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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  After a bit of tuning, a few half-complete melodic lines, and a sotto voce discussion that suggested a last-minute change of plans, they began to play on a cittern and a reed flute. For the moment the drum sat alone on the floor; after the first phrase from the flute, I understood why. They had decided to play Coradon’s Lament, the story of Coradon, righ of the place that would later become Ilesia, and his seduction and eventual ruin by the Tanaan Lady Ara of Nimah. No doubt the harpists meant it as a tribute to the Tana. At least it wasn’t the Ballad of Carina.

  Coradon’s Lament is a standard, and always well-received in taverns; I hadn’t played it in years. Now I added it to the list of songs I must deconstruct and try to find the truth of: I finally understood that Nimah was a real place, not mythical, and the whole thing was shot through with all the misconceptions about Tana I had breathed for so many years. I was grateful most of the Tanaan couldn’t understand it, too embarrassed to even look at Letitia.

  Finally it ended, to applause from all the human men in the room; if the harpists understood it had failed to achieve some sort of rapport with the Tana, they gave no sign. But afterward the singer picked up the drum, and they returned to the more fertile ground of dance tunes. Immediately the mummers came bounding back to our table and invited the Tana, who seemed completely oblivious to the subtexts of the mummers’ last sketch, to dance. Tindell claimed Tru again, Easca smiled and rose to dance with dark-eyed Corro, and Letitia crossed the room to the open dance-space with Loeg. Donnall, still dressed as the Farmer, and Sainrith, who had returned to his guise as the Damsel, made a comic business of joining in: so hilariously overdone in their play-courting that the whole room soon laughed.

  Except the Tanann, I noted. Behind their studied neutrality I saw a flavor of jealousy few human men ever achieve, a drive that managed to transcend emotion. Their faces might be still and calm, but I had spent years reading the bodies of warriors, and theirs all looked like the final moments before swords are drawn.

  It puzzled me: the Tans had been as oblivious to the import of the Night Butterfly and the Druid as the Tana; and with the exception of Iminor’s commitment to Letitia, there were clearly no romantic bonds among any of them. Every time we came within range of night butterflies, Tuiri and Mattiaci in particular lit up with charm I had never seen in them, indeed had rarely seen anywhere; and the others, if less adventuresome, were clearly as compelled by the night butterflies’ provocative dress and what doubtless counted among Tanaan as their exotic appearance. I hadn’t seen so much as a hint of sexual tension among the Tanaan, which was surprising in a mixed-gender crew of beautiful people. And yet tonight the Tans were ready to explode.

  I was in no position to judge, of course. The sight of Letitia in the embrace of the black-and-white painted Fool made something uncomfortable try to unfold inside my chest, something that deepened when I saw her eyes on me across the room. It was only for a moment, but the intensity of it echoed through me until I had to look away. Instead I focused on the men with whom I sat, watching their narrow jaws go hard.

  After the first two songs the dancers switched partners: Letitia with Tindell, who suddenly looked much more Rogue than Lord and whose boldness seemed only to amuse her; Easca with Donnall, who I overheard playing his Farmer role with very dirty overtones, making Easca first blush—when had she learned enough Ilesian to understand such talk?—and then smolder; Tru with Suros, who approached her with a reverent wonder that made me suddenly like him, after all. This time Loeg played the Fool in high form, dancing with Sainrith the Damsel.

  Finally I’d had enough of watching the Tans seethe. I rose and moved to a place in which I could lean across the table, speak in an undertone and still have them hear me.

  “You don’t like it?” I said, looking around at them. “Cut in.”

  “Cut what?” Iminor said.

  Oh, sweet Lady Tella. How are these things settled on that side of the mountains?

  “Cut in,” I repeated. “You go to the man who is dancing with the woman you’d like to dance with, tap his shoulder—politely—” I engaged all their gazes, one by one. “And say, ‘Excuse me’. They will know what you want. Unless they’re itching to fight—and believe me, none of these fellows are—they’ll just bow and hand her over. And then it’s your turn to dance.”

