Living With Ghosts

by Kari Sperring

  She looked at him, and said again, “Valdin kai-reth.” Kai-reth by vow only, and not by the necessary blood. It had been all they had. It was not enough.

  He said quietly, “Iareth. Iareth Yscoithi kai-reth.”

  “Peace. I am here.” Her words were calm, but she was not calm. Another woman might have wept. Iareth only counted her heartbeats and said, “I am forgotten, then. You have been here several weeks and have not sought me.”

  “I couldn’t find you.”

  “You have found me now.”

  “Yes.” There was triumph in the word. Gazing at her, he said, “You were wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “When you left me, you said we wouldn’t meet again. But here we are.”

  “I wasn’t wrong. This is no true meeting.” Her voice was cold as she spoke. He shivered at it a little and drew back. She stifled the impulse to comfort him. “There was a choice made. And I am still bound by it.”

  “Binding isn’t wanting,” Valdarrien said, and there was need in his voice.

  “One doesn’t have to gratify every want.” Unexpectedly he smiled, dark, sardonic. “We always did differ on that point.” His gaze turned speculative. “But you don’t deny the wanting.”

  “We are kai-rethin, you and I. There should be no deception between us.”

  “And no treachery.” He began to reach out to her. Then he stopped.

  “Forgive me,” Iareth said, softly.

  “You did what you had to. I never blamed you for it.” He looked bleak. “I couldn’t, somehow. Not even . . .” He halted and shook his head. “I can’t remember.”

  He had died in Thiercelin’s arms, speaking her name, and of that she would never be shriven. She said, “It was necessary.”

  “I know. You were always fair with me.” He looked down. “Has that changed?”

  One could not bargain with the dead. One could not change the immutable. Honor allowed no alteration in the vows that held her to him, sanctified by his death. She did not think of Joyain. Her mouth dry, she said, “No.”

  “ ‘Kai-rethin and one and always,’ ” he quoted, almost absently. “You remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it was abstract.” He looked up. His face was stricken. “Always one, and always apart . . . I love you, Iareth kai-reth.”

  “Peace,” Iareth whispered. “I haven’t changed.”

  “I know. That’s part of the horror of it.”

  “You cannot do this. You must let go. You haven’t the right . . .” She gestured at him. “You cannot come back like this.” He looked at her, and she saw that he did not understand. “The dead have no rights, Valdin kai-reth.”

  “So Thierry tells me. Do you think I asked for this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You promised me always. Urien made me promise to live.” He sounded petulant. He broke off and shook his head. “Any way I say it, it sounds childish.”

  “I’ve never rescinded my promise.”

  “No. But I wanted . . .” Again, he shook his head. “I’m finding a way out of this . . . Do you know what’s the worst of it?” She was silent. He looked at her, and his eyes were despairing. “I can’t even touch you. I have to change that or change you. Don’t you see?”

  There were no routes back from death. She said, “I don’t understand,” and he closed his eyes, shoulders sagging. She said, “I have not ceased to love you.”

  He opened his eyes again and glared. “Do you think that helps?” he said, and disappeared.

  12

  “I HOPE YOU REALIZE that this is unorthodox?” The cavalry commander tapped Joyain’s written request for transfer with a finger.

  “Yes, sir.” Standing as upright as he might, Joyain stared straight in front of him. He had expected this matter to be processed by his captain. It had never crossed his mind that it would come to the attention of the colonel. He was uncomfortably aware that his boots were not as clean as they might have been, and that there was a darn on the right hem of his cassock. This was going to look just beautiful on his record.

  “Leading the guard of a respected foreign visitor is hardly an unimportant post, Lieutenant.”

  “I know, sir.” The back of Joyain’s neck was starting to itch. It probably meant that his hair needed trimming. “But with all due respect, I wasn’t the officer originally intended for that position.”

