Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  When she found it, she sat, crouched on her heels by the antiscribe, staring at the name it bore. Slowly, her thin smile grew.

  CHAPTER 3

  Earth

  Lunae woke. Light flickered about her. Voices came and went. She thought she heard the kappa, speaking in a low undertone, tense with worry, but she did not recognize the other voice: a woman. She thought back, but could not remember very much. The light fluttered and changed, and suddenly she was somewhere else.

  She was standing on the edge of a chasm, looking down. The chasm fell away beneath her, hundreds of feet to a thin river of black water. She knew the place intimately, but she could not have said what it was called, or even the world upon which it might lie. She thought that it might have been Mars, for the spongy rocks were all manner of shades of red, from vivid scarlet, to peony-crimson, to rust and garnet, to pale, fleshy rose. It felt like home, but it also felt unhappy. A vast weariness possessed her, as if she had been here for aeons, knew every speck of dust, every pebble. There was a curious, familiar scent: dust and smoke, perfumed with something that she knew to be a kind of wood, but could not have named.

  Slowly Lunae walked along the chasm’s edge. She knew that she was waiting for someone, but there was no joy in it, only a kind of dreary anticipation. She had done this a thousand times before; she would do it again. There was a cold wind blowing, causing her skin to rise up in goose bumps along her bare arms, and she shivered.

  Finally, she saw it: a spinning, whirling dot at the very edge of the horizon, coming in fast over the chasm. It looked like a drop of rain, yet Lunae knew that it had not rained here for centuries. The raindrop grew, hovered for a liquid moment overhead before spiraling down to where Lunae was standing—

  —and then she was back on the boat, feeling the tilt and turn of the junk. There was a rattling slide up the boards: the anchor, Lunae surmised, being raised. She waited until she was certain that they were moving, then stole a glance at the kappa. The nurse’s chin was sinking toward her breast; her round eyes were closing. Hope leaped within Lunae. She watched until the kappa fell asleep, then rose to her feet.

  She stood before the locked door of the cabin, closed her eyes, and shifted time: just a few seconds. When she opened her eyes again, she was on the other side of the door, standing in the narrow corridor. She touched the wall: salvaged wood, scrap metal hammered into uneven panels, the roughness of cogs and gears beneath her fingers. This whole ship was nothing more than a patchwork, remnants of older vessels, perhaps. The old philosophical conundrum came to her: If the sails, the wood, the nails are all replaced, then can it be the same boat? If so, Lunae thought, then this junk could have been sailing the seas since the Drowning.

  She remembered the voices: old ghosts, locked within waterlogged wood. But that was a sign of haunt-tech, not age. It was science that conjured ghosts, rather than nature. Turning, she ran along the passage, seeking the stairwell, air, and light.

  There was a rolling unsteadiness beneath her feet, a distant hum from deep within the junk. It must be moving under its own power, independent from the wind. Perhaps the sails were nothing more than an emergency measure. At the bottom of the stairwell Lunae paused and listened. Nothing. Holding tightly to the rail, she climbed the stairs and stepped out onto the deck.

  It was later than she had thought. The sun had dropped below the horizon, leaving a stain upon a rosy sky. The mirror-lights of the city flashed over the water: tower upon tower, rising up from the sea-walled land. It took her a moment to regain perspective. They were passing the edges of High Kowloon. Tenements climbed perilously above the water, overhanging the shore. She could see nets and lines cast down from the windows, between the bob of lights from the fishing dhows. A babble of voices floated across the water from the streets: arguments, enticements. After the quietness of the mansion, the world seemed filled with unnecessary sound.

  Lunae looked back, but the heights of the Peak were cast in darkness. Cloud Terrace was a line of irregular shadow. She turned her back on it.

  A red wall rose before her, gleaming in the lights of the city, and Lunae recognized the Nightshade Mission. She stared at it with wary fascination. It looked like a block of congealing blood, with a curiously waxen quality. Up close, the walls appeared gelatinous, more like translucent flesh than stone, a shadowy darkness, shot with fire. Had it been built or grown? She thought of the Kami, the spirits-within, then of the assassin. She could still feel its touch upon her hands, like the last remnants of a scab. She watched the Mission as if hypnotized, until it fell behind.

