Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  “Let’s hope it won’t be an issue.” Uneasily, I watched the domes shimmer into illusion behind dust and cold air. The pilot took the flyer into a small port at the city’s edge. It wasn’t so windy here, so we came down on the stabilizer fields rather than the undercarriage; the runway was pockmarked with potholes. A collection of tin sheds stood at the edge of the field. The pilot parked the flyer and Aldur and I made our way to immigration.

  “Where are you from?” The clerk looked tired or bored or both, and I was grateful. The last thing I wanted was an encounter with a religious zealot: I’d have had quite enough of that by the time I was done here. I smiled at him, but he did not smile back. His gaze slid over my face and away; it was strange not to have it linger. I had to remind myself that I looked different, now. There was no reason for him to stare in fascinated horror.

  “We’ve come from Muspell,” Aldur said. He fanned a handful of papers in front of the clerk. Most of them were forgeries. “We’re with one of the aid agencies. Green Globe. Here.”

  “Yes, I have you on the list. You’ve been approved.” He sounded surprised. “Where are you planning to stay?”

  “A hotel called the Argeria. I don’t know where that is.”

  “I can arrange transport,” the clerk said. I got the feeling that he was eager to be rid of us. He had just stamped the last remaining document when a shadow fell across the desk.

  “Let me see those.”

  Aldur and I avoided each other’s eyes. The clerk shuffled on the other side of the desk.

  “Everything is in order, my Sir; I’ve checked—”

  “Check again.” I saw chilly blue eyes behind a visor. The green uniforms bore the wave symbol of the Unitaries. These were the Hierolath’s own militia, harder cases by far than the poor little clerk.

  Idhunn, I prayed, may you have done your preparation well. Don’t let me down. But she never had before. The militiaman spent a lot of time looking from the laminated holographic image on my travel papers to my own face. He would see no discrepancy, I was certain. Golden eyes, a long switch of red hair tucked under the cowl—as different as possible from my real self, and from a woman of Nhem, as we could make it. I was careful not to look him in the face; there were penalties for that sort of thing, even for outworlders. Aldur himself had retained typical Muspell looks: a tall, thin-faced man, grey eyes, pale brown hair. I knew that he was originally from Nessheim, but he could have come from any of the hundreds of islands in the Reach. I swallowed a lump of homesickness and concentrated on the matter in hand. It was not easy to look demure.

  “She’ll have to adopt suitable attire before she leaves this building,” the militiaman said. The words were addressed to Aldur, not to me. Make sure you keep your pet under control. “And so will you.”

  “We’re familiar with the dress restrictions,” Aldur said.

  “You have gloves?”

  “Yes, and facial masks.”

  “Then put them on.”

  They made me go in a separate room for that, offended no doubt by the sight of my bare hands. A woman inside, invisible behind her own mass of garments, helped me on with the slip-gown, a thing of flounces and folds. It was only slightly less ornate than Aldur’s, I noticed when I stepped outside. The male form was clearly almost as inflammatory as the female. The Nhemish must have overactive imaginations, I thought. The militiamen were waiting impatiently by the door, our documents firmly clasped in their fists.

  “They’re escorting us to the hotel,” Aldur said.

  “Do not speak to her directly!” the militiaman barked. “Do not look at her when you address her.”

  “How am I supposed to speak to her, then?” Aldur’s voice betrayed an edge of exasperation and I hoped he was not about to say something unwise.

  “You must speak to the air.”

  And I am less than the air, here, I thought. But I had to let it pass. If we were successful, things would be changing here soon enough.

  We followed the militiamen out of the building into the afternoon sun. From now on, the movements of Ettar Hestin and Tyu Ullasdottir, Green Globe aid workers, would be severely restricted. As a woman, Tyu—my own assumed self—would be expected to remain largely in the hotel, which suited me. Ettar—Aldur’s persona—would be doing most of the liaison, or such was our cover story. And at least government paranoia was giving us a ride to the hotel.

