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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “Before him,” Amien continued, “all anybody could manage were ghouls that—well, they didn’t last very long, and parts tended to fall off, and—”

  “Lord Amien,” Letitia said firmly, “I find the history of these things interesting but perhaps not to the point.” I wanted to cheer.

  Amien sighed. “Always the same story. No ruler ever has time for the answers to his—her—own questions. Mora, give me five minutes, and I promise the understanding you crave.”

  Letitia sighed and gestured for him to continue.

  “Our knowledge of his methodology is limited,” Amien said. “He had originally gone to Macol to take an appointment as House Healer to Uxellia, but—”

  “House Healer?” Letitia echoed, in the way a person will when a memory has been incompletely brought to mind.

  “The title given to a sorcerer in the employ of a Beallan royal house,” Iminor said. “Theoretically the sorcerer’s fealty is due the royal house, but in reality they all still look to Aballo.”

  Amien turned a look of frank astonishment on the young Tan. After a moment his mouth quirked into a reluctant grin. “I would be pleased if you would make a point of not expressing that opinion to any royals we happen to meet between here and Aballo. I really don’t need the headache.”

  Iminor just gave him a modest half-smile.

  Amien cleared his throat. “By the time the renegade began his work in this area, he had cut off all contact with the Order. So what we know about his operation is sparse. We do know that he used a well, in much the same way Dian Cecht did—and that he used slain warriors, for the most part. Now I suspect the Bard’s Wizard has somehow managed to lay hands on copies of his grimoires—”

  “His what?” Iminor said.

  “Grimoires. His...notes and records, recipes and methodologies. His books of spells. Every wizard keeps his own.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to hope Amien was right: Nechton’s grimoires were assumed destroyed, along with the farsensing orb he’d created and the rest of his workshop, around the time of his defeat. During my wilder days I’d thought the loss of those things a terrible blow to arcane history; today the idea of someone actually practicing from those works, whether copies or the original volumes, made cold gather inside me.

  “So what we’re seeing is the same as what...” Iminor trailed off.

  “Nechton,” Letitia said quietly. “Like in—the mora Carina’s song.”

  The Tan shot her a surprised glance, then continued, “It’s the same as what Nechton did?”

  Amien shook his head grimly. “It’s better. The Bard’s Wizard has used those methods as a jumping-off point. I’m not certain what power source Nechton used to sustain his Básghilae, but these use a contact-depletion spell.”

  The Tanaan all wore expressions that suggested they had grasped at understanding, and it had slipped between their hands. When cornered, obfuscate. All at once I’d had enough.

  “They draw the life energies from whoever they can touch,” I said quietly. “From whoever comes in contact with either the Básghilae themselves or with their weapons. It’s why we lost so many on that first night.”

  Letitia’s translucent skin turned paler still; she nodded.

  “Among other things, it means that there may be no definite—span of usefulness for these Básghilae,” I said. “We can’t just wait them out.”

  “Also, it seems clear that this wizard has incorporated contact-shapeshifting into this working,” Amien interposed, and drew breath as if to continue muddying the water.

  I interrupted him again. “Which means these Básghilae can assume the shape of anything they touch.”

  “Lord... Endeáril,” Iminor said, voice raw. “So when we saw Neide this morning, that...”

  “That wasn’t the person you knew,” I said.

  “It was just a—sort of effigy,” Iminor said.

  “Neide was not there,” I temporized. “But the person you saw afterward...”

  Renewed horror flared in Iminor’s blue eyes; he glanced from me to Amien. “The person?”

  “Where did you think they were coming from?” I said. “These aren’t clay figures come to life in a fireside tale; these were real human men, all of them! They are just as much the victims of this renegade as Neide and Vandabala! Maybe more so.”

  “Ellion,” Amien said.

  “No,” I said firmly. “They need to understand. Being ignorant of the truth does not protect people from it. It only hampers their ability to judge what they see. It only robs them of the vocabulary they need to deal—”

  “So you would have me teach from Aechering in workshop?”

