Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  When Dreams-of-War marched back in, Lunae told her of what she had seen. By this time, the kappa had also awoken and sat blinking.

  “This woman,” Dreams-of-War said, frowning, “what did she look like? Did you see her face?”

  “Yes,” said Lunae. “She was beautiful, with long black hair. But her face was cold and closed, all angles. She did not look like anyone I have ever seen before. There was a—a foreignness to her face, yet it reminded me of someone. And she had no arms, and no legs. They were glass, or plastic, and transparent. It didn’t seem to hinder her in walking.”

  She was surprised to see an expression of distinct unease cross her Martian guardian’s countenance.

  “Do you know her?” Lunae asked.

  “No,” Dreams-of-War replied, too quickly. “But I have reason to believe that we are not the only passengers. Why should we be, after all?”

  “There are many strange things in the north,” the kappa said. She waddled closer to Lunae and patted her arm. “Do not worry. I am here. Dreams-of-War is here.”

  “And I’m grateful,” Lunae said.

  The Martian turned to the kappa. “Strange things? Have you seen this woman before?”

  The kappa stared at her, bemused. “I have not. But you must know how common it is in the more primitive regions for children to come from the growing-bags without limbs.”

  Dreams-of-War looked at her with palpable disgust. “Why aren’t such infants terminated?”

  “Because it takes time and expense for poor folk to grow a child,” the kappa said. “And some women do not regard that child as disposable.” Lunae thought there was a hint of anger in the kappa’s answer, but perhaps she was imagining it. The nurse’s moon-face was as placid as ever.

  “What about another kind of creature? A sort of gigantic dragonfly, with a hide like black armor? A scorpion’s tail?”

  The kappa’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “I have never seen or heard of such a monstrosity, and I do not wish to.”

  Dreams-of-War acknowledged this with a nod. Turning to Lunae, she added, “Are you still feeling sick?”

  “A little,” Lunae answered quickly. She longed to go on deck and watch the waves. “If I could go outside...” She faked a grimace.

  “I will make tea,” the kappa said, and began to busy herself over the cabin’s small iron stove.

  “Come with me,” Dreams-of-War said. “If you are going to be ill, best you are closer to the side.” Her face wrinkled with distaste. The Martian did not, Lunae felt, approve of bodily functions. She wondered again whether the armor took care of elimination for Dreams-of-War, but it was not a subject that she felt able to broach.

  She followed her guardian onto the deck. There was no land in sight, only the heaving sea under a clear, cerulean sky, but far on the horizon Lunae saw a smudge rising up from the water.

  “What’s that?”

  “Smoke,” Dreams-of-War said. “Hakodate, perhaps, or one of the more southerly volcanoes.”

  “Is Hakodate a rift-volcano?”

  “No. The only rift still active is the one beneath the Shattered Lands—what was once known as the Western Continent. It is said that it was this rift that caused the fall of prehumans and precipitated the Drowning. There is only a fragment relating to it; it says that many folk died in the cataclysm and after, when the clouds of ash and smoke blotted out the sun. Diseases would have been rife. But geologists believe that the Drowning was already well under way at that time. The great rift of the volcano merely hastened matters.”

  “Do we know anything about the people of Earth at that time?” Lunae asked, scouring her memories.

  “They were certainly nothing but savages—apes or some such, half-humans and men-remnants like the hyenae of Mars, all teeth and whiskers. But by then, Martians had developed spaceflight; we did what we could to salvage the remains of Earth.” Dreams-of-War paused. “There were—experiments, at this time. A mingling of Martian and indigenous genes. Some of these experiments were perhaps unwise.” Lunae could tell from the sour twist of her guardian’s mouth that Dreams-of-War hated to admit any misstep on the part of her people. “It took centuries for rebuilding to take place. But there are many such remains of the things that lived before the rift and the floods: the tailed women of the western tribes, the Mottled Elders, the Hollow Children.”

  “I have seen none of these. Are there pictures?”