  More tenements, and then the immense bulk of the fortress-temple, Gwei Hei. This, too, rose straight from the water: obsidian and iron, encrusted with the faces of demons to keep away the hungry ghosts of the sea. A feng shui mirror, some ten feet across and lamp-bright, glared out across the harbor like a baleful eye. Lunae smelled smoke and blood, the sharp tang of industrial pollution, but the night wind was warm on her face and she leaned back against the mast, happy to be outside.

  “Well,” a voice said. “I see you’ve found your way on deck.”

  Lunae, startled, looked up to see Sek. The captain’s eyes were sea-dark, narrowed with disapproval, anger, admiration—Lunae could not tell. Sek’s tattooed arms were clasped behind her. She smelled strongly of something incongruously flowery, that Lunae finally identified as synthetic jasmine.

  “You should not be up here. I told you to stay below.” Sek frowned. “How did you get out of the cabin?”

  Lunae’s eyes widened in simulation of meek innocence. “The door was not locked. I’m sorry to disobey. I wanted to see the city. I’ve never seen it so close.”

  The captain stared at her for a moment. “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen,” Lunae said, using the lie that Dreams-of-War and the Grandmothers had established between them.

  “And you’ve never been allowed outside?” The captain clicked her tongue. “You’re a sheltered little thing, aren’t you?” But her scorn did not seem directed at Lunae. “Where is your guardian?”

  “I don’t know. My nurse is in the cabin.”

  “Come with me and find your guardian. I will instruct her to keep closer to you.”

  “She’ll make me stay below again.”

  “Likely so.”

  Reluctantly, Lunae followed the captain to the prow, where an armored figure stood looking out to sea, legs braced.

  “Princess?”

  Dreams-of-War turned, her mouth turned down in distaste. When she caught sight of Lunae, it lengthened to dismay.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Our guest felt unwell; I had her brought on deck for some air,” the captain said smoothly, creating a sudden bond of complicity between them that made Lunae uncomfortable. Disliking Sek as she did, she did not want the captain to have that kind of hold over her. Or perhaps Sek, believing that the door had indeed been unlocked, merely wanted to conceal her own negligence.

  “I see. Are you feeling better now?” It was clear from the arch of the Martian woman’s eyebrows that Dreams-of-War did not believe her.

  “Yes,” Lunae muttered.

  “Seasickness is unpleasant. I think you should remain with her, princess.”

  “Princess?” Lunae questioned.

  “She’s a Martian warrior, isn’t she? Best to humor her,” the captain said with a flicker of contempt and something that, Lunae thought, could almost have been envy. Dreams-of-War’s face grew still and cold. The captain laughed. “It’s my ship, princess. My ship, and my favor.”

  Dreams-of-War gave a small, curt nod. “Lunae will stay here with me,” she said, as if it had been her decision alone.

  Sek wandered back along the deck.

  “She does not like me,” Lunae murmured.

  Dreams-of-War shot her a puzzled glance. “She dislikes me, also. But why should we care? She does not have to.”

  “But I wonder why. Perhaps she is afraid of the Grandmothers.” At this, Lunae
could not help looking back in the direction of Cloud Terrace.

  It was burning.

  Forgetting the prohibition, Lunae clutched at the Martian’s arm. “Look!”

  High on the Peak, the mansion was lost in a flare of unnatural light, a mauve flicker.

  “Ire-palm,” Dreams-of-War said, openmouthed.

  “My Grandmothers?”

  “They will be dead.” Dreams-of-War’s mouth was a tight line, but she had not, the girl noticed, removed Lunae’s hand from her armored arm.

  “The Kami?”

  “I do not know. But I will start asking questions.”

  “Dreams-of-War? Is this ship using haunt-tech?”

  “It should not be.”

  “But I heard voices.”

