Mortal Suns by Tanith Lee
There was a festival of Bandri, the birth goddess, and I saw the procession. There were male priests too, padded like the women with huge pregnant bellies. They say ejaculation in the male is also a birth.
If Klyton spoke at other times to the three kings, the Pehraa, of wresting back Akhemony, I never knew. Certainly he must have done. It had run off them, then, as the sea of the Straits ran off from the land.
The kings were men in middle years, Rhes the youngest of them, at thirty-four or -five—it was hard to reckon, for their calendar was not the same as ours, and their months of other lengths. The daughter of Rhes was the betrothed they had pledged Klyton, and despite dethronement, Klyton and she were apparently considered still hand-clasped, as they said, which made Klyton kin to them, and myself also.
In our presence, the Arteptans spoke the tongue of Akhemony. Klyton had asked to be tutored in the Arteptan tongue, at Oceaxis, but not spent much time on it. Now he asked for a tutor once again. It would have helped to fill his hours.
But I saw Rhes’s daughter, Netaru, from the first night. She sat on the women’s side, among the black and stately princesses and queens. The wives of the Pehraa wore, all of them, helms of gold and silver, similar to that Udrombis put on for Klyton’s coronation. Netaru had only jacinths in her hair, which was not black, but the sheeny light brown of an acorn. Was this hair considered a lessening of her—and for that reason had they given her to Klyton? You could not be sure, with Arteptans. Besides, apart from her hair, she was so black her features, other than her eyes and lips, were hard to make out. And she was beautiful. The eyes one saw were long ovals, tapering at the corners and outlined with gilt, smoky white agate set with black. Her mouth was like a plum for color, and with the plum’s succulent indentation.
I do not think I was jealous. It was terror I felt. It was not immodesty but sense to know, before, I had had no rival. Though if we had been in Akhemony, his destiny unbroken, I think I would not have feared. And then, too, I would have prayed to the gods. If he loved me, he would come back to me … but all that was done.
Klyton behaved only as he should. He wooed her decorously. He showed that she was delightful, but that, as a prince, he did not dwell only on her. And he sought me every third night, although he never stayed long. Nor did he lie down with me. He talked of the god’s bond, and of Sun’s Isle. Or of the weather.
News had flowed, and Artepta learned, when we did—or rather earlier—that Amdysos had been crowned with an autumn crown in Oceaxis, his Queen beside him, in one ceremony, to spare him too much labor. Princes of Akreon’s line had uttered his words for him. Torca was one of the priests who officiated.
I visualize then, the Great Sun Amdysos, and his Consort Elakti, much as Udrombis had beheld them under the temple. Except the child is not on Elakti’s knees. Nothing was said of that, though Adargon had told Klyton the abomination was still at large, so it was reckoned, in the Precinct of Night. The priests left food for it, and went armed. It was sacred, yet profane.
In Artepta, they do not perform a wedding. There it is announced, if a woman of equal status goes with a man to his house, and stays a day and night with him there, they are husband and wife. And though a man may have more than one wife, in archaic times, they say, so might a woman, and their babies inherited through the maternal line, no one being sure of the fathers.
Since Klyton’s palace apartment was his “house,” they had only to go there. For that reason too, the kings gave me the mansion just outside the palace, whose gardens fell down to the sea.
But I witnessed the Blessing. It was etiquette I should, being his other wife in Artepta.
There was a feast. More of their vegetable dishes and dark red beans with hot eggs served on them, and sweetmeats in the forms of all the gods, of which they had, Kelbaba once told me, a thousand.
Then Klyton and Netaru, with garlands of irises, went to her father, and he blessed them simply, the same words an Arteptan peasant uses on such occasions. And he gave her, as the peasant does, a small pot of perfumed oil, with which to make fragrant her new home. The pot was gold, of course, with a ruby stopper.
Klyton laughed and so did she. He looked happy, like a young man again. The way I had seen him so often, with me.
