Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  “Where am I?” she asked aloud, but the words vanished into the empty air. She could not breathe. She spun around, panicking, but there was no one to help her. The plain stretched into an immensity of distance, the horizon a faint black line.

  Then she was back in the street, gasping for breath.

  “What are you doing?” someone cried. An armored hand reached over her shoulder and struck the woman in the face, sending her bloodied into the gutter. The crowd vanished like a conjuring trick, fleeing into doorways and beneath awnings. “Lunae? Are you all right?” Dreams-of-War’s face was a mask of fury.

  The woman clambered up from the gutter and fled. The Martian sprang forward, but the woman was gone into the maze of the lower Peak. Lunae looked up at her guardian with grateful trepidation.

  “What was that woman?”

  “A Kami.” Above the throat-spines of her armor, Dreams-of-War’s face was pinched and pale, but her eyes were firecracker-bright. With alarm, Lunae realized that Dreams-of-War was not only angry, but afraid.

  CHAPTER 2

  Nightshade

  Upon the day of her nineteenth birthday, Yskatarina hastened through Tower Cold, heels tapping across the metal floor, sending out glassy codes to the ever-present listeners, the ears of the Elder Elaki. Devices flickered within the walls, monitoring, reporting back. They could be fooled, and she had learned how to do so, but Yskatarina could still hear them at night—or, perhaps more accurately, when she slept, for there was no such thing as day on Nightshade. And sleep was fitful, often disrupted by the murmuring, spined embrace of the Animus. The Animus’s needs were becoming insistent. He was, after all, a male.

  Yskatarina did not mind, however. She had needs of her own, and moreover, it marked the Animus as something that was truly hers, even though they were both supposed to be the property of the clan. Her aunt was always trying to make more: coaxing embryos out of the growing-skins, mingling monkey and dragonfly and bee, scorpion and marmoset with the old genes of Earth. But although the Animus had been a success, the great-eyed, thorn-armed creatures lived for no more than a night before expiring with a sigh.

  Elaki made others, of course: the mute-kin that worked on the production lines, the disposable workers who were sent out into the Sunken Plain. All of these beings slid without difficulties from their growing-bags, overseen by the mourn-women. But these were lesser creatures, with limited sentience or none at all, and they did not live long. The Animus had been her greatest success, and Yskatarina knew that this infuriated Elaki. She was aware that her aunt had tried to replicate the Animus, scraping off cells, carefully experimenting with shed fragments of scale and skin, but the clones never seemed to take. She was unsure whether the Animus could feel true amusement, but on the news of yet another failure, Yskatarina thought that he had. But to dwell on this more closely would have meant criticizing her aunt, and Yskatarina found this too hard. The guilt at her own disobedience often came close to overwhelming her.

  She ran a hand down a nearby tapestry, as if admiring it. The tapestry glowed briefly, the nerve-threads woven within it sending out ambiguities, false information, bewilderment to the ever-present spy-eyes. She knew that it would give her no more than a minute’s grace, but it was enough to slip behind the tapestry, out of the sight of the spies, and into the glassy hollow of the wall. From here, she could make her way up Tower Cold to the genetics lab. Here, she was forced to double over, for the labyrinth of the wall was really only large enough for a child. But even at nineteen, Yskatarina was more flexible than a whole adult. An artificial arm could be unscrewed, or legs removed to permit her to snake through gaps, like a grub within a hive. And she wanted to find out what Elaki was really planning. Her aunt, on the previous night, had told her little: only that a child had been grown on Earth that would somehow be a threat to Nightshade.

  But who grew the child?” Yskatarina had asked.

  “Our enemies,” Elaki answered.

  “But who are they?”

  “Let me tell you a story,” Elaki said. Yskatarina settled down to listen, for she loved her aunt’s tales: the story of how the Ship of Elders had fled from Earth to Nightshade a thousand years ago, bringing their forbidden males with them, the perils they encountered on their long journey, how the ship sacrificed itself to grow the little colony . . .

  But the story that Elaki now told was different.