  “I know. I am not dismissing this, Lunae. I just don’t know what to make of it.” Dreams-of-War glanced around her. She shifted Lunae’s hand from her arm, but she did so gently. They stood in silence on the deck, watching as Cloud Terrace burned. At last, the amethyst flare blazed out in a final column of sparks.

  Fragrant Harbor was falling behind. They were passing the headlands at the edges of the city now, and the suburbs had grown sparser until there was little more than a thin band of lamps along the shore: the fishing settlements and outcast villages that clung to the cliffs along the dark reaches of the coast.

  The junk was now passing the beacon light that led into the Yellow Sea. The gleam at the top of the tower flickered, sending complex data out to shipping. Lunae smelled sagebrush and salt, the warm scents of sun-warmed earth, fading into night.

  Then they were around a black rim of cliff and out into open waters. The city was invisible. The stars were bright seeds and flowerheads away from the city’s muted glow. A crescent moon hung low on the horizon and behind it arched the maw of the Chain, outlined in phosphorescence against the drop of night, flares and flashes all along its perimeter. Lunae breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to get away from the city, and the ashes of what had so recently been her home. She thought of the Grandmothers, and there was nothing but relief there, too. She could not muster even the semblance of regret. They had given her life and childhood and fear; she was glad to be rid of them. The night air seemed easier to breathe.

  “Look,” Dreams-of-War said with a thin satisfaction, and pointed. A red dot burned in the east. “Mars. It’s very close now, the closest it has been for over a thousand years.”

  Lunae reached out to touch her guardian’s arm again, but remembered just in time and snatched back her hand. After a moment Dreams-of-War said stiffly, “It’s all right.” But she did not invite a further touch, and Lunae did not expect her to. They stood, watching Mars rise and the Chain turn, as the sails creaked and twisted above them and the junk pulled farther out to sea.

  CHAPTER 4

  Earth

  We will have to go to him,” the Animus said, alighting in a bundle of wet wings upon the veranda of the ruined fortress. Steam rose from the damp boards; the air was heavy with humidity. Fragrant Harbor and the ruins of Cloud Terrace lay far behind.

  “I was not expecting to do otherwise,” Yskatarina answered, vinegar-sour. She wrapped her arms about herself, swayed in the stormlight on fragile legs. “What did you make of this Prince Cataract when we spoke across the antiscribe? The Grandmothers’ Animus?”

  “He is old. He repeated himself over and over. I do not think he is sane.”

  “Sane or not, he surely has knowledge that we can make use of. Knowledge of the haunt-ship that brought them all from Nightshade, the place where Tower Cold’s lost records are stored, where details of the hito-bashira are to be found.”

  “He may have such knowledge, but why should he tell us? I would not put much faith in Prince Cataract.”

  Yskatarina snorted. “I do not. Especially since he deserted Elaki’s sisters. I am surprised that he even agreed to see me, and he only did so after I told him I had information about them. We will have to see what we can offer him. I have not, obviously, told him that I am Elaki’s relative.”

  “Have you spoken with Memnos today?”

  “No, but recently. They were guarded, elliptical, evasive as ever, but the old Matriarch will very soon be strong enough to act. In the meantime, let’s see what we can get out of Prince Cataract.”

  “Do you wish to go now?”

  Yskatarina nodded.

  “Then I shall take you,” the Animus said.

  Yskatarina slipped her arms around the Animus’s abdomen and hung on. The missing fingers made it difficult to grip. The Animus’s spined wings unfolded, beating out into the rainy air. Yskatarina looked back as they spiraled up into the sky, to see the ruined fort fall behind, a small gray square against the darkness of the island. Far out across the South China Sea lay a wall of storms: a green flash of lightning, the distant mutter of thunder across the horizon. The Animus turned and wheeled toward the storm.

  Soon they were out across the sea. The Dragon-King would rise, or so they had been told.

  Yskatarina closed her eyes for a moment, and rested her cheek against the Animus’s slick hide. It occurred to her that the only body of water on Nightshade was frozen: She had never needed to learn to swim. But if she fell from this height, there would be no chance of survival, in any case.

