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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  No. I had made a vow. I had the capacity to choose. No matter what other mistakes I made, I would not draw power. My value to Letitia lay in my ability to sort through all the intelligence, whether military or arcane, and find a way to keep her safe without compromising her honor. I could do that without violating my vow; I must rededicate myself to that path.

  At the road’s left hand, up against the wall of the bluff, stood a little shrine: I smelled the water of a sacred well, felt the gentle power that arises in a place where people regularly pray. I turned and stepped down the narrow walkway, as if I might find Lady Tella here, as if drawing Her about me might ward off my awareness of all the things I couldn’t afford to touch. But She wasn’t here: niches around the well were populated with votary images on which the name Aerona lingered, and only one of them bore any resemblance to Ara, even though it was Her name chiseled into the rock. The seductive, benevolent Presence I had touched at the well outside Nemetona’s wall and in Presatyn last night gathered around me: not the familiar majesty of Lady Tella, merely something sweet and welcoming and safe. The energy of the well beckoned, inviting me into that peace, offering me a flavor of strength unlike anything an Aballo wizard had ever called on; instead I hurried out to the street again.

  Farther from Nemetona’s central road, across another street whose name I didn’t know, the neighborhood I walked shifted again: ornate half-timbering gave way to squared-off buildings with flat roofs and shuttered windows. There was no wall here, but I recognized the architecture: I had stumbled into Weavers’ streets. Everything lay quiet under soft moonlight; oddly familiar energies teased at my memory, driving me forward in search of explanation or source. The smart thing to do would be to turn around, to make my way back to the inn; a rebellious, resentful sense that curiosity was my only yearning that could be gratified made it impossible to lay aside that meager satisfaction, and I followed an aroma that was not physical through the quiet, twisting streets.

  Was this the energy that had always repelled me in Ilnemedon? Tonight it felt exotic, like a spice I had enjoyed on some long-ago spree and only half remembered. Eventually I found it hanging all around me, running beneath the surface of my awareness, in much the same way the energies of the smith-god did. But this wasn’t the smith-god: this energy walked the earth and reached up towards the heavens, tapping roots into subterranean powers outside the smith-god’s purview and spreading searching fingers among the stars, weaving structures both subtle and mundane. There was danger here, but also hidden knowledge that made my breath catch with curiosity, made it hard to remember why I shouldn’t just open myself and learn.

  At the end of a road, against the city wall, I came upon another shrine. An immense, ancient oak stood at the center, gnarled of branch, split and scarred with innumerable lightnings, but with new leaves unfurling on every branch and shimmering in the cold wind like dark reflections of the stars. I tasted old sacrifices here, lives spilled out to feed the god, energies that had opened twisting paths beyond the mundane realm, unfolding—in a sudden rush of recognition it all unfolded—in much the same way Nechton’s working on the Ruillin had last night. This space, these energies: they belonged to Nechton, even though the name hanging on all the devotions here was Esus.

  For a fraction of time too small to measure, it all came together in stunning, blindingly blasphemous logic: wittingly or not, the Weavers looked to Nechton. The title Avengers of Esus was no mere conceit; the devotionals to Esus that followed in the wake of the Bard were no coincidence. Nechton Glyndwr, the Bard’s Wizard, had somehow managed to become Esus, somehow tapped the power of a god.

  I shook myself, actually shaking my head as if that might clear it. That couldn’t be right. No human, not even a wizard, could become a god: gods are born, not made.

  And yet I could almost taste the possibility of it. If a wizard can tap the energies at a sacred site, many of which arise from the devotions of the people who worship the gods, then why should it not be possible to tap directly into the power, to assume the god’s Mantle? It wouldn’t make a man a god; but it would make for good theatre, irrevocably change the political landscape, possibly even raise enough power to be useful.

