Bloodmind

by Liz Williams

  ‘You know so much about me,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light. ‘I remember from our very first conversation in Hetla that you know that.’ I did not like being understood. Frey had understood me, and had used it.

  ‘You will have wondered why.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘You told me, Vali.’

  ‘But I don’t—’ I broke off.

  ‘You don’t remember? That is what I mean by “subtle”. These mind-reaping techniques used by the Morrighanu are not subtle. The valkyrie use similar ones. They are too much of a blunt instrument for my own preferences.’

  ‘And what techniques do you use, Eld?’ My voice sounded very quiet in the forest silence, and very cold, but I think we both knew there would be no follow-through.

  ‘I had you taken into captivity, interrogated you myself, made a few memory adjustments, fed it back to you to check that you had no recollection of the process, and you still do not remember. Whereas I am prepared to say that you could cheerfully murder Glyn Apt for what she put you through on the Rock.’

  ‘You’ve made your point,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’ A statement of fact, no smugness or gloating. There was little point in engaging with him on this. He was vitki, I was Skald. That was the game that was played, I told myself. And the name of the game was violation.

  Neither of us spoke further about it. I felt I’d lost yet another piece of the puzzle that was myself. As we trekked through the blight, I began to become aware of something else, too. The memory of the fenris’ onslaught was itself becoming unreal, hollowed out and stripped of its previous emotional content, the fear and rage and trauma. Paradoxically, now that I was finally beginning to lose this fear, I clung to it, but it was no use. Memories of Frey, of the beast, of Mondhile and Nhem and the rape and torture I had undergone on those worlds, Frey’s death – all of it was ebbing from me like some slow tide, leaving me empty and clean. Perhaps it was an effect of the journey, of the land itself, or even of Eld, but whatever it might be, I did not find myself grateful for it. I felt that it was stealing my soul away.

  Surreptitiously, when I thought that Eld could not see, I rolled up one sleeve and checked that the old scars were still laddering my arm, the ghosts of pain. They were still there. They anchored me.

  That night, camped among the ruined trees, I sensed that someone was there. Without saying anything to Eld, I sent the seith senses out again, cautiously opened my eye and glanced around me, careful to remain still as if in sleep. Eld sat no more than a few feet away from me, hunched under the lynx-skin cloak. I could tell that he was awake. I could see and hear nothing – but someone was there, I was sure of it.

  Then the person next to me rose and cast off the cloak and it wasn’t Eld at all. It was a woman, someone I’d never seen before, with a beaky, intense face. Eld was lying a short distance away, face down and motionless. I scrambled to my feet. The beaky-faced woman whistled and the sound tore at my ears. Glyn Apt came at me out of the darkness in a rushing crouch. She struck out, caught me a glancing blow on the side of the head that, had it connected properly, would probably have knocked me unconscious. I kicked her in the midriff, but she was already dancing backwards out of the way. She whirled, twisted, and a moment later was high in the air above me, leaping upward to grasp a branch and swing herself forward. I was too slow. We both fell in a tangle on the floor.

  ‘You,’ Glyn Apt said, quite conversationally, ‘are coming with me.’ The forest was suddenly flooded with light, eclipsing the faint glow of the moon and casting us into a monochrome tableau. A wing was gliding down out of the heavens: a black-and-silver craft, with the outlines of birds etched along its hull. The Morrighanu were flooding the rocks, and half-stunned, I was picked up, slung over a woman’s shoulder and taken on board.

  This time, I was conscious all the way there, tightly bound to a stretcher as the wing lifted up from the forest. I do not know whether I was angry at being taken by the Morrighanu, or relieved at being out of Sull – out of the trees, anyway. At least, I thought, where we were going would be likely to have a roof, no wild animals, and some form of heating and food – even if they tortured me.

  The interior of the wing was dim, and I could not see anyone very clearly from where I had been placed. I could not see Eld at all and the thought that they might have left him behind or, worse, killed him, was not a pleasing one. And I couldn’t help wondering when I’d become so attached to someone who was, after all, a vitki.