  “So?” The colonel had disconcertingly sleepy eyes. One expected him not to notice most of what went on around him. One certainly did not expect him to care a bent copper for the opinions of a junior lieutenant of minor family and without significant connections at court. The colonel said, “You’ve been able to handle the job, haven’t you? I’ve had reasonable reports of you.” Joyain knew better than to acknowledge the compliment. “Perhaps you’d care to tell me the cause of your discontent?”

  “Well, sir,” Joyain hesitated, and cursed his lack of resolve. “I believe I can be of more use elsewhere.”

  “Aren’t I the best judge of that?” The tone was soft, but without the necessity of standing to attention Joyain would have been staring at the floor in embarrassment. “Well, Lievrier?”

  “Yes, sir. But . . .” Joyain gathered his courage in both hands and looked the colonel in the eyes. “I’ve seen the reports on the shantytown, sir. I want to be of more immediate assistance.”

  “Oh, do you?”

  “Sir, there are other equally capable officers. And I have personal reasons for wishing to be elsewhere.” If he was going to earn a black mark for questioning his orders, he might as well make it a nice big one. “The fact is that I believe I’m becoming too attached to one of the Lunedithin party.”

  The colonel studied him. “That’s honest, at least.” Joyain stayed silent. “When were you transferred to this regiment, Lieutenant? Three years ago?”

  “Four, sir.”

  “Family in Merafi?”

  “An aunt by marriage only, sir.”

  “Hmm.” The colonel steepled his fingers. “What makes you think we need your talents in the old docks?”

  The fact that I’ve fought a part of what we’re facing, and I know that it isn’t human. He could not say that, either, not without being dismissed as a lunatic. Joyain said, “I just think I’d be better away from the Lunedithin, sir.”

  “The cavalry aren’t here to rescue you from your mistakes.”

  “Yes, sir. I know.”

  Again, the colonel studied him. Finally, he said, “How do you think you’d be at quelling panic or supervising mass burials?”

  “I can do it, sir.”

  The colonel sighed. “Lieutenant, I’ll be honest with you. We aren’t short of men, and you’re doing a good job where you are. However,” and he looked at the letter again, “there are indications that we may need reinforcements at some point, particularly to handle night patrols. In which case,” and he looked up, “I’m prepared to grant your request, effective from the day after tomorrow.”

  Joyain could breathe again. Saluting, he said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t be too hasty about that.” The colonel watched him. “Some of your duties might be unpleasant.”

  “So I’ve heard, sir.”

  “Have you? Well that’s as may be.” The colonel rose, and nodded. “All right, Lievrier. Dismissed.”

  Joyain saluted again and turned to go. At the door, the colonel called him back. “One thing. Where did you meet Yvelliane d’Illandre?”

  “At the palace, sir.” Among other places. But not even Leladrien was gossip enough to have spread that little item around.

  “I see.” The colonel frowned. “Forgot to hold the door open for her, did you?”

  “Not that I recall, sir.”

  “You’d do well to remember that she has a long memory, Lievrier, and a good deal of influence. Try not to get across her again. It looks bad on your record.”

  “Yes, sir.” Joyain suppressed a sigh and tried his level best to loo
k baffled. “I’ll bear that in mind, sir.”

  “You do that. As it happens, I’ve chosen not to pay attention to her comments. But if she complains again, I’ll have to act.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do.” The colonel smiled. “Run along then and tell your friend duResne that he’s to have a companion in his misery.” Joyain tried very hard not to look surprised. The colonel laughed. “And tell him that next time he’s to bring his gripes to me in person. It saves time.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Joyain.

  Standing on a doorstep, Gracielis tried not to fidget with the bandages on his wrists. The day was damp and chill. The air tasted sour and corroded. He did not want to be here. He had had no choice. Thiercelin had descended like a tidal bore upon Amalie’s house almost before breakfast was over and swept him off to visit the Lunedithin embassy. “You’re upright and reasonably coherent,” declared his lordship. “So let’s get this over with.”

