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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “That’s the standard term?” Iminor pursued.

  One side of Amien’s mouth twitched.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “And did you—” Iminor gestured vaguely, groping after words he lacked. “Do wizards have certification? Like bards?”

  “Something similar. Not the same,” Amien said. “And yes. He is fully… qualified.”

  Iminor looked from me to Amien and back. “Who was your teacher?” His eyes said he had already deduced the answer.

  “Who do you think?” I rejoined. It felt like tangling with a brehon, and I could smell the logical trap building. “Could we come to it, already?”

  Iminor gave me a long, assessing look, something darker than simple distrust in his eyes. “So why aren’t you a wizard anymore?”

  “Now you’re asking him to violate vows,” Amien said crisply. “Certain things can’t be discussed outside the initiate. Let’s move on, please. Shall we sit?” All at once the weight of the things I’d learned tonight seemed to fall on his shoulders. “I really think I’d like to sit.”

  “Yes,” Letitia said fervently.

  We settled in a loose circle on the floor. The hull emitted the creaking noises I had long ago learned are normal but nevertheless didn’t find comforting. On the upper deck, the captain called out some order muffled by wind and the narrow opening above us, which probably would have meant little to me if I stood beside him. It made me acutely conscious how little I understood of anything just now.

  “Nechton,” Amien said after a moment, gaze on his steepled hands. “I… can’t quite believe he’s alive. I—” He swallowed. “Carina defeated him, but she didn’t kill him.”

  Pain manifested in Letitia’s face, and for a second I thought she would speak; instead she curled her long white fingers around the chain of Carina’s talisman, pursing her lips.

  “Why?” the wizard continued. “I would have…” He sighed. Some dark thought crossed his face; he drew in breath, hesitated, finally spoke: “The Shadow of the Sun.”

  Sudden, awful understanding dawned over me. “I thought—You said it was destroyed, at the end of Nechton’s War!”

  Amien’s mouth twisted. “I thought it was. We all thought he was dead. By the time anyone in the Order got to his workshop, everything inside had been burned—right down to the stone. We assumed the orb had been destroyed.”

  “But he’s still got it,” I said.

  Amien nodded regretfully.

  “He’s still using it,” I continued. “That’s how—everything we saw in the Four Realms, every one of those workings, that’s how…” I should have guessed. I had known before we reached Dianann that the only possible explanations for the assaults we endured in Fíana were a clairvoyant or a farsensing orb. I should have trusted what I saw rather than what I’d been told.

  “What?” Iminor said.

  The wizard glanced at him. “The Shadow of the Sun. It’s a farsensing orb—an arcane tool that a wizard—or a seer—can use to gain access to things happening at a distance. People have been trying to create them for centuries; Nechton is the only man who’s succeeded since Hy-Breasaíl. I’m sure the Shadow of the Sun would be a very useful thing to a seer, but in the hands of a wizard, especially one who has abandoned the Aballo code… it’s a nightmare. Nechton can use the thing to work remote magics that would otherwise be impossible—” Suddenly he was looking at me. “And particularly with access to the power well at Esunertos—”

  Rohini drew in a hissing breath. “Wait—Esunertos—? It’s of magical strategic value?”

  “It may be as important as Uisneach,” I said. “More so, from a practical standpoint.”

  “Fouzhir hell,” she said.

  Amien nodded. “Iminor, to try to answer your question before we get too far ahead of ourselves—the Shadow of the Sun is the most important weapon Nechton’s got. No matter what else is in his arsenal. He created it before—before the earlier war, the one we’ve called Nechton’s War for all these years—and it makes it possible for him to work magic at distance as reliably as if he were there himself. It’s what he uses to control the Básghilae; it’s how he was able to… out-outflank us… every time we tried to evade his attacks. I’m sure we don’t even know half the tricks it allows him to pull.”