  I kept my ears open, but heard nothing of use, though I thought I detected the word ‘Skald’. The Morrighanu were no longer speaking Gaelacht, but one of the tongues of Morvern with which I was unfamiliar, and Rhi Glyn Apt had taken care to detach the tabula from my belt when I was brought on board. It was impossible to tell where we might be heading. The wing encountered turbulence at one point, lurching and churning like a ship at sea. I heard the women cursing, and then the wing righted itself and we glided on. Before long, I felt the stabilizer jets go on and we drifted downward to settle to a halt in somewhere unknown.

  It was snowing hard, that much I could tell. The blast of air as the doors of the wing slid open was bitter and I flinched. I heard Glyn Apt shout something and saw another stretcher being sent past, with a muffled form on it. I hoped the form was Eld and that he was still alive. Then it was my turn. I was carried down a ramp to a waiting vehicle and loaded unceremoniously inside. Rhi Glyn Apt followed me and sat on an opposite bench, pensively chewing a thumb.

  ‘Where am I being taken?’ I asked. I did not really expect an answer, but she said, civilly enough, ‘Headquarters. Don’t ask me where that is tonight.’

  An odd way of phrasing it. Perhaps their HQ moved around. I tried to analyse the twists and turns taken by the vehicle: we seemed to be travelling over somewhere rough and then, from the care which the driver took, somewhere high, and wondered why we could not reach it by means of a wing. Shortly after that, the Morrighanu commander stood abruptly and said, ‘Good. We’re here.’

  I was offloaded. By this time I was beginning to grow uncomfortable: stiff and aching, and with an urgent need to empty my bladder. Much to my relief I was freed from the stretcher and rolled onto gleaming black stone, with the steady drip of water in my ears. A breath of cold air ghosted over my face and I could hear whispering. I opened my mouth to speak but no sound emerged and I could not move; it felt like sleep paralysis, when one is awake and still dreaming, and held motionless by the still-shut motor function. Then I felt it slide from me and I was able to stand. A woman training a weapon on me motioned me towards a set of facilities. I was allowed to wash in a cold trickle of water, and issued with a set of black coveralls. Before I could put these on, I was thoroughly and intrusively searched, a process to which I submitted. I told myself that I had endured worse – it was better than the mind-probe to which Glyn Apt had previously subjected me – and there was little to be gained by making a fuss. Then the door was locked securely behind me.

  The next day, I thought, would probably bring another interrogation. I wanted to be alert for that, with the seith on full defence, and so after fruitlessly trying to turn off the light, I lay down on the pallet and closed my eye. I dozed, sinking into a half sleep and losing track of the time. But suddenly the seith was prickling me awake. I sat up, with an intense moment of disorientation before I realized where I was.

  A raven was flying slowly around my head, dark wings beating through emptiness. When it saw me watching, its bright bird eye winked once, and its beak opened in a soundless caw. Thorn Eld’s voice said, inside my mind, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In a cell somewhere,’ I murmured aloud. I did not think the ravens could be telepathic, though given that they were artefacts of the vitki, one never knew. ‘I don’t know which part of the building it is.’

  ‘This is one of the Morrighanu’s command structures. I don’t know which one – I couldn’t tell which way the wing was flying and anyway, I don’t know
them all.’

  ‘Are you free, Eld?’

  ‘No. They’ve put me in a cell as well, but it’s obviously been designed for the more important captives.’

  ‘I’m surprised they let you keep your ravens.’

  I heard Eld laugh. ‘They didn’t. They took all the implants, except the one that is very securely hidden. I’m using that channel. I’ve already sent word to the vitki, but they have their hands full with the war. I wouldn’t expect a sudden rescue mission.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Eld said. ‘Not that you have a lot of choice. They’ll start questioning us tomorrow. They’ll want to know how much we know about Skinning Knife, I’d imagine; and exactly what we’re doing in Sull. I leave it to you as to what you tell them.’

