The Ghost Sister

by Liz Williams

  Caution and curiosity warred within Shu. The latter won. “Come on,” she said. “There doesn't seem to be anyone around. I'm going in.”

  They found a high, broad door beneath the eastern balcony, and Shu gave it an experimental push. It swung open easily. Shu stepped through into an echoing hall. The light, filtered through waxed paper windows, fell gently across the floor. Dust motes spun in the sudden shaft where a window had torn. The flags of the floor, visible between a few dark, soft rugs, were polished by use, and yet there was a faint but unmistakable sense of neglect. The room was somber, but nothing was harsh or clumsily made. As craftsmen, Shu thought approvingly, these people had a delicate touch. The original colonists would have been an untraceable mix of peoples, their origins blurred by the genetic melting pot that humankind had become, but in its spareness the hall reminded her of the ancient Japanese rooms depicted in her own grandmother's records. With a smile, Shu remembered her grandmother talking so proudly of unproven, adopted ancestries. They were all kin now, but this room spoke to her of her probable heritage. It was almost like walking into somewhere known and familiar, somewhere that might even become home, one day. She brushed a hand across the rich redness of a wall hanging, touched the softness of the tapestry slung across a seat. The hall smelled of incense and age.

  Bel lingered in the doorway, blinking in the dim light, and the life sign scanner whirred in warning. From outside a voice called, as if in command, “Bel Zhur!” The name echoed, whispering, throughout the hall.

  Shu looked up and gasped. A woman stood in the doorway. Her face was the color of a shadow and her long eyes were a silvery blankness. She wore a gray robe, almost the same shade as her skin, and her face was thin and set. Her pale hair streamed down her back. She could have been a ghost, but the sword in her hand was aimed at Bel's throat.

  3. Mevennen

  On the day of the ghost's return, Mevennen spent the morning on the balcony of the tower, reading another of the books she had brought with her. It was the history of their house, written in each satahrach's careful handwriting, and illustrated. The middle pages showed the energy meridians which traced their way through the northern provinces. Mevennen could see the intricate line of the coast and the islands, but to the east there was nothing, for no one had ventured into those barren lands for centuries—except in legend. She remembered the old story of Yr En Lai, last of the Ettic lords, who had sought healing for his love in the lost city of Outreven, and she wondered what might really lie in those lands. She'd dreamed about Outreven, when she was younger, had lain awake telling herself stories in which she lived there among its magical towers, a place where she was whole and well …

  Slowly, Mevennen traced the meridians with one finger, murmuring beneath her breath. This was the only way she would ever know what patterns lay within the land, she thought, and she glanced down at her own left hand, which carried the house marks tattooed around each finger. Her right hand was bare, apart from the one little sign of her name around her thumb: the road to the star. The other members of the family had their personal signs, given by the world. Mevennen wore rings to cover the lack. She looked up as Eleres stepped through the door.

  “Mevennen? I'm going down to the river. Sereth's around somewhere, I think, and so is Morrac. I'm leaving the defense down, but it might be better if you stayed here until I get back. Don't go to the orchard on your own.”

  “Why not?” Mevennen asked.

  “I'd just feel happier if you didn't,” her brother said firmly. She could see from the look on his face that he did not want to trouble her with explanations, and sighed. She was so tired of being protected, but she said, “All right, then, I won't. Where's Eiru?”

  “She's taken the murai up to the high ground to hunt for a day or so.” He leaned on the railing of the balcony, and stared out over the land. He seemed restless, Mevennen thought, and she wondered whether it was due to Morrac. She did not like Morrac, although she tried to, because he was Eleres's lover and Sereth's brother, and her own cousin. But she knew that Morrac had been one of the ones who had argued for her death, and she knew also that he did not like her in turn, although he was always punctiliously charming, at least whenever Eleres was around. But she did not like to think about Morrac; more interesting by far to consider the spirits who were seeking her out.

  “Eleres?” she asked, carefully casual. “Do you believe in ghosts? Not ones like me; I mean real spirits.”

