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

by Barbara Friend Ish

  I looked out at the water, trying to wrestle my emotions into submission. Assuming she could learn to channel power to ground rather than simply absorbing it as she did the light of the sun, Amien was right: she was the logical choice for that operational role. Even a wizard would be in more danger in that role than she. There could be no tactical reason to hold her back, only my instinct that she must be kept as far away from Nechton as possible. And that was born of emotion.

  I steeled myself, returned my attention to Amien. Rohini watched me as if she’d decided I was a liability, after all.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “You’re right. Assuming Letitia can master grounding.”

  The wizard nodded.

  “And who will command the operation?” Rohini said.

  We both looked at her.

  “I will,” I said.

  Rohini cast me a quizzical look. “The party is to be composed of wizards, who will protect Letitia; Letitia, who may be able to manage the orb without coming to harm; one of my men, for inside intelligence; and you—why? You won’t be working magic, you said.”

  I shook my head.

  She raised an eyebrow: I suspected that was what she always did when moving her final piece into checkmate.

  “Without insult, sian,” she began. When a man says that, it is always the preface to something so offensive that swords must otherwise be drawn. “I fail to see why your presence is an operational necessity.”

  I’d been right: she recognized what a liability my emotional entanglement had become. And I couldn’t fault her: it is sound strategy to remove a commander who can’t manage the necessary distance from a critical operation. Still my hand itched for my sword.

  That, of course, was further evidence against me.

  “Nevertheless,” I said evenly, glancing at Letitia. “I have given my word.”

  Rohini cocked that eyebrow again, but Amien nodded.

  “Yes. Working magic or no, you’re the man I want in that spot.”

  Early in the afternoon, Amien’s summoned wind bore us through the mouth of the Aerona and into her source: the deep, still lake of Nanno. Perhaps two hours later we reached the lake’s western shore and gratefully disembarked. My horse seemed as pleased to reach firm ground again as I felt: he took the bit willingly, whickered as I tacked him out, and stepped unhesitatingly across the gangway.

  The city of Sucello spread across the western shore, stretching north and west along the foot of the bluffs that mark the upthrust to the northern highlands. The familiar energies of the true gods hung on the air here, casting unaccustomed serenity across my mind. With no illicit gods clamoring for my attention, I simply settled in among the escort as we rode westward from the docks and along the broad crowded streets that line the city. Afternoon sunlight lay thick on walls and kitchen gardens, lulled the street vendors into a torpor that took the edges off their haggling and come-on cries. By the time we reached the palace gate, the beginnings of a plan involving a bath, a good dinner, and a soft bed were coalescing in my mind.

  We were expected, which meant Suibne was already here: the men at the gate welcomed us immediately inside, and the righ’s seneschal met us in the portico. Inside, the Taidgh family palace reminded me of Mourne Palace in Ilnemedon: grey stone that felt cool and welcoming in this afternoon’s plentiful sunlight but which would foster a suicidal gloom on a winter morn; a multitude of high windows for illumination and ventilation but narrow security-conscious slits at floor level; rich unselfconscious furnishings that invited the visitor to relax. Already I felt myself unwinding.

  The seneschal showed us to a long string of guest rooms securely situated on a second-floor corridor, put more servants than sixteen people could possibly need at our disposal, invited us to use the baths in the grottoes below the palace, and left us to make what use of the hours before dinner we would. Most of the party headed straight down to the baths, but Letitia forestalled me and Amien before we had so much as set foot in our rooms.

  “My lords,” she said, one hand on each of our arms, glancing from Amien to me and back. “When can we get started?”

  “What?” Amien said, puzzled; but the mixture of trepidation and guilty anticipation in her eyes told me what she was about.

  “I must learn to—ground,” she said. “I gather it’s not a foregone conclusion.”

  “It should be no difficulty for you at all,” the wizard said, shooting me a look. “Ellion is overcautious.”

  I nodded. “Just so.” Nevertheless the worry in her gaze didn’t dissipate.

