Mortal Suns Read online

  For nine, this boy was very tall, very beautiful. They said he had a chariot already, nor quite a toy one, and he and Amdysos raced in miniature the sacred Race of the Sun that was held at Airis in the summer, by grown men, for the amusement of the gods. But they invented its obstacles, since no man who had faced them must reveal them.

  On the other side, farthest from the fire, were the royal women. The dead King’s queens, seventeen in number, and their daughters—countless, these—drooping in their dove and rain shades. But there, the last and youngest queen, sheltered at the side of the Consort, the little girl from Oceaxis, weeping openly in her veil. Her sons were babies. They had been left behind.

  The harps were conjuring the musics of lament. A boy priest raised his arms, almost in an imitation of the gesture of the corpse, whose arms, for dignity, had been broken to fit the bier.

  How are we to live?

  There is no sorrow unknown to men.

  Birth sends us to a house of shadows,

  And at the end, to Night.

  They were bearing forward the body of the King.

  The chariot approaches, a chariot of steel, painted with closed eyes, drawn by white geldings—Death does not procreate. Drapes like cobwebs trail the road.

  Out comes the bier, open. Only Akreon has been gloriously dressed for this day. He wears crimson and gold. From his cadaver waft the sweetest, most appetizing odors. He smells like confectionery from a kitchen I have never yet known. And the bath of a rapturous and celebrated courtesan.

  I saw him ascend the stair. Up the terraces, borne high. I think I glimpsed his face, but it was painted, and flowers had been put into his hair, a wreath of white narcissus, the best the spring could give, since the green blossoms at the Heart must not be plucked.

  In the hall of the temple was enormous space. The roof, about the tapering O of the chimney, had stars set into a ceiling stained violet like the sky. Phaidix kept her altar on the female side, but the watch flame was out. The giant altar of the Sun lay under the chimney, empty but for its two fires.

  The chanting was now like the sound of bees in a cavern, or the noise one hears in the head when one is sick. How do I know? I was a child in the crowd below the terraces, yet, I have seen it, the going up of my father.

  Four of his soldiers lifted Akreon to the altar, where he stretched, magnificent, between the two dishes of fire, an offering to the god.

  Udrombis, the Consort, stepped forward. She tore her garment, a religious gesture, its passion foreign to her, yet executed with such control, such forethought, it had great power. Beneath the robe of sand and silver, another of white and silver. With her right hand she scattered upon her lord the funeral wine meant to represent her heart’s blood, as—outward show apart—perhaps it did.

  At this moment, the sky above the temple portentously cleared.

  A rift appeared in the cloud, and the Sun, at its apex, seared through the aperture of the chimney. To those within, the intimates of the dead, his children and women, the wonder was vouchsafed.

  A shaft, burning like molten gold, split suddenly down through the funnel of the chimney, where every facet of a gem scorched out in reply.

  The Queen stepped back.

  Directly upon the breast of the King, the shaft was fired, striking the jewels of his collar, so that a splash of fire shot back into the air. For some moments, he lay suspended, seeming to levitate in a blaze of light, and then, unconscionable, undeniable, the thin smokes began to issue from his body.

  Those in the temple held their breath, perhaps. Or waited, with instructed silence, still, like the trees, as stones.

  The smoke unfurled, massing, permeating the temple with the scent of rare spices and perfumes.

  As the King’s body erupted into brilliant flame, the priests’ voices, the boys’ clear altos and the sonorous bass, sprang like the fire to uprushing life.

  Akreon’s body was burning, there on the altar of the god. For the god had sent his fire to bring this chosen son into the upper air. The god received Akreon, and the priests sang loudly, as if in joy, and triumph.

  From the terraces below, the smoke was visible now, pouring up towards the golden wheel of Sun, and breaking sky. The air was heavy with a delicious and cloying odor.

  The slave who held the child murmured very low, “He is going up. My eyes witness the ascension of Akreon, the Great Sun.” All the crowd was murmuring this.

