Mortal Suns Read online

  From his body of bronze, the Drum of brass and bullshide, the savage crescendo bellowed, and the earth tilted and crashed back upon its axis.

  Cemira raised her head. Her hair was soaked with her tears and those of the priestess, whose mask was also wet, and askew. For the flick of an eye, Cemira saw the old white face, a stranger’s, gathered in seams, the sad visible eye, quite human. But the priestess adjusted her mask.

  “There now. All over.”

  “What was—what was—” Cemira had been deprived temporarily of the power of language.

  “The Great King has died. Probably at Oceaxis. The Heart must stop, to show the heart of the King has stopped. Do you see?” Cemira shook her head, and was giddy. “Well, it’s over now. And there’s a new King. So the Drum beats on.”

  In fact, in Akhemony, the new King had only just learned his status. The messengers had not reached his estates quite in time. So he had been out before sunup, looking at the vine-stocks, making offerings for their spring growth, when the lesion of the Drum smashed down through the land.

  He, too, fell on his knees, trembling, most of his balance gone. This happened to many, or worse. You often heard it, so and so died when the King died. One’s heart could not beat in time to the Drum from birth, and stay unmoved at its hiatus. The two slaves were facedown.

  Yet when the Drum recommenced, knowing it was now beating for him, Akreon’s heir, born thirty-four years in the past to the Sun-Consort, Udrombis, lurched to his feet, and held himself frowning in his own arms. He had always known it would come, but, as with the cow in Thon’s temple, Glardor had thought it would not come so soon.

  Because of the turmoil that persisted in the House of Thon, the priestess was able to take Cemira away with her, to her cell. She should not have done this. Later she would have to make a confession of her error, though it would be forgiven her, seeing what happened next. In the cramped stony space, the priestess lit her brazier, and took the child on her lap. She fed her cold porridge and honey, a treat she had been saving for herself.

  Cemira could only eat a little.

  “Will it happen again?”

  “The Sun keep us from it. No. No, not for years. Not until you’re a grown woman. Perhaps not until you’re old.”

  Cemira knew she would be old here, in Thon’s House. She could not imagine this, but neither could she imagine anything else. Except, to fly with eagles in the sky.

  A long time after, there were footsteps outside. A man’s voice called, “Are you here?”

  There was no choice in the matter of replying. “Yes.”

  The priest came in around the black leather curtain. He stood looking at the priestess and the little girl, dark and pale, from his flat-faced mask.

  “Is this the child from Oceaxis?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Can she walk?”

  “No. She hasn’t any feet.”

  “Good,” said the priest. This ironic comment indicated only that he had found the one he sought. “Are those her canes? Bring her.”

  They went up through the temple to a bleak room behind the Death Altar, the room where supplicants came, if they ever did, to pay the priesthood and have their details entered on a tablet.

  Here the soldier stood, upright and steady as he had not been, five hours earlier, on the shaking, soundless platform under the peak of the Heart.

  To Cemira, he was of a frightening magnificent hardness. His insectile carapace of bronze, his helm with its snow-plume. The gems in the pommel of his sword. His cloak was the scarlet of the god’s blood-hair, and he wore over it the insignia of Queen Udrombis, a lion, stitched out in gold.

  “Does she speak?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Child—is your given name Cemira?”

  Cemira stared. Personal names were not to be spoken, only one, the name of Death.

  “You said she could talk.” He was impatient, but more with himself than with the child. He had been ashamed, nearly fainting when the Drum stopped. He was an athlete, an accomplished charioteer, a champion. He had fought the battles of the King and, at twenty years of age, had killed more than fifty men, and sired more than ten. After his shame, her deformity meant little.

  To the child, the gorgeousness of his seen, unmasked face, in its frame of metal and metallic hair, his tall male body, so clean and strong, so blameless of anything but slaughter and sex, were beautiful, and nearly sorcerous. She had quite forgotten the priestess.

  Perhaps he saw the fear melt from her eyes to fearful admiration. He had a little daughter too, in the hills below Mt. Airis. He crouched down and lightly put his firm young finger on the tip of her nose. “Can you give me a smile? It’s good news. Queen Udrombis has sent me to bring you home.”