  “What we’ll need,” the wizard said thoughtfully, “is a quiet place to work. Outdoors.”

  “I’ll go ask,” I said. Letitia nodded and opened the door to her room; Amien walked the little distance to his own. I turned back down the corridor. At the far end, Suibne climbed the last few stairs and walked towards me.

  “There you are!” he called, sounding immensely pleased. “I hope you’re comfortable?”

  “Comfort is a small word for it,” I said, meeting him halfway and accepting the offered embrace. “Thank you.”

  “Not at all.” I could hear the grin in his voice; but then he drew back to look into my face, and sobered. “Damn, but you look like hell!”

  “Thank you,” I said lightly.

  “What the hell—?”

  “It’s been an absolute pleasure ride. Let me just say we’re all more grateful than we can express for an evening of quiet.”

  Suibne gave me a long look, serious; but he took the hint and let the matter drop.

  “If I might impose further on your hospitality…”

  “Whatever you need.”

  I offered him a bow. “Thank you. The mora—that is to say, Letitia…”

  “Mora?” Suibne echoed.

  I shrugged. “That is her title in the Tanaan language. I’m sorry, I’ve spent more days speaking Tanaan than Ilesian in the past couple months. The word means riga, essentially. Except that among the Tanaan, it’s the riga, not the righ, who rules.”

  “So the Lady of Finias… is the riga? The mora?”

  “Of Fíana,” I said, nodding.

  “Fíana,” Suibne repeated.

  I nodded again.

  “So what do they call her husband?”

  “She’s not married.”

  “Oh?” Suibne said, looking intensely interested now.

  “But he would be her consort—” I repeated the word in the Tanaan language, and Suibne nodded understanding. “And even though she isn’t actually married, she does already have one of those.”

  “That serious fellow.”

  I smiled despite myself. “That’s him.”

  “Ah,” Suibne said, nodding judiciously. “Too bad. So what does the… mora… need?”

  “Thank you. The mora needs a space outdoors in which she might meditate.”

  Suibne nodded again. “Naturally you’re looking for something secure.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would our shrine to Ara do? It’s a private shrine, on the family

  grounds…”

  “That sounds perfect. Thank you. How do we find it?”

  Suibne smiled. “I’d be pleased to show you.”

  “My friend, your hospitality is legend.”

  Suibne waited patiently while I gathered up Letitia and Amien. He greeted them warmly and led us out of the palace and northward across the grounds to the woodland beyond. After a few moments we came to a small grove of blossoming cherry trees with a little spring in its midst, which stood overlooking the lake. It looked so much like the sacred grove at Presatyn that I found myself unable to look at any of them. Already I felt a blush climbing up the back of my neck.

  “Yes,” Amien said, sounding amused. “This is perfect. Thank you.”

  “Not at all,” Suibne said. “Then I’ll… leave you to it?” His inflection suggested he hoped for an invitation to stay. But in my peripheral vision I saw Amien nod.

  “Thank you,” Amien said again.
I began a wholly irrelevant walk around the perimeter of the shrine, as if there might be some security issue I would uncover; I stretched out tendrils of awareness, even though I already knew the shrine’s dedication. The name Ara hung on the air here, just as advertised, and the energy was reasonably robust for a private shrine; but beneath the devotions to Ara I sensed older dedications—and glimpsed the goddess those dedications invoked, finding Her attention suddenly on me. My fading blush renewed itself.

  “Enough!” Amien barked. “Letitia, Ellion, look at me!”

  I glanced at him: the amusement I’d heard in his voice had faded to frustration.

  “Are we going to work through this, or do I need to leave you two alone?”

  I cast about uselessly for something to say, stealing a glance at Letitia. A pretty flush spread across her translucent skin.

  “Letitia, I am neither entitled nor inclined to question your choices in these matters—and Ellion, I expected more from you!”

  He was right: I knew better. Aballo puts no value judgments whatsoever on the sexual lives of its members, and wizards are expected to either leave those matters out of the workshop or make practical arcane use of them. But his words rearranged themselves into a completely different sense in my mind, and untoward hilarity overtook me: I failed to restrain the laugh. Now both Amien and Letitia were staring at me, perplexed. For no reason I knew of, that made me laugh harder.