  The militiamen watched as we signed in, evidently fearing that something might be amiss with our registration, but all went smoothly. Aldur carried the bags and I trailed behind. We took an elevator up to the rooms. They were small, stuffy chambers, but high. From here, one could see all the way to the domes of the Hierolath’s palace. As we walked, I found myself frowning.There was something about Aldur, something about the way he walked, that reminded me of someone. I did not have to go far to look for the name; it was etched into me as sharply as my now-disguised scars.

  Frey.

  It was, I told myself, only a reminder of the last time that I had walked behind a man. Nothing more than that.

  “We’ll have to be careful,” Aldur said in an undertone, when we again met in the corridor. “No fraternizing in the rooms. They have laws against that sort of thing, even in a diplomatic hotel.”

  “If I have my way, we’ll be out of here by morning.”

  The rooms were certain to be bugged, but I did not think that any surveillance was likely to be very sophisticated, given the over-stretched Nhemish resources. Any spare planetary funds had gone into the war effort, and what was left was now being channeled into the rebuilding of religious edifices. It seemed the Nhemish had made a great fuss about the durability of their cities when they colonized the planet. The buildings were supposed to be eternal and unchanging, just like their deity-decreed social structure. I thought of the impermanent slums at the city’s edge and wondered how they accounted for those. Perhaps the Nhemish simply pretended that they did not exist.

  I told Aldur to stay in the room until curfew rang, and then go down to the lobby and make himself visible. I don’t think he liked it, but he was under instructions from the Skald, and he did not argue. Then, locking the door behind me, I went into the small bathroom adjacent to my chamber and turned on the tap. At first, nothing happened, but eventually a thin stream of brown liquid trickled out, then stopped again. We had been warned that the water situation was critical here, and rationed. I cursed under my breath and took a packet of rinsing wipes from my bag. Drawn carefully over my skin, the wipe darkened it, but I had to be careful not to peel off the strip of synthetic skin that hid my scars. With equal care, I took my golden left eye out of its socket and put it in a traveling pouch. Replacing it with a darker eye, I changed the contact lens on the right eye, then sprayed down the parting of my hair. Within minutes, the alteration spray seeped downwards to invade and color the follicles.

  Now, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman stared back at me from the spotted mirror. I saw my own oval face and sharp chin, my pointed nose and arched brows, but although the coloring was now closer to my own, the unfamiliarly smooth skin made me blink, confronting me with a stranger. In the flounces of the slip-gown, I was no longer Vali Hallsdottir of Muspell, or the aid worker I had so briefly pretended to be. I was Nhemish.

  Impatiently, I waited for the call of curfew, sitting in the chair next to the window and watching the sky turn to a deeper rose behind the jade domes. Both of Nhem’s moons were thin crescents, hanging delicately against the sky. It would have to be tonight. We had one chance, and a slim plan. Far beyond the city rose the mountains, great indigo shadows, the summits touched with red where the last light of the sun was striking them, and I felt an immense distaste for what I had to do, growing to a bilious constriction in my throat. It was almost as though I could feel the gathering force of the seith, hiding deep within as if chased there by these energies of an alien world.

  The dusk grew and suddenly it was split by an ear-blasting shriek. The siren for curfew had been
activated. It was time to move.

  I tucked the gown up around my waist, cursing the ruffles, and cautiously opened the window. There was no sign of any wires or trips, and no one below. I secured a cord to the sill, switched on the clamps, and slid out of the window, first dropping the pack. It was not far to the ground. A flicker of movement caught my gaze and I looked quickly up: a pale face at the window swiftly withdrew, but it was only Aldur.

  I picked up the pack and secured it around my waist. Apart from this, I wore the slip-gown, cowl, face-mask and gloves, and the light, all-encompassing sandals that were the only footwear permitted for women. I set off for the old town, keeping to the shadows. The map-implant guided me. It was strange to be somewhere wholly unfamiliar and yet to know exactly where I was going.