  A series of distant needles rose out of the sea, black against the heaving water. The Animus flew lower. The needles resolved themselves into spires and pinnacles of rock, rising straight from the sea. A lacy collar of white-green tide encircled each one.

  At first, Yskatarina thought they were about to land on the spires, but the Animus, circling, soared lower yet. The waves towered up, so high that Yskatarina gasped, thinking they were about to be engulfed. Then she saw that the wall of water that rose before them was not water at all, but a great glassy hull, rearing up upon bone-white struts.

  “What is that?”

  “The Dragon-King,” the Animus said. It plunged down before Yskatarina could utter a word of protest, and alighted on the uppermost level of the hull, a walkway protected by the struts.

  Yskatarina slid from its back and stood shaking, her back pressed against a strut. Sea streamed past her. She wished that she had not chosen such light legs for the purposes of flight: translucent plastic, supported by inner steel. When she looked down, she seemed to be floating. Only a glassy smear of seawater across the transparent surface of her shins betrayed their presence. It made her feel flimsy, as if the next gust might blow her away. She reached out and took tight hold of one of the Animus’s arms.

  “Where is he?” Her voice sounded raw and unused.

  “He must be below.” The Animus sidled through a crack in the wall, angling itself through like a squashed spider. “And there may be others.”

  “What kind of others? His children?” Yskatarina, with a final wary glance out to sea, followed.

  She found herself in a tight niche, pressed against the Animus. But next moment, the niche opened up. She was falling, hurtling down on a slide of sea into the depths of the Dragon-King.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mars

  The Memnos Matriarch sat alone in her chamber, scribbling upon a scroll, which whirred slowly out from the antiscribe. Although she wrote busily, the thoughts that she was noting down were inchoate and fragmented: names, dates, ideas... The Matriarch was trying to make sense of what Nightshade might be planning.

  There was a faint clicking sound in the direction of the door. The Matriarch did not glance up. Both of her personal excissieres were on guard duty, beyond the small stone chamber that was the Matriarch’s sanctuary. From time to time she heard their harsh whispered voices as they conferred with each other. The Matriarch found it reassuring. It had been a long time since she had been a warrior, perhaps fifty years or more since she had worn armor and strode out across the Crater Plain. Now the armor belonged to another warrior and the Matriarch could barely remember what it had been like to stalk and kill. She had been protected ever since the day
that the armor had been returned to the challenge racks and she had climbed the stone stairs of the Memnos Tower naked, to return wearing the red-and-black of the Matriarchy. At the time, it had seemed like a fair exchange, but sometimes still, she wondered.

  The clicking sound came again. There was the noise of a door opening, and this time the Matriarch looked up. The excissieres stepped into the chamber, moving as though controlled by the same string.

  “Yes?” the Matriarch asked absently. “What is it?”

  The excissieres did not reply. Instead, they glided forward. Their armor bristled; the moving images of cuts and wounds appeared and vanished across the few inches of exposed flesh, glowing raw and red in the lamplight.

  “What?” the Matriarch said again.

  Each woman plucked the scissors from her belt with a glittery snick. Their eyes were blank. The Matriarch stood abruptly. Her chair fell to the floor. She dodged behind the desk, reaching for the phial at her throat. The excissieres grabbed the edge of the desk and turned it over. The Matriarch fell against the window, which swung open. She reeled over the sill, looking down onto a hundred feet of air. The frosty rim of the sill dug into her back. The excissieres’ scissors were the same silvery cold as they came downward, and she felt a tug as they ripped the phial from her neck. The Matriarch saw a single star in the sky above her, and she thought that it might be Earth, but then it was lost behind a fountain of blood. The excissieres grasped at her, but she was already falling. Her last thought was that the two worlds were the closest now that they had been for a thousand years.

  The excissieres watched her fall. When the tumbling body hit the ground, each pressed a careful tongue to the surface of the scissors and licked it clean.

  “Go down and bring that body back,” said the thing behind them, its possessed and resurrected body shambling into the chamber that had once been its own.

  CHAPTER 6