  “I’m—Oh, gods, you expected more? Are you telling me it’s possible to aim higher than the mora of Fíana?” My laughter took on a life of its own, beyond control. Amien cracked a reluctant smile; Letitia was blushing furiously now, but unable to restrain a grin. “Who would that be? A goddess?”

  “Well, then.” Amien waved me to silence. “Yes, it’s about time for pointless hysterical laughter, isn’t it? All right.”

  He stood there staring at me while I dragged some semblance of composure around myself. It took me longer yet to stop grinning.

  “I apologize,” I said finally, mouth still twitching. “Please proceed.”

  Amien stared at me a moment longer. He cleared his throat. “Well, then. Letitia, let’s start with what you already know: drawing on the energy of the sun.”

  She nodded gravely at him.

  “Would you mind…?”

  She gave him a quizzical look, then nodded and turned her head unerringly to the place in which the sun hovered, west of the wooded hollow we occupied. As I watched, the tension drained from her body; profound stillness overcame her. And then I felt the aether shift around her, saw the familiar glow gather, watched the light cascade through her wards as if through a prism. My throat knotted at her beauty; my fingers stretched as if they might encompass her, might taste that delicious energy again.

  “Yes,” Amien said, layers of memory and emotion in his gravelly voice. “That’s what I remember.”

  Letitia startled, turned and looked at him, glow fading.

  Amien nodded. “What you’re doing there is channeling but not grounding—allowing the energies in, but holding on to them rather than allowing them to pass through. What you need to learn is to open yourself sufficiently to allow the energies to pass through you: you may feel them, but they won’t remain. It won’t feel comfortable at first.”

  Letitia nodded solemnly.

  “Why don’t you take off your boots,” Amien said. “You won’t always need to be barefoot to ground; you won’t always need to be in contact with the ground at all. Once you find the knack of grounding, you’ll be able to do it from an upper floor, in much the same way we can work wards upstairs. But this is the place to start.”

  Letitia nodded again, kicked off her boots and stockings and looked at the wizard once more.

  “Yes,” Amien said. “Close your eyes. Feel the ground beneath you. What’s there? Is it cool and solid—or warm and soft?”

  Letitia stood silent for at least a minute. “I feel it,” she said at last.

  “Good. Can you draw on the sun again?”

  Letitia opened her eyes. “I’m full.”

  A strange thing to say, that. I couldn’t imagine what it would be to find myself sated with power, particularly after just one small sip of something so delicious. But Amien just raised his eyebrows pensively, nodding as if he didn’t find it strange at all.

  “What if you—gave that light you’re holding to Ellion?”

  My heart slammed in my throat, as if he’d suggested watching while we made love; a visible tremor swept through her, and she cast a guilty glance at me.

  Amien sighed. “Just do it, yes?”

  I nodded and crossed the grove to stand before her, holding out my hand. She met my gaze and put her hand into mine, but the only thing that passed between us was a thoroughly embarrassed glance.

  “That bad, is it?” Amien said, impatient. “Dear gods, maybe Rohini’s right.”

  Unexpected ire flared in me, but I kept my gaze on Letitia. “Maybe you should remember that one of the people here was never a member of your workshop, and grant her some patience.”

  Amien harrumphed.

  “Give us two minutes,” I said, still not looking at him.

  “One,” he retorted, and strode back down the path on which we’d entered.

  “Well, then,” I said softly to Letitia, offering her a bit of a smile. “You know I could pull on the talisman, but that’s not the point here, is it? This is more like when we created your wards—when you thought about where to put the light.”

  She nodded. I realized I was leaning closer and closer, as if I might taste her, and she was meeting me in the effort. Strange that a woman I’d already enjoyed could make my heart race like this.

  “So where are you going to put the light this time?” I whispered, mouth within inches of hers.

