Mortal Suns (20 page)

Despite myself, I smiled. At this, Stabia smiled too.

“No, madam. I didn’t understand.”

“Oh, of course not. Now you do. You’ve had no proper instruction. This other thing …” she paused, and ate her second sweet, licking her fingers to get all. She said, “You’re too young for it yet. I don’t hold with this bedding at twelve, fourteen. Some are fit for it and some not. Girls now need longer. Flowers bloom at their own rate, and when you force them they lose their petals to spite you.”

I was at sea. I gazed into her face, but now she looked out of the window at the mountain.

Stabia said, “He wants you, you know, just as much. He has that curly hussy out there because her hands have been all over
you.
How do I know? Amdysos sent him off to the groves. That was the first time for him. Seventeen is late. I’ve taken notice, since then. It was the Consort put me wise.” Dumbfounded—he
wanted
me?—I waited. “Let him be patient. And you. In a year, maybe. You’ll need to be careful, but I’ll see you have a woman who knows what you should do and take. Yes, you’re royal, but the most you can hope for in the end, my dear, is some lesser king of another country. And
he
won’t quibble if he doesn’t have to take a dagger and skewer to open a woman of the Sun House.”

Was I shocked? I
doubt it. She spoke as freely as some of the Maidens, coarse and to the point. The sentiments for which, twenty years before she might have been killed, were not startling because they went against nothing in me. I wanted what she told me I might—incredibly—have. The long-term future, with its banishment and sordid little marriage to another, in this fire, meant nothing.

“While you’re with us, you and he—why not. You can be my daughter. Under my wing. That will make it easy.”

Returning to this now, I see that shocked I should have been. For Stabia went against her true goddess in this one matter. Suggesting that Klyton and I might be lovers, however carefully, however much unknown, was as far from the rules of Udrombis as the earth from the sky, To the Widow-Consort, a princess must remain a virgin before marriage, as surely as a prince should not.

I think therefore someone had unlocked for Stabia the closet of coming time, a very little way. Searching, I do not see that scene, nor guess how it had happened. But half the court, half the continent, played at magic. Someone had read some portent for her, perhaps, and telling her, Stabia had known a truth.

She had no shadow, yet somehow, without shouldering her fate, she was aware that in this year where I and Klyton would wait, all things must change. And she herself sail down the River of the Dead, leaving him behind upon the raft of mortal life.

Now I have come to that place where I must speak of something sorcerous, harrowing, unthinkable. It is not I do not know how to tell it, for I saw it, and need only relate what I saw. Nor is it I think you will doubt me, because if you have read so far, we have trusted each other, a little. No, it is only some things can never be consigned to paper, nor even to the stone and clay tablets of the priests. Some things are too big, and too inhuman. They should be written once in fire, or water, and then left to smolder out, or wash away.

Yet, I cannot
proceed unless I speak of this, from which after-events hang like jewelry chains from a hook of bronze.

Thus:

The caverns at Airis, sacred to the god, run through one side of the mountain’s base. There had been mining there two hundred years before, until signs from the god forebade it.

You descend the plain on the western side, into a lower plain, a valley, where the mountain veers up into heaven, and everything seems above you, the glinting eastern dot of the shrine, and south, the defence tower of the palace.

Here, on the plain’s floor, was a stadium, where at this time, for three days—one of the Sun god’s numbers—horse races were staged, wrestling and combats with swords, shooting with bows, and other masculine arts. But there were shows also about the stadium, racing dogs, lions who danced, and men who ate fire. All around, a market was set up, selling horses, the white sheep of the mountains, who have horns like the crescent moon; silks and scents and foods of every land known under the Sun. There were even little botched-up temples of many foreign gods. Bandri was there, whose priestesses, black and white, all with padded bellies, sold amulets and statues to women pregnant, or desirous of being so. And Lut I heard of, too, though I was not allowed to go, represented by a herd of men and women who, it was said, were freaks, one having an enormous head, and another a tail, and two girls, lovely as swans, but joined at the waist with only two legs between them. Although apparently, a pair of all the other things were located below the waist, or so Ermias, horrified, mentioned.