  “A hundred years ago this clan held key information about modifications to the human genome, prepared by its greatest scientists—two sisters, of Tower Cold.” A pause. “My sisters. We worked together, united, while the other clans sank into an atrophied insularity from which they have never emerged. And together, it was we who contacted the Kami, and learned so much thereby. Together, we developed the paradigms of haunt-tech. But when our clan offered that technology to the Martian Matriarchy, there was—a disagreement. The sisters and their Animus—for they had only one between them—fled to Mars in a prototype haunt-ship, taking the data store with them. They vanished for many years and I believed them to be dead. But recently I have tracked them down, to a place called Fragrant Harbor. It seems they have been biding their time, plotting against me, preparing a weapon.”

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “The girl whom you are to kill.”

  “How can a girl be a weapon? And why do you not go to Earth and kill them? Why not slay this child when it is still in its bag?” Elaki scowled and Yskatarina added, panicking, “I do not mean to criticize, please do not think that. Only—”

  “It is a fair question,” Elaki said, somewhat grudgingly. “I could not get near them. They know me too well, and— apart from yourself—they know those close to me. They have been keeping an eye on those members of our clan who inhabit our Mission on Earth.”

  “Could not someone there hire an assassin?”

  “I do not wholly trust those at the Mission,” Elaki said after a pause.

  “Why not?” Yskatarina frowned. She remembered the group who had left for Earth some years before: nine sisters, all with a faint look of Elaki. They had terrified Yskatarina, but she could not have said why.

  “You would not understand. I need someone on whom I can rely.” The tight porcelain skin of Elaki’s face seemed to soften. “Someone whom I love, Yskatarina.”

  And Yskatarina, flattered beyond words, asked no more questions.

  But now, no more than a day later, those awkward issues were starting to chew once more at the edges of her psyche. Where had the Kami come from, for instance? And what was the nature of the transformation that she and the Animus had undergone? Yskatarina’s love for her aunt was as strong as ever, but she could feel cracks beginning to appear.

  She made her way to the slits in the wall, painstakingly carved with a diamond knife over the course of a single night, years ago now. She had been ten. The Animus had kept watch. She had never regretted the risk she had run, though if her hands had been made of flesh, they would have bled. It had felt, however, as though her heart itself had begun to weep blood, her implanted conscience reminding her in an incessant internal whisper of how much she owed her aunt, how greatly Elaki was loved, almost to the point of worship.

  Almost, but not quite.

  She put an eye to a crack and peered through. There was Elaki, wrapped in a black shift with a tall medical cowl, moving slowly about the laboratory.

  Beyond her aunt’s shoulder, Yskatarina caught a glimpse of moving starlight: a ship coming in over the wastes of Nightshade. Within the growing-tanks, things twitched long limbs. A black spine crept over the lip of a tank. Elaki batted it back. Yskatarina frowned; it looked too much like the Animus.

  Isti was there, too, the ever-present shadow at her aunt’s heels. Yskatarina did not know what kind of thing Isti was, whether machine or bio-organism or hybrid. He was short and squat, with thick fingers and a squashed face. But his loyalty to Elaki was certain, greater even than Yskatarina’s own.

  “He is bound to your aunt, as I am
bound to you,” the Animus had said once, as it clumsily wielded the brush that tore at Yskatarina’s long black hair.

  “As we are bound to each other,” Yskatarina had said, gently reproving. She stared into the dark wells of her own reflection, and would not look up at the Animus. The brush had tugged and pulled, but the Animus said nothing.

  “What if Yskatarina fails?” Isti asked.

  “To kill the girl? She will not fail. But I will give her an additional incentive. If she fails, I shall tell her I will have her Animus taken away and returned to the vat.”

  Yskatarina felt her heart grow cold and still within her.

  “Would you do such a thing? It is the only success of its kind.”

  “I will sacrifice it if I have to. But I do not expect it to be necessary. The threat should be enough to secure Yskatarina’s complete cooperation.”

  “Have you told her exactly why the girl must be killed?”

  “Of course not. Yskatarina is loyal to me—I made quite sure of that—but there may still be cracks in the blacklight programming. I do not want her to start thinking, Isti. She shows enough signs of it already. I have told her enough of the truth, which appears to have contented her.”