  The smolder in her gaze ignited into something yet more immediate; I chuckled. “We don’t have that long.”

  Her mouth quirked. “Then just take off your mail shirt.”

  Gods, I was hopeless: my fingers flew over the clasps as if possessed of independent intelligence, and I yanked the thing over my head and let it drop. But then her gaze shifted, desire and mischief fading into something deeper, and she laid a hand over my heart. Her sweet, delicious energy pulsed into me, echoing back an inexplicable ache.

  “Oh dear gods,” I heard myself say. My breath lost its way in my chest.

  “That’s essentially what grounding is,” Amien said behind me. Letitia glanced past my shoulder at him, horrified again. “Except that the objective is to just let the energy pass straight through, without pause.”

  She still stared silently at him; he sighed and walked into the shrine. “Letitia, what do you want from me? All I want is to teach you a skill, to protect you, to defeat Nechton and the Bard. Who beds whom along the way is not my concern unless I’m one of the parties involved. Can we move on?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly.

  “Learn from your nasclethéan,” he continued; hearing that label applied to myself in this context rocked me so thoroughly that I barely heard the rest of his words. The ties between a man and his nasclethéan only begin with partnership in the Work; nasclethéana share arcane workshops and grimoires, military training and battles, and frequently beds as well. More often than not it is a lifetime commitment between men who measure lifespan in centuries; the sort of bond in which they finish one another’s sentences on those occasions when speech is necessary at all and dream one another’s dreams.

  “Make use of it or leave it out,” Amien continued, evidently oblivious to the incomprehensible hugeness of what he’d said. “Whatever is more effective is the right answer.”

  “Understood,” Letitia said, just as faintly as before.

  The wizard glanced at me; realization dawned in his face. “I shouldn’t have used that word.”

  “No matter,” I said, waving the error away, but my voice sounded thin.

  Amien sighed again. “No matter. Well, then, let’s try it aga
in, Letitia—but this time, rather than letting the energy stop inside you, send it straight on through to the ground.”

  She nodded and turned to the west again. After a moment I felt the shift as she opened herself to the energy and it began to flow, saw rainbows arc along the wards we’d created—and then disappear.

  “Oh!” she said, surprise in her voice. Then, “Oh.” She looked at Amien. “You’re right. That was… strange.”

  The wizard smiled faintly. “No doubt. If we had time to do this properly, I’d have you spend hours on that technique alone—but I’m going to rush forward to the thing that matters: grounding when you’re not in control of the energy. I’m going to have you hold…” He trailed off, thoughtful, then smiled and drew his knife. “Here. This.” He grasped the blade and handed it to her, hilt first.

  “Well, then. Here is our game. You will hold my knife. It’s not exactly an arcane object, but I’ve been using it for many years; it’ll do for this purpose. Hold it however you like, but don’t let it touch the ground. And every so often—I’m going to send an arcane charge through it. Your task is to channel that energy to ground.”

  Letitia nodded.

  “Ready? I’ll give you this one for free. Here it comes.”

  I felt the little rill of power he sent into the weapon, a zephyr brushing parts of me that weren’t physical. It was a gentle transmission, far less intense than the energies I’d poured into her when we made love yesterday morning.

  Nevertheless she startled and dropped the knife as if it burned her. “Oh!”

  “No matter,” Amien said patiently. “Let’s try again.”

  Letitia picked up the knife. Amien said, “Ready?” and sent another little charge into it. This time Letitia just absorbed it.

  “You didn’t ground,” I said.

  Letitia grimaced, nodding. But their next attempt was successful, and Amien began drilling her: sending power into the knife without warning her when it was coming, gradually increasing the strength of the charges until the very air began to tremble with rippling energy and the hair that always escaped her braid flew wild. Again and again she grounded; her face took on a breathless glow. My breath hitched against the back of my throat. I told myself it was the way she looked with power racing through her, the energies dancing on the air. But I needed to feel power flowing through me, itched to give it to Letitia, ached to have her bounce it back redoubled. This lesson should have been mine.