by Liz Williams
With her one good hand shaking, Mevennen managed to slip a few drops of the sedative into a cup of water and drink it. The pain in her arm had receded to a dim pounding that seemed somehow remote from herself. She sat staring into the air and thought of the ghost, Bel Zhur, wondering what had happened to the spirit. She'd had some idea of looking for the ghosts, she remembered now. But she had grown lost and confused among the trees, and then the child had appeared …
She remembered following it, but she no longer remembered why. And the child had lured her into the hills, the wilderness calling to her with its great confusing voice until she no longer knew where the tower might lie. The ghosts had been nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they had been taken back into eresthahan, or summoned away by the traveling boat in which they made their mysterious way from place to place.
A long time later, Eleres came back through the door. The bloodmind had passed. Only weariness showed in his face, and his clothes were covered in dust.
“Eleres,” Mevennen whispered. Her throat was bone dry, despite the water. He sat down on the bed next to her and took her hand, weighing it in his own. She felt earth and dried blood rough along his fingers.
“Mevennen, what happened? What were you doing out there in the wild like that?”
He sounded puzzled rather than angry, and she did not know what to tell him. If she said, “I went looking for ghosts,” he'd think she'd gone mad as well as landblind. And he might tell Luta when they got back to Ulleet, and per-haps the family would start arguing again to have her killed, or permanently sedated. She wondered whether either would be as bad as the life she was living now. But more than this, to say that she had gone in search of spirits sounded so stupid. Instead, she said in a small voice, “I went to get some fresh air in the orchard. And I got confused. I don't remember what happened after that.”
Her brother sighed. “You must have wandered up into the hills and not known how to find your way back. Still,” he said, with his first real smile, “at least you're all right.” Gently, he probed her arm. “I don't think it's broken, just dislocated. Leave it in the splint; it'll be all right in a day or so.” He released her hand and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm, smearing dust across his tired face. “Something else happened. Sereth killed a child. It got in the way. But at least she didn't kill any of us …” Then he added, as if to himself, “I nearly did, though. I—” He broke off and looked away. “Anyway, it could have been worse, as we all keep saying to each other downstairs. I suppose we've got off lightly.” He sounded uncertain, and unconvinced.
“I'm glad you're back,” Mevennen told him, and as he rose to go she added, “I wish—I wish I wasn't like this, El-eres.”
He looked down at her and smiled, sadly. “Sometimes I think it would be better to be … as you are. I know that's not very sensitive, under the circumstances. I wish you weren't landblind, too, Mevennen. But it might still be better.”
9. The mission
Hidden by the branches of the trees, and keeping close to the aircar, Shu Gho and Dia watched as the hunt rode back. They had hurried to the tower after Bel had reappeared at the aircar—dusty, bloodstained from the cuts on her hands, and incoherent with shock. Now, beneath the trees, Dia was gripping Shu's wrist so hard that it hurt, but Shu said nothing. She trained the opticals over the group with her free hand. Someone was slung over the back of the leading mount.
“That's Mevennen,” Shu said, startled. She tried to detect any signs of life, but even through the high-powered opticals it was impossible to tell whether the woman was still alive. She swept the opticals over the group, automatically noting details of dress and bearing, and paused as the sights took in the sight of a second, smaller figure. A child, covered in blood, likewise unmoving. It too had been slung across the back of the mount like a piece of meat. Shu swallowed anger and dismay: the child was a girl, perhaps seven or eight years old—the same age as one of her own long-dead granddaughters had been when Shu had kissed her goodbye outside the stasis chambers. Dia's hand was still clamped around her wrist in a rictus grip. Shu patted the older woman's fingers.
“Dia? Let me go, please. That's a little painful.”
Slowly, Dia's fingers unpeeled. Shu's gaze moved back and forth over the riders: similar ages, two men and two women. One of the men seemed to be having trouble with his beast; it was skittish, sidling and balking. He leaned across and patted the arch of its neck. He was flanked by a girl and a young man who, to Shu's eyes, looked like mirror images of one another though her pale hair fell in a long braid down her back whereas the man's was closer cropped. She was staring grimly ahead, and her face was set and hard.
