by Sarah Zettel
Bridget repeated the chant again, and then again. The spiral grew to encompass Sakra. The words wound round with the sharp-scented smoke and the patter of the water. Grace felt herself growing lightheaded. Her eyesight grew dim, or was it the room itself blurring, softening, melting into Bridget’s words? The photographs on the wall seemed to move, turn, and stare, the images becoming grey ghosts to see her off on this bizarre journey.
The air had grown so cold, Grace was shaking. She could barely breathe. Bridget wound one of the silver chains around Sakra’s wrist. Her face was pale, her gaze distant, her words unceasing, but softening, drifting down into barest whispers.
Bridget’s lips moved, but Grace could no longer hear what she was saying, and she began to walk forward, continuing the spiral she had begun with the water. The world around her was melting like butter, slumping, spreading, running out into endless, undefined whiteness.
Bridget led him into whiteness, her eyes wide open.
Then, they were gone, and Grace was alone in her parlor, with only the rolled-back carpet, disordered furniture, and the washing up for three to show that anything had happened.
She let out a breath that she did not know she had been holding, and inside her something loosened. On impulse she got up and walked over to one of the little mirrors that hung between the photographs to help create dim but eye-catching reflections during seances. She studied her own face, and noted that her eyes were sunken a little deeper than they had been when she had given herself over to Medeoan’s ghost, her hair touched with a little more silver.
“Well,” she said to her reflection. “You’re free. Once again. What are you going to do this time?”
Chapter Nineteen
Anna’s eyes opened, and for the first time, she saw the Land of Death and Spirit.
The Land of Death and Spirit is a land of part truths, Master Liaozhai had said. It is not Heaven and it is not Earth, it is only the pathway between. It is a place of memories and remnants and the creatures that are welcome no place else. You cannot see the whole of a thing there, and so must beware of all that you do see.
Anna had been told often enough that her greatest gift was her ability to see truly. She had never thought what that would mean in a place where everything was partly hidden. Her eyes saw too much all at once, and they saw nothing at all. She saw the world try to show her a deep forest of pine trees with trunks that were wider than she was tall. But at the same time, she saw things that her mind could scarcely understand. She saw fear, she saw love and jealousy, happiness and sorrow, she saw the hundred million memories of the dead swarming like bees. She saw time encasing all like golden ice, not moving at all. She saw a river of voices and worlds cutting its swath through all. She saw its countless winding tributaries weaving through the land like roots beneath soil. She looked up and saw the high blue dome farther away than the sky had ever been and knew it was Heaven.
She saw the ghosts, as thin and fragile as veils of tissue. She saw the spirits flit between them, unnoticed. She saw everything at once, piled on top of one another like sheets of rice paper, for there was no true time or distance to separate one thing from another.
It was too much. Anna clapped her hands over her eyes and moaned.
A hand closed gently about her shoulder. Anna jumped, looked up, and saw her father. He stood out clearly from the chaos around him and he looked exactly as he had the last time she had seen him tall and smiling, wearing his high-necked black kaftan with its bright blue sash. His dark eyes shone with the pleasure of seeing her again.
“Father!” Anna threw her arms around him. The embrace he returned was strong, but it was cool. Now that he was dead, he had no warmth to give her. It didn’t matter. He was beside her now and she could see him. She wasn’t alone.
“We must hurry, Anna,” he said after a time that felt far too short. “It is not safe here.”
Worry tightened his voice as it never had while he was in her heart.
“I can’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t see.”
She felt him crouching down. “Look at me.”
Anna shook her head, feeling suddenly tiny and miserable. She did not want to be assaulted again with all those things that were impossible to see and yet showed themselves to her anyway.
“Look at me, Anna. It’s all right.” His voice was gentle but firm. Anna swallowed, and slowly peeled her eyes open.
Father’s face was still clear and present in front of her, and she found if she focused on his eyes, the lands behind him became nothing but a watery blur, and while it was unsettling, she could at least stand it.