I felt quite sorry for Ermias now. I was kind to her. Then again, I was not frequently alone in her company, but in with Stabia’s flock. Klyton, despite my—now desperate—nervousness, I had seldom seen in the fort, and then he never turned my way. He was most often with the chariots and horses at the stadium.

Before the vast doors, Torca stood, torch in hand, looking down into the valley.

From here, the two-horse chariots assembling on the racing track, seemed of a comfortable size to pick up in his palm. From their metalwork shot flares of light, and off the bridles and headstalls of the horses, trails like sparks. There was, at the Airis Games, no chariot race but this one. They would take one turn, pacing around the track, then come out on to the slope that led to the base of the mountain, where they must pause for the litany.

While the Race
was run, a period of, perhaps, half an hour, or a little less, or a little more, the crowd in the stadium, which included the Great Sun himself, would stand. Not until the first and winning chariot burst from the mountain’s gut, upon the opposite ridge, could any man, or woman, sit.

He had thought of the girl. She had been told to see to herself, having extra padding put inside the silver feet. And she might need her cane, and the arms of her Maiden and her slave.

Strangely, Torca wondered how this would be for her when she had grown old. She would not, surely, be able to do it then. But he did not think she would live much beyond forty years—the deformed from birth seldom did. Even he had now, with his leg, no long expectations for himself, and each year was a bonus. He had been careful to let her know none of that.

He turned his mind back to the ritual.

The young men, Suns, and nobles of the House, and this year princelings from other lands, had been cleansed. They had watched since last night’s sunfall until the mid of night. Then they slept. They were cautioned. No women must be even in their thoughts, or anything else.

Breakfast was hearty, the meat of a boar, the Sun animal, with summer greens and barley bread. So much wine, no more.

After that, another bath, and the oils and unguents. Dressing in their finest—each looked more gorgeous than the morning. Like a bride on her wedding day, no man who rode the Sun’s Race seemed less than beautiful.

In the caverns, it was possible to die. It did not happen often, but it might. Those who perished there went to the Sun Below, to serve, him through the region of darkness under the world.

The man who won was, for the next three days, the Sun himself.

Torca thought it might well be Klyton. Though Amdysos had triumphed before, he was too steady, too wise. A race needed fire. Especially a race to honor the Sun.

Across from
Torca, the other chosen Priest of the Doors, face masked in gold, and in the black robe fringed by red that marked the Sunset-like descent into the caverns. Torca, beneath his mask, had cut and shaved off his beard. It grew quickly, and in two or three months would be as good as the old one.

In the sunlight, the torches were transparent, but bright from the terraces of the stadium. Yet it was the chariots were made of fire.

The caverns, a system of wide caves, had been fashioned with walks and drives, in the time of Aiton. Earlier it had been more dangerous. Even so, the workings of the old mine kept it treacherous enough, and on the walls, the arcane paintings, which it was blasphemy to speak of, could startle a newcomer, and even shy the horses.

Nevertheless his money would have been on Klyton, if it had not been sacriligious to bet.

The sky was very clear, and the Daystar showed, following after the Sun like a gold-white hole in heaven.

The chariots were turning now, coming around to where the slope began.

Everyone in the stadium was on their feet.

He must direct his mind inward, to clandestine, holy things. But Torca thought,
Have I forgotten something?

It was as if someone had whispered to him, during the night. He had heard, and meant to remember, but forgot. There was now no help for it, for time moved onwards like the Sun.

His chariot was of red marroi, the sacred wood, and inlaid by gold-skinned bronze. He had had it built last year, for this. Sympathetic magic—by making ready for a thing, you caused it to happen. But Klyton had not been drawn to race last year.

Now it was refurbished, polished, like a red, silken mirror. He wore its color, and ornaments of gold. Every man there wore the Sun colors, even the Charchite prince, who wore a color like colcai.

Klyton had slept only two hours. But he felt light and strong, his head as clear as the sky, and like the sky, with the two bright thoughts in it, the Race that was the Sun, and—the Daystar thought—the girl on the terraces of the stadium.