  And Amien hadn’t enumerated half of what he knew. Nechton’s operations in the Four Realms marched through my awareness, rearranging themselves in my understanding. Nechton had pinpointed Letitia’s landing site on the night of the first attack because he could see her through the orb; the eerie, simultaneous withdrawal of the Básghilae that night and each time the balance of arms in an encounter shifted into our favor had been responses to his direct commands. The binding he’d laid in the Ériu House yard, the precision with which Básghilae had chosen victims whose shapes they could assume in order to get within range of Letitia: those things had also been accomplished directly, through the orb. He had seen us at will—still saw us at will, perhaps even now. He used the orb for farsight; he used the energies from the seemingly bottomless well of dark power at Esunertos to drive the things he handled directly; he used the Básghilae not only for military purposes but also to establish arcane connections for the workings that required a physical talisman on site. The depth and elegance of his strategy and techniques both chilled and fascinated me.

  “So why—What does the name mean?” Iminor said. “When you say it in the Beallan language, it sounds like you’re saying the shadow of the—sun?”

  Amien nodded.

  “What does that mean?”

  Amien raised his eyebrows, glanced at his hands again. There was no way he’d give a useful answer to the question: the name comes from Aechering’s infamous Shadow Working, arguably the ultimate work of black magic, which is widely assumed to be the operation Nechton performed in order to transform an inert sphere of crystal into the most potent arcane tool yet created. Aechering and his ideas are beyond the purview of polite conversation among wizards, let alone discussion with men outside the initiate. To touch on the topic of Aechering is to come perilously close to the subtle rot at the heart of the Aballo Order. Whatever Amien would admit even in this limited public, Aechering’s name would not come up.

  “It’s… a sort of a code name,” Amien said slowly. “It’s what we call it in the Order. No one is sure what name Nechton uses.”

  “More’s the pity,” I added.

  Amien glanced at me as if I’d said something insightful. “Because, of course, if we had the thing’s true name…” He sagged. “Not that we could do it at distance. Not that we even know where—”

  The look on his face said he’d figured it out, at the same time I did.

  “Macol,” we said simultaneously. It had been the staging ground of Nechton’s attempt to conquer the world four hundred years ago, the location of the workshop in which he had done his greatest, darkest, most successful work. There was no need to look further for his ultimate sanctum: we would find it there.

  “No wonder!” I said. “No wonder the Bard began there; that was the ground his wizard needed! I hadn’t seen the point of—”

  I shot Rohini a rueful glance; she met my gaze with a sidelong look that bespoke wrath withheld.

  “Without insult, Chief, it is a strange place for a base from which to conquer the world.”

  She didn’t answer, but neither did her hand move in the direction of her sword; finally she shook her head. I shrugged.

  Amien shook his head, too: slowly, bemusement in his face. “You were right, twice over,” he said to me. He glanced at Rohini. “Wish you’d been there. He called it, earlier tonight: take back Esunertos, and then re-take Macol.” Half a smile staged an assault on his mouth; Rohini just shook her head.

  Abruptly he sobered. “Re-taking Macol isn’t a military operation.”

  “Gods, which part of this is military?” I said.

  The wizard nodded. “It will all come down to defeating Nechton.”

&nb
sp; Once again his most important thoughts went unsaid, but I knew what they were, at least some of them: Carina Ériu a Fíana had been the one person to stand toe-to-toe with Nechton and survive. Nechton had defeated the great Tol, then Prince of the Order, in senseless single combat little more than a month before Carina arrived at Macol. Tol’s right hand Helmedach, who evidently had all of Tol’s bravado but not nearly as much Talent, had found it necessary to fall on that same sword. By the time Carina met Nechton, Amien had succeeded Helmedach to the Prince’s seat. He at least understood the limits of his power. No living member of the Order was likely to do what Tol failed.

  But evidently Carina had.

  “Letitia?” Amien glanced at her. “Carina… wouldn’t talk about what transpired during her encounter with Nechton, not to me. Did she…?”

  Letitia shook her head. “The first I heard of Nechton was from Ellion.”

  On the night we met, by the Crearu. In the last moments before everything unraveled. The irony was so thick I grew suddenly restless.

