The Ghost Sister (42 page)

And she knew for the first time what it meant to be a Gaian; what it meant to be in thrall to the deity that was a planet. Not Bel's gynocentric spirituality, focused firmly on the human, but something entirely different. It had taken Dia's death for Shu to learn what she had become: not quite human herself, any more. But more than that, she could see the loss of Eve in Bel's face. Shu said, “Yes, Ghened Zhur Ushorn's daughter, I'm questioning you. And it's high time someone did. Is this still about Eve? You couldn't save Eve from her own nature or the sea, so you're going to save someone else?
Everyone
else? Is that it?”

But Bel just stared at her, and Shu knew then that this was a battle she was never going to win. That wasn't going to stop her having one last try, however.

“Bel, let me go,” she said.

“No,” Bel said, simply and coldly. The aircar twisted down toward the camp.

Once they had landed, Bel allowed Shu to get up from the couch, but her hands remained bound. As they stepped through the hatch, they could see the second aircar, powering down. The small figure of Sylvian climbed out. As soon as she saw Bel, her face crumpled with relief. Dia might be dead, but Sylvian had someone to follow once more. The two women embraced, and Shu experienced a momentary pang of envy.

The
delazheni
crouched by the entrance to the biotent, their multiple limbs folded. They looked like sad, dead spiders.

“I wondered how you got to Outreven,” Shu murmured, glancing at the second aircar. “What did you do—fly the aircar fromTetherau on remote?”

“Yes.You were right about the town defense, by the way. Sylvian took a look at its data banks; the defense's field over-
loaded it. Once the defense went offline, the systems started revitalizing.”

She shepherded Shu into the biotent, then disappeared. Shu struggled with the bonds for the next half hour, but she knew it was useless. The biotent's computational system would not respond to even her simplest demands. She thought with despair of Eleres and Mevennen, abandoned in the ruins; she wondered what they would think when they found her gone. That she had betrayed them, no doubt, and returned to the land of the dead, never to return. After an hour or so, Bel came back in. The sullenness created by Shu's challenge had gone. She radiated excitement.

“Shu? I've got something wonderful to tell you.”

“What is it?” Shu asked wearily. The effects of the stun gun had more or less worn off, but her legs still felt as brittle as sticks and her hands could not stop shaking inside the confines of her bonds.

“I've managed to contact the other colony,” Bel said breathlessly. The words seemed to hang in the air.

Shu felt herself gaping. “
What
other colony?”

“The colony on one of the moons. In the Sierra Madre Tatras. Remember the talk of schism in the old texts? The followers of Elshonu Shikiriye who disagreed with the path he was taking, and who left Outreven? You wondered at the time where they went, and whether he'd started the genetic program on them before they left, so I got to thinking. I sent a generic signal to the ship; it's been broadcasting ever since on standard wave bands. And now someone's answered. They're still alive, Shu. I think they must be living underground, in biodomes. We can take the lander back up to the ship. With access to their technology, we can keep an eye on things here.”

“Wait, wait,” Shu said, nonplussed. The more she heard, the less she liked the expression in Bel's eyes; it was a little too bright, too fevered. “Who exactly did you speak to on this other colony?”

For a moment, a flicker of uncertainty crossed Bel's face. “There wasn't a name. There was just a message, on repeat broadcast.” She leaned across the table and reached out to take Shu's hands. Slowly, Shu took them; they felt clammy and cold. “We can leave here, Shu, and go to them. We won't have to live here in this terrible place any more.”

There was a long pause. After a moment, Shu nodded wearily. “Very well, Bel. Maybe you're right.”

“You agree with me?” Bel asked. “You'll come with us?”

“I'll come with you. I'm sorry, Bel. Perhaps you were right. Maybe I need to find my way back to the goddess, after all.” The words sounded hollow to her own ears, but Bel smiled, the first sign of warmth that she had exhibited toward Shu for some time. She bent down and released Shu's hands.

“I'm glad, Shu. We need you. We've a lot of work to do.”

