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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  Nuad cleared his throat; Letitia looked at him, and he bowed.

  “Mora, I regret—but I believe Lord Amien is right. May we have leave to re-outfit before your departure?”

  Letitia stared at or through him for several seconds before replying.

  “Of course,” she said finally. “How long will you need?”

  Nuad produced a look of profound regret. “Half an hour, Mora.”

  Letitia just nodded, but Amien sighed.

  “Be quick,” Letitia said. “We will wait here.”

  The sun was edging towards noon when we finally crossed the harbor and began following the river north. The Tanaan didn’t ride in proper ranks: rather in a disorganized, shifting series of clusters that seemed, if not relaxed, more comfortable than the situation warranted. Mattiaci and Vandabala teased one another for looking tired; I looked at the younger Tan with renewed concern, remembering the brush he’d had with an enchanted sword, but it soon seemed clear both Tans had spent last night carousing. Letitia moved among the clusters of guards, speaking with each member of the party as they rode, Iminor doggedly in her wake. I recognized what she was doing, and the impulse was a sound one: warriors need to feel a sense of connection to the person they are assigned to protect. But if we were attacked in this disorganized state, with no one quite certain where the mora was or what their immediate responsibilities might be, the outcome could only be disaster.

  I glanced at Nuad, who consistently occupied the rear of the shifting mass. He seemed alert, even anxious, apparently monitoring the entire party and the terrain around us; after a few moments more I realized everyone in the group was similarly aware of our surroundings, even while they chatted with the mora or their fellows. There was no carelessness among them. The reality was much worse.

  I rode forward and fell in beside Amien, who had assumed a position at the front of the pack. “My lord.”

  The wizard shot me an inquiring glance.

  “I need to rearrange your planned schedule,” I said.

  Amien grimaced. “Why should you be any different?”

  I manufactured a laugh. “I’d like to stop about an hour before sunset, leave us some time to drill with the contingent. Battlefield tactics—they have none.” If someone had told me a year ago that speaking the Ilesian language would ever feel like a return home, I would have laughed.

  Amien gazed at me for a moment, as if to assess whether I might be joking. Finally he shook his head with a humorless laugh.

  “Would you like to make the announcement?” he said, with the air of a righ inviting a visiting tiarn to begin the evening’s dance.

  I shook my head. “I’m going to deal with Nuad.”

  Amien raised his eyebrows and shrugged; I dropped back to ride beside Nuad.

  “Ouirr,” I said, “how many of this contingent are experienced fighters?”

  Nuad glanced at me, then forward at Letitia. I followed his gaze, then had to push aside the distraction. All the qualities that make spidersilk mail the choice of everyone who can afford it served only to heighten her allure. I must be sure to avoid riding behind her.

  “Oh, they’re all tournament champions,” Nuad said. “It’s a requirement for admission to the Mora’s Guard. The Arian woman in particular will polish your…” He cracked a reluctant grin.

  Oh, sweet Lady Tella. “Yes, but how many of them have experienced combat?”

  Suddenly all of Nuad’s attention was on me.

  “Oh,” he said gravely. “Well, Matti, Vanda, Eber, Tru, and me. And Lord Iminor, of course.”

  As I’d suspected: only the people who had stood with me in the meadow, on the night I first joined them. These were people who spoke about the end of warfare as an established fact, after all.

  I nodded. “Ouirr Nuad, with respect—there are significant differences between battle and a tourney.”

  Nuad nodded emphatic agreement. “Oh, Lord of Light, didn’t we see that!” he groaned. “Eight champions lost in five minutes!” The sudden grief in his face tore at my throat; then, just as abruptly, his professional demeanor returned.

  “If you would,” I said carefully, in tones pitched for his ears alone. “There are things I could show you…”

  Nuad glanced at Letitia again, then turned a look of intense gratitude on me. He nodded. “Teach us.”