  I looked around at them again, watching the ideas turn in their minds. After a second I remembered there were still twice as many of them as there were Tana.

  “It would be a courtesy if you all took turns,” I said. “Then the mummers won’t have to take it personally. Three of you go in first, dance with our friends; at the next dance, the other three come in. All very friendly. And remember to smile if one of the mummers cuts in afterward.”

  They all looked increasingly thoughtful. Finally Iminor nodded and rose, Mattiaci and Nuad on his heels.

  “Does the phrase international incident mean nothing to you?” Amien said as I sat down again.

  I shrugged. “I think I just averted one.”

  He nodded, thoughtful, watching the little drama unfold; I followed his gaze. Iminor executed his maneuver properly if a bit too intently; Mattiaci surprised me by making it seem charming. Nuad drew soldierly discipline around him and brought all his considerable courtesy to bear; and then Iminor danced with Letitia, Mattiaci with Tru, and Nuad with Easca, and I was stunned by what I saw in their faces and tender embraces. Now, finally, I understood: only a few nights remained until Bealtan. Whatever depth of meaning most humans bring to Bealtan observances, that festival is severalfold more critical to the Tanaan, who still practice the old rite, each and every one—and for whom it marks their sole period of fertility during the year. Of course the intensity must begin days before the festival.

  Sudden wistfulness overcame me at having missed this twelvenight in the Four Realms. I must go back next year. I looked at Letitia again, and once again found her eyes on me, but I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to dance or—in the way women sometimes do—wanted me to see her dancing with another. Emotion roared through me; I bit it fiercely back. I would not play this game. It was entirely possible I was playing it alone. I rose and returned to the bar for another beer, then carried it out to the inn’s front porch.

  I could still hear the music through the open windows, but there were other things to look at here: long northern evening fading into starlight; Telliyn climbing over the round, ragged cones of the mountains on the Ruillin’s other side; river mist creeping between the buildings. The cool serenity felt strange, divorced from reality; but I suspected the Ruillin was more or less the same as ever. I tried to remember what it had been to play in these inns in the evenings, alternately suffering and embracing the disconnection from everything I had once thought important: marking the days by sets played, women bedded, songs and histories taken apart and examined for traces of the sort of truth that had eluded me since the life I expected fell apart. What little I truly remembered of those years here and in Ballarona felt like tales from another man’s life.

  Inside, one of the harpists began a song on a set of pipes fitted with a bag and bellows in the northern style; the sweet melancholy of it closed around my throat. But it also made me realize the dancing must have stopped of its own accord, and wonder why: I pushed away from the wall and went back inside, encountering the Tanaan progressing back up the ill-lit stairs. Iminor looked fiercely neutral again, Letitia angry: no way would I ask the question begging for release behind my lips.

  I fell in with Amien, following the Tanaan up the stairs with Amien on my heels. No one made any pretense of conversation. As the staircase reached an intermediate landing and folded back on itself, I glanced up at Letitia again: this time I was certain her eyes were on me, with a smolder whose like I hadn’t seen on her since Irisa in her gaze; I forced my attention away lest I find myself trying to manufacture explanations. Out of some tiny storage compartment on the landing came the unmistakable ozone smell and arcing, sulfurous bolt of a flash
-weapon.

  Amien sent a bolt of his own into the lightless hollow on the stair; seemingly all the Tanaan dove on top of Letitia. The wizard beat me to the landing and wrested the flash-weapon from the attacker’s hands before the afterimages had subsided from my vision. The man collapsed in a dark-clad, delicately smoking heap.

  “Secure the mora,” he said evenly to the Tanaan. Sudden satisfaction broke across his equine face, plain even in the poor light. “I’ve finally got something I can use.”

  “Ah,” I breathed, pleased understanding settling over me. The operative part of any flash weapon is a charged crystal, which the weapon taps to produce a would-be arcane casting. The better ones use crystals charged by wizards. Though some inferior substitutes use mechanically generated quick-charges, those weapons are generally only good for a single use. The Bard of Arcadia had no need to resort to such measures, of course: the weapon in Amien’s hands almost certainly contained a crystal that had been charged by the Bard’s Wizard—which, in all likelihood, still bore his arcane signatures. Possibly even his name.