  “Yes, but why should you have an interest in such creatures? You are an advanced being, a made-human from the civilized East. Relatively civilized,” Dreams-of-War amended.

  “There is a story that Fragrant Harbor dates from before the Drowning.”

  “Certainly, Fragrant Harbor is ancient,” Dreams-of-War conceded. “But probably it was little more than a fishing village. When we reach the islands of the kappa, you will see the kind of thing I mean.”

  And with that, Lunae had to be content.

  CHAPTER 13

  Earth

  Yskatarina was certain that they were being watched. She had felt eyes upon them that morning, on deck, and she did not think that the crew alone were curious. Sek herself treated Yskatarina with a wary respect, but Yskatarina was confident that the captain’s loyalties to the Matriarchy would hold.

  The girl was, so Sek had assured her, confined to a cabin below with her nurse and her guardian. Yskatarina set eyes on the Martian warrior later in the day, as she stood conversing with Sek in the prow. A formidable figure, but perhaps no more than a hollow one; bound to the dictates of Memnos—rigid, unquestioning. She was not so stupid as to take this for granted, but Dreams-of-War appeared the typical Martian, and thus far, Yskatarina had not been disappointed by the race. Perhaps the earlier attempts to dispatch her had been unnecessary. And then there was Dreams-of-War’s armor, a piece of haunt-tech that had traveled on the stolen ship... Prince Cataract had implied that the armor contained memories of that ship and its operation. Yskatarina intended to explore this at the earliest opportunity.

  The nurse was a kappa, and as such, did not present a great threat, although after the previous assassination attempt, Yskatarina remained wary of the toad-women. Since the attempt to snatch the girl had ended in failure, she intended to try another tack, and perhaps it was better this way. She planned to intrigue Lunae, and then befriend her. The Martian would not interfere, if instructed not to do so by Memnos.

  She rested bone-and-metal fingers on the railing of the ship and contemplated the churning sea. It was good to have a change of limbs once more. Her spare parts had finally been delivered, arriving via a scow the previous day. But she did not like this expanse of water; it seemed somehow unnatural. And she wondered what lived beneath those waters. She thought of the Dragon-King, gliding along the seabed. What might it be thinking? Did any vestige of consciousness or memory remain to it? Did it remember the cataclysmic rift that had shattered the world?

  Prince Cataract had been elusive on the subject, but Yskatarina thought it more probable that he simply had not known. He had told her that the Grandmothers had raised the great machine from the seabed, deeming it a suitable place on which to hide. But he had not told her why they had quarrelled, and the idea continued to distress her. The Animus glided to the railing beside her, regarded her with dark lambent eyes. She reached out a hand to touch its claw. “I have put a call through to Nightshade. Elaki is waiting.”

  Yskatarina smiled to herself. One could tell that they were far from home. On Nightshade, the Animus would never have dared to describe Elaki thus, without any honorific.

  “More respect,” she murmured, teasing.

  But the Animus said nothing, and not for the first time, Yskatarina wondered whether he truly possessed thoughts and ambitions that were separate from her own. Elaki had claimed that such a thing was not possible, and indeed, she had never questioned this before. But then, that was before they had come across Prince Cataract. And Elaki and Isti, too, seemed less closely linked than the Animus and herself. Abruptl
y, she turned away from the rail and the ocean’s expanse.

  “I’ll talk to her, then,” she muttered.

  Elaki’s voice crackled and spattered over the antiscribe like hot fat.

  “Yskatarina? Where are you? Why have I not heard from you?”

  “You have heard,” Yskatarina said. “I’ve sent regular reports.”

  “I need to hear your voice,” Elaki said with angry impatience.

  So that you can tell whether or not I am lying to you, Yskatarina thought, and this was precisely why she had not wanted to speak to her aunt directly. She was filled with relief at the thought of the emotional loss that Memnos had given her, and terror that it would show.

  “I contacted you,” Yskatarina said. “I told you that the Matriarch gave me the whereabouts of the hito-bashira, and I made the necessary arrangements. The Matriarch, as I trust you know, is dead. Her predecessor has been reanimated, and has replaced her.”