  We stopped on a bluff overlooking the river, a place that seemed to serve both as a campground for travelers and a shrine to the Tanaan goddess Lys. Lys is one of three primary goddesses, I learned: a sort of junior dignitary to their great goddess Dana, a huntress and seer and—if the statue in the place was a proper likeness—so severe and angular that her virgin status might or might not be voluntary.

  News of the contingent’s changed mission and the training I planned had spread among the group during the afternoon: the mood was serious as the contingent set up camp, and more than one of them cast surreptitious, anxious glances at me. The clusters I’d observed on the road this afternoon persisted in the disposition of the camp; finally I realized I was seeing factions. The remaining members of Letitia’s previous contingent claimed the space nearest the nest that Iminor built for Letitia; the others spread out in threes and fours. My first priority must be to accustom them to working as a unit—but I was distracted from planning tonight’s lesson when I realized Vandabala was unwell, after all. He looked greyer than he had at noon, and his companions—including the Tana, Tru—left him to rest while they divided the tasks of setting up their campsite among themselves.

  I looked around, trying to locate Amien so we could discuss the situation—and spotted Letitia standing at the edge of the bluff, leaning across her horse’s withers and staring at the westering sun. I couldn’t see her face, but even from this angle it was clear she had taken on a subtle glow. I stared, momentarily unable to summon the will to look away. Echoes of her unearthly illumination wafted on the air of the campsite; without thinking I breathed them in, tasting a warmth like roses in summer against the back of my throat.

  A different power surged at the edges of the clearing. The next breath I drew tasted of death. I glanced around: as many as half the trees at the southern perimeter were shifting into human shape, drawing weapons from the deadfall at their feet; more slipped in from the east. Again Letitia’s enemy had augmented his forces: this time they had nearly double our numbers.

  “Fíana!” I shouted and drew my sword.

  “To arms!” Nuad called and flung himself into the saddle. Most of the Tanaan followed suit and launched themselves towards the Básghilae—who had arrayed themselves with a row of pikes in front, swordsmen behind, and no apparent concern for the fact that their shapeshifting had left them nude. Amien raced in from the far end of the camp, casting at them as he ran. The first bolt caromed crazily and struck the statue of Lys in the face, severing her nose. I ran past him to engage the Básghilae, several members of Letitia’s first contingent in my wake.

  Amien shot me a glare. “I could use some help here!” he barked.

  “I’m giving you all I can!” I moved to close with the Básghilae. But before I got there, several mounted guardsmen galloped past, as if they actually thought they could slip between the pikes to engage the ghouls.

  “No!” I shouted. “Fools! Stop!”

  “HALT!” Nuad roared behind me; but momentum or bravado carried the knights forward. Horses slammed into the pikes and screamed; Tans were thrown spurs-over-helmet to land helpless among the swordsmen at the rear, who dispatched them within seconds. Amien cast another bolt of power across the campground; this one swerved towards me, and I had to duck to avoid it.

  “Fouzh!” I snapped, glaring at the wizard. “If you don’t want me here—”

  “Shut up!” he roared. “Help me or shut—” Again he let fly; this one finally hit home, and one of the pikemen went down. Another group of Tanaan horsemen poured towards the breach. Nuad was among them. So, unaccountably, was Letitia.

  “Letitia!” I shouted
.

  Horror broke across Nuad’s face; he wheeled his mount to intercept Letitia, blocking her progress. All at once the Tanaan were in disarray and Básghilae were racing towards her.

  “Riders!” I shouted. “Guard the mora! Iminor, Mattiaci, Eber, Tru—with me! On foot!” I slipped into the opening between the pikemen; the place dissolved into chaos. Tanaan horsemen encircled Letitia, fighting Básghilae; other Tanaan warriors engaged undead swordsmen on foot. Letitia’s handsome kinsman Neide fell back before a particularly vicious attack, lost his footing and toppled backwards off the bluff.

  “Neide!” Letitia howled and slipped between her defenders, sword raised. Básghilae across the campsite turned towards her; Nuad roared frustration, hauled her summarily from the saddle, and spurred his horse into the center of the group defending her.