  Listening in the walls, Yskatarina thought of losing the Animus and had to clench her teeth against her tears. Yet her conscience chattered and whispered within: You know your aunt has only your best interests at heart, that she is all-wise; you know that you must love her—must love, must, must . . .

  I have told her enough of the truth . . .

  Conflict chattered and hammered inside her head, bringing lightnings of pain in its wake. The cracks were widening. With a great effort, Yskatarina shut off the inner voice and made her way unsteadily down through the walls. But as she went, she told herself that she would not let Elaki take the Animus from her, whatever she had to do to prevent it.

  CHAPTER 3

  Earth

  Upon their return to Cloud Terrace, Dreams-of-War had gone straight to the Grandmothers and informed them of what had taken place. It had not been an easy discussion.

  “She stood there, in the street, while that creature held her hand?” the Grandmothers demanded, speaking as one. “Disgusting! Is she injured?”

  “Her hand is hurt a little. That appears to be all.”

  The Grandmothers’ eyes gleamed. They shifted on the bed: two women, joined to each other at one side, with only two arms between them. Left-Hand Grandmother was wizened, with black eyes in a mass of wrinkled skin, and the hand that rested on the counterpane was gnarled. Right-Hand Grandmother appeared no more than eighteen, hawk-faced, with a coil of white-streaked dark hair, though Dreams-of-War knew that the two were the same age. “Do you think it learned anything?” It was Right-Hand whose voice was clearest, but Left-Hand echoed all that she said.

  “Who can say?” Dreams-of-War replied, endeavoring to keep the coldness from her voice.

  Typical of the Grandmothers to exhibit outrage: They were the ones to enjoy control, to slink or barge into a person’s mind and body, commit all manner of violations before retreating, but woe betide anyone else who tried such a thing.

  “If the Kami now know she is the hito-bashira,” the Grandmothers said, “they will not suffer her to live.”

  Dreams-of-War frowned. “Why not?”

  “You would not understand.”

  “If you only told me what is meant by hito-bashira, perhaps I might,” Dreams-of-War said, exasperated. “Is it to do with this thing she does, this folding of time? Three times a week I watch as she flicks the minutes forward, turns seed into flower or fruit, then back to seed. I watch, and yet I have no idea what she’s really doing, because you won’t tell me. I assume that the term hito-bashira has something to do with her talents, but what? The girl asks and asks, and what can I tell her? She pesters both myself and the kappa for answers. We feel obliged to pretend, for otherwise we look like idiots. It is time all of us are told.”

  “No! And you are nothing more than a hired hand. Do not presume.”

  But Dreams-of-War was unwilling to be stopped. “And what is to be done now? Can she turn back time in order to change it?”

  “Not yet. And so we must send Lunae away, now that the Kami know she is here. It is no longer safe. We can hide her no longer; we must find a safe place for her.”

  “Then why raise her here, in the city of the Nightshade Mission, where the Kami are known to be present?”

  “Because it is thereby easier for us to see what the Mission might be up to. And we have learned from them, too. Our enemy has been making swift progress, and this project, always important, has now become a matter of urgency.” Left-Hand nudged Right. “Do not tell her so much.”

  Dreams-of-War stared at the Grandmothers, who stared unblinkingly back. She could feel depths and mysteries. She did not believe for a moment that they had told her the truth. Dreams-of-War scowled. “I dislike secrets.”

  The Grandmothers grinned in unison. “And you, a creature of Memnos?”

  “That is why I dislike secrets.”

  “You should have learned to live with them by now. Enough of this. There are arrangements to be made.”

  “Very well,” Dreams-of-War said through gritted teeth.

  “You say that both Lunae and the woman disappeared?”

  “For no more than a fraction of a second. But as you know, that can be deceptive.” Dreams-of-War hesitated. “I was angry and alarmed. Perhaps I misperceived the situation. Who knows how long they were really absent, wherever they were? Who knows what might have taken place?”

  “Go,” the Grandmothers told her. “Take her to the kappa and get her hand attended to. Then bring Lunae to us.”