  ‘It will be little enough. Glyn Apt’s already ransacked my mind once. She wanted to know about Frey, about Mondhile. Most of the Skald’s practices are a matter of public record; there’s not much point in interrogating me about those.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Eld sounded faintly surprised. ‘I hadn’t considered that the most secure defence might be public knowledge.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a vitki.’

  ‘True enough. I’ll sign off now, Vali. I don’t need to tell you to keep your senses open for an opportunity, whatever happens tomorrow. We don’t want to waste time here. And I will do the same.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I have no intention of remaining as a guest of the Morrighanu.’

  The raven made another slow, shadowy circuit and then vanished, as if swallowed by the air. And I slept.

  TWENTY-ONE

  PLANET: NHEM (HUNAN)

  By dawn the storm had blown itself out to sea, leaving a froth of water along the coast and steaming puddles in the streets. The sky, too, looked clouded and muddy, as if the rain had stained it. Everything smelled of damp, clammy in the rising heat as the day drew on. I hadn’t expected to sleep after the excitement of the night, but I was out as soon as I lay down: I didn’t even remember falling asleep. Memories of the women on the ship filled my head as soon as I woke and I got up immediately. I couldn’t be bothered to eat. I washed myself, threw on some clothes and the stouter of my two pairs of sandals, and went out into the wet streets, heading for Tare’s house.

  Everyone had heard about the new arrivals. The colony was bustling, filled with excitement and an eagerness that was as easily felt as the steam from the puddles. Tare came to greet me at the door, and I saw Khainet just behind her shoulder, peering out of the doorway like something lurking in a burrow. She drew back as soon as she saw me and I wondered whether she was angry about the previous day, or perhaps, in some way, ashamed.

  ‘They’re eating,’ Tare said. She spoke in hushed tones, as if she hadn’t expected our visitors to do anything so normal. ‘And they’ve been talking among themselves. I knew the words, some of them, but I still didn’t understand what they were talking about.’

  ‘Did you speak to them?’

  Tare looked away. ‘I didn’t dare. I just put the food on the table and went away.’

  ‘Tare, they’re not the goddesses on the wall! They’re women like ourselves.’

  But she didn’t look as though she believed me, and I’d always thought Tare to be one of the more sensible women in the colony. I’d deal with people’s reactions later. ‘Take me to them,’ I said.

  They were huddled around the table, gnawing bread and fruit and speaking in low voices, like conspirators. I closed the door behind me. In their borrowed clothes, with their hair combed, I began to see why Tare had been so impressed. They had a strange air about them, an authority, like men, and yet they were clearly female. They looked up when I came in.

  ‘You were there last night,’ one of the women addressed me. She was hard to distinguish from the others but perhaps she was a little older, and as the sleeve of her shirt slid back I saw that there was a blue mark on her wrist: three blue lines, circling the skin like a band.

  ‘You’re speaking our language,’ I said.

  The woman with the blue mark motioned to one of the others and her companion rose and pulled up a chair, gesturing to it as though this was their own home. ‘Yes.’ She did not explain further.

  ‘How can that be? And where do you come from?’ I asked, as I sat down.

  ‘It’s called Perchay. It’s in the mountains – not the ones near here, but the ones in the far north, beyond Iznar.’

  ‘I know Iznar,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, you come from there, don’t you? Most of you, except the ones from Sahrait.’

  I thought of Khainet’s bird. ‘Are you the ones who sent us here?’ I asked, but the woman gave a small smile, which didn’t seem to me to show much amusement.

  ‘Not now. There’s someone here I want to meet.’

  ‘Who?’ I felt upset. I’d been one of the colony’s founders, after all, and I was the only one who was still alive. We don’t have leaders, we liked to say, though they called me High Counsellor. But still.

  ‘She’s here in the house. A tall girl, pale-skinned, with light hair. She doesn’t look like anyone else. Her hands are scarred. I’ve seen her. I tried to speak to the other woman, the older one, but she ran away.’

  I frowned at that. ‘There are a lot of people here. This is a house complex.’

  It was the woman’s turn to frown. ‘You live communally? All together?’