  5

  The queens were in mourning, as was all Akhemony. And so, the Daystar Hetsa walked barefoot over the reflective floors of the palace, in a dull brown robe, without a jewel, to attend the summons of the Sun-Consort.

  Only once before had Udrombis spoken to Hetsa. That had been on the festal evening Hetsa, then only sixteen, had gone up to the bedchamber of the King. Udrombis was then quite amiable. She did not seem jealous, but stern only in her words. She had made sure Hetsa, the daughter of a barbaric Karrad-king in Ipyra, knew the facts of congress, and inspected her clothes, and asked what perfumes had been used. Hetsa had been told she must be worthy of the honor of her role. She was to serve the mighty Sun. In this her own, Hetsa’s, honor lay. Hetsa had thought privately the Great Queen made a great to-do about it. Akreon had already had Hetsa, in her father’s house. What had honor to do with lust? It was riches that Hetsa wanted, standing, to be at Oceaxis. But she was outwardly timid and respectful. You did not cross the Consort. One had heard this and that, even in the wilds of Ipyra.

  The huge room was exquisite, yet quite sparsely furnished. Udrombis did not care for clutter. On vast basalt paws, the two lions lay, holding up the writing table. She had scrolls, books, curiosities from many lands. She was as excellent, they said, as a temple scribe, and despite her age, her eyes were keen. Too keen, perhaps.

  “Lady!” Hetsa bowed very low, and remained bent over.

  She had been told to leave her attendant at the door. There was no one to help her. Hetsa, unlike that first time, was shaking with anxiety.

  Udrombis sat in her chair of carved cedar, looking at her, or not, making no sound. A minute passed, and Hetsa gave a gasp.

  “Please, be comfortable, Daystar,” said the Sun-Consort, gently. “That chair should be quite pleasant. You haven’t been well.”

  Hetsa straightened, found the seat, and sat.

  She had attempted, before coming here, to make some plan, but obviously there was little she could do or say, now. The witch had forced her to write out the truth, the thing she had done previously, so long ago—the dreadful baby, undoubtedly long dead … How could it have been important? And yet, the beating in her womb had ceased, once the document, signed with Hetsa’s illiterate wiggle, had been carried off for the Consort’s attention.

  Crow Claw sat watching her then, in the spent glare of the lamps. Old mischief-maker, old horror. It was her fault.

  The following noon, waking from a dazed drugged sleep, Hetsa had learned other more vital things had occurred. Her petty crime was flung to second place.

  “Madam,” said Hetsa now, in a breathless, crumbling voice, “our loss of the King—is terrible for everyone, and for all the lands. But for you—your anguish—my most humble condolences—”

  “You are very tender, Daystar, to remember me, in your own misfortune.”

  Hetsa shuddered. She broke out, “Oh, madam—I—was so young—I was frightened and foolish and wrongly advised. I thought only of the King’s honor—a deformed child—I—I—”

  “You should then, as now,” said Udrombis, “have consulted with me.” She folded her white hands one over another. The gesture was implacable, like her smooth face. She had few lines. They said she was massage
d daily—not for vanity, but to be worthy of her office. Even now, she would need to be worthy. No longer a King’s consort, even so, she remained a King’s mother.

  As they talked together—if so you could call it—Glardor would be riding from his estates. The funeral of Akreon could not take place until the heir arrived.

  Hetsa thought, oddly, in the depths of her unease, of Akreon’s firm, fierce, summer body, embalmed now, packed with spices, stiff and dead.

  The Sun declines, said the verse, Kings go down also to their rest.

  He had foreseen it, had he not, standing on the terrace in the sun-fall, two suns descending together, the god, and the god-King, as one.

  Did Udrombis mind it? Her keen eyes were dry. And yet, the black irises seemed veiled a little. She would continue with her duties, of which Hetsa’s sin was one. But within her heart, who could know?

  Hetsa hated Udrombis in that instant. Hated her, priggish, stupid, dangerous, tyranical bitch.

  “I can’t say to you, Hetsa,” said Queen Udrombis slowly, measuring out her doleful words, “that your act can be overlooked.” Hetsa gave a shrill cry. Udrombis ignored it. “You must come with me into the next room. There the priests have prepared the altar before Ia, who as you will know is our judge in Akhemony. In deference to you, I’ve added an icon of the Ipyran deity.”

