Free Mortal Suns by Tanith Lee

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.

2 ND S TROIA
T HE S NAKE , T HE E AGLE
I
    F ROM 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 infarrow, 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