  Learning our enemy’s name would change everything. Stronger, much more targeted magics can be brought to bear when one knows the intended object’s name; a man’s name is the core of a useful binding. And the intelligence of the mundane variety we might gain would be nearly as important.

  Amien’s face was composed, but deep eagerness gleamed in his dark eyes. He watched the Tanaan pick themselves up and glanced at me; I smiled.

  “I’ve got this,” I said, with a nod towards the body. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  He grinned and raced upstairs after them.

  I knelt at the edge of the little storage enclosure, checking the body to see what I could learn. His left sleeve concealed a redsnake tattoo, the mark of a kharr insider. Just to be thorough, I checked for the mark of Par at the nape of his neck, but of course it wasn’t there. His hands bore the sort of calluses any craftsman’s might, though some instinct made me suspect he was a smith. It didn’t matter, in the end: the important detail was beyond dispute. I wrestled the body all the way inside the storage alcove and jammed the little door shut behind him; with any luck, by the time the body was discovered we would be gone.

  “Kharr,” I said to Amien as I entered the room, but he was already absorbed in his investigation: he’d pulled the crystal free of its housing and sat before the fire with the thing in his hands, thoroughly entranced. I stirred up the blaze, checked on the drying-progress of my things, and examined the harp for signs of warping. I wished I could play it to pass the time; no way could I leave the room until Amien returned from his investigations. A wizard in such a trance is even more vulnerable than a man asleep.

  On the other side of the room, Tuiri and Fiacha had settled to the floor and begun yet another dice game. I wasn’t that bored yet. Nevertheless they seemed to feel my gaze and looked up at me.

  “Everything all right?” I said to them.

  Tuiri blushed. “Well, Lord, the mora—”

  I waved him off. “I don’t need to know. Amien’s been all right?”

  They glanced past me to the wizard. Fiacha shrugged.

  “I guess so,” he said. “He’s just been sitting there, quiet…”

  I nodded. “That’s fine.” I wandered around the room again, trying to think of something to do. Amien was writing Sanglin a letter, I remembered; I tried to imagine who I should be sending what might be last thoughts and came up with no one with whom I wanted to share the contents of my mind. If I died tomorrow, the lords of the gorsedd would hold a day of mourning as soon as they got the news, then elect a new ard-harpist. No knowledge they needed would perish with me. Finally I stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I would not think about Letitia’s eyes on me. Neither would I allow the illicit energies creeping around my awareness access to the parts of me that sang in response to their touch. I proved both of those resolutions hollow.

  Gradually anxiety began to replace my boredom. Amien was taking a very long time. Some men are better than others at hiding their signatures among the folds and recesses of their arcane workings, and it was only to be expected that a man who could do the things I’d seen from the Bard’s Wizard would have techniques few men ever conceived. But he also wouldn’t be the first or last wizard to lay a mind-trap on something that might fall into an enemy’s hands.

  I sat up and looked at Amien. He hadn’t moved. The fire needed stirring up again; how long had I been woolgathering, myself? The knights had given up their dice game and sat shoulder to shoulder, backs to the room’s outer wall, holding a wistful conversation about the Bealtan they were missing at home.

  “Amien,” I said. The wizard didn’t seem to hear, so I rose and walked towards him. I laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke his name again, got no response, grasped his shoulder and shook him. The crystal remained folded in his hands, his gaze fixed on nothing mundane eyes could see. I said his name again, loudly enough that it was probably audible from the hall and the adjoining rooms. I tried speaking into his mind, knowing it was useless.

  I looked up; both knights met my gaze, wide-eyed.

  “Is he all right?” Tuiri said.