  Hetsa, insensible apparently to this kindness, got up, threw herself on her knees—Mokpor again?—and wailed. “Oh, madam— madam—don’t—”

  Udrombis, too, rose up.

  When she did this, she seemed to tower four miles over Hetsa on the floor.

  The Great Queen’s mourning robes were of the palest grey, shot almost invisibly with silver. Her hair had been covered with a grey, soft gauze held by a circlet of milky amber. Her feet were bare.

  “You must come with me now and confess to your indiscretion aloud, at the altar. There together we shall seek to secure for you a cleansed soul.”

  “Madam—don’t—don’t—”

  Udrombis said flatly, “What is it?”

  “I don’t want to die!”

  Udrombis sighed. “You needn’t fear death, Hetsa. Don’t be afraid. But I insist upon this.”

  Hetsa floundered to her feet. She wrung her hands and tried to kiss the fingers of the Queen. Udrombis removed her person, slightly, and left Hetsa flailing at the air.

  “Thank you—thank you—”

  Beyond the curtain, in the tiled room where, on a side table of inlaid ivory, ivory figures stood against figures of bloody cinnabar, in some deserted game, the proposed altar had been set up behind a screen.

  Here, at the Queen’s instigation, before the statue of Ia, a creature with the head of a man and the body of a bird, perhaps an owl, Hetsa flooded forth her deeds.

  When everything had been said, Udrombis, a priestess too by right of her station, cast down the costly incense for the god. And some even for the small Ipyran god, who was only a bird. The vapors lifted.

  “It’s done. You are free of it.”

  “Oh, madam.”

  Hetsa did not think to ask Udrombis if the deformed baby had lived. Of course, it had not. Probably pious Udrombis, so sharp for the honor of the King’s house, was glad enough that it had died in the sanctum of Thon.

  Udrombis then, with her own hand, an ultimate mark of notice that Hetsa did not miss, poured out for Hetsa a goblet of wine. Hetsa was happy to receive it, her mouth had been so parched. She reasoned that the Queen must wish some service from her, and to this end had terrified her, and let her go. Hetsa was somewhat concerned as to what Udrombis would demand. But anything was better than dying, at twenty-two years of age, in this apartment.

  When the cup, of fine greenish glass, dropped on the tiles and smashed, Udrombis, having engineered the omen, was still not indifferent to it.

  She had not wanted, anyway, to retain the cup through which she had, swiftly and painlessly, poisoned the Daystar Hetsa. And in something of the same vein, she had dispatched Hetsa herself. Udrombis took no interest in causing hurt or horror for their own sake. She desired all souls forgiven, to have their chance in death. But like any good wife, any good widow, now, she kept the floors of her husband’s house swept clean.

  6

  My father Akreon, the Great Sun of All the Lands, was found in his bed one hour after sunrise.

  He lay on his back, most of his body under the furs and silken sheet. His face was serene and slightly smiling. Both his arms had been raised high, the big hands spread open, as if to welcome the Sun that was climbing up the window, at the couch’s foot.

  At first, his body-slave thought him alive. Then in terror learned that, though he held out his arms, they were hard as iron. As was indeed the whole of his frame, even his toes. Even his phallus, which was erect.

  He was also lushly tanned. A day’s hunting in the spring forest could not have given him such luster. He was the shade of an athlete who has raced under the hottest summer sun.

  The awe which accrued to this particular death was not, then, amazing.

  Akreon’s father, my grandfather, King Okos, had died at the age of ninety, frail, and olive-colored as a cricket.

  I came back to Oceaxis as the heir did, my half brother Glardor, who was almost thirty years my senior. He came with pomp, in some style. I, on the front of the soldier’s horse, my beautiful bronzen soldier that I loved, and whose name I have forgotten, as I forget little else—I wonder why that is? Is it I was not yet used to names? Or perhaps love itself, the purest love of childhood, has smoothed that name from the tablet, to keep for him his privacy.