  The only thing that would prevent such a scheme from working would be the existence of the god. And therein lay the puzzle. The true religion teaches that the old gods are figments, constructs of imagination worshipped in ignorance and error; that Their appearances in the histories are misapprehensions or conflations or outright lies. That Esus, widely worshipped though He had been, was as mythical as the rest. Two months ago, I had been as certain of this as any adherent of the true religion; but since then I had tasted the power of a number of gods, on both sides of the mountains, even while Lady Tella held Herself aloof. It was not as easy to dismiss the possibility of Esus as a living, breathing entity as it had once been. Nechton could not successfully feign becoming Him if He truly existed: not and survive for long.

  Was it possible, then, that Nechton drew on the power of this old god the way a wizard of the true religion can call on the power sites, or in certain cases the gods Themselves, of the religion to which true believers look? That there was a network of sites dedicated to Esus, created and in some cases maintained by His worshipers even after His defeat by Lady Tella at Esunertos?

  Without conscious decision I found myself stepping into the heart of the shrine, to stand in the lattice of shadows beneath the oak’s limbs. From this angle the oak stretched impossibly huge, laying claim to spaces far higher and broader than any single tree might occupy. Arliyn hung among the branches; new leaves and stars mingled shimmering in the cold air. I stretched out a hand, laid my palm against the trunk, fingers spreading across a broad, old scar left by a lightning strike. The naked wood lay smooth and surprisingly warm beneath my hand. The energy of the place encompassed me, or I encompassed it, and as we saw one another I realized the warmth beneath my hand was a reflection of my presence: the reality of the Presence in which I stood was much colder and deeper, not Nechton but some Source he understood and which I had thus far only tasted. A vision came to me of hanging bound to this tree for the infinite and momentary space of nine nights, sacrificing self to Self: becoming this energy, learning the truths I sensed hidden within its scarred heart. If this Presence was Esus, that was the sacrifice He required; if I might become Him, He might also become Me. The perfect symmetry of it made the moment spread out to infinite, eternal stillness. The power tasted like rapture, but it was the understanding I truly craved.

  Behind me, someone stepped into the shrine: I sensed the extra presence in the energy shimmering throughout my being more than through senses mundane, as the touch of his feet interrupted the circuit between me and this Being the common folk call Esus. I turned, looking at him and he at me, taking in the situation through that timelessness in which I stood. The old man, the broad flat planes of Weavers’ blood in his face and dark-blond hair faded to a mix of grey and brown, served this shrine in the way a druid of the true religion might serve a shrine of Lord Ilesan or Lady Tella. Not a Talent of the sort who might draw power and do something with it, he was nevertheless sensitive enough to understand the import of my presence here and sworn to some commitment that required him to eliminate the threat I represented. The long knife in his hand glinted with cold starlight; I realized, far too late, that the veneer of civilization at the top of the bluff had lulled me into laying aside my sword. It had been only appropriate up there; here, I was no better equipped for this encounter than my opponent.

  In this moment of expanded consciousness, it hardly troubled me. I saw, with the god’s cold gaze, the symmetry of what would unfold: the way whatever blood was spilled would feed Him; His disinterest in the details of which blood He drank. I reached unhurriedly into my boot, eyes still on the guardian, and drew my knife. There was no need to speak.

  He was fast, as deceptively wiry-strong as a whip of hardy spidersilk; I had probably killed no more men than he. His grey eye
s saw past the façade of ethics I held up to the world and myself, straight into the black depths of my soul, and neither condemned nor endorsed it. My native power was not cause for fear, rather potential food for the god—and the reason he ultimately left enough of an opening for my knife in his heart. As if it had been not blades but Wills that settled the contest. He voiced only a small noise of surprised pain, dispassionate eyes meeting mine in the split-second before he sagged in my grasp. I pulled the knife free, and—prompted by some geas or compulsion I couldn’t name—slit his throat, spilling his blood over the roots of the tree. The god would have His due; I had no idea how to reconcile what I knew to be necessary in this moment with what I ordinarily believed to be true.