  There was nothing for it but to dig in and whittle away at the Básghilae. Little by little, as darkness gathered at the bases of the trees and stretched across the campsite, we reduced their number—until finally, just as on that first night in the meadow, we overcame their numerical advantage and they withdrew. This time I found myself staring after them, trying to guess at the Bard of Arcadia’s plan. To send Básghilae so far from his base of operations, wherever it might lie, was a huge expenditure of magical resources; presumably the Bard needed his wizard for other operations as well. Why spend so much on an objective that made so little sense?

  I looked around the campsite again and discovered Amien staring at me, bewilderment and frustration in his face. I met his gaze; he shook his head and turned away.

  Far too much time passed before Letitia finally agreed to halt the search for her kinsman’s body; not until it was too dark for even Tanaan eyes to discern much, and Iminor quietly pointed out that she was endangering the living with her hunt for the dead, did she allow herself to be persuaded to move out.

  We walked this time, horses in tow, following the dusty road along the river by torchlight. Finally we reached a place Nuad declared possible to defend: a little crannog so long abandoned that the edges of the artificial island were beginning to fray. We crossed a narrow, crumbling causeway and found ourselves in the midst of a bracken-infested, deserted homestead. Once again the Tanaan set about building a campsite, this time by torchlight; Amien stood in the center of the little yard and cast wards around the island, calling the true gods to each quarter in turn. The incantation echoed inescapably in my head and tried to force itself past my lips; I held myself closed, but power teased at my edges.

  When it was done, I realized I had forgotten about tending to my horse; the brush felt like something alien in my hand, and Amien had caught me staring.

  “Ellion, a moment?” he said gravely. I nodded and followed him away from the campsite, across the tiny would-be island, to stand among the bracken at the base of the ward-wall.

  For a moment we stared at one another in silence. It felt different than it had this morning; now the words bubbling up in my throat held no rancor. But they were just as impossible to speak. He seemed shorter than he had during my days as his student; there seemed to be more white in his hair now. Maybe it was just that I wasn’t used to seeing the top of his head.

  “What’s this business with the sword?” he said finally. “This contingent is full of swordsmen; I need help.”

  Dread caught at my chest. “I’m giving you all I can. I can’t—”

  “You of all people should understand what we’re up against!”

  It felt like an accusation of a hundred crimes, all of which I had committed. I forced myself to meet his black eyes, seeing myself reflected in a dozen hues of green: a sad shade of the man whose deep connection with the goddess had rendered unnecessary the ethical caution practiced by the wizards around him. Or who had thought it did.

  “You’ve got my blade,” I rasped. It was yet another flavor of humiliation that the ard-harpist could allow his voice to sound like that. “Don’t ask me to work magic.”

  “Letitia?” Iminor’s voice echoed across the crannog.

  “Mora?” That was Nuad. Immediately Amien and I glanced around and then back at one another, anger forestalled.

  “What the hell?” I muttered, striding back towards the campsite.

  “Great Lord Ilesan, how can a Tana get herself lost on a warded crannog?” Amien groaned behind me. He stopped, and I paused to look back at him, realizing what he was doing: seeking Letitia through his connection to the arcane wards he’d worked for her this morning. His gaze was immediately abstracted; then just as suddenly he nodded and strode past me, preceding me into the campsite.

  “She’s here,” he said to the frantic Tanaan. “She’s on the crannog, and she’s safe.”

  “Good, but where is she?” Iminor said.

  Amien looked thoughtful. “I’m… not sure,” he said after a moment, gaze focused on senses arcane. “I’m not—” Suddenly he was speaking Ilesian again. “—a clairvoyant; all I get from this is impressions. Bracken? She’s sitting in bracken?”

  That didn’t narrow it down, not here.

  “And she’s—” He frowned. “In… amhain—no, machnamh—in trance? Meditating?” He returned to the present moment, glancing around at the group. “She’s meditating,” he said, nodding.

