants, unwrapped the blood-soaked blanket, and slipped gratefully into the water. I had to wash my hair several times before it finally felt clean.

  When I returned to my room, the assassin’s corpse was gone. So was the bloodstained rug. Morning had brought color back to the room, but it had little power against the pervasive mountain chill: the white silk of fresh bedding glowed like new snow among dark hardwood furniture and drapes of deep red and green, but the floor under my bare feet felt as cold as summer frost. The floor had been mopped, but several servants were still trying to restore order to the room.

  I evicted them and began to dress; in short order the need to look for clues from the attack overwhelmed my need for warmth. I walked around the room buttoning my shirt, examining everything.

  The windows seemed untouched, the harp case and bags I’d carried from Ilnemedon undisturbed. The glass sported streaks left by a cleaning cloth, but also a certain amount of dust. The flue of the fireplace was definitely too narrow to admit the assassin’s muscular shoulders. My sword and knife remained in the wardrobe where I’d left them, along with my newly-acquired assassin’s blade.

  There was no way the assassin could have entered the room while I slept: door locked, windows untouched, flue inaccessible. I’d exercised the simple precaution of checking every possible hiding place in the room before lying down. If I hadn’t awakened to his knife in my face, I wouldn’t have believed he’d been here at all.

  Shortly Rishan Murias arrived. He didn’t look four hundred years old. I don’t know what I expected of one of the heroes of the great war against the renegade wizard Nechton, but he was both less commanding and less exotic than my imagination had built him up to be.

  Nevertheless, if his hair was snow-white, his face remained as firm as a fifty-year-old man’s. He had a rider’s legs, and the straightness of his spine brought his fine-boned head up to the level of my eyes. But in typical Tanaan fashion, Rishan lacked ruggedness. He seemed as if a warrior who met him on the sparring ground might accidentally break him.

  Rishan opened his mouth and then closed it again. His command of Ilesian was adequate, but he obviously couldn’t figure out how to address me. Neither could human nobility, so I probably shouldn’t hold that against him. Still it pricked me.

  “Lord Rishan,” I said.

  The Tan turned his head; diffuse light touched the depths of his black eyes. Legend holds that Tanaan eyes gleam like cats’, but that isn’t the truth. The minute filaments that make each human iris unique lie deeply hidden in Tanaan eyes, giving them an abyssal aura. Moments when light illumines those depths feels like suddenly seeing all the way to the bottom of a glacier lake.

  “I must apologize for the damage to your house,” I continued. “If I’d been awake…”

  Rishan waved dismissively: the rug was ruined, but other than this I’d wrecked nothing. Again I waited while the Tan considered his next statement.

  “Ellion,” he said finally.

  I bristled. I didn’t expect any title from Rishan: sian or even the Tanaan ouirr would have been enough. But tonight I was not even to be acknowledged as a man of honor, an equal.

  “It is I who must apologize. It has been centuries since this sort of thing happened among Dana’s People…” Rishan trailed off.

  What had happened to Rishan Murias and Carina Finias, the Tanaan who played such critical parts in the wizard Nechton’s defeat? Were those songs every bit the fabrications I knew the romantic ballad about Carina to be? Should I doubt the other historical eipiciúil of that period, too? I should have known better than to hold out hope that something, finally, would live up to the songs. Sweet Lady Tella, I was a fool to expect—

  I stopped the thought. I was mind-shielded, a simple precaution when dealing with a known telepath; but a consciously-framed thought can still be accidentally broadcast, despite the cleverest shield. And Rishan’s Talent was a strong one. Anyone who had studied the history of Nechton’s War knew this. I must remember even my thoughts weren’t secure here.

  Contain, then investigate. It is every security master’s axiom. At least I was the only living human at Tyra tonight: were I careful, news of the price on my neck might not spread. It was reasonable to hope that, with the assassin dead, I would remain relatively safe until I turned up alive in the human realms.

  “Was there any sort of perimeter on the house this evening?” I asked.

  “Any… no. I assure you, we will spare no effort to discover who this man was.”

  I managed a humorless laugh. Rishan clearly had no idea how to conduct such an investigation, still less how to do it without attracting attention. The less involved Rishan was, the safer I would be. I pushed a curl of wet hair out of my face.

  “No point in that,” I said. “This wa
s a professional. Any identity he might have had is long gone.”

  Rishan nodded, angular face still. An uncomfortable silence descended.