  ‘Most of us. But some of us are too . . . damaged. They live in the old walls, on their own. They don’t have much to do with the rest of us, but we leave food and clothing for them.’

  The woman nodded as though this was not news to her, or as though she wasn’t interested. ‘But the woman I want to see is not one of them.’

  I knew exactly who she was talking about, of course. And I also felt that I should protect Khainet: they would not know her name, for her name was new. But protect her against what? Shouldn’t I trust these women? We’d always welcomed incomers before: they were women, after all. But the women who had come here before had no power, they were afraid and confused, exhausted and ill, just as Khainet had been. And all of them had been alone: coming over the mountains, guided by visions that we liked to think were a gift from the goddesses.

  And now these four, with the feel of men about them, their language that was the same as mine, technology that we’d never possessed. Was I afraid of them, or afraid of something else?

  The woman with the mark on her wrist was watching me closely.

  ‘You know who I’m talking about,’ she said and the box hummed and whirred as if in agreement, apparently echoing her words.

  ‘Before I let you talk to her,’ I responded, grasping at the shreds of my control, ‘I need to know who you are. Do you have names? Where are you from? Tell me now, not later. Later might never come.’

  Two of the women exchanged glances, while the others sat with downcast heads as though keeping out of potential arguments. That told me a lot about their hierarchy. I tried to see if the second woman had a band around her wrist as well, but the long sleeve draped down and I wasn’t able to check.

  ‘All right,’ the first woman said abruptly. ‘I am Mayest and this is Hildre. This is Geneffa and this is Samuat.’

  ‘I don’t know what these names mean,’ I said. ‘I am called Hunan, which means “mountainwalker”. I decided that when I took my name.’

  Mayest looked confused. ‘You took your name? Yes, I suppose you would have done. Our names don’t have meanings. Our mothers gave them to us.’

  It was my turn to stare. ‘Your mothers gave you names? Not the House Father?’

  ‘We don’t have Fathers where we’re from.’ Mayest’s face grew hard, as if about to change to stone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not all this world is like Iznar, like the places you know. Most of it, yes, but not all. And Iznar is changing. Please, Hunan. I know this is confusing and strange. You must understand that we are muc
h more in touch with the cities and the men’s world than you are.’

  ‘But in that case, how can you “not have Fathers”?’

  ‘It’s . . . a technological thing. You wouldn’t understand.’ Mayest spoke with assurance, not even bothering to be condescending, and I felt a little lump of anger settle in my chest. I told myself to wait.

  ‘Hunan – did you have children? Can you remember them?’

  ‘Yes. Two daughters and a son. My son was called First Joy, and the girls were Boy-Next-Time and Luck-Still-to-Come.’

  They were all staring at me now, with pity.

  ‘And you don’t speak ancient Iznari, do you, the men’s naming language? You don’t know what those names mean?’ Again, that assurance. But she was right; I did not know, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like feeling stupid all over again. In Edge, I knew as much as everyone else, usually more. And now I felt dull and slow. I felt as I had when I lived with House Father.

  ‘They have meaning, too?’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ Mayest said, and she told me the meaning of my daughters’ names, and the meaning of my son’s.

  After that, I was silent for a long time. Then I said, ‘I thought they were just names. Just words.’

  ‘No. The men give proper names to the boys in a big ceremony that the women, obviously, don’t know anything about. And the naming of girls is a recent thing, only within the last seventy years even though the words are old – the result of a very liberal Hierolath. There was great protest at it, but the change was made. When you decided to let those old names pass, when you came here, and take on others, you were wiser than you knew.’

  ‘But you,’ I said, and I was angry now. There was no man to be angry at and so I turned it towards Mayest. ‘You have proper names, given by mothers. Where are you from, Mayest? Why do you have these privileges?’

  And so she told me.

  The bell tower was stuffy and airless, but I went up there anyway, to seek out a breeze. Below me, the mud roofs of the colony were dry, and beyond the walls the roaring of the storm-churned sea had softened to its usual murmur. The colony should have looked the same, and yet everything had changed.