  “Oh Sweet Lord,” said Iminor, evidently the only Tanaan present who understood Ilesian, and strode out of the campsite. At a word from Nuad most of the guardsmen spread out as well; Amien watched them go, guilt in his face. I was just turning back to my neglected horse when the wizard gasped; my head whipped around of its own accord.

  “What?” I said.

  “Ah, damn… They scared her,” the wizard said, voice rough. “Fouzh but I hate it when they cry.”

  I nodded.

  A moment later Letitia stalked out from behind the crumbling homestead, most of her escort in tow.

  “Lord of Light, can’t a woman meditate in peace?” she snapped, no trace of tears in her face or voice.

  Amien bowed. “I will try not to let that happen again.”

  With so many new guards eager to distinguish themselves in the mora’s service, there was no need for me to take a watch. Nevertheless, sleep was all but impossible. Amien spent the night struggling to keep his wards active, trying one power source after another; again and again the surge-and-fail of power sent me bolting from sleep. Finally, an hour or so before dawn—or so I guessed, in the absence of stars by which I might check my internal clock—I gave up trying to sleep and lay in my bedroll watching the wizard, who alternated between staring at the fire and pacing the camp’s perimeter. Finally he stopped, glaring at me.

  “Well?” he snapped. “What have you to say?”

  I sat up and met his eyes. “Nothing, obviously.”

  “Damn right, nothing!” the wizard retorted. “He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help!”

  The wards guttered and collapsed; without warning the entire flow of energy mapped itself across my consciousness: the power center Amien had tapped; the energy of the wards smearing across the aether like smoke-rings in a sudden wind—and the cold, crystalline consciousness at the opposite end of the flow: the wizard who had torn the working from beneath Amien like so much tissue; a black awareness that felt like someone I ought to know, someone I might turn out to be. For half a second it was as if our eyes met, across some indeterminate distance; I found myself standing in the midst of my rumpled bedroll, sword in hand and all the hair on the back of my neck saluting. Across the narrow channel, barely visible in the first glimmers of daylight, mounted Básghilae waited.

  “Fouzh,” Amien said tiredly.

  10. Tuned to a Dark Mood

  Dianann House is a much more modest structure than Ériu House: if the latter is a riga, the former is a noblewoman who welcomes widowhood as an opportunity to concentrate on scholarly pursuits. Nevertheless it has tall, solid walls; and after three days of fighting and two anxious half-warded campsites, I had never seen anything look lovelier.r />
  For the past three days, it had seemed the Bard’s Wizard anticipated our every decision. It wouldn’t be so hard to explain his predicting we’d make for Dianann: there are only so many possible destinations for a party following a river, and Dianann House stands right on the water’s edge. But as we traveled that long river road, Nuad—who, like Iminor, hailed from Dianann—let me teach him quietly about the use of terrain in staging an ambush. Twice he anticipated places we should be wary of and led us onto lesser trails—where we found ourselves under attack anyway. Finally, on the third day, we remained on the river road, riding into the place sensible tactics said we should avoid and counting on our opponent to again anticipate the detour—and endured yet another ambush: not in the expected spot on the river road, but rather a short distance afterward, at the precise moment when we stood down. It was as if the Bard’s Wizard, whoever he was, could somehow see what we were doing. But Aballo has not trained a wizard capable of physical magic who was also a clairvoyant since the great Tol, and the one farsensing orb created since Hy-Breasaíl was destroyed at the end of Nechton’s War.

  It made no sense. It made the skin on the back of my neck crawl. I counted a party of almost-untried warriors lucky to have conducted Letitia this far, even at the cost we had endured: half our number, by the time we rode through the gate.

  Standing in the yard when we arrived was Tiaran, the ancient Tana with eldritch eyes and knee-length silver braid I remembered from dinner at Ériu House: pleased relief breaking across her face and heartfelt grin revealing her half-grown new incisor, as if she’d been waiting there for a while. I startled, astonished, but Letitia just cast an exhausted, unsurprised glance in my direction.

  “The Dianann is a wisewoman, ouirr,” she said quietly. “Iminor and I were betrothed because of a vision she had; I cannot recall her ever being surprised by anything.”