  I felt myself flinching physically, stung. The presence of grimoires like Aechering’s and Ransmith’s in the library at Aballo, full of arcane techniques and areas of philosophy that are too dark for Aballo’s tastes, had been a point of contention before I arrived there and doubtless continued as such after I left. I had made no attempt to conceal reading those works, but I hadn’t shouted out my insights on those grimoires at dinner, either. It is a sort of unspoken codicil to the Aballo code: those few of us who read the darker works do not speak about them, and those who judge us for it pretend not to see. Of course Amien must blame all my failings on my taste in reading material.

  “Knowledge never harmed anyone,” I grated.

  “No, men do that,” Amien snapped.

  “A man not educated in the use of the sword will pick up a cudgel, if the time has come for killing.”

  “Gentlemen,” Letitia said.

  “Then by all means, let us stop checking weapons at the palace door!” Amien said.

  “Give me the choice between that and a situation in which no living wizard has any idea how to address our collective enemy, and I’ll take my chances at dinner!” I said.

  “No—living...?” Letitia said faintly.

  “If both my dining partner and I are educated in the use of the sword, I guarantee there will be courtesy throughout the meal!” I pursued.

  “I would be more inclined to accept that if good men hadn’t already died at the table!” Amien retorted.

  Too late I understood what he’d meant. While I’d been arguing about giving the Tanaan the knowledge they needed rather than restricting them to what little Amien wanted them to know, he’d been talking about me. I should have known he would lay my father’s death at my feet, should only have been surprised it took him so long to come around to it. For half a second my father’s face was all I could see: the belated, horrified comprehension in his gaze the last time his eyes met mine. I was on my feet, and I didn’t remember rising. Instinct had sent my hand to the hilt of my sword, and the irony of wanting to draw on Amien in a dining room was so thick I could barely breathe. I spun away from the table and left the room.

  I walked, fast and purposeless, until I found myself in Dianann House’s entry hall, then yanked open the door and strode out to the portico. Once again I was trapped by the green wall of Amien’s damned wards. I needed to run; I needed to fight someone; my hand was on my sword again, but there was no one out here on whom it would be right to turn it. I just stood there, staring across the yard at the wards while my mind spun with heinous black impulses, until Iminor stepped out the door to stand nearby.

  “Lord Ellion,” he said slowly.

  I turned to look at him, startled: it was the first time he had addressed me so.

  “At this moment, the mora is in a private chamber with Lord Amien...” His otherworldly blue gaze shifted. *We’re talking now,* he broadcast.

  *Let me know.* That was Letitia’s voice. A deep pang of need for the closeness of mind-to-mind contact washed through me; unexpected jealousy flared in its wake. The last telepath I had known was Deaclan. Even the months when we hated one another were charged with an intimacy I hadn’t known since.

  Iminor focused on me again. “...asking him not to force her to choose which of you will accompany her on this journey, because she nee
ds you both. It is my task to make the same request of you.”

  Sudden heaviness weighed on me, as if I were wearing a full harness of mail. I sighed and glanced away, casting about for something besides the damned wards on which to focus.

  “I regret,” I said. “Naturally I will apologize to the mora.”

  “That’s not necessary, ouirr,” Iminor said quietly. “She just needs—we all need—you and Lord Amien to resolve whatever—” Suddenly he stopped, turning a look of profound concentration on me.

  “When Lord Amien arrived at Ériu House,” he said. “That was not the first time you two had met.”

  I sighed again. “But it was the first time we’d spoken in about ten years.”

  Iminor drew in a hissing breath. “Not a happy reunion.”

  “No,” I said, staring at nothing again: no longer hoping the conversation would end of its own accord, but not willing to hurry it along, either.

  “What matter lies between you?”