Father searched her eyes and in his own she saw unease. “Yes,” he said. “You have your mother’s gift of sight, and you are seeing too much.” Anna nodded. “All who cross here must concentrate, Anna. You will have to concentrate twice as hard as anyone else. You must pick an image and hold it in your mind. What do you see that troubles you least?”
“You,” she answered promptly. “And there’s a forest.”
“Good. Think about seeing the forest, and seeing me. Think about it as if you were concentrating on a question for an oracle, but hold it inside.”
“I’ll try.” To prove it, Anna peeked over his shoulder and concentrated on seeing the evergreen forest.
The golden ice of time and the swirl of emotion and memory fell back almost at once, allowing the dark trees to show through. They were only a shell, Anna knew, and she still saw the flicker and flash of the spirits and the ghosts that moved as quick as thought between them, but there was always movement in a forest and her mind accepted this easily. Her fear ebbed and her father straightened up.
“Good. Let us go.” His voice was tight with strain. “This is not a place either of us can stay.”
Anna took the hand he held out to her. That too was cool. Father looked this way and that. They stood on a dirt track beside a trickling brook. Anna squinted to blur her vision and concentrated on not looking any deeper. She’d have a headache soon, like she did after a hard lesson.
“What do you see, Father?” she asked.
“Hush,” he said irritably. “I have to think.”
Anna closed her mouth immediately. To her distress, Father seemed to be growing more confused. She didn’t like seeing him hesitate. She wanted him to pick a direction. She wanted to be in Tuukos, like he promised. She wanted to be somewhere that didn’t swim and shift in front of her eyes. She wanted to go home.
“This way,” he said, turning to his right down the path.
Anna trotted obediently behind, trying not to see. His grip on her wrist was tight to the point of painful, but she tried not to squirm. All the stories she’d ever been told about how easy it was to become lost in the Shifting Lands echoed through her memory, making it all too easy to see the confusion behind the forest again. So, she held on tightly to her father and was glad he held on tightly to her.
“Hurry, Anna,” he said. “We have a long way to go.”
Anna obeyed, trying to keep up although she was soon short of breath, and trying not to see the deepening worry on her father’s face.
The Shifting Lands opened before Bridget and Sakra as a carefully groomed garden. The grass was soft underfoot. Flowers of every shape and color blossomed in rich beds, inviting a passerby to pause and admire them. Groves of trees heavy with sweet-scented fruit swayed silently in the wind.
Every pleasant sight invited Bridget to relax, to slow her pace and stay awhile. She knew better. The Land of Death and Spirit itself could take an interest in the living who were brash enough to walk through its precincts, even if the spirits and powers that dwelled there chose to ignore them. She wondered where her rabbit was, and if it was still free, and tried to put the thought from her. Even though she still believed she had done someone in distress a favor, she did not want to call anything toward her. There was no telling whether she’d call the rabbit, or the dogs.
Stop. Stop. Think of Isavalta, now. Think of V
yshtavos, and your room. Think about Richikha and Prathad and finding out how they are weathering this.
Think about how much you need to be home.
As she focused on her memories, she began to feel Isavalta. It had a weight and presence to it. She could feel the path that wound toward it beneath her feet. She tightened her grip on the chain that bound her to Sakra. He kept his eyes straight ahead, and his stride was long and quick. She had to stretch her own legs to keep up. He did not even glance down at her, or at the fragrant, peaceful garden that surrounded them.
Sakra knew even better than she did the dangers of paying attention to any of the fleeting visions of the Shifting Lands, and at first she thought his unwavering gaze was only a manifestation of his concentration on their goal rather than their surroundings. Gradually, though, worry threaded through her own attempts to keep her mind looking beyond the Silent Lands to Isavalta.
“What is it?” she breathed as lightly as she could. “Sakra?”
“I don’t know,” he answered tightly. “Something. There is something out there for us.” He did not slow, did not hear the import of his own words, he who had warned her so many times of the dangers of walking in this place.