Stories, Shu thought with sudden longing. All the stories that these people must be able to tell. She watched them as they passed through the gate and out of sight. The gate slammed shut behind them with a great dull thud and the air around the tower seemed to shimmer for a moment, as though glimpsed through heat. Dia and Shu looked at one another, and then they walked slowly back to the aircar and sanctuary.
Shu spent part of the next day with Sylvian, helping the biologist upload the latest set of algorithms from the machine in the ruins into the ship's computer. She shared Sylvian's frustration: until they could close the machine down, they would be unable to ransack whatever secrets might lie in its database, but shutting it down was proving more difficult than Sylvian had anticipated. The machine, whatever it was, constantly reconfigured itself, smoothly incorporating the algorithms that had been designed to close it down into its own recursive loops. At last Sylvian gave up and retired to the farther reaches of the biotent, muttering something about a new approach. Freed from her duties, Shu gave way to the temptation of curiosity, and prepared the aircar for a journey back to the river valley.
She had considerable misgivings about approaching any of the Mondhaith, which she shared with Dia and Bel. She told them that her visit to the tower was solely for the purpose of recording the building itself; she hoped to take shots, from the outside, to include as visuals for her report. She would not venture inside, she reassured Dia, nor was she planning to speak to anyone. She had no intention of taking chances with the Mondhaith.
Dia, apparently preoccupied with her own thoughts of what she had witnessed, merely nodded. Feeling like a child let out of school, Shu took the aircar up and away. Once the camp had fallen far behind and she was soaring over the mountain wall, she allowed herself a breath of relief. She was fond of Bel, moody and driven though the girl might be, and she also liked the calm biologist Sylvian. She had a not inconsiderable respect for Dia, too, but they were all falling over each other's feet in the rather cramped conditions of the biotents and after the recent disturbances it was good to have some time alone.
Carefully, Shu had not specified a time when she was likely to return, murmuring something about evening. It was now close to noon. She dropped the aircar down over the slopes, feeling a certain exhilaration as she did so. She was not as good a pilot as Bel, and the twists and turns of the passage into the ruins had been beyond her skills, but this was easy enough flying. She skimmed down over the long curves of the river, taking the aircar to what was becoming the usual landing site, then scanned the area for life signs. No one was around. Still watchful, Shu walked the short distance to the tower, intending to go no closer than the edges of the orchard. She took the scanner with her, setting it to alert her if anyone should come within a five-hundred-meter radius. From this relatively safe vantage point, she took a series of shots of the tower. Once she had taken the pictures, she sat down on a fallen branch and fanned herself with a fern. It was cool beneath the trees, and Shu took a deep appreciative breath of air. The scanner hummed in sudden warning. She glanced up quickly to see that someone was watching her.
Self-conscious and a little afraid, Shu dropped the fern. The person who now stood a few meters away from her was, she thought, one of the young men whom she had seen riding on the previous day, perhaps the one who had been having
trouble with his mount. Shu stared at him, trying to note as much as possible in case he disappeared, and also trying not to think about the tiny bloodstained body slung over the saddlebow. Her hand curled comfortingly around the handle of her homemade stun gun.
The young man was tall, of average build, and wide in the shoulder. His hair was such a pale gray that it was almost white, dappled darker at the tips and making him look older than he was. Winter colors, thought Shu, wondering whether it had evolved as camouflage. He had well-defined, rather sharp features—handsome, Shu supposed, once you got past the strange coloring. He wore a sleeveless leather tunic over a dark shirt and trousers. He was gazing about him absently, and Shu realized that he might not even have been looking at her at all. With her heart in her mouth, Shu made an irrevocable decision.
She stood up slowly, so as not to startle him, and said, “Hello.”