The rest of the day was spent packing up. They would rest tonight, Bel informed them, and then head for the ship and the colony. As they prepared for sleep, an image crossed Shu's mind, of everyone settling themselves obediently into the lander again and sailing off into orbit. Bel leading, Sylvian and Shu following, a cult of three. And Shu thought,
Time to burn some boats.
She lingered for a moment in the biotent, looking down at the two women. In sleep, Bel's face had lost its youthful roundness, revealing the formidable will of her mother. A will as strong as that could easily slide into madness. Shu thought of the lunar colony, and whether there was even anything there. She did not like to think of Bel's future, and she turned and left the girl sleeping.

Outside the biotent, it was bitterly cold. Shu shivered as she walked to the smaller aircar, and she was glad of its comparative warmth once inside. Her hands still felt a little shaky as she took the controls, but her movements became more assured as the aircar whirred up into the heavens
and she turned the nose of the vehicle east, toward the rising sun.

We had been walking for more than a day, resting frequently as I adjusted to this new way of seeing the world, when the ghost boat dropped from the heavens. Mevennen and I waited at a safe distance as it glided down and Shu stepped out. She smiled when she saw me.

“I knew you wouldn't go,” I said.

“You've a lot more faith in me than I have in myself, Eleres. You're lucky I found you. But I'm afraid I couldn't help you in the end.”

“Maybe we can help ourselves,” I said. I told her what the voice in the chamber had said.

She stared at me. “You think the house defenses might heal you? Turn you back into what you were?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. I don't know enough about our ancestors'ways of doing things. I only know that I want to go home.”

Shu nodded slowly. “Then that's where we'll go,” she said.

The journey did not seem so strange, this time. I watched the long lands unfold beneath the path of the boat, and at length we dropped through cloud to see the familiar coast of Eluide.Two hours later, on a cold, gray afternoon, we followed the landpath to Ulleet. I looked at the countryside around me, still seeking meaning, but there was nothing there, nothing but shadows over the land. Yet I could no longer feel any sorrow for our loss. The bowstring had snapped and I was as numb and empty as air. I had never been more thankful to be going home—whatever I had become and whatever the future might hold. The weather had turned around, and a light rain was cold against my face. A
curve in the road brought the steep roofs of Aidi Mordha before us, with the long line of the sea and the houses of Ulleet clinging to the cliffs of the inlet beyond. We hastened along the familiar path, the ghost accompanying us.

As we neared the house, Mevennen halted. She said in a whisper, “What if it doesn't work?”

And I answered, “We've been through this before, Mevennen. We've both come home out of the wilds. It's nothing more than a step from childhood, all over again.”

I looked up at the dark walls of my home. I could not see the defense, nor could I hear it. The back of my neck prickled in anticipation, and I shivered. I turned to Mevennen, and to the ghost. Shu nodded, though her face was grave.

“You couldn't cross the defense, in Tetherau,” I said.

“I won't be able to cross this one.” She gave a fractional smile. “I'm a ghost, remember?”

So I took Mevennen's cold hand in my own and we stepped over the line of the defense together. The air shimmered around us. I felt as though I had raised my hand and pulled down lightning. Knowledge burned itself into my mind, searing through my veins and singing down my blood, and in the split second before the defense roared down behind us, I heard a voice say inside my mind, “
Down
load complete.
”

Behind the defense, Shu had fallen to her knees. Together, Mevennen and I reached out and brought the defense down, then I helped her up. Her face was ashen and she was shaking.

“Even that's too close,” she said. She turned to me. “Well?”

I paused for a moment, seeking, and then I smiled at her. “There's water under here, you know.”

And Mevennen's face was wet with tears.

As we stepped into the courtyard, a flock of small dark birds wheeled up from the gables, moving as one and whirling out to sea, and a single dark blue feather, the color
of an eye, fell through the still air to land at my feet. My cousin Eiru was calling out our names, and they all ran together to become one word.

“Eleres,” she whispered at last, and took my hands. Her face was drawn. I put my arms around Eiru, and after a moment she said, “You're freezing cold. Come into the warmth,” and drew us all inside.