  I sighed. “Probably.” I looked down at the wizard again, considering next options. I must go into his awareness myself and hope he hadn’t become snared by something that would entangle me, too. I wondered where the closest practicing wizard was: probably Coran’s House Healer Athramail, at Ilnemedon. Assuming he hadn’t already left for Teamair, which was less likely than I wished. I should tell the knights who to go to for help if I became ensnared too; but that would require confessing things. A lot of things. Instead I knelt before the wizard, pulled the crystal from his surprisingly-resistant fingers and grasped his hands, leaned my forehead against his, and dove.

  Amien’s radiant energies engulfed me, as familiar as the sounds and shadows of a home long left behind. He was aware of me now, as if I stood at his shoulder while he pursued some absorbing task; he leaned against me, shoulder to shoulder as it were, staring down the trail of the knowledge he sought. Lattices of transparent crystal rose all around us, reflecting red and gold as if caught in some blazing sunset, climbing to impossible heights and depths and stretching in ragged ranks of nearly-regular faces, beyond the edges of awareness. Amien’s mind focused on a trail of deeper red that darkened towards black, which seemed to lead endlessly further into the crystal and stretched an equally interminable distance behind the crystal-heart we occupied. I didn’t have to encompass the whole structure in his mind to recognize that it was a circular path he pursued; I was glad I’d pulled the crystal from his hands before I stepped into this trap.

  Hey, I thought, and tugged at his awareness.

  Wait. Look there.

  I looked ahead, down the trail of deepening, twisting darkness through the facets, suddenly remembering the labyrinthine paths inside the Great Barrow on Ilunmore—and the place I had slipped through into something I still wasn’t sure how to categorize. It would be so easy to succumb to this beckoning trail and the promise of answers just around the edge of the next chamber.

  No, this isn’t working, I thought—and then something shifted. Through the lattice, behind the lattice, somehow both within its chambers and very far away, another awareness stared through the red-gold glow. I recognized it; now I understood who this trap was for. Amien had been merely the bait.

  There was no time to do this delicately: I grasped Amien and wrenched us both into ordinary consciousness, half-surprised I could. The room in the inn screamed into being around us; Amien fell across his own knees, skull clutched in his fingers.

  “Fouzh!” he groaned into his knees. “What the fouzhir hell!”

  “I’m sorry,” I began.

  “Didn’t you see how close—”

  “My lord, you’d been at it for hours. We both know—”

  He picked up his head, wincing as if every movement generated lightning-strikes in his brain, to stare
at me in dismay.

  “Hours,” he said quietly. I nodded. He began to nod and decided against it.

  “Well, he’s got my name now,” Amien said quietly. “Not that that’s much of an accomplishment. Even the damned windcaller knew…”

  “My lord,” I began regretfully; he reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “That was a fouzhir elementary trap,” he said.

  “Best damn execution I ever saw,” I answered. He grunted, as if he suspected he was being managed. For a moment we stared at one another in silence. A half-formed flicker of the way things would have been, had I remained at Aballo, passed between us. Regret condensed inside me again.

  “Well done,” he said finally. “Thank you. Could you look in my herb-kit for some butterbur, and check downstairs to see if they’ve got any wine?”

  I nodded, laid a hand on his shoulder, and rose. Halfway down the stairs, true cognizance of what had happened caught up with me; the headache haunting the edges of my brain roared in like the tide. I paused for a moment in the dim passage, grasping the rail, trying to catch my breath. Had I been wrong to stay with Letitia, after all? Even if I had been the first to reach the assassin, I wouldn’t have been the one to try my hand at seeking our enemy’s name in the crystal: not as long as Amien was here and capable. But our enemy’s plan had encompassed that choice.

  No doubt the assassin had been aiming for Letitia; but the Bard’s Wizard had known he would fail. The attempt on her had been no more than a feint. The true operation had very nearly succeeded.

  Butterbur and wine reduced my headache to the occasional stabbing moment and visual halo; eagerness to be gone from this place swept over me until I could no longer sit still. The Bard’s Wizard knew where we were, to a level of exactitude that would make it a simple matter to send mundane forays against us; there was a body in a storage hollow on the stair, and I wanted to be far away when it was discovered. I fidgeted and paced while Amien called everyone together in our room, then discovered I still needed to stand while he delivered the news.