  “I understand you’ll be leaving us this morning,” he said finally.

  “Heading downriver again,” I said, relaxing a bit at the more neutral topic. “I hope to catch up to Lady Carina before she reaches Finias and—”

  “Who told you Mora Carina was en route to Fíana?” Rishan’s alien stare searched me like a stiletto.

  “Your pardon, sian? When I arrived yesterday evening, everyone agreed that the mora was on her way to…?” I frowned, some disconnected memory hovering just out of reach. The one map I’d found that covered the eastern areas of the Tanaan lands had borne no label near the summer capital but Finias, the nation’s name. I’d concluded the city and the nation were eponymous. Was Finias the nation, Fíana the summer capital? “…Fíana? To make preparations for Bealtan.”

  Rishan shook his head, pain in the angles of his brows and narrow mouth. “The city? You mean Irisa.”

  Now I remembered: I’d heard, long ago, that the Tanaan call their lands and Great Houses by different names than humans do—though I could no longer recall who told the tale or exactly what they’d said. Fíana must be their word for Finias.

  “And the mora on the river is the young mora, my daughter,” Rishan continued.

  Was this Tanaan coyness or another language problem? “Then where might I find the mora Carina?”

  Rishan looked away, shrugging one shoulder: a Tanaan gesture that can mean anything from Leave this topic alone to Your guess is as good as mine.

  “Then the young mora…” I said.

  Rishan glanced at me, then returned his gaze to something behind my left ear. “Will be invested at Bealtan. Seven years have passed; Letitia attains maturity this spring. All the clan leaders agree it’s time.”

  “I regret that I was unable to attend the mora’s pyre,” I said.

  “I had heard you were an intelligent man,” Rishan grated, glaring at me. “There was no pyre.” He turned and swept out of the room, dressing gown billowing behind him.

  In the kitchen, I coaxed a cup of unidentifiable tea and a sort of breakfast roll from a pretty Tana who might be twenty or two hundred, wishing I could come back later and enlist her help with unraveling the tall tales one hears about Tanaan women. But the single most important skill a harpist can cultivate is knowing when he is out of a tiarn’s good graces and it is time to move on. It was definitely time.

  Discreet inquiries confirmed the best theory I’d been able to spin: Lady Carina Finias—Fíana?—rode out of her stable yard one hot spring day seven years ago, and no one had heard from her since. No one knew where she had gone or why. Alive or dead, interested in her people or not, she was about to be succeeded by her daughter. It seemed a sorry end for the heroine of The Ballad of Carina.

  But it wouldn’t scotch the wheels of my plan. I’d spent the better part of a month traveling, and the death or disappearance of the potential gorsedd client I’d come to meet wouldn’t send me back to the Harpist Gorsedd Hall. Not when I knew what would be waiting for me there: Amien’s herald, and a summons to the Bealtan Moot. I couldn’t refuse the summons. The best I could do was be halfway to Hy-Breasaíl when it arrived—and stay away too long for it to matter. This year, I would spend Bealtan among the Tanaan.

  3. Journey of a Thousand Miles

  After two days of following the river back towards the city, I finally spotted the young mora’s barge. Two barges, in fact: in the typical fashion of royals everywhere, the lady clearly found it necessary to bring every comfort, member of personal staff, and hanger-on wherever she went. A group on the first barge sang the sort of neverending travel song that makes harpists want to take their own lives rather than endure the repetition for another mile; the second barge was quieter and seemed to be carrying more gear than people.

  I cued my horse for greater speed; he leapt forward, seemingly relieved at the change in pace. Within moments I had closed the gap between myself and the barges almost enough to make shouting upwind worthwhile. Someone on the first barge rose, looking back at me: a Tana with gleaming blonde hair whose face was obscured by the angle of the early evening sun. Within seconds half the people on the barge had turned to stare, so I waved. A number of them waved back; the barges pulled in to shore, and I stopped and dismounted to wait for the passengers to disembark.

  Once the gangway was in place, the Tana who had first spotted me walked across—carrying a book. This must be Letitia, the young mora: she appraised me frankly, brilliant green eyes clear and steady on my own for long enough that most men would have looked away. I didn’t want to, though I was pleased to move on to other aspects of her person when a tall young Tan stepped across the planks behind her, the sound of his boots on the wood snaring her attention. They were like a matched pair of two-year-old racers: blond and arrestingly beautiful, almost eerie in their similarity, their typically elongated Tanaan physiques and their evident youth giving them a coltish air. She was the leader of this team: he paused at her elbow, a book of his own tucked against his lean frame and his body angling towards her even while his abyssal blue eyes examined me with an analytical, protective air.