  “I have spoken to the thing. I am pleased, Yskatarina, with what you have done.”

  A handful of weeks before, such a compliment would have elated Yskatarina for days. Now there was only a merciful numbness. She tried to infuse her voice with an appropriate degree of gratitude.

  “Thank you, Aunt. Thank you. And other matters are proceeding well.”

  “Did you speak to the Mission?”

  “I tried, but there was no response.”

  “Something is wrong at the Mission,” Elaki fretted. “I have heard nothing since they sent word to me about the girl.”

  “Don’t worry. I am no more than a handful of yards away from the hito-bashira.”

  “And you will kill her,” Elaki stated. “I understand. You are seeking the best opportunity, even now.”

  “That is so,” Yskatarina lied, as smoothly as she could manage. “That is so.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Earth

  Toward noon the heat grew until the reek of weed and dead fish enveloped the junk. Lunae, whom Dreams-of-War suspected of having feigned sickness, grew pale in earnest and now asked to go below—a request to which Dreams-of-War readily agreed. Lunae’s absence gave her the opportunity to seek out Sek. It had not escaped her attention that Lunae did not like Sek, and Dreams-of-War was not sure what to make of this. Her ward had met so few people, after all—an acquaintance limited to herself, the kappa, the Kami and the assassin (who could hardly be said to count), and the Grandmothers. Perhaps Lunae was simply nervous and defensive... but then again, perhaps not. There was something about Sek that made Dreams-of-War uneasy, something familiar. She resolved to question Lunae at the next opportunity. A fresh eye, she felt, was often helpful.

  Neither had she been told where the Grandmothers had found the captain. Was she under contract to them? An independent operator? Dreams-of-War had tried to find out, but failed.

  She located the captain at the helm. Sek squinted out to sea, paying no attention to her visitor. Dreams-of-War watched her for a moment. Where did Sek originate? She did not have the look of a Northerner, though Dreams-of-War knew that the vessel was registered in the Siberian Islands. There was something strange about her and yet familiar: an outworld feel that made Dreams-of-War’s skin prickle beneath the sheltering cover of the armor. The captain had an almost Martian look to her. Sek seemed surrounded by sudden darkness: a star before the abyss of night. Dreams-of-War blinked. Sek was once more the salt-stained sailor in ragged red clothes, rough hands tracing the intricate fretwork of the helm.

  “I should like to see where we are,” Dreams-of-War said abruptly. “Are there charts?”

  “Of course.” Sek spoke mildly. She ran her palm across a nearby screen. “Here.”

  Dreams-of-War studied the map that unscrolled itself across the surface of the screen. There, at the far bottom corner, lay Fragrant Harbor: a tiny scattering of islands bisected by the wide waterways. Dreams-of-War touched a finger up the splintered coast to a skein of islands: the southern reach of Hakodate. They were heading for the port of Ischa. She looked through the porthole. The sea stretched before her, untroubled. Dreams-of-War walked to the other side of the cabin. Nothing but water until the far horizon.

  “Why can’t I see the coast?”

  “Because we are too far out to sea,” Sek said patiently.

  “Why are we not following the coastline? Would it not be safer, given the chance of storms?”

  “There are dark-ships that lurk in the inlets and islands. I deemed it best that we sail the open sea.”

  “Dark-ships? Do you mean pirates?”

  “Of a kind. There are marauders all along this coast. They do not seek to enslave or steal; they seek to destroy. They speak of holy waters, of violation by the shipping trade. They come from nowhere, their ships materializing in clouds of mist. They use old, half-forgotten technologies. No one knows much about them. No one would wish to.”

  Dreams-of-War tapped impatient fingers on the surface of the screen. “Yesterday you spoke of Dragon-Kings. What of them?”

  “How much do you know of the Dragon-Kings?”

  “I believed them to be a myth. I have been doing some research. I now know that they are rare, dangerous, their origins unknown. I also know that they can rise up and cause even the greatest vessels to disappear.”