Within the long inner hall, a fire had been banked up against the chilly air. The polished boards were spread with the thick knotted rugs which people make in the autumn, the settles lined with furs, murhide from the culls. And although it was still afternoon, lamps glowed against the dark paneled walls. I was shivering, and Eiru pulled me closer into the warmth of the fire and began to brew tea. Meven-nen went to rest, and Shu stayed by my side.

The hot bitterness of the tea revived me a little, but I remained dozing by the fire like an old man, for the rest of the afternoon, and my family left me alone—apart from Eiru, who sat with us for a while and looked at Shu with wonder in her face. It was Eiru who told us how things had changed around the time of our own cursing: the sudden chaos throughout the province, with people struck landblind without warning, and hunts over before they had barely begun, everyone staring lost and bewildered at one another over the necks of their murs. They had been inside Aidi Mordha, Eiru told me, within the line of the defense, and had noticed no change, but the rest of the world as we knew it had been turned upside down. With a glance at Shu, I told her to take a message without delay to the central meeting place of Ulleet, saying that those who were still cursed with landblindness need only to go home, and all would be well.

I hoped I was right.

Shu did not, it seemed, expect to see her fellow ghosts again. I asked her where they had gone and she replied, “Back to the ship, in orbit. And then to what might have been a lunar colony, once. After that, I don't know. If they
don't find what they hope, perhaps they'll sink into cold sleep again and head for home. Wherever and whatever that is, now … Eleres? Do you know whether there are— people—on the second moon? In the place you call Seramadratatre? People like my own kind?” Her face was drawn and strained.

I answered, “Legend says that there were, a very long time ago. They were demons, named Mora and Ei. They built cities beneath the rocks. But now surely there are only the dead.”

She was silent for a long while after that. That evening, Shu came to tell me that she was leaving.

“Where will you live?” I asked her.

“I was going to follow your example. Hibernate. Put myself into stasis sleep in the biotent back at what's left of base camp until spring, and then head down the coast. See what I might find.”

I looked at her. She was surely as old as Luta, and I did not like to think of her walking the world alone. And I had known her when I myself was no more than a ghost, when she had finally become real to me. I had changed once more, but she still seemed real.

“Stay with us,” I said.

Shu smiled. “Become the family ghost?”

“You tried so hard to help us, Shu.”

“We failed, though, didn't we?”

“No,” I told her. “No, you didn't fail. You taught us about ourselves, and perhaps in time we can find our own way of doing things.”

She looked around at the firelight, the solid walls. “To stay here. I think that's a wonderful idea.”

By the evening of the following day, the panic throughout the province seemed to have abated a little. Shu made several attempts to explain to me what she thought had happened, but I still didn't really understand it. The knowledge that gave us our connection with the world had not
been granted by Outreven alone, Shu said, but had been sent from Outreven along the lines of the land, to rest like sinks of water in the energy defenses of houses and settlements. I still did not see how knowledge could behave like water, and after a while, Shu gave up and said that I was exasperating. I thought that was rather unfair.

A week passed. Others whom I had feared never to see again during my time in Outreven came to find me. First of these was Morrac. His own landblindness had rectified itself on his return across the defense line of Rhir Dath.

“Madness is bad enough,” he said. “But sanity's worse.”

After him, much later, came word from Jheru, now back at Temmarec, who had undergone a similar experience. He too had found it chastening. The call to the world was still there, he said, lurking beneath his conscious mind like a sandsnake in a pool, but it was not so strong and he could govern it more easily. He would come to see me in the spring, his message read. Others told similar stories, of a new balance, a new control, and I began to feel that Mevennen and I had not perhaps done so badly, after all, in speaking with ghosts.

I told Shu this, and she said grimly that it could have been very much worse.

Home at last, our thoughts turned to Sereth's daughter. Blood calls to blood, birthplace to the born, as they say. Sereth had planned to be at Aidi Mordha for the homecoming. With Sereth dead, the closest kin to the girl was Morrac. Since he was here already, best that it was Morrac and the rest of us who called Sereth's daughter home. And at last a day came when the event for which we had been waiting came to pass.