What was he hurrying toward?
Bridget tried to follow Sakra’s gaze, willing herself to see, but all that happened was the garden blurred, replaced by nothing at first, and then by too much. The brook they followed was also a river, the flowers were whole gardens themselves, and each tree was a forest as full of eyes as it was of trees, each one swiveling and searching.
Searching for them.
Sakra froze in midstride. “Do you hear something?”
“In the Silent Lands? Surely not.” But even as she said it, she strained to hear instead of see. The world around her became a meadow of knee-high grass shaded by mountains made misty by a blue haze. Isavalta’s direction shifted, and it seemed to grow a little farther away. Sakra turned his head this way and that and his eyes widened. There it was, the only thing that could make a sound to break the perpetual silence of the Land of Death and Spirit. A living voice.
“My God, there’s someone out there.” She said the words in a whisper, afraid of attracting more attention than they already had.
“Which way?” asked Sakra, turning his head this way and that. “Can you see?”
The voice gave Bridget something to concentrate on and her sight grew clear. The meadow fell away down a gentle slope to the river, and she saw that on the river floated a boat, with a single mast and billowing white sails.
“There.” Bridget took Sakra’s wrist and wished for him to see. The land obliged and lived up to one of its many names, shifting around them. But Bridget felt unease as it did so. There were all those hidden eyes. What did they see?
The river at first seemed far away, but as Sakra began to move in their direction, it grew rapidly closer. Before Bridget could blink twice, they were on its shore.
The boat must have been snagged, because despite the swift current of the river, it stayed in place. A woman stood on its deck wielding a long spear and facing down the Devil.
Bridget had never yet seen the Devil in any vision, and now she felt she did not need to. This creature was twice Sakra’s size with scarlet skin and a muzzle like a dog. Fangs curled from its lower jaw. It swung a bright sword to counter the woman’s spear. She parried, feinted, feinted again, and stabbed, straight into the heart of the demon.
But the demon did not fall, it shattered, becoming a thousand smaller, winged creatures that circled the boat like a flock of birds from a nightmare. Bridget wasn’t even sure the woman could see these smaller creatures. She kept staring straight ahead. Then, they mobbed together and merged, becoming one great monster again, settling onto the rocking deck behind her.
“Ai-ya!” the woman cried in anger and desperation, and the demon raised its sword and the dance began again.
She kept her back to the mast, but she had no room to move. The demon pressed her, slashing left and right, making her use every inch she had. The sword swung for her head, and she ducked just in time so it hit the mast, cutting the decoration hanging there in two pieces. The woman straightened and she moved grimly into the fight again, with practice and concentration, but how long had she fought already, and how much longer could she go on? Surely she had already seen she could not kill this thing. Why didn’t she use her magic? What …
Bridget’s gaze leapt to the far bank. Among the pine trunks, she saw another woman. This one wore black armor that blended with the shadows, leaving her barely visible, but Bridget could just make out height and breadth, the high cheeks and the straight line of the jaw.
“God Almighty,” breathed Bridget. “Sakra, I think she’s a divided soul. I see her other half across the river.” Divided souls were untouched by any gift of magic. Who had brought such a person undefended into the Shifting Lands? Worse, who had left her here?
Whatever fascination had held him before evaporated as Sakra watched the desperate battle on the rocking boat. His face creased, torn between fears, fear for a living soul trapped in the Shifting Lands, and fear for them being drawn into a trap from which there was no escape.
“What do you see, Bridget? Tell me exactly.”
She described the woman, and the still figure in the shadows that mirrored her, or mirrored what she ought to be. She described the demon and the deadly dance they danced together on the deck of the boat.
Sakra’s jaw moved back and forth, once. Something pulled at the fibers of Bridget’s heart. Was it the spell, or the motion of the Shifting Lands around them? Was it the current of the river, or some other thing altogether? Bridget had no way to tell, but she knew she would not be able to stand still much longer.