  His name is Deaclan, I thought. Always paired off against me in Amien’s workshop, always driven into tighter and tighter competition, as if it would prove something when one of us finally gave into the frustration. As if Amien had a right to act surprised. As if any act of redemption would ever be enough to balance what I’d done. I glanced at Iminor, framing a suitably acid reply, and once again all I could see was the similarity between him and Deaclan. Suddenly Iminor’s eerie beauty made me angrier still. I wrapped my right hand around the rail of the portico steps to keep it from grasping the sword.

  “I am a disappointment to him,” I said in Ilesian. “In fact it is probably no exaggeration to say I am the bitterest disappointment of his very long life.”

  “Ouirr, I don’t—did I understand you?”

  “To promise resolution would be a lie,” I said to the rail. “I can only promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure things remain civil, and apologize for my lack of composure this morning.”

  “We are all under a good deal of strain,” Iminor said.

  “It will get worse before it gets better,” I replied, and walked the steps down from the portico.

  “Ouirr,” Iminor said. I stopped but didn’t turn back.

  “What it means to be Básghilae,” he said. “This morning you told Amien we were... seeing what it means to be Básghilae. I don’t remember all your words, but that phrase—I’m sure of that phrase.”

  My throat clenched. I forced myself to face him.

  “The matter from which Básghilae are made,” I said, voice inexcusably thick. “Is dead warriors. Mostly men who died in battle against the Bard of Arcadia and his allies. Essuvians, most of them; I can’t help but wonder whether—had Amien’s plans to rendezvous with High Chief Rohini of the Essuvians and her men come to fruition—whether any of those men might have recognized some of the Básghilae we are fighting, from when they were alive.”

  Iminor leaned against a pillar, face absolutely white.

  “The problem—the real problem with being Básghil...” I found it necessary to clear my throat. “Is that Básghilae are not just puppets. The spell binds the dead man’s soul to his reanimated body. The soul is what makes the function.”

  “Lord of Light,” Iminor croaked.

  “Those dead men—are still in there, somewhere. They’re aware; they just have no will, no choice. Sweet Lady Tella, if there’s a worse fate, I don’t know what it is—to be used for evil, to know you’re doing evil, to not even be able to choose the release of dying, to see...” My throat dried up. For a moment we were both silent.

  “It is a mercy, then,” Iminor said at last, very quietly.

  I looked at him.

  “Killing them. Ending it. It’s a mercy...”

  “To the enchanted man,” I said, nodding. “Yes, it is.”

  12. The Deluge

  Once again we were late in setting out. As we traveled the river road north from Dianann, I quizzed Letitia’s knights periodically about the terrain we traversed, making them apply their lessons from our training session. At first they debated tactical issues as solemnly as a group of high-ranking brehon adjudicating a royal divorce, the events of the morning fresh in their minds; but as the road unrolled behind us, and the sun came out to cast everything in the fresh light of spring, they began to relax their white-knuckled grips on the reins and actually showed signs of enjoying the exercise. Eventually Bruane, she of the red-gold hair and bird-wing brows, looked around at the group, mischief in her face, and said, “And how would you handle an ambush here?” in what was evidently a hilarious rendering of my accent, inserting broad trills where the Rs should be and completely eliminating the impossible-to-pronounce cthlwhch diphthong from the question.

  Suddenly all the knights were laughing. Even Iminor, who had worn a haunted expression since this morning’s meeting, smiled.

  “Oh, come now!” I laughed. “Let me hear even one of you speak Ilesian! Letitia and Iminor, you don’t get to play.”

  “Uh… fouzh,” said stocky Eber, grinning.

  “Cread… hon?” offered Greine, looking for all the world like an apprentice who has found the keys to his master’s liquor cabinet. “Oh, your mothers would be so ashamed,” I said, shaking my head in mock dismay.

  We rode on, as the road twisted away from the river over rising terrain, and soon the gathering forest gave us opportunities to discuss attacks from cover. Gradually the road narrowed and began to look as if few people traveled this route; eventually it became a track just broad enough for a single horseman, and the group quieted and arranged themselves in a narrow file. Then, abruptly, we crested a steep incline—and the forest and the track stopped. Before us, the ground fell sharply away, treacherous slopes of crumbling grey shale spilling down to a deep bowl that stretched, barren, away beyond sight. Everyone stopped, spreading out along the edge of the ridge and looking down.