Before they went out, Netaru came to me, her ladies rustling after, and kissed me on the lips. A man’s wives must be friends and sisters. She smelled of dusk on a lily, and her skin peppery and enticing.
Together they departed to his rooms, and stayed there the prescribed time. Actually longer. By then, I was in my house.
After a few days, Klyton entered the house for the first of his daily visits. He seemed washed free of all of it, and I was gone with the rest. But when he had spoken to me for a while about silly, domestic things, I saw the dark sink through him, as it had come always to do. No, the grief and rage, the bewilderment and shame, had not withdrawn. Only the joy of the other life, the glory, only they had been dismissed. Though with these bright things, I, too. Whatever stayed with him, Calistra was not there at all.
But then suddenly he said to me, “The tears run down your face like the fountain outside the window.” So I was weeping and had not realized. I turned away, and he said, “Calistra, Calistra. I can’t take you with me where I must go. Don’t you see?”
Should I have cried out that I would not be parted from him, would lie at his door like a dog, and follow him to the earth’s edge, and down into hell? Once there had been that time of passion, when I thought him lost to me before. But now I could not say it. He did not want me, and unwanted I could offer nothing, even my life.
Klyton said, “Don’t cry for losing me. Be glad. I haven’t tarnished you. No. You’re like the fountain, more than your tears. Look how it overflows its alabaster basin, and pours away in a stream to the sea. It vanishes in darkness and runs underground in darkness, to return again to the fountain’s source, and overflow once more. This is you, Calistra. But I’m the fire. A burning jet, and now burned out. There’s nothing left. Let her have that, then,” he said. “She knows. She’s generous and kind from her indifference. She asks nothing of heart or mind. It’s what I need. All I deserve.”
When he had gone I wept on for hours, but like the fountain, always more tears evolved. Surely he had been my source. I must only go back to him.
I remember looking so often from the windows of that house, at the slender strip of sea, at the gardens. White owls and sea-eagles nested on my roof, as in other high buildings and statues of the city. In the gardens I frequently saw Nimi and Choras at play with the dog. They were not despairing here. And my black Maiden told them stories. They had come to admire and trust her, as the dog had come to rely on them.
Without me, Choras would have had no life but for her penance in Thon’s Temple of misery. But then, without Udrombis, I also would never have come up into the day.
I could not imagine for myself any future. It was as if prophetically I knew my future would be unimaginable unlike anything I could ever foresee.
The winter moved smooth as cream. I exercised from long habit to the beaten drum of a musician girl, whose flesh was of the tone of brown bread.
She put me in mind, by her lightness, of a youngish man I had seen sometimes in the three kings’ hall. But his skin was not quite like hers, though resembling her unblackness, dark more in the way of smoke. He grew the hair on his upper lip. But some Arteptan men went bearded. Additionally, he dressed in finery, and gave evidence of military power—the way he stalked about, his manner, the sword cut on his left hand. One saw the soldiers of the Arteptans, who were of above average height, and each man’s breastplate crossed by the skin of a leopard he had killed.
The dark man did not seem, however, much like them. He had two servants, pale as he, sometimes others with him, also well-dressed. And he was treated with by the kings as a high prince, given far more subtle respect, in fact, than Klyton.
That I took him for an Arteptan is not surprising; I had never s
At last, the orchard trees under my seaward window put on a sugar of blossom. They alone, of all the native trees, had lost their leaves. The other plants, and the palms of the garden, had only grown sulky and sombre.
Something in me, finding the blossom, catching or pretending a quality of spring was in the light, raised its face and glanced about.
I was young. I looked for something. If seasons transcend, why not other things.
That morning, I was aware of a great many ships out in the Straits, and faintly now and then some sound of horns would lift up to me. There was always trade, and business. I thought nothing of it.
At noon, Klyton did not come. That filled me with perplexity, and a fresh distress. Then a letter was brought, asking me to excuse him. Messengers had docked from the Benighted Isles, so far as he understood. Artepta would be winning to them, as she was to everyone. And he was, he said, curious.