  Dreams-of-War climbed the endless flights of stairs to the tower, to find her charge sitting up in bed, looking pale.

  “Lunae?” Dreams-of-War asked. That feeling again: all fright and anxiety and concern. Dreams-of-War fought it aside and took refuge in anger. “What were you thinking of? I told you never to go beyond the house.” She paused. “How did you get out, anyway?”

  “I climbed a tree.”

  Dreams-of-War felt a swift flicker of pride and shoved that away, too. “You should not have done so.”

  “I wanted to get out of the mansion.” Lunae stared at her, defiant.

  “Well, now you have your wish,” Dreams-of-War said. “I’ve spoken with your Grandmothers. They’re going to send you away.”

  Excitement flashed across Lunae’s face.

  “Where? Somewhere far?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Dreams-of-War sat down on the edge of the bed and studied the girl. It was obvious that Lunae had aged overnight. The planes of her face were different, more mature, and Dreams-of-War could see the curves of her breasts beneath her night robe. Silently, Dreams-of-War took stock of the months from the hatching pod. Lunae had her lessons, as prescribed by the Grandmothers, on three occasions every week. That made it nearly one hundred and twenty times that Lunae had now folded time, slipped through the cracks into elsewhere, cheating the rules of the continuum. Dreams-of-War thought of herself going under the blacklight matrix, of the doctor’s voice as she spoke of the Eldritch Realm. Beneath the armor, Dreams-of-War suppressed a shiver.

  But the success of the project was clear. Lunae was aging as predicted by the schematics drawn up by the Grandmothers, and unlike her previous sisters-in-skin, showing no signs of cellular degeneration or mental instability. And it could not be good for her to be kept cooped up in this antique mansion. Angry and scared though she had been, Dreams-of-War could not blame Lunae for escaping.

  When Dreams-of-War had been Lunae’s age, she had felt as though she owned half of Mars: the Demnotian Plain running red to the horizon, as far as the ragged mountains and the great cone of Olympus. Dreams-of-War’s earliest memories were of that plain and those rocks, glimpsed from the reinforced windows of the clan house. She had spent her days outside, left to run wild with
Knowledge-of-Pain and the other girls, ice crackling beneath their wind-skates as they hurtled across the Sea of Snow toward the towers of Winterstrike; the brief summer heat causing the maytids to crawl out from their cocoons in the soil and be snap-roasted in the firepits; the feel of her keilin mount under her as they charged through the Tharsis Gorge . . .

  Dreams-of-War wished that Lunae could have had such a childhood, felt the lack of it even if Lunae did not. Now, looking at the girl and seeing the end of that childhood already upon her, Dreams-of-War was filled with an uncomfortable sensation: a mingled guilt and unease, so unfamiliar to her that she did not know what to do with it.

  Lunae saved her from the inconvenience of her emotions. “You said that woman was a Kami. She did not look alien to me, only strange, as if unfocused.”

  “From what we know of the Kami, they do not have bodies. They possess the bodies of others, usually those who are of a weak mind.”

  “But who are the Kami?”

  “No one really knows. They started appearing on Earth only a few years ago, shortly after the establishment of the Nightshade Mission, but they have been on Nightshade for much longer. There were a few terrorist attacks on the Mission by Kitachi Malaya insurgents. But the Kami were like ghosts who manifested themselves in human bodies, and in no form other than shadows in the midday sun. And the Mission itself: impregnable, made of an unknown substance that withstood all attacks and that no spy device has ever been able to penetrate.”

  “What interest can they have in us?” Lunae wondered. “Where do they come from?”

  “I’ve told you, no one knows. They are close to Nightshade; that is all that is known. At first, people thought that the Mission was undertaking some kind of mind-control, but the Kami made themselves known. Lunae, it is time for you to get up.”

  She studied Lunae as the girl dressed. The process of aging had brought out the bones of Lunae’s face, a sharpness to cheekbone and chin that was suddenly familiar. She does not look like the people of Fragrant Harbor, this Eastern ancestry, except in the tilt of her eyes. She looks like a Martian, Dreams-of-War thought, and wondered that the notion had not struck her before.