  Sulfurous vapors wafted up on a cold, wet wind; clouds hung over an area at the base of the ridge that I would have called a lake—except that no body of water I had ever seen was yellow. Stunted bracken and scrub grass clung to the rocks here and there, but nothing taller grew within sight. The very earth breathed of tragedy and the aftermath of rage; it gathered in my throat, even more searing than the sulfurous fog.

  “What the hell is this?” Amien croaked. For a moment everyone was silent.

  “The Deluge,” Easca said at last. “Lords, I know the way.”

  “Get up here, then,” Nuad said sharply.

  “The what?” Amien said.

  Again silence fell over the group. A quick look around the contingent revealed most of them staring at the devastation with the sort of fascination with which one addresses a truly horrific wound: horror, I noted, but no surprise. As if such a scene were no more than should be expected. Letitia’s horror was overlaid with guilt, Nuad’s with the sort of dismay a commander wears when he’s overlooked some detail that will cost lives.

  “What happened?” I pursued.

  They all glanced at me. Only Easca seemed willing to meet my gaze. Letitia’s guilt gave way to humiliation.

  “Nuad, how long to Arian?” she said.

  “Easca?” Nuad said.

  “Mora?” I said.

  Easca shrugged, the long tail of her golden hair drifting on a wind that now carried both sulfur and the tang of iron. “Call it six hours, ra?” She glanced at Letitia. “Six to eight.”

  Letitia turned her face in my direction, but her eyes were on something above me and to my left. She shrugged one shoulder. “Ouirr, that is a discussion… better left for—the other side.”

  I hung onto my patience with an effort. “Mora, this wind tastes of the aftermath of magic.”

  Letitia flushed and looked away.

  “If there is—”

  “It is the Will of the goddess you taste, ouirr,” she said, voice strangled. “And long past. Indulge me: it is a tale for later.”

  Iminor shot me a warning glance; I gestured f
rustrated acquiescence and turned to Nuad.

  “Easca, take the lead,” Nuad said. “And set a reasonable pace.”

  She nodded, slid from the saddle, and led her horse past Letitia to a thin hint of a descending path. Even that label over-glorified it: nothing distinguished the route Easca chose but a slightly higher proportion of parched dirt showing among the shale. She slip-stepped carefully, shale falling away beneath her feet and skipping towards the base of the rise, trailing dust that rose in grey-white puffs on the dank air. Her roan gelding picked its way gingerly in her wake. After a few moments of watching, the rest of us dismounted; Nuad followed Easca, Letitia slip-sliding precariously on his horse’s heels. Iminor followed her, and Amien; I hung back and let the rest of them proceed before me: peering ahead and trying to get some sense of the desolated zone through which Easca planned to lead us, catching my lower lip in my teeth as shale spilled away and horses and knights scrambled to retain their footing. The devastation stretched, jagged grey and swathed in shifting plumes of smoke or fog, north and east beyond sight. Finally the last of Letitia’s knights descended, and I followed him down into the shale and dust.

  Skirting the poison-yellow lake, we picked our ways across uneven, rock-strewn ground to a cluster of huge weathered buttes. Beyond them, the plain opened into seemingly endless distance. After a few moments of scrambling across the treacherous, broken flats, Easca led us to a surface I would have guessed a dry streambed—though what would flow through here I wasn’t sure. We mounted and began to ride again.

  Mist gathered around, stinging against the eyes and throat, then blew away; the path rose and then dipped into a deeper hollow, where the ground lay caked in red-orange mud and grey ash surrounded a steaming pond of vibrant aqua hue. Another rise and we were crossing an elevation punctuated by steaming sulfurous vents around which the rocks were crusted with crystals in a mosaic of brilliant hues. No birds flew overhead; there was no sign of game large or small. I tried to imagine how the places through which I rode could be the Will of a goddess, no matter how stern.