  “The Ballad of Carina,” I said.

  “You said—” Letitia hesitated. “You said it was true.”

  “I thought it was.”

  “But we know nothing,” Rohini said.

  Amien pursed his lips, gaze on something inside his own head. “No. We know she defeated him, though we still don’t know exactly how. We know she let him live, though we have no idea why. Also—”

  His voice vanished. He cleared his throat, but now he sounded as if his throat were full of rocks. “We know she’s dead.”

  Letitia put a hand over her mouth.

  “It’s not outside the realm of possibility that he would have joined forces with the Bard if she were still alive,” the wizard said to Letitia, gaze apologetic and voice still choppy.

  She met his gaze in silence, eyes bright with unshed tears.

  “But if she were, annu, he wouldn’t be seeking you.”

  Renewed horror broke across Letitia’s face; she drew back, as if a few extra inches between Amien and herself might make his words go elsewhere.

  “He fears you can do whatever she did,” the wizard said, as much to himself as to her. “Because you have the same Talent.”

  Letitia frowned. “This little—?” She shook her head. “Amien, I don’t have a Talent. Not like you do.” She glanced at me, glanced away again. “All I have is this little… gift. It is of no practical use.”

  Amien shook his head. “Carina proved otherwise. You just haven’t learned to use it.”

  “Use it?” Letitia echoed, incredulous. Her voice still skated the edge of a sob. “I don’t know how it was for my mother, Amien, but with me—”

  She shook her head. “Here it is, the start and finish of it. If I meditate on the light of the sun, the Holy Mora sends a little bit of it into me. It’s—it’s difficult to describe, except that it’s wonderful and warm, and I feel Her closeness, and if I am tired Her Power will relieve it for a while. But it’s not a weapon. I can’t fling bolts of sunlight at Básghilae and have them drop dead; I can’t make a wall of sunshine to hide from my enemies; I can’t even wrap it around myself the way you do my personal wards. That’s all there is to it. It’s just a little… gift.”

  The wizard shook his head. “I wish I could have seen what she did, or learned from her afterward. All I know is that she had some understanding of this—gift—and the way the energy of light might be used against dark magic. That was the key, as I understood it: dispelling Dark with Light. I always imagined it as lighting a lamp to drive away darkness, but—” He shrugged. “What I can tell you is that her talisman, Iliria, which you still wear, was specifically crafted to allow her to store that power, so she might call on it when needed.”

  Letitia frowned, grasping the diamond in her narrow fist. “Because the sun isn’t always shining,” she said thoughtfully. She sighed. “And it worked?”

  Amien raised his eyebrows, smiling a little. “She seemed quite satisfied with it.” His smile faded; his eyes fixed on memory. “When she—After it was over, when I saw her after Nechton—After the battle… She didn’t wear it after that, at least not until we parted company a month or so later. I had thought it might be lost.”

  “I found it… just recently.” Letitia looked as if the admission were somehow humiliating.

  “A stroke of luck,” Amien said. Sudden insight broke across his face; he turned to me. “You know what we must do.”

  I nodded: it was obvious. Amien had been right, all along: the only place that held any possibility of safety for Letitia was Aballo. Once we disembarked at Presatyn, late at night though it might be, we must ride west with all possible haste. There was no reason to believe any windcaller we might engage would be a match for Nechton: the only sane thing to do was travel over land, and the Moot date be damned. But the intelligence we had now was critical: Amien bringing the news to the righthe and the wizards was the only hope of defeating the Bard.

  The solution was clear: we must part company. I must ride with the Tanaan, Rohini, and Rohini’s men to Bealingas in Usdia, whence we might cross on tides and natural winds to Aballo. Then the only problem would be opening the wards on the Aballo harbor without violating my vow.

  The idea of stepping onto the soil of Aballo shouldn’t raise this excitement in my chest. The thought of celebrating Bealtan with Letitia at Aballo shouldn’t be knocking around in my head. My traveling to Aballo was nothing but a danger, to me and everyone involved, but I could not fulfill my duty otherwise.