  Udrombis, a clever woman, had not wanted me much to be seen, until she had got a look at me herself. She did not know what she would find. Typically, in the way of her justice, I, being royal, must live. But I might be all Hetsa had thought me. I might not be much use.

  I entered the palace again by night, and perhaps I had been drugged just a touch.

  Huge ceilings float over me, and the torches swim and flash. Horses’ hooves echo along my brain. Then, a soft bed, the first soft bed I have ever known, and this, like sleep itself, enfolds me, and I sink down, to fly among the eagles in heaven.

  A massive storm raged over Akhemony. The sky was black and the clouds curdled with lightning. The water of the inland sea was churning, serpent green. Hailstones, that some claimed burned, fell in the streets of Oceaxis.

  I myself have read the records and histories, which showed that, with every Kingly death, such extremities of weather displayed themselves.

  At the death of an earlier Sun King, a solar eclipse occurred, bringing such fear that many killed themselves on the spot. But that had been long ago.

  In any case, before noon the wind dropped. The almost tideless sea, and every fire in Oceaxis, stood still, and was flattened, as if by great invisible hands.

  The Sun Temple had been laid, stones brought, they said, by eagles, on a natural height above the town. Pines and cedars clothed the hill, the sacred trees of the Sun god’s shade. And near the hill’s head, the oak trees, and red marroi, from whose bark was distilled the occult drink of priestly visions. All these had bent and rushed to the wind, and now were stones. It was dark as twilight, or so I recall, as we climbed the hill, in hundreds, everyone on foot. Everyone, of course, save I.

  The temple was built upon three terraces. It was white, but the columns painted ochre, rose, scarlet, and gilded with burnished bronze and hammered gold. The roof lifted too, into a column, a white chimney flecked, as it seemed, with specks of diamond and emerald, blinking eyes of green and silver fire. This chimney was itself the height of a tall tree.

  No one had said anything to me. No one had prepared me. I had been got up, washed, and given—to me amazing—food. They had dressed me plainly. Now a muscular slave carried me in his arms. He did not like me. I was used to that. But at his side walked such a pretty, pretty woman. She entranced me. Her curling black hair, with glints in it; her earrings. She, too, wore the plainest we
ave, and I could tell she was angry, or unnerved. She disliked me also. I did not know yet, properly, her name was Ermias, and we were all in disguise. Udrombis had decreed I had some rights, covertly, to behold my father’s funeral.

  First the drums began to rumble. They were the lesser drums of the temple, but matching themselves to that other eternal Heart Drum which I, in my lifetime, have heard broken not once but thrice.

  Above our immediate crowd, the merchants and traders, the minor officials, and captains’ wives with their servants, up there, the highest persons. And in their ranks, unlike our own, the strictest segregation. To one side were the courtiers, the lords, and to the other, the noble women of the King’s court.

  But one’s eye went higher yet. To the upper terrace. Oh yes, surely they too must be gods.

  Grey and brown were the colors of mourning in our lands. Yet, aloft, such browns, such greys, fawnskin, lion-pelt, the most dappled silks, the pearls of the deepest rivers.

  The princes stood to the male side, the right, near where the fire-basket blazed up on its stand against the thick sky, top bowed and spread like the very shape of the cedars.

  Foremost were the sons of Udrombis. Her youngest, Amdysos, golden, handsome, eleven years old, clad in a grey that was white. And his elder brother, Pherox, a youth named for the metal of swords, and who had a silver tooth, his black hair like the lion’s mane. And, before them, the oldest son, the heir, the King, Glardor the rising Sun.

  No one would know now, gazing up to him, that he had been, even one moment, unready.

  He was so like the King, the King who had died. He had got, from nature, the tan the King uncannily had had, the kiss of the god. For Glardor was a man for hunting too, and for husbandry in open fields. Around his brow ran the band of lead that betokened his loss. His garments were of sober grey, with one stripe of bullion the width of an arm.

  Behind these three sons of the Consort, ranged the other sons, the men and boys got on Daystar queens. All were comely, all seemed honed by the promise of perfection. The fruit of the princesses of north and west, of east and south, the province-kingdoms of the Sun. But near Amdysos, stood his friend, the son of Stabia, who was friend to the Queen.