  Aldur and I had studied the Hierolath’s methodology extensively over the last month and he followed a clear pattern. The streets of the old town would be almost deserted tonight. I planned to be in exactly the right place at the right time—or the wrong one, depending on how one looked at it. I glanced up at the moons. They were almost parallel now, moving into phase. It would not be long.

  By now, I was almost at the gates of the old town. Iznar was typically Nhemish: an ancient city that had accreted in untidy rings around a central core. The old town itself was a mass of conical tenements, tumbling down beneath the Most Holy, built of fused green brick and glazed with a viridian sheen. The gate itself was guarded by two of the uniformed militia at its foot and a third man on the walkway that hung over the street. I veered away from the gate, heading into the maze of passages beyond. The map-implant gave my instructions, in a small, cool voice. It gave me an odd, illusory kind of comfort, as though I was not truly alone.

  Along . . . then left . . . beneath the archway . . .

  It did not look as though there was any way through, but as I ducked under the low arch I found a partially concealed entrance. I pushed through and found myself in one of the streets of the old quarter. The conical buildings on either side were shuttered, the doors fortified and placed several feet above the street. Iznar was, I remembered, prone to flash floods from meltwater in the spring. Despite the shutters, I felt eyes on my back all the way. I searched until I found a pile of rubble, then secreted the pack behind it. Once this was done, I sent out the senses of the seith: messages of allure, connection, desire . . . It was hard to do on this alien world and I was taking a risk, but the only people on the streets tonight would be the militia, and they were the ones I needed to draw to me.

  I had reached the end of the street when the shout came.

  “You! What are you doing? Stop!”

  I halted immediately and turned around. A member of the militia was running toward me, weapon drawn. I held my hands out—the last thing I wanted was for them to mistake me for a criminal and shoot. As soon as he reached me I burst into a babbling incoherence, a hysterical pleading. I had little idea what I was actually saying. We’d recorded it earlier, downloaded it into the map-cache, and I was now merely parroting it back. The militiaman struck me across the side of the head and I stumbled back against the wall. I’d already violated one of the central commands. Do not talk to a man. Sometimes, bigotry is useful. A companion panted up to join him.

  “What is it?”

  “A whore.” He reached out and snatched the mask from my face. I had a quick glance at him. Typically Nhemish male, pale face, blue eyes, could almost have been from Muspell. I wondered fleetingly how much they spent on their genetic programs, keeping the genders so distinct. “She’ll do.”

  “We’ll take this one?”

  “It’ll save scouring the streets for another.”

  I was aware of a sudden flood of mingled terror and relief. They would take me. It was happening. When he secured my hands, I sagged in his grasp. All I had to do now was submit.

  The militiamen brought me in through the courtyard, my feet dragging across the inlaid mosaic. They had stunned me with a prod shortly before they took me from the cell, but lightly, so that I had not soiled myself. If I made any sound, they told me, they would use the prod again and I would be taken filthy and stinking before the Hierolath. Then, he would be compelled to have my tongue taken.

  I did not make a sound. Besides, the effects of the prod had made my tongue swell until it bulged thickly against my teeth. Breathing was difficult. I concentrated upon it and let the men take my weight. I did not attempt to maintain the effects of the seith. It had already done its work in drawing in the militiamen, and I would need it again in a little while.

  The prod had made my vision dim and blurred, and I hung my head, but I took in what I could of the courtyard: the mosaic floor, the silent fountain, the grains of mountain sand that skittered across the floor like grass-colored fleas. It was a clear night, bitter cold, but I did not mind that. It was a reminder of where I had come from and where, I told myself firmly, I would be returning as soon as all this was over.

  The militiamen knocked at the door of the Hierolath and waited for his reply over the intercom before hauling me inside.

  “Just put it down there,” I heard him say. I recognized his voice from the newscasts and I knew that when I raised my head, if he permitted it, I would recognize his face, too. It was, after all, plastered across every wall in the fortress-citadel: a man in his sixties, ankle-length once-blond hair concealed within a skin bag, eyes like burning dots in the wells of his skull.