  They were admitted by a servant and shown into a small salon. Thiercelin sat down on a high-backed chair, and removed hat and gloves. Gracielis remained standing, back to the window. He was armored in the trappings of his younger profession, feeble weapon against the danger that was Iareth Yscoithi. Iareth, who should be wholly strange to him, yet who haunted his nights, mirrored through a memory that was not his. He tugged at his lovelock and tried not to dwell upon the possibilities attendant upon this meeting. That way lay madness. He was face-to-face with his own inadequacies.

  The servant returned and ushered them upstairs. Gracielis was silent, listening to the twin pulses of fear and alien need. In the landing mirror his reflection was foreign to him, beneath an expectation, an ancient desire. Deep within the shredding fabric of himself, he summoned the memory of Quenfrida’s power over him as a protection against Valdarrien. Through his gloves he dug his nails into one bandaged wrist, letting pain tie him to himself.

  Iareth Yscoithi stood in the room’s center. Gracielis bowed without looking at her, holding tight to courtesy. Beside him, Thiercelin said, “Good day,” and his voice was diffident.

  “And to you also. You received my message?” Her voice held all the strangeness of the north. The sound caught at Gracielis. How long had Valdarrien mourned the loss of this woman before his violent end? Thiercelin was kissing her hand. Irrational jealousy shivered through Gracielis.

  “A message?” Thiercelin said. “No. I’ve been away from home; it hasn’t reached me. But if there’s something I can do for you?”

  “It is possible,” Iareth said.

  “This is Gracielis de Varnaq. I told you about him.”

  “So.”

  Unable to deny the moment any longer, Gracielis looked up. Level green eyes met his. Double vision, as memories met and mingled, of a younger Iareth, in kai-rethin gray. She looked tired and mysteriously older. He had forgotten how tall she was.

  He had forgotten nothing, no part of her, the touch of her, the scent, her speaking silence and her dispassionate watchful gaze. Gracielis reached out to her without volition and the words were already forming, to follow: Iareth kai-reth, oh, my love, oh, my heart . . .

  In her native tongue, Iareth said, “Valdin Allandur spoke but little Lunedithin.”

  He said in the same language, “I don’t speak so very much of it myself.”

  “So. But it serves our present need.”

  “Thank you.” It was too late to recall his manners and kiss her hand. Besides, he feared to touch her. He said, “How did you know?”

  “I shall always know him. It’s in the nature of the bond.” She looked at him. Her matter-of-factness was comforting. “It seems to me, however, that you must find your own control, for Thierry has no knowledge of this tongue.”

  He had no control; that was not his gift. He began to say so, looking down in shame at his two-colored gloves. Abruptly he remembered Valdarrien’s ghost in the royal aisle, and heard again that distant command. TellIareth kai-reth . . . He smiled and looked up. “You were right,” he said to her in Merafien; and then, inside himself, “peace, be still.”

  Iareth gestured. “Will you sit? I believe Thierry has business to discuss.”

  “It’s Valdin. In part,” Thiercelin said, sitting. He looked down at his crossed ankles. “I’ve seen him—and talked to him—again.”

  “I, also.” Iareth said. At Thiercelin’s gesture of surprise, she added, “It was to be expected.”

  “I suppose so.” Thiercelin frowned. “Graelis should explain, really. It’s his theory.”

  Gracielis had sat down with his back to the window. He looked away, then said, “I’m content to be in your hands.”

  Thiercelin glared at him. “He thinks someone is trying to harm Merafi, and that Valdin is somehow involved. It sounds daft put like that, but . . .”

  Iareth said, “There are many odd tales regarding the Tarnaroqui and their abilities. And others, of old powers.” She looked at Gracielis without curiosity. “There are those of my people who hold such things unholy.”

  “Unholy,” said Gracielis, “is preferable to absurd. It’s less insulting.”

  Iareth said, “Tell me.”

  Gracielis looked at Thiercelin, who outlined the situation as they knew it. He avoided no part of it, not even the name of Kenan Orcandros. Iareth listened without comment. At the end of the account she was silent a moment; then she turned to Gracielis. “You saw a binding in water?” He nodded. “And you dreamed of Urien Armenwy, called Swanhame?”

  “Yes.” Gracielis hesitated. “And of you and someone whom I believe to be Kenan Orcandros.”