Did something wake in Klyton too? Did he, hopeless and resigned, scent the spring and look about him, for some unthought-of chance?
A statue of an elder king, visible from my mansion, for it was the height of two houses piled on a third, let out its bell-voice to the Sunset, as it always did. And the porphyry beast in my garden flushed, then was the grey of ashes.
I recollect I puzzled over an Arteptan book that evening. I found the language difficult, and the substance of it has disappeared from my memory. Quite early, exhausted as I often was from boredom, I went to bed, without a single warning. And slept without one portentous dream. Not until my black Maiden came to wake me did I feel alarm. So the sacrifice only guesses, when its nostrils widen to the altar’s previous blood.
Many years longer than Klyton, my brother, lover and husband, I knew the Battle-Prince Shajhima. His last heir, now that Prince Shajhima whom I sometimes see, was born in the Battle-Prince’s sixtieth year.
At twenty-seven, he was strong and tall, and handsome in a way unusual to me, and at the time unseen. His hair was blue-black, and his eyes also blue-black. His smoldered skin had been clad in the azure of the Pesh sky, and ornaments of gold and silver, as he sat at the table of the kings of Artepta. Besides this he wore the great sword, made of the white steel that the Pesh call Immortal Moon, and which can cut through any other metal. This steel is feminine, and represents, as we know, the moon goddess of the Pesh, who they put away centuries ago, in order to seek the Ultimate God. Decades after this time, I said to Shajhima that the Pesh stood therefore behind a woman when they slew their enemies. He answered nothing, but later told me I had been correct. For the Pesh—then, women were so much less, that no blame could attach to them for obedience to a man in war.
But the steel of the Sun Lands was pherom, which also descended to us from Phaidix, a moon goddess.
He had sat quietly through winter, Shajhima, his warriors about him, only a handful in the kings’ hall. In the city were more. And south beyond Artepta, the fleet of the Pesh covered the sea as gulls cover a pool.
At the marriage rite that was no rite, when the pot of oil was handed to Netaru, I recall Shajhima frowned.
But he remained dumb. For Pesh had allied with Artepta, great power lying down beside great power, claws sheathed. And any way, the triumvirate had given one sanctified oath, which mattered very much.
That night when Klyton was curious, thinking to see the wild-men from Kloa and her Isles, was the night this oath was to be honored.
It was not Islers who walked into the hall, where the three walls of draperies were drawn up and the gardens were visible, black on the black sky, fountain-starred below with singing waters, silently starred above with stars.
Klyton was sitting, as was normal, among Artepta’s princes, but tonight he had been given a chair beside King Rhes. Adargon was on Klyton’s other side, and there were three of his captains, nobles from Akhemony. They had been talking since morning, trying to learn more about the Islers and their coming. But had learned very little, it seems.
Netartu had gone to the women’s place, and sat with her sisters, playing with a lion-cub.
The hall was built to face east, for moonrise, and Sunrise at dawn. Centuries before the Arteptans had considered Sunset ominous, and avoided, where possible, looking at it, marking its passage with raucous cries and blown trumpets. So the blind side of the hall was to the west. East, north and south, the drapes were raised, and Shajhima, the Peshan, had he been remarked, was on the north side, quite near to the Pehraa.
There was no preliminary for Klyton.
The silver horns sounded, and through the gardens, from east, north and south, came a long wide band of men. They were dressed in indigo and bronze, helmed in the Pesh helmets that cover the cheeks and are topped by spikes, which can, in battle, offer another weapon. They carried their ceremonial spears, chased with silver, and bound with white ribbon, which demonstrate they come in friendship not hostility.
Anyone could see at once now, these men, walking measuredly into the hall, were not Arteptans. And as Shajhima rose, they saluted him, raising their arms and tamping down with the spears. It was evident that he was their master.
The elder of the three kings also got up. He nodded to the phalanx, and then looking to Shajhima, he inclined his head.
Then the Peshan warriors drew back to the sides of the hall, and up the central floor was walking an old man heavily bearded, in a robe of dark silk, an embroidered cap upon his head.