  The militiamen dumped me on the floor and left. I lay where I had fallen, curled and unmoving, for perhaps ten minutes. I reached into myself and called upon the seith, sending information out into the empty air. It reminded me of fishing: the patient wait, the care, but I was not looking forward to what this would reel in.

  A pair of sandals appeared before my face. I schooled myself to stillness, even though I was still covered by the mask and the slip-robes. A hand reached down and took hold of my hair. I was pulled upright, grateful for the swollen tongue that stifled my grunt of pain. He did not speak to me. I felt myself pushed and pulled through a door. The mask was torn from my face and the slip-robes followed. Beneath, I was naked. I looked at the floor, maintaining the seith, memorizing patterns. They did not believe in words or symbols in this part of Nhem. The mosaic was tiled in random, muted shades, all in green once more, the color of holiness. Then my hair was seized again and I was thrown face down on a pile of pillows. My legs were thrust apart. Now, I stared at the pattern on the pillow, a rough, loose weave. It will not be long, I thought, it will not be long—and felt a small, private wave of relief that the Hierolath seemed intent on rape only, and not an accompanying beating. He had said nothing, but when he entered me, he started shouting. I knew, from the fractured words, that it was because he had found me wet.

  “Filth and slime! It is a disease, a poison, a toxin to men . . .”

  I gritted my teeth a little harder, feeling the force of the seith increasing within. It was nothing like the impending release of sex, more like the warnings that play across the flesh before a storm. The Hierolath’s ranting became even less coherent as he pounded into me. There was a soft slap as something hit the floor. From the corner of my eye I saw the edge of a skin bag. Long, pallid, greasy hair whipped across my exposed flesh. I smelt lanolin and sour musk, like an old sheep. Swallowing hard, I kept my face closed and numb as he cried out the words for sickness that, in the language of his people, were the worst. He began to punch me, flailing blows that were weak enough. He was not young, after all. I lay passive and still, but I could not stop myself from shaking. At last I felt him ejaculate and it was at that point that I released the pent-up power of the seith . I directed it at his solar plexus. He would not have mistaken it for orgasm, which could have had me killed, but it left me shaking, all the same.

  My hair was snatched up again and I was dragged from the couch and thrown to the floor. I lay, still trembling, on the cool mosaic. He was muttering and whispering.

  “Where is it? Where has it gone?�
�

  He was looking for the cleansing knife, I knew. The effects of the prod were wearing off. My tongue once more grew slippery and small. I pushed away the realization of wetness running down my leg and began to count, silently inside my head.

  “Where is—”

  Then there was a rustling thud, as if something old and papery had struck the floor. I lay and listened to the Hierolath breathing, to the sudden gasping sounds, then to the silence. I was still shaking, but this time I gave way to it for a moment. I curled up, hugging my knees, with the Hierolath’s semen leaking onto the mosaic.

  Eventually I put a stop to my incipient hysteria and sat up. The Hierolath lay where he had fallen, spread-eagled and half naked, with his robe hitched up around his knees. He was already starting to bloat and rot. Frowning, I twitched the robe aside and checked. Good. His toes were crumbling, becoming dust. I waited impatiently until the rest of the body was no more than a series of curls and whorls of ash, then I crossed to the window and opened it. The mountain wind blew in, redolent of snow from the heights. I breathed cold air. Soon the Hierolath’s body was scattered to the four corners of the room. The head was the last to go. A sophisticated society would use DNA testing to check the room, but this was not a sophisticated society. I lent down to the crumbling skull and whispered, “Old man? You did not ask ‘it’ what ‘its’ name was, but I am going to tell you. My name is Vali.”

  About the Author

  Liz Williams is the daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist, and currently lives in Brighton, England. She received a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Cam-bridge and her career since has ranged from reading tarot cards on Brighton pier to teaching in Central Asia. She has had short fiction published in Asimov’s, Interzone, The Third Alternative, and Visionary Tongue, among other publications, and is coeditor of the recent anthology Fabulous Brighton. She is also the current secretary of the Milford UK SF Writers’ Workshop. Banner of Souls is her fifth novel. She is currently working on her sixth.