  The child stared in vain, striving to see the body of the King, sailing to heaven in the grip of an eagle, but seeing only … smoke.

  Is it possible I wondered even then, on the nature of what God might be?

  I cannot say that I did, for I had understood nothing of the ritual of a King’s cremation in Akhemony, and no one had explained—the demonstration, its reality. Who indeed, of those who knew, would tell a child, a crippled girl child at that, the substance of the miracle of the sunfire?

  That, in the innermost circle of the temple roof, the chimney, were concealed various craftily angled mirrors of burnished pherom and silver. That these, put ready to receive it, would focus down the light of the noonday Sun, on to the altar below. At this spot, normally, a vessel of syrup or wine was left standing for the god. But at the time of a King’s obsequies, it was a King who lay there. And it was the jewelry on his breast which took the shaft of the Sun.

  Soldiers on campaign know well enough this trick. The focusing of the Sun off a shield or blade, to start a cook-fire.

  And that—was all it was. The ray of heaven, the fire from the god. Science, applied.

  And yet, evidently, there had been a miracle. I learned in my later years how, if the sky were overcast, a concealed panel might be opened in the chimney side, that gave down on the inner room of the fane. Light could then be shone upward another way to the mirrors, and so in turn the ray would leap out and, if more reluctantly, the pyre be started, apparently still through supernatural means.

  But, it had not been needed, this final ploy of the priests. The clouds had cleared for Akreon. The Sun had come to claim him after all.

  Ermias oversaw the child’s bath. A slave washed the little girl carefully, without undue roughness or sensitivity. She even sponged, rinsed, and dried the stumps of the white ankles. They were like marble, delicately veined with the shadows of bones ending within. The skin was scarcely thickened there, but neither very feeling.

  After the bath, another slave brought a supper, some milk and bread and candies.

  The child was carried to and put into her small bed, that had such astonishing softness. She had been rather worried that she was not allowed her canes at all.

  She lay awake, now the door was closed and all the servants had gone, listening to the noises in the outer room.

  It was growing dark.

  Before a small altar, that had a statue of cheerful Gemli, as the child would discover, burned a low, reddish lamp. It cast one rose upon the ceiling. All else turned impenetrable.

  But outside, Ermias had received the merchant Mokpor. They were drinking, and eating savouries together.

  Ermias had been annoyed. She had vented none of that on the child, but then, she did not like the child, was somewhat repulsed by the child, so had no favors to take away.

  The disguise of a wife of Oceaxis had irritated Ermias, who was wellborn; how else had she been the Maiden of a Daystar queen. Now, Ermias was also promoted. Dressed again in silk, she had upon her hand the gold ring set with a yellowish fragment, that denoted her the guardian of a royal infant. She had been right to draw an omen from the talk of teeth. This in the ring was a sliver of tooth from a stallion of the Sun god.

  The child could not sleep.

  She heard Ermias laughing, and the laugh was husky, sexual, and low. It sounded to her like the laugh of a witch, for in the dormitory of Thon’s House, sometimes awful old tales of the backlands had been rehearsed.

  Afraid in the dark, only the small charm of the bed, the red rose of the lamp to comfort her, uncomfo
rted now, the child began to cry. But stifling her tears, naturally, as she had learned to do.

  Something came gliding up out of nothingness.

  Dark on darkness, blotting out the rose, it leaned towards her. It smelled of herbs, of frosty spring night, of mothy, musty dryness.

  The child caught her breath.

  “What is it now? Are you frightened, little girl?” The voice was ancient as a shard, but very gentle. A hand, moistureless as an antique parchment, settled on the child’s forehead. It reminded her of the priestess that she had already, callous with innocence, abandoned.

  Outside, again, sluggish, bubbling, Ermias laughed.

  “Is she a witch?” whispered the child.

  The crone laughed now. Old woman’s laugh, past such deceits, cindery and warm.

  “She? Ah, no. What you hear is what a woman does with a man when she likes him. She may make another noise soon. You may think he’s hurt her. Don’t trouble. It means that she is happy.”