The king spoke to the old man, in Arteptan, which Klyton understood by now reasonably well.
“You are very welcome, Teacher. Will you sit by me, here?”
The old man glanced aside at the royal women, and he drew his brows together, then loosened them. He gazed at the three Pehraa with hot and inky eyes. Then came up among them, and was sat down there between Rhes and the eldest king.
Rhes turned to Klyton. “This gentleman has traveled from Pesh Sandu across the Endless Sea, to teach us how to worship the True God.”
Klyton had no expression, though he had watched everything unblinking. He said quietly, “Did you not know how, sir?”
“It seems, not quite,” said Rhes.
Then turning back to the Peshan priest, he spoke to him in the Peshan language, which Klyton had never heard.
Adargon said, “Klyton, I think—they are Outlanders.”
“From the fabled continent beyond all the seas,” said Klyton. “Yes.”
He had meant to go there, if it existed, and grip hold of it. It took no great effort to reason that something like this had happened in reverse.
Rhes returned to Klyton and said, with the utmost politeness, “Pesh Sandu makes a holy war. Artepta does not war at all. So we have agreed to learn about God, and to reshape ourselves somewhat, in order to display to him our reverence. The Teacher will assist us.”
“And these armed men,” said Klyton, “will they also assist?”
“Some. But the bulk of their army, of which there are many, many thousands, will press on through the countries of the mainland, towards Akhemony.”
Klyton did not speak.
It was Adargon who said, “You mean, king, to make war on Akhemony?”
“To conquer Akhemony.”
And Rhes smiled. The smile was not villainous, nor sorry. Events came and went around Artepta as the sea did, and like their carved statues that stood in the sea, Artepta would remain.
Adargon swore and surged up. A slave, coming with wine for the old teacher, skipped back, and the drink was spilled.
“A bad omen for your friends,” said Klyton.
“They don’t believe in omens quite in that way.
“Then do they believe in swords?”
As a prince, and kinsman, he was permitted to feast with the kings, armed. Now he touched the red hilt of the sword, where the eagle poised.
“Please calm yourself, prince,” said Rhes, unruffled. “Nothing can be done. You need fear no insult. You are son to the Pehraa now, and your other wife is our
“Insult, and safety,” said Klyton, still in Arteptan. “You might,” he added casually, “have warned me. In the anteroom, say, before we came in, and looked so foolish.”
They had trusted probably he would not make a fuss. To how many had he said, as to me, he was a fire burned out?
But they had forgotten burned ground keeps heat a long while, and sometimes plants grow there, like the memories of flames.
Klyton drew the sword, but when Adargon also moved, Klyton put him mildly back. Klyton said to Adargon, “I see now I was brought down to this, for the moment that the gods have sent me, here.” And then he pointed with the sword, barbarously, across the elegant tables, the crystal bowls of lilies, the alabaster lamps, the glimmering of women’s gowns and skin, and all the shining of the angerless, acquiescent night. Pointed at the Peshan who was Shajhima. “Is that one their commander?”
And Shajhima, who could speak Arteptan better than Klyton, said in a carrying voice, “I am the commander of the force of Pesh Sandu. What you are doing means you wish a combat with me. Or have I mistaken your rudeness?”
“No,” said Klyton. “No mistake. I mean, very rudely, to cut your flyblown heart out of your stinking body. Will that do?”
Shajhima shrugged. He said, “Tomorrow, then.”
“Now,” said Klyton.
Rhes stood up—
And Klyton snatched a wine cup from the table and hurled it into the open floor, where the dancers, acrobats, and magicians had worked their lovely patterns all winter.
“I’ll meet you there,” said Klyton. “Now, before all this wondrous people, who have no word in their language for honor.”
Shajhima said, “I’d heard Akhemonians are savages, with kings who act like slaves.”
Klyton said nothing. He had been recognized, that was all it meant. He went down to the floor and kicked the thrown cup out of the way. But for its rolling, there was no other sound