She spoke in her own language. The lingua franca attached to her wrist clicked and slurred. She steeled herself against attack, but the young man drew a sharp breath and turned away.
“No, please—wait,” Shu said. He glanced back over his shoulder. Shu put out a placating hand. “Don't go.”
“A ghost,” the young man said, bewildered. He had a quiet voice, Shu noticed. She realized then that he simply did not believe what he was seeing.
“No, no. I'm quite real. And I'd like to talk to you,” Shu said, plunging in so that she did not have time to think better of it. The young man gave a sudden, sidelong smile, but there was no humor in it. It looked more like a grimace of despair.
“To me? Why?”
She could hear the apprehension in his voice.
“Please,” Shu said desperately. “Come and sit down.” Feeling ridiculous, she patted the branch, but after a moment's pause the young man came through the grass at the orchard and sat cross-legged in front of her, as if about to receive instruction. He was so close that Shu could have reached out and touched him. His incisors, she noticed, were longer than a human's, and sharp. At the end of each finger, the nails more closely resembled claws. Shu saw the mouth and hands of a predator, and took a deep, careful breath. Her hands were trembling, and she clasped them in her lap. Genetic modification? she thought, and then, What are you? What have your people turned into? She said, trying to keep her voice light and even, “I saw you yesterday, I think. You were riding back to the tower.”
“Yes. From the hunt.”
“The hunt?”
“Isn't that why you have come?” The lingua franca whirred, translating his sibilant language into an approximation of Syrean. Some of the words seemed to be missing and the order was sometimes a little strange, but Shu had set the lingua franca to record. She could check later—if there was a later, instinct reminded her uncomfortably. “Isn't that why you have come?” the young man repeated. “From erestha-han, to tally the dead?”
“From where?”
“All the way from the otherworld, down the road of the dead.”
“Is that the name of the otherworld?” Shu asked, grateful to have something that appeared to be a fact.” Eresthahan?”
“Don't you know?” He shifted position, presumably to make himself more comfortable.
“How is Mevennen?” Shu asked, dreading the reply. The young man looked away.
“Alive,” he murmured. “Healing.”
“I'm glad,” Shu breathed. “And I haven't come to harm her.”
“No? That's good.” He did not sound convinced. “My sister isn't yours to take.”
“You're Mevennen's brother? What's your name?”
The young man smiled, slow and cynical. “You expect me to give my name to a ghost? You'll have to earn that knowledge, as you know very well.”
“All right,” Shu said hastily, feeling that she was treading on dangerous ground. If that's so, why did Mevennen give her name to Bel?“It doesn't matter. Tell me more about the hunt.”
“The hunt is the hunt. When we change. When we become like the mehed.”
“What are the mehed?”
“The people in the hills. The wild people.”
“Are they outcasts?” Shu asked.
The young man looked puzzled. “They are in the wild.”
“So they don't live in buildings, like you.”
“Of course not. They are not bantreda, not landed, not civilized. Not languaged. They are the mehed. They live within the bloodmind.” He shrugged, as if this were perfectly obvious, Shu thought with mild irritation. As indeed it was, to him, but she felt a tug of excitement at the familiar word he had used.
“What do you mean by the bloodmind? I'm afraid I am a very stupid ghost,” she added. At least it made him laugh.
“It's all right,” he said, the first time that he had addressed her as a real person and not some figment of his own imagination. He blinked, and she saw the dark membrane flicker across his eyes. It filled her with a brief, irrational revulsion: a reminder of the unknown. “The bloodmind,” he said, with a little more emphasis. “It brings us together. Makes us one, places us in harmony with one another and the world. It causes us to lose language and identity. Surely even a ghost must understand?” He put his head on one side in momentary interrogation.
“It unites you?”
“We become the pack.”
Shu felt suddenly very cold, as though a shadow had passed over the sun. “The pack?”