  Amien nodded, too. “We’ve got to go straight to the Moot. It’s actually fortuitous that we had to go in this direction tonight—”

  “What?” Letitia and I said simultaneously.

  Amien spread a quizzical look between us. “Isn’t it obvious? The righthe—and the members of the Order—need the news. If Ellion hadn’t found Nechton’s name, there’s no telling how long we would have been knocking our heads against it militarily, when that isn’t the issue at all. Our first operation must be to take back Esunertos, which will contain what the Bard can do east of the Riga; our second major objective must be Macol, and the focus of that will be to get Letitia safely into position.”

  “What?” we said again. Iminor joined the chorus this time.

  The wizard sighed, looking at Letitia. “Annu, I understand that you don’t feel sufficiently confident to take on Nechton one-on-one, but I think it would be a start if you—possibly working with a core group, we’ll have to discuss it—could capture and destroy the Shadow of the Sun.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” I said flatly.

  Amien frowned. “Which part of this doesn’t make sense? All our objectives must be about containing Nechton’s reach. The two greatest problems are Esunertos and the Shadow of the Sun. We handle those things, and the rest can be managed militarily.”

  I frowned, too. “You’re right that Nechton is the issue, but—”

  “Of course we will have to refine the details! But I—”

  “No!” My vehemence surprised even me; several of the knights startled. “Would you send an untrained Talent up against a man of four centuries’ experience? That’s what you’re talking about doing here!”

  “No one can train Letitia! All we can do is support—”

  “And how can you even contemplate destroying the orb? Think of the learning you’d be throwing away!”

  “Think of the evil that went into its creation!” Amien retorted.

  “Bollocks!” I snapped. “Have you even read Aechering? All of him? Or just that one working?”

  Amien recoiled, and I knew he hated the fact that I’d uttered the name in front of outsiders even more than he objected to what I said.

  But it was a valid question. No matter that Nechton is rumored to be the one man besides Aechering himself who successfully completed the Shadow Working; no matter that Aechering never seemed to question whether a working was black or white magic so long as it succeeded. Or maybe it is beca
use of these things: Aechering’s Shadow Working is the one operation in all the centuries of arcane history that every wizard will eventually work up the courage to read. Not only to read: to gawk at or slaver over, as if it were some sort of arcane pornography, or to endlessly debate the proper translations of the words whose original meanings have been lost.

  Not that any of the men who read the working would contemplate attempting it or try to unravel what Aechering really meant: that would be to look too far outside their ordered worlds. Not that they would admit a more than prurient interest in the man’s theories, which cannot be truly encompassed without the reader confronting the darkness in his own soul. For most men the Shadow Working is merely something to have seen, like the unfortunates whose sole support comes from traveling with the misborn shows and allowing strangers to gawk at their deformities.

  “I’m not advocating working from Aechering, but his ideas—” I pursued.

  Amien scowled, furious; I waved the line of reasoning away.

  “Whether or not the theory about its creation is right,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, “the fact remains that it’s the only farsensing orb anyone has managed to create since Hy-Breasaíl. It should be studied, not destroyed. What if it could be turned against the kharr? Would it still be evil then?”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Everything was quiet but the creaking of the hull.

  “The source is tainted,” he said heavily.

  I sighed: that was a senseless attitude, but I had long since learned to recognize the times when reason wouldn’t reach him.

  “Even Aechering’s grimoires remain in the library,” I said. “If the orb is not to be used, at least let it be studied. And send trained men to capture it, not a woman of completely untried—”

  “I’m not talking about sending her in there to do battle!” Amien interrupted. “That is why we need you!”

  “The hell you say!” The words tore out of me before I was conscious of deciding to speak. I found myself on my feet, the boat pitching beneath me. Or maybe it was the world; no one else seemed to find any difficulty in keeping his or her seat, though Letitia’s face had achieved a terrible pallor.