  “I suppose so,” Eleres said, considering. “I've seen things in the high hills, or on the shore at evening. But I'm no shadowdrinker. I don't know much about the world beyond.” He paused. “Do you believe in them, Mevennen?”

  She gazed narrow-eyed down the estuary. “What would you say if I said I'd seen them here?”

  “Then I'd believe you,” Eleres said.

  Mevennen smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “So,” her brother said, smiling in turn. “Are there ghosts here? Is the tower haunted?”

  “I'm not sure. But I'll tell you if it is.”

  Her brother looked at her with his head on one side. “Will you be all right, here on your own? I won't be gone long.”

  Mevennen looked up at him. “I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. You've all gone to enough trouble on my account already.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. Sereth fancied a change. And you know what Eiru's like—any chance to get away from the family and she takes it.” He smiled again, wryly. “And if truth be told, coming here gives me an excuse to see Morrac away from the usual family bickering.”

  Mevennen shaded her eyes as she stared up at him. “He's your lover, Eleres. Do you need an excuse to see him?”

  Her brother's smile disappeared, and he said only, “I'll be back soon. Don't go beyond the tower.”

  “I'll be fine,” Mevennen echoed.

  She watched as Eleres made his way through the courtyard. The defense was down, so he walked through the gates without a pause to vanish among the trees. Movement caught Mevennen's eye, then, and she turned to see something strange drifting down the river. It was similar to the star they had seen falling from the sky above the steppe, though Mevennen had never been sure whether that had been no more than a dream. But this thing was smaller and shaped like one of the night insects that filled the river air at dusk. Mevennen watched in alarm as it sailed behind the trees and disappeared from view. She wondered whether she should call to her brother, but Eleres was no longer in sight.

  Rising, Mevennen went to the balcony and leaned over the rail, trying to see where the thing had gone. Nothing happened for several minutes, and then she saw two small figures making their way between the trees. One of them had pale hair and at first she thought they must be Sereth and Eiru, but they were dressed in unfamiliar indigo-blue and as they grew nearer she saw that the pale hair was golden. Mevennen felt suddenly cold as she realized who they must be. The ghost had come back, and brought another with it. Curious, and not a little afraid, Mevennen watched as they came through the gates of the tower and stood looking around them. They walked across to the stables, then vanished inside the hall.

  Mevennen thought, No one is home, only me. What if they mean harm? Frantically, she tried to remember what the sa-tahrach had told her about ghosts: a very old tale, that they would flinch from metal. In one of the rooms down the hallway there was a sword, black and ancient, dating from the time of some warrior ancestress. As quickly as she could, Mevennen hurried down the hall and lifted the sword from the wall. It was heavy in her grip, and even though she had never been strong enough to learn the skills of a warrior and did not even know if such weapons could really be used against ghosts, it made her feel safer. Carrying the sword in both hands, she made her way down to the hall and paused beside the door. She looked inside. The ghosts were not making mischief, as far as Mevennen could see, but simply looking at things.

  “Bel Zhur!” Mevennen called. She raised the sword. The ghost turned, sharply. Her hand flew to her
mouth.

  “Mevennen? I'm sorry. We shouldn't be here.”

  “What are you doing?” Mevennen demanded.

  The second ghost, an older, dark-haired woman, said soothingly, “We're only looking. My name is Shu Gho. I'm a friend of Bel's, whom you know already. We meant no harm. We didn't think anyone was here.”

  Slowly, Mevennen lowered the sword. She did not want to tell the ghosts that the house was empty.

  “Well, I'm here. My family is here, too,” she added.

  “Your family? Could we meet them?” the elder ghost, Shu Gho, asked.

  “No!” Mevennen said hastily. “They wouldn't be able to talk to you, anyway.”

  Shu Gho frowned. “Why not?”

  Mevennen, brought back to the same sore point, sighed. Perhaps she should try to baffle the ghosts; say it was a gift, that she was shadowdrinker or satahrach, but she had never hid the truth from herself, so why do so for others? Even the dead.