  She looked at her hands. After a moment, she said, “I wondered what it meant, that Valdin Allandur should tell me I was right. But now I think I understand.” She rose and walked to the window. “There is a place in Lunedith, a waterfall named Saefoss. It is unhealthy. We seldom go there. But six years ago, I traveled there with Valdin and his party, and with Urien. By the side of the fall we were ambushed and several of us injured, including Valdin.” She turned. “Do you know of this place?”

  Gracielis smoothed his lace. Then he said, “I can hazard a guess.” The tale was familiar to all of his training. Yestinn Allandur had enforced control on the old powers at one of their places of greatest potency, and then moved his own center to opaque Merafi. He had slain one of his own by treachery, by the side of the living fall. Gracielis said, “It is the place of Yestinn’s compact. Where he shed the blood of his enemy, Gaverne Orcandros.” He considered. “Was Kenan one of the ambushers?”

  “Yes,” Iareth said.

  “And he was injured there?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “He had a hand in the wounding of Valdin kai-reth.”

  Gracielis shivered. An ancient pact, built on Orcandrin blood shed unwillingly at the hands of an Allandur. And now, Allandurin blood shed in the same place, equally unwillingly, by Orcandrin hands. Kenan’s Orcandrin hands now linked in a working with the trained mind and strong gifts of Quenfrida.

  Everyone was descended from the old clans except a handful of the Tarnaroqui. A handful whose ancestors had also struck bargains long ago, with old powers. But those bargains had not been for control. At the bidding of those distant priests, parts of the old power had put on human seeming and lain with humans to breed the likes of Quenfrida. The likes of Gracielis, too. The undarii , who could see the past and bind the dead and make use of the gifts offered by the awakening of old things. Those ancient powers lacked discrete awareness or individual consciousness, but they were strong and dangerous and they could, at a cost, be manipulated. By those who had the right blood.

  Not wholly inhuman.

  Kenan and Quenfrida had woken the past. Bound in blood and water and betrayal . . . It was a possibility only half-credited even among the undarii. But Gracielis found no trouble in seeing where the temptation lay. It would call loudly to Quenfrida, who had lost much of her human power by choosing his flawed self as acolyte.

  Sh
e had another now, Lunedithin and Orcandrin, and his touch lay alongside hers in the working that threatened Merafi.

  They had woken the old power of water, and the river was turning. Gracielis looked at Thiercelin and said, softly, “No,” and then, to the floor, “It’s over, then.”

  “Oh, Graelis,” Thiercelin said. Iareth was silent. Rising, Gracielis made himself go to a window and look out. They were high here, on the hillside. On a normal day he should have seen all Merafi laid out before him. It was not a normal day. The tripartite course of the river was shrouded in mist. Haze hid the west quarter. Blue smoke drifted from the south, although the angle of the house did not permit him to see that part of the city well. Only the tower of the temple raked upward to affirm the cityscape, and its shape was blurred.

  Gracielis rubbed at his shoulder and sighed. He could do nothing. For him there were no more choices. For these others . . . Without turning, he said, “You must leave.”

  “Oh, must we?” said Thiercelin.

  Gracielis said, “Your river is turning.” And then, “Monseigneur, do you trust me?”

  There was a pause. Then Thiercelin said, “I suppose so. I asked you to help with my ghosts. And I haven’t strangled you yet.”

  “I’m grateful.” Gracielis paused, looking at the temple. A few short days ago he had stood on its roof with Yvelliane and asked idly about the river. “If you trust me, then you must believe me. The troubles you already experience will worsen.” He turned, looked at Thiercelin. “It’s simple. The world you have known is ending.”

  Thiercelin’s brows drew together. “Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’d better do something about it.” Thiercelin’s voice held all the confidence of aristocracy. He stared at Gracielis, and his expression would brook no contradiction.

  Gracielis looked at Iareth for support. Her face was neutral. Gracielis said, “But . . .” Then: “You don’t understand. Monseigneur—Thierry—what you suggest can’t be done.”