  Soothed by voice and hand, the child accepted these words, uncomprehendingly. The real witch was at her side, but she did not know it. In the dark, the black eyes of Crow Claw were luminous and profound as those of some animal of night.

  “What’s your name?” said the witch.

  The child said, solemn, “Cemira.”

  “Yes, I thought it was. But now you have another name.”

  “She told me,” said the child, guilty and uneasy, “but—I forget.” Not yet was she accustomed to names.

  “Shall I tell?” The child waited. “Yes, I will. They call you here Calistra.” The witch took her hand from the child’s flesh and used it instead to tuck in the covers. The priestess had once or twice done this very thing, in the child’s babyhood. Now it seemed right, a fundamental. “But there’s the other name.”

  “She said—it was a monster.”

  “She in the other room? That one?” As if in answer, Ermias gave a loud groan. “Hark at her,” said Crow Claw. “Do you think she knows anything, except how to make noises?”

  “Cemira,” said the child, almost boldly.

  “Cemira. It is a monster, in its way. One of the Secret Beasts of the moon goddess. It walks on its hands and has a silvery tail. Sometimes it asks questions, and if it can’t be answered, it laughs. Not the way that one does, out there with her man. It is a beast of Phaidix’s, a beast of fire that’s white. Which name do you want?”

  “Both!” said the child. She was greedy for names at last.

  “That’s good. Then you have two. It’s agreed. But the other name is the name of a King’s daughter, and you must use it.”

  “Ca—listra.”

  “Calistra.”

  Ermias gave a squeal, like a hare in a trap.

  Had I been still alone, I would have been petrified. I had only heard such sounds given off in pain. But I knew now. This was some silly thing she did. Ermias was silly, even if she had power over me. There was yet the Great Queen, however, whom I must meet in forty days, when the time of the first of the Four Stages of Mourning was over.

  But if I had meant to speak of this to my new friend in the darkness, she silenced me. “Sleep now,” she said.

  And she began to sing to me, in her eldritch, cracked, and cindery voice. At once I seemed on a river, floating to a sea. All fear, even the awakened buds of hope, if such I had in me, left me. I was at peace. I was no one, but part of all things, which therefore were not my enemies. On her raft of song I flowed into the ocean of sleep, and as sleepers and the dying do, left the world behind.

  2ND STROIA

  THE SNAKE, THE EAGLE

  I

  FROM THE LOWER SLOPES of Mt. Airis, you could see over into Ipyra.

  Steep gorges dropped to green forest, a green river sparkled, white with rapids. Beyond were cliffs and ravines, and in the midst, mountains which sometimes cracked and burst out with fire. In caves of sulfur, ancient women dreamed and sent strange messages to the world. Somewhere in the maze of the crags was said to be an entry to Thon’s kingdom underground, where Tithaxeli, the River of Death, inexorably moved, without seeming motion, towards the land of death.

  Another way, one could look south and east towards the Lakesea. It was like a piece of sky that had fallen out of place.

  “No chance of it, then.”

  “Well, they said she was foraging towards Ipyra and might go over. We did our best.”

  Amdysos, fourteen years of age, a Sun Prince, son of a dead Sun, was philosophical enough. One must do one’s utmost, try everything. That seen to, it was with the gods. He said so, quietly.

  “The gods could have given her to us,” said Klyton. At twelve, he was more impatient, or perhaps it had nothing to do with his years. “I offered to the Sun. And to Phaidix, too, because the pig’s her animal sometimes, isn’t it?”

  “I think so. Well. Well, maybe she’s in their protection.”

  “A pig.”

  “Perhaps she’s in farrow, Klyton. We may have to wait until all that’s done with.”

  “What, and let her spawn ten or so monstrosities just like herself, to rampage over the farms and villages?”

  The she-pig they spoke of was said to be of unusual size, twice or three times that of a normal animal. Now and then, it had happened, beasts that were too large, or even too small, appeared, especially in Akhemony and Ipyra. Klyton and Amdysos had seen, throughout their lives, the trophies on various walls, and at the rustic palace under Airis, for example, the skin of a boar that had been the height of a horse, and the deer skull, miniature as that of a rabbit, with perfect jutting horns.