  I wiped the blade on his sleeve and sheathed it; I stepped back, head threatening to unhinge from my neck with the power that suddenly reverberated in this space. And I understood: all unwitting I had gained the right to possess this place, encompass this energy, sacrifice myself and master all the knowledge the Presence here had to offer. My companions would leave me for lost; they would never find me so far in the depths of the city; I wouldn’t care. A new portion of my life would begin, like the next song in a cycle, culminating in the inevitable battle when Nechton arrived to re-take this source.

  But I couldn’t do that. I was sworn to the true gods, tonight’s—and this morning’s—sacrifices not withstanding, and Letitia wasn’t safe here: not in this city, nor in any city in which either the Bard held sway or the Weavers held outposts. We needed to get Letitia out of here with all possible haste, to join Rohini and the Essuvians on the opposite bank of the river and put as much distance between Letitia and these people to whom Nechton was attuned as possible. But I didn’t need to walk down to the bottom of the bluff to know the city gate was closed. The tiarn who held this place doubtless still thought he could lock the danger out.

  With a last glance up at the impossible spread of the tree, I left the shrine and retraced my steps towards the top of the bluff: walking at top speed but resisting the temptation to break into an attention-attracting run, wishing I had figured this out before my companions retired for the night. I could only hope Nuad had not been as lulled as I by the familiar trappings of civilization and had required the knights to set watches.

  The side streets lay as quiet and still as they had on the way out; the mayhem on the main road continued unabated. But now I saw it differently: the innocent-seeming revel was a potential cover for a kharr assassin or Weaver spy; every mummer’s troupe or itinerant puppet-show might harbor the Bard’s traveling shrine to Esus in the back of a cart. Now, finally, I read the threat under which Nemetona lay in the buskers’ satires and the amulets to illicit gods affixed to rough leather neck-thongs. And at last I wondered: were the rumors of the threat to Nemetona based solely on some Weavers’ plan to fell the place from within—or should I have been watching for the arrival of the Bard? He could have arrived here by airship, as early as tonight; it would be easy for some kharr insider to bribe the right person to unlock the gate and let him in. If someone in the throng through which I wove and pressed had marked me as a member of Letitia’s party on the way up this road earlier, they could follow me to discover which inn she occupied now.

  How careless had I been, assuming that once we left the Ruillin we would outpace the rumors. Suibne had known exactly who Letitia was, without being told. At least his loyalties could be counted on: he was royal. Commoners might be seduced by the lies the Bard peddled, but loyalists knew what the man was really selling: anarchy and mob rule, the replacement of the true religion with the worship of Esus.

  Suddenly, there in the midst of the crowd, I finally grasped the depth of the Bard of Arcadia’s—and Nechton’s—intent: they planned to turn the true religion back on itself, to elevate Esus into the true gods’ place—with Nechton as the Prince of Esus’s shadow of the Aballo Order, or maybe His avatar—and the Bard of Arcadia His ard-righ. It wasn’t just about deposing the righthe: they intended to overthrow the true gods.

  On the heels of that realization came another: would I but take the initiation Esus offered, I might supplant Nechton, might become Esus’s Prince or avatar myself. And I would have no need of a Bard to play ard-righ: I could assume those duties as well, both roles united in one man in a way that would result in far profounder strength for that once-and-future god. The elegance of it commandeered my mind, sending ripples of desire into my core: for the understanding that dark god offered, for the heady energies that would become mine, for the unexpected fulfillment of the promise of my stars.

  What if this was the thing they had portended all along?

  Abruptly the desire rippling through me became a tempest; I could barely see through the need, could no longer force my legs to move towards the top of the bluff, where I must lay the offered power aside. Had I not been promised these things? If Lady Tella would not give them to me, was it wrong to turn to One Who would?

  I knew the answer. I had made a vow that bound me to the true gods, even when Their well-deserved rejection stung. I had vowed to lay aside the practice of magic, knowing that such cold hunger for power as I was exhibiting tonight would send me inevitably into evil. And oh, how right had I been! The man who stood in the shrine to Esus and met that god’s cold uncaring Eye with an equally uncaring soul: he was the true essence of me. Not only would I violate the vows I had made at Aballo and Tellan, I would utterly negate the trust Letitia had placed on me. And if I didn’t protect her, who would? Take this step now, and I would find her blood on my hands as surely as that of the shrine’s guardian. And of my parents. I could have this power—or some semblance of honor. I could not have both.