“Then we are no longer human,” the young man said, simply. A breeze moved through the orchard, stirring the grass. The young man rose fluidly to his feet and Shu had a moment of sheer panic. He seemed to tower over her; she had not realized how tall he really was. But he was preoccupied with brushing the loose seeds of grass from his shirt and she was able to step over the branch so that it lay between them. It gave her the illusion of safety. “I have things to do,” the young man murmured.
“One last thing,” Shu said, knowing that she was once again stepping close to the edge. “That child, the little girl who was on one of your mounts. She was dead, wasn't she? How did it happen?”
She wanted to hear his explanation; she was expecting justifications, excuses, but instead he said quite calmly, “My cousin killed her.”
“Deliberately?”
“Not entirely.” He stared unseeingly into the green dimness of the trees. “My cousin is a huntress, and she was within the mind of the pack, like all of us. Within the bloodmind. I told you, we are no longer human, sometimes.” She could hear the tension in his voice.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm just a poor ignorant ghost. I know nothing.”
“Sometimes,” the young man said, with a return to lightness, “I wonder truly whether I know anything myself.”
“Listen,” Shu said. She felt as ridiculously shy as a girl at a dance. “May I come here again? May I talk to you?”
The young man gave a kind of single-shouldered shrug. “If you wish. I know you will do so anyway. You do not need my permission to haunt me, do you?” He turned away.
“Just one last question,” Shu said, before she could stop herself. “Do you think that my knowing your name would give me power over you?”
He seemed surprised. “No. Why should it? It is the name the world gave me; it can mean nothing to you. But it is still my honor. I told you. You'll have to earn it.”
And with that hint of a promise that they would meet again, Shu had to be content.
10. Eleres
In the morning, the house was somber. Mevennen was resting; recovering nicely, said my practical cousin Eiru.When we heal, we do so quickly. Despite her affliction, Mevennen's arm would be mended within a few days.The body of the child lay in the cold store. Having studied the child'hands and noted the marks of birth, Sereth sent out a message with a group of passing traders.
After the turmoil of the previous day, I felt as though I needed some peace and quiet, so I went down into the orchard to walk among the trees. And there, strange to relate, I met a ghost. It spoke to me, requesting that I engag
e it in conversation, and despite my fear, something made me comply. I thought it might have answers for me: an accounting for the death of the child, and of the near-death of Mevennen. But the ghost had no answers, only questions. It was ignorant, it said, and knew nothing. I did not believe it. I didn't know why it had come, but there was no trusting a ghost. And I couldn't help thinking that perhaps it was here in retribution, to avenge the child's death. A ghost is the sign of a curse, after all.
I did not see the ghost again, though I watched for it, but late one afternoon, a day or so later, a man from a House in Tetherau rode up through the eastern gate. He wore a black coat and dark red armor beneath it; he wore also a dull crimson sash which marked him as a blood claimant. It seemed he had been traveling nearby, and received the message about the death. We dropped the defense to let him in and received him with ceremony. Once the ritual responses had been exchanged, we knew him for one Hessan ai Tem-marec, and the uncle of the child.
“You must be most relieved that your sister lives,” he said to me, speaking in the Remote Plural tense to mark the formality of the occasion.
“Marked only by our sorrow that your niece does not.”
The child was young and unnamed, not even close to the season of its return to its family. But it seemed that the child was the only one of its brood, and the blood-price would be heavy. Whatever it was, we had no option but to pay it and I wasn't going to argue. Most of all, I was grateful that I had not killed Mevennen.
I went in to see my sister once I had paid my respects to Hessan. Mevennen was lying on her bed, propped up with cushions. She gave me a wan smile as I came in, and I saw that she had remembered what had almost befallen her.
“It's only me,” I said.
She turned her head away. After a moment, she said accusingly, “I remember now. I moved, so you saw me. You would have killed me, wouldn't you?”
“Perhaps I would,” I told her, with a sinking heart. “But you called out my name; you reminded me of who I was, that I was human. You brought me back to myself. You acted properly.”