  They had wanted this pig, and gone out to get her, telling no one the plan. The farms round about had a name for her: Thon’s Daughter. It was that bad. She had killed seven times, the last a girl on the day after her wedding. Hearing of the family’s grief, Klyton’s eyes, which were the color of the distant green river, had filled with raging tears. However, it was never wise, however irritated one was, to be sharp with the gods.

  “Of course, the people may have exaggerated,” said Amdysos now. “Don’t you believe the stories?”

  “Do you?”

  Klyton considered. He said, “The lion skull at Oceaxis, in the Great Hall. That’s real, isn’t it?”

  “I always thought so. But—it could be a clever artifact. King Okos took the lion when he was fifteen. He speared it and cut the neck vein. But it’s enormous. Could he have?”

  “Perhaps he had some help.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s always that. And the spear could have been tinctured with a drug. Even so.”

  “My mother,” said Klyton, “told me once she had a pet deer as a girl, that was only knee-high. It never grew.”

  “That’s a small animal though. Giant size is another matter.”

  They sat, looking down at Ipyra. The country had been quiet for some eight years. In the last argument with Akhemony, a rebellious force had ridden as far as the river below, painted and tattooed tribesmen, feral as wolves, and the conniving chiefs who owed the Great Sun fealty and wanted to forget. But Akreon had squashed the uprising with his sword, his army beating the rebels back, filling the water with corpses, passing on up into the crags. He had brought two wives back from that campaign in Ipyra, one of whom had now been, like Akreon, three years dead.

  There were always some conflicts. Kings might even encourage them, you sometimes suspected, to keep the army trim. The talk was of trouble brewing southwards now, with Sirma. If so, it would be their first chance, the Sun Princes seated on Mt. Airis, to distinguish themselves in battle, since they were thought too young before.

  The dogs were running about the forested upper slope, playing and barking, with no need to hold silent, their long hair streaming against summer green. Above, Airis had touched the sky and formed one solitary, foamy cloud.

  Below through the trees, Klyton could make out the Akhemonian side curving through stages of fields and vineyards to the little town, with the summer palace perched
on its rock. It had been a fortress once, until replaced by the Sword House, two miles along the mountain road. Udrombis brought her own court here in the hottest months, which meant Stabia had also come. Young men did not mind it. It meant less schooling, and this was wonderful hunting country. Soon, too, there would be the Sun Race. You could not quite see the stadium this far over.

  Only the elusive quality of the demon pig had spoilt the day.

  Klyton polished his knife carefully, though it had done nothing. This was a pherom blade, and had a pommel of deep red stone, incised with an eagle, his chosen blazon. Good weapons and gear should always be treated with respect. At twelve, he too was well-made, well-cared for, his skin like fine bronze overlaid with pure gold. He was long in the leg, his shoulders already wide for his age; he had clever musician’s hands, properly calloused. His profile could have come from one of the archaic coins—his looks went back some way. Plaited for safety, hair more gold than all the rest, hung to his waist.

  Dark-eyed Amdysos, only a little less beautiful, stared down into Ipyra, but he was dreaming of valor and old wars. It was Klyton who was thinking.

  The Heartbeat came faint but steady on this air as the drone of the bees, in the clover fields below. At Airis it was, of course, not so loud as in Oceaxis. They said, going away to a war, leaving the land behind, the sound behind, you heard noises in the head, and the stars turned over all night in your dreams. Leaving it gradually, on march, there was a sense of loss. Returning, in victory, it was worth any trial, better than the homecoming to family, wife or lover, to hear the sound again, beating, beating for ever.

  Klyton was not thinking of the Heart. He smiled.

  He said, “Did you see the girl in the temple, Amdysos? I mean the little one.”

  “Which? Who?”

  “The baby. She had topaz hair down to her lap. She outshone all the queens—not Udrombis, the rest. She’ll be something by the time she’s ready.”