  The revel swirled around me, traffic in the street flowing past me as if I were a rock in a river. Potential subjects they were, potential tools for gaining the throne I had been denied, potential weights on my soul. I would not be that man; I must remember how to be the man who could rescue Letitia, could encompass all the things her enemies would throw against her. I must leave this promise down here in the lower districts and accept the diminishment that would come as I climbed that steep ascent. And if I took new understanding with me, I could not share it: not without confessing what I had done to gain it, not without confessing the black depths of my desires. How would that understanding change anyone’s actions, after all? It must be enough that I would make it possible for the loyalists to thwart their enemies: there was no need for me to endure the humiliation of the truth.

  I would have offered Lady Tella a pact: my protection of Her interests in exchange for Her protection of mine. But that is not how gods operate: I understood that only too well. Instead I forced my legs to move again, climbed the steep rise to the illusory safety of the bluff: to ensure Nuad had set up watches and sit down to conduct my own, to monitor the aether for arcane signatures only I would recognize, until someone unlocked the gate at the foot of the city and I could herd all those clueless potential victims to whom I had bound my heart across the ford.

  27. Seeing in the Dark

  From histories that predate the Transition from Hy-Breasaíl, from tales of men who walked the lands ruled by the Hy-Breasaílian gods, we know something of the Eternal Realms. While the Danaan aspire to eternal reward in the House of Donn, on this side of the mountains we hope to reach Tír inna n-Óc. And while a person who is neither heroic nor particularly evil will spend some time in the Grey Lands, the Fields of Asphodel, before returning to the lands of the living for another life and trying again to achieve the reward—sages also tell us of a third destination after judgment, for those who are truly evil.

  That place is Tílimya’s Abyss, and it is named for its lord, the ancient god Who imprisons and metes out the punishments of those so consigned. When Cron and the gods of Hy-Breasaíl were defeated by Their Children and consigned to the Abyss, it was Tílimya Who held Them there. Tradition holds that when our gods arrived here and defeated the Ones Who had gone before, those defeated gods were con
signed to the Abyss as well. Presumably Esus is among them. So too are murderers and oathbreakers, those who do violence to women and noncombatants, and others the gods judge too evil to be allowed back into the world.

  There is no escape from the Realm of Tílimya, which is surrounded by the flaming river of blood called Dóiteán, encircled by triple walls of adamantine, and guarded by a hydra with fifty black, gaping jaws. Within those walls are only the Abyss and the Fortress that houses the Well of Tílimya, whose waters are capable of restoring a man who drinks them to life. The only way for someone who crosses the river Dóiteán, whether living or dead, to return to the realms of the living is to persuade the Well’s Guardian that he should be allowed to drink. Fail in that endeavor, and even a hero will be consigned for eternity to the torments of the Abyss. Even, we are told, a god.

  Sitting across the room from the place in which Amien lay sleeping, my mind spread like a net across the aether, I found ample time to consider my encounter with Esus. If Esus really were imprisoned in the Abyss, how did He manage to reach into the world of the living? If He was not imprisoned, then why make Nechton or even me His lieutenant rather than re-engage the true gods with His own, presumably far greater, Power? Was it possible Nechton had assumed His mantle and even now played the part of the god with the Bard’s followers, getting away with the deception because Esus was trapped in the Abyss? Had I agreed to take Esus’s initiation, would He have sent me against the true gods—or against Nechton? As so often happened when I considered mysteries that touched on the gods, I came up with no satisfactory answers.

  After a night with mind trained on the aether, I felt no more grounded in the mundane. Amien woke as soon as the first rays of sunlight crossed the sill; I met his eyes from my chair by the door, watching his gaze shift into a flavor of assessment that took in my extramundane entanglement as no uninitiated eyes might. He grunted and rolled up to sit, eyes still on mine.