  “Hello,” she said evenly in the Tanaan language. Her voice had a pleasant, unaffected musicality, as those of most Tanaan do.

  “Mora Letitia?” I said. She nodded; I bowed, and she nodded again, in the manner of a royal recognizing a person of lower rank. She had no way of knowing, of course; I would grant her the error for free.

  “I am Ellion Tellan, the ard-harpist.” I paused, gauging whether she’d understood. How much could a Tanaan, even a Tanaan royal, be expected to know of human gorsedd and craft organizations? “The leader of our gorsedd,” I elaborated, using the Ilesian word.

  She nodded. “Isn’t Tellan a country?”

  Had she deduced so quickly who I was, or was the query born of absolute naïvete? I couldn’t tell.

  “Yes,” I said, disciplining myself to meet her gaze. “But the Harpist Gorsedd is based in Ilnemedon, in Ilesia.”

  Her exotic face turned analytical. “So your name is Tellan, but you live in Ilesia.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” She glanced around, so I did, too. People crossed from both barges, unloading gear and personal possessions and establishing a camp with an efficiency that suggested long routine. Men set up tents and cook-fires; a gaggle of young, pretty Tana giggled and whispered and threw me a series of curious, speculative glances while spreading a cloth and some pillows beneath the branches of a birch; a group of lithe blond archers of both sexes arranged targets for practice. All told, the archers and the rest of the young mora’s contingent numbered only one more than a bare dozen. The utter unconcern with security I’d seen at Tyra seemed a sudden bastion of safety. How did these people survive?

  “This is my…” The young mora and her male mirror-image shared a quizzical glance; he raised his eyebrows. “Consort, Iminor a Dianann.”

  We bowed properly to one another. Why did he look embarrassed? Or was I misreading a Tanaan expression that meant something else altogether?

  “Sian,” I said, and silence settled among us again. Apparently it would be my task to drive the conversation: I grasped at the surest topic among those few who regularly read.

  “What are you reading?” I said to the mora.

  Surprise blossomed in her face. “You rode here from Ilesia to find out what I’m reading?”

  I laughed. “No. You stepped off a barge carrying a book. Most people wouldn’t take a book onto a boat. What if it fell in? How would you ever replace it? But you didn’t seem at all worried, so I wondered what you were reading.”

  Finally she smiled, shaking her head. She turned the book in her hands, gaze on the old leather of the obviously well-loved, expertly-tooled cover.

  “Philosophy, in the Ilesian language,” she said. “I’m told it was my mother’s favori
te.”

  And there it was, just that quickly: the opening I sought. “I was saddened to hear of her loss,” I said, which—against all reason—was true. “She was… a great lady.”

  Suddenly the young mora’s eyes were on mine, surprise and something that might be hope written in her expression. “You knew her?”

  A man could lose himself in the depths of that gaze. For a brief flicker of time I felt as if I had slipped into an old fireside tale.

  “By reputation only,” I said. “I had looked forward to meeting the heroine of the song.”

  “The song?” she echoed, so incredulous that I wondered whether I’d used the wrong word; she exchanged another look with her young consort.

  “Don’t tell me you have never heard it,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never heard any of your music. I can’t believe—why would Bealla have a song about—”

  Abruptly she was staring at me again. There are stories that claim the gaze of a Tana can render a man incapable of falsehood, or irrevocably capture his heart, or both. I knew better than to believe old tales, of course. But my throat tightened anyway.

  “You are the leader of your harpist organization,” she said finally. “Does this mean you can play?”

  I fought down an incredulous laugh. “Yes. Would you like to hear the song?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “One moment. Excuse me, please.”

  I swept a courtly bow and walked back to the place where my horse waited, seemingly content for once. I unlashed my harp case from the saddle, slung the speckled-hide strap over my shoulder, and returned to the spot in which the young mora and her consort stood, surrounded now by the gaggle of Tana I’d seen preparing a picnic-nest under the tree. They tried unsuccessfully to look as if they weren’t watching me approach, giggling and whispering to Letitia. Was it possible Tanaan were as curious about humans as we are about them? Once I’d had the thought, I realized how obvious the answer was. Finally the mora laughed and shooed them off.