He had made her out. She wore the cloth he had had them send her. Not gold, but silver for her eyes. She shone like the moon amid the crimsons and ochres. But he had sent her a token too, a necklace of heavy golden disks. Ermias stood by her in dark yellow, which did not suit her. She looked better in her skin. But so Calistra would, and he must think of neither.

Klyton had lain
with three women two days before the Race, to empty himself. Only one had been Ermias. All three had been … Calistra.

The thirteen chariots moved in the traditional manner, one rank five abreast, the next three, and the next three. In the last rank, as drawn by the lots, only two cars. Two was the moon number, given by Phaidix, the five and two threes being the Sun’s. It was not that the two was an unlucky place, but those who drew it made the moon goddess an offering at her little outdoor altar beyond the shrine. She liked the open air.

As Klyton, who with the Charchite, had drawn the rank of two, poured honey and white wine, the white cat came and jumped to lick the drops. By the time the Charchite walked up, she had run away.

Amdysos was in the first rank of three.

They had not spoken beyond a few civilities. It had been hard on them. All their lives, since boyhood, they had grown used to speaking.

But Amdysos would not budge and Klyton would not shift.

Klyton thought, primed now with the flame of the Race,
Whoever gets this, we’ll talk after
. Magnanimous now, because excited, unnerved, ready, Klyton wanted to be friends again. It occurred to him, too late, it would have been better to exchange warmer words before setting off. But after all, if there had been fresh anger … anger was as bad for this as sex.

Klyton thought,
He’s almost unflawed. I have to teach him this. It’s the Queen, it’s Udrombis. Her codes. She’d sweep away a rock, why not a man. If I hadn’t seen Calistra, I might have thought as he does. She isn’t like the rest. That child in the market-fair, with two heads—not like that.

Klyton’s horses were close to the tint of the chariot. Groomed, they gleamed like water, more like red wine.

He thought,
Why does my pulse race for this, and not for a war?
He had felt no true fear, no elation in any battle. The notion came now, sudden, electrifying, as they turned up on to the slope,
Did I know then the god had me in his hand, and I was safe, for he wouldn’t let me die?

And then, as they stopped, the huge doors rearing, shut stone, carved with a terrible beast, all jaws, to swallow them, Klyton, his head singing, thought,
It’s no use saying Amdysos may win. Or any man, but me.
This is mine. It is all to be mine. All. All! I am the eagle. What I see belongs to me by right. From land’s edge to edge of sky. The Race and the world.

“Who stands
before the Gate of Night?”

“We, the children of the Sun.”

“Beyond this place, the way leads into darkness.”

“We shall take that way.”

The ancient words echoed over the slopes of the mountain, and around them, in the stillness, sounded the faintly beating Heart. The hollow of the mountain carried everything to the stadium below. A cough could be heard from here.

The priest to the left—it was Torca—leaned and touched with his light the offering bowl on its golden stand. A comber of madder-red purled up.

“The Sun descends. You who descend, do not forget us, for the dark enjoins you to remain. But day awaits. Rise up. Return.”

Each man said, singly now, one after another, “I pledge. I will return.”

Klyton heard his own words, like another man’s.

Two accolytes lifted the offering bowl away, and from the higher slope, boys sang in piping voices.

The song was old as universal memory. It spoke of the Sun beneath the earth. It was a dirge, but at the end, rose into a shining shout of joy.

As it ended, the doors of stone grated on their runners, and the mouth of the monster split slowly into two.

Beyond, within the mountain, Night awaited them, for an instant black as the waters of Death River.

But then the priests who stood along the upper ledges there inside, the first group of five, dipped their torches to the cups of oil.

There was a mumbled gush of combustion, and flame sprang out, showing, rocked by fantastic shadows, the vaulted intestines of Airis, ribbed purple and black, and with the fangs of stalactites depending, scarlet at their ends, as if recently fed on blood.

The girl stands on the terrace, among the women. The silver dress is cool, blood-heat only, the heavy necklace of gold is hot. She knows she must stand some time. Already this pains her, but she does not notice.