  Sek nodded. “Essentially accurate. They hunt alone, emerging from the deep seabed.”

  “And you said that you glimpsed one on the voyage here?”

  “In the distance. A shell was seen. We lowered the sail, which can attract their attention—or so it is said. No one knows for certain. It came no closer.”

  Dreams-of-War frowned. “Where are we now? Are we anywhere near the place where you saw the Dragon-King?”

  “The chart should show the junk’s passage. And no, it was farther north.”

  When Dreams-of-War looked more closely, she saw that this was so. The junk appeared as a minute crimson dot, trailing slowly across the screen like a leaking droplet of blood, leaving a faint wake behind it. Yet she still did not understand why they were so far out to sea. The junk looped away from Fragrant Harbor. It had been Dreams-of-War’s understanding that the junk was heading directly for the Fire Islands.

  She glanced at Sek, whose face was turned to the sea. Sek appeared as serene as a stone.

  “What are you looking for? Land? Or danger?”

  “Both, or either,” Sek replied absently. “Does your armor give you farsight?”

  “It can,” Dreams-of-War admitted. “But possibly no better than those binoculars.”

  “Look through them. Tell me what you see.”

  Dreams-of-War did so. After a moment, she found the faint line of the horizon and scanned it. The line—darker water, paler sky—was unbroken.

  “I see no land. Yet we are supposed to be nearing the southern reaches of Hakodate and I can see no sign of it. I thought I saw smoke this morning. A volcano.”

  “There is a single peak surrounded by islets. The weather has been gentle. You see for yourself; the water is placid as milk and there has been little wind. We cannot have strayed off course.”

  “Perhaps your instruments are malfunctioning,” Dreams-of-War suggested.

  “The crew are checking them now. Did you come here merely to question me about our course?”

  Dreams-of-War thought back to that dawn glimpse: the woman with artificial legs spread, the thing poised above her, drilling inward, and was glad that the armor concealed a shudder. “No. I have a question about a woman. I assume she is another passenger and not one of your crew.”

  “Ah.” Sek smiled. “You mean Yskatarina Iye. The woman with the ornamental limbs.”

  “I did not see her onboard when we arrived.”

  “That is because she was not here at that point. She arrived by speed-scull in the night.”

  “Just so. This morning—” Dreams-of-War paused, reluctant to conjure once more the scene that she had witnessed. She chided herself for cowardice. “I saw her in one of the cabins. In sex
ual congress with a—thing.”

  “That is her companion.”

  Dreams-of-War stared at her. “You knew about this?”

  “How not? It accompanied her on board; it belongs to her.”

  “But what is it?”

  “I have been given to understand that it is a bio-artifact, at once a kind of artistic representation and the repository of her family’s memories.”

  “I have never seen such a thing before,” Dreams-of-War said.

  “No? Yet it seemed to me that it is in part the same kind of technology as that armor you wear. Sentient, aware, capable of storing and interpreting information, old memories. Capable of acting independently.” Sek looked at Dreams-of-War and a faint smile crossed her mouth, like a ghost’s.

  “I do not rely upon my armor for sexual gratification,” Dreams-of-War said, cold as the sea.

  Sek shrugged. “That is your affair. And what Yskatarina does with her creature is her own business.”

  “And her arms and legs? An accident? A birth defect?”

  “I have not liked to ask. She had her prosthetic limbs shipped aboard shortly after her arrival. Sometimes they are metal, encrusted with ornamentation; she showed me a pair that end in claws like the feet of a great bird. They can be used for battle. Perhaps you should discuss it with her.” Sek turned back to her contemplation of the horizon and reached out a hand for her binoculars.

  “But where does she come from? Was she born on Earth?” Were you? Dreams-of-War almost said, but bit back the words.

  “I do not know,” Sek said blandly. “Perhaps she is from the North. There are many people there who come un-whole from the growing-skins, who are genetically affected by ancient disasters. I have seen others like Yskatarina. We all bear our wounds as best we may. It is not my business.”