  “They could see you, but you wouldn't really be real to them. You only seem real to me because I'm ill,” she explained.

  “I don't understand,” Shu Gho said. She came to stand by Mevennen's side, looking up into her face. She did not seem afraid of the sword but she was elderly and smaller than Mevennen herself, unlike the willowy Bel Zhur, and this reassured Mevennen a little.

  Mevennen explained, “My family are normal people. You know—ordinary. They live in the world, they can sense it. They hear it when it speaks to them. So do I, but it's too loud—it's deafening. You don't sense it at all, do you?”

  The ghosts looked puzzled.

  “I'm sorry, Mevennen,” Shu Gho said. “I don't know what you mean.”

  “I thought not,” Mevennen said. She sighed. “I can't live easily in the world; it makes me unwell and I can't stay long outside. And I can't join the hunts or the masques, when everyone goes bloodmind mad. So I'm a ghost, too; just a different kind from you.”

  Shu Gho was listening intently. Her eyes were folded at the corners and dark within white orbs. Mevennen was intrigued to notice that the legends of the earliest times were true: ghosts'eyes had three parts, unlike human eyes, and it was said that they could not see the wind as a human could, and thus they became lost and unable to find their way home. And their skin was such a strange color: golden in the case of Bel, though Shu was paler and more sallow.

  “What does 'bloodmind'mean?” Bel Zhur asked, sitting down on a nearby chair.

  “What makes us real,” Mevennen said, surprised that the ghost did not know such a simple thing. “What I don't have. It is that which sometimes makes us return to the way that we were as children, without thought or speech, and we run wild. Except me,” she added painfully. “I'm land-blind, as I told you. They were surprised I survived my childhood. And I came home from the wild on a black day, a day when there was a great storm; the satahrach always said that it meant I had a destiny.”

  Mevennen saw Bel Zhur give her companion an odd look, filled with meaning. “Mevennen, what do you mean, 'the way we were as children?' You see, I saw a child, down in the trees by the river. It was in a dreadful state—filthy, dressed in rags. We want to help it. Do you know who that child might belong to, or where it comes from?”

  “Belong to?” Mevennen asked, puzzled. “Children belong to no one, except themselves.”

  “I understand that—of course, children are people, too— but it must have parents somewhere, surely?”

  “It will have parents, naturally. But they would have left it out in the wild when it was very small, with the rest of its siblings if it's part of a brood, and it's probably too young to return home.”

  Bel Zhur Ushorn was staring at her, and Mevennen could see dawning comprehension in her face, mixed with disgust and a strange, reluctant pity. “You send your children out into the wilds? To live like animals, to fend for themselves? What has happened to you? What kind of people are you?”

  “What other way is there?” Mevennen asked, bewildered.

  “Mevennen … the transmission was right. You have fallen from grace. This world is cursed,” Bel Zhur whispered.

  “But the world is a fair place,” Mevennen said, not understanding. “Once, perhaps not. Once we were not in balance with the world, but then we made a bargain: that we would be aware and unaware, that we could live aside from the world as we do, but in return we would give our children to the world, and sometimes more than children, too. The world is in balance, now.” Except for those like me, she thought. But even as she spoke, she thought that perhaps the world looked very different to a ghost; that they did not understand things as humans did.

  Shu Gho said, “What did you mean, when you spoke of balance with the world?”

  So Mevennen told them the old story, and she began—as all stories begin—with Outreven. As she spoke, she heard her voice grow stronger. And remembering how the sa-tahrach spoke, she tried hard to find the right words, so that the story would be more compelling. The women listened, silent and serious.

  “They say that the first people who came to this world from the world beyond built a city called Outreven. It lay deep in the mountains of the Great Eastern Waste, and it was difficult to reach. But the first people had boats that could fly through the air and they knew the passages between the mountain walls.They lived in Outreven for many years, serving their satahrach, their elder, whose name is no longer known but who was forever young, moving from body to body. And their satahrach dreamed. He dreamed that one day people would be in harmony with the world rather than separated from it; that they would live in a world he called the Dreamtime, where people walked conscious and not conscious, aware and unaware, at the same time. He said that consciousness was a disease, that it created too great a separation between ourselves and other living things, but that it was difficult to do without it. He wanted to change this, but not so that we became lost to ourselves, as animals are. He wanted …” Here she paused, uncertain of how best to phrase things.