Sakra reached up and touched one of his dozens of braids. His mouth moved, whispering something Bridget could not hear. With a tug, he loosened the silver thread that held one braid. The lock of hair fell free, and Bridget felt a soft wind, like a living breath pass across her skin. Sakra’s mouth still moved, but he shook, and to Bridget’s dismay, began to unwind the chain that bound them together.
On the river, the woman had dropped to one knee, stabbing upward. The demon evaded the stroke easily, and lifted its head to laugh as she stumbled to her feet, only alive because he was not done playing with her yet. The despair on the woman’s face said she knew that too well, but she had no escape and no choice. She certainly had not seen Bridget and Sakra on the shore.
Sakra stepped away from Bridget. The loose chain slapped against her wrist. Sakra raised his arms, spreading them out above his head, and a sword took shape in his hand. Not a straight sword such as Bridget was familiar with, but a great, curving machete with a pair of wicked points.
“Demon!” he cried out, his voice echoing in the all-encompassing silence. “Leave her alone! Do you wish a fight? You will have one here!” He whirled the blade smoothly over his head, bringing it slashing down across his body, and then stabbing outward, straight for the demon’s heart.
For a moment, everything froze; the great scarlet demon, the beleaguered woman, the waters of the river itself, and Bridget, to her horror, had time to wonder how Sakra thought he could kill this monster with a sword when a spear had done no good at all.
The spell he loosed must give the blade some power. That must be it.
The demon looked to Sakra and back at the woman, who was gasping for breath and holding her spear in both hands, waiting for the monster to move again. Her short black hair fluttered in front of her pale face. Bridget could not see her eyes, and did not know if they flickered to the riverbank to see she had help. But her mirrorself, the other half of her soul, stared at them from across the river, and Bridget thought she saw hope there.
The demon leered at the woman and blew her a kiss in a chilling parody of a lover’s promise. It took one stride and it was on the shore with Sakra. Its fangs glistened as brightly as the blade of its sword.
Sakra did not waste his brea
th on words, but swung his own sword out and around, slashing for the demon’s belly. The monster blocked him easily, and their dance began.
Bridget had never envisioned Sakra as a warrior. She had known he could be dangerous, but his danger was in his mind and in his magic. Now she watched him as he moved with a graceful precision. His blade seemed to float on the air as it whirled and slashed. Sparks flew to either side as he parried the demon’s blade in a clash that should have sounded like a hammer on an anvil, and yet was completely noiseless.
It was a long, terrified moment before Bridget thought to look toward the woman with the spear, and saw that whatever had held her boat in place had come loose. The little craft was starting to drift, its sails completely slack. The woman realized it too and stared about herself in panic.
Bridget sprinted to the riverbank. “The line!” she called out, praying the woman could hear and that hearing would bring sight. “Throw me the line!”
The woman did see her, but she did not move, she only stared, the spear still in her hands.
“The line!” called out Bridget again. At the very edge of her vision, Sakra wove and darted. He courted death and she couldn’t even stand witness for him. The boat was almost out of all possible range now. “Love of God, woman, throw me the line!”
Finally, the woman reacted. She dropped her spear, snatched up a coil of rope, and swinging her body in a practiced motion tossed it toward Bridget. It uncoiled in the air, playing out and out. Bridget lunged forward and caught the very end a bare handspan above the water, almost overbalancing into the river. Immediately, she wrapped the rope about her wrist, dug her heels into the bank, and began to pull. The boat was light, but the current was strong and the pebbly bank offered little for her to brace herself against. She strained with all her might, not yet softened by her time in an Isavaltan palace, and was able to pull the boat a painfully small distance toward the shore. The woman recovered her wits, grabbed a long pole from beneath the gunwales, and dug it into the river bottom, pushing toward shore. They pushed and hauled, and at last they were able to beach the boat on the bank of mud and gravel.