  Shu gently interrupted. “He wanted the best of both worlds?”

  “Yes, that's so. He called upon the dead, and they instructed him. He created a being that was half human and half animal: the Jhuran. The Ancestor. It died soon after, but he made others, and they died, too. So he tried another way. He created a magical book, that told people how to live in harmony with the world, and after many years the children that were born to the people of Outreven were different. They possessed the bloodmind.”

  Shu frowned. “What is the bloodmind?”

  “It makes us what we are,” Mevennen said, frowning in turn. How could Shu not know? “It contains the senses that connect us to the world—those of us who are not sick,” she added bitterly. “The animal senses, the ones that drive the hunts, and also the masques at the mating seasons. But like the infants of other creatures before they return to the pack, the children of Outreven ran away into the world, or turned on their parents. Their parents blamed the satahrach, and killed him. They stayed in Outreven, but there was a great fire and they died. Their children came home to find nothing, and so they ran away once more. They lived like animals, but gradually they found a balance between consciousness and unconsciousness. They learned how to listen to the world, with the help of the magical book. And they listened to the satahrachin: the elders, the few who had never forgotten and who held the best of human and the best of animal. They started to build once more, to live in houses. They built the coastal towns, and the island ports, and left the inner lands, where the tides run strongest, free for mehed and children. And so no one lives in Outreven any more, though it is said that if you can find it, it's a place of healing.”

  There was a curious expression on the ghost's face, a kind of eagerness, as though Shu were drinking in her words. “Has anyone—yourself, for example—tried to find it?”

  “I can't even walk from the house to the orchard without feeling ill,” Mevennen said, with a rush of frustration. “How am I going to find Outreven?”

  “Mev
ennen, does the name Elshonu Shikiriye mean anything to you?” Bel asked, with that so familiar, irritating note of patience in her voice.

  “I know I'm ill,” Mevennen said, as calmly as she could manage, “but please stop speaking to me as though your words would snap me in half. No. I've never heard that name before.” She saw the ghosts exchange glances.

  “I'm going to tell a story now,” Shu Gho said. “One of our stories. It is about a man named Elshonu Shikiriye, who was of our people many thousands of years ago. He came from a colony named Irie St Syre, and his ancestors came from lands called Canada and Austral, on a ruined world called Earth. They came to Irie St Syre because they wanted to find a place where they could return to the Dreamtime of their ancestors—a time when people are in harmony with their world and where everything has significance and meaning. They chose to find their path by controlling their environment, by ReForming it with the aid of devices, so that there were no truly wild places any longer and everything lived in harmony with everything else.” She paused, staring intently into Mevennen's face.

  “I understand,” Mevennen said, anxious to show that she was not stupid. “It's part of the legend: that the satahrach brought with him such a device, a machine that would put the world in balance. But he would not use it. The legend says that he thought it best to put humans in harmony with the world, not the other way around.” The ghosts glanced at one another again, their faces grave. “Tell me the rest of the story,” Mevennen said.

  Shu went on. “Over time, the colonists quarreled among themselves, and there were many factions. Elshonu had ideas, as you say—theories about consciousness, and how it separates people from the environment in which they live. He decided to leave Irie St Syre. He gathered a group of followers—I'm talking about several thousand people. It was during a time called the Diaspora, when a new means of traveling between the stars—a faster way of traveling— was developed. Many people wanted the chance to start again, a new life. Shikiriye was among them. He brought them to another world, to try to put into practice the principles in which he believed. Word came back that a colony had been found, and that it was called Monde D'Isle, a world of many islands. Many years after that, someone picked up a message from Monde D'Isle, saying that the colony was lost and that the world was cursed. Monde D'Isle is your world.”