Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  Reeds rustled at their feet, in a wind that could not be felt. A river, perhaps ten feet or so in width, slid between deep banks of black earth, but it looked more like oil than water, sluggish and slow.

  “Where is this place?” the kappa whispered.

  “I don’t know. But I think I’ve been here before. I think this was where I took the assassin.” Lunae looked around, dry-mouthed and wary, but there was no one to be seen, only the grass and the reeds. “Can you breathe?”

  “Yes, without difficulty.” The kappa turned to face Lunae, eyes round with panic. “Where have you brought us?”

  “Kappa, I told you, I do not know. I don’t even know if this is Earth. Do you think we could be on Mars? Those summits are red.”

  The kappa stumped down to the river, sliding a little on the dense, packed earth, and dipped a cautious forefinger in. She snatched it back. “It burns! This place is poisoned. I can feel it. The earth, the water—all is wrong.” She stumbled with difficulty back up the bank. “Still, we are no longer on the cursed vessel. That is one good thing.” She wrung thick fingers. “Can you take us back, to a place of safety?”

  Lunae looked at her nurse. “But I have no idea how to navigate through time. I haven’t been able to learn. I can move forward and back a little way, enough to snatch someone from the world or get out of trouble, but you have to understand that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I am, or how I’m able to do what I do. A hito-bashira, so they tell me, but what is that? And you? Do you know anything about me? I sometimes feel, kappa, that this placidity of yours is nothing more than a disguise.” She gestured around her. “There is nothing and no one here. No one to overhear, no one to report back to the Grandmothers—if they still live—or anyone else. If you know anything, tell me now.”

  The kappa stared at her, once more seeming unhuman, unknown, the eyes aglow in the moon of her face.

  “I will tell you this. It is as much as I or you know: that you were created by the Grandmothers.”

  “I know that. But why? And what is a hito-bashira?”

  “A hito-bashira, a woman-who-holds-back-the-flood, is a person who is not tied to time, but one who can move through it at will, as you do.”

  “But that’s the principle behind haunt-tech, isn’t it? That spirit and flesh are not one and can be separated?”

  “Spirits can be summoned through time, but no spirit can exist without a living body. I think you are a combination: a living person whose spirit behaves as though it were free of the time stream, and who can move yourself and others through it.”

  “But what does it mean—hold back the flood? And are there others like me?”

  “I believe that it means that there will be a certain event, in which your ability to alter time will prove crucial. I do not know the form that this event will take. The Grandmothers did not discuss it with me. I know only what I overheard them say, and they were careful when they spoke in front of me.”

  “What did they say?”

  “That you would know what to do when the barrier was breached and the time came,” the kappa said. “As for sisters—yes, there were others, but as you know, they died. I do not think there are any other beings like you, Lunae. Whatever your kind might be, it is unstable. The flesh does not withstand it so well.”

  “How did they die?” Lunae asked.

  “One withered in the skin. When the time came to open it, so the Grandmothers told me, something small and shrunken and ancient fell forth. Another passed through time upon emergence, flickering past their sight until there was nothing left but a bag of bones. Another— disappeared, after weeks of growth. And one would not grow at all, but remained as an infant for a few days, before the opposite process occurred. She shrank back into a fetal state over the course of a week, becoming smaller and smaller until there was nothing there, only a droplet of blood like the eye of a demon. I have told you all that I know. Truly. My purpose in the household was to nurture you, and I have done this to the best of my ability.”

  Lunae smiled at the kappa, thinking how strange it was to be undergoing this conversation here, on this unknown plain, between these alien crags. “Your ability has been great.”

  The kappa sighed. “I do not know if I have succeeded. Here we stand, in a place that seems to be no place at all. We have lost your guardian; the world we know is gone. I confess, I do not know what we should do next.”

  “I can try to take us out of time again,” Lunae offered, but something within her shrank at the notion.

  “It is so unpredictable. Unless it is truly necessary”— Unless we are once more attacked, Lunae could see the kappa refrain from saying—“you should hold back.”

  “I agree. We can’t stay here. I think we should start walking and see what we can find.”

  “In that case, we should follow the river.”

  Lunae looked dubiously at the glistening water.

  “If it is, indeed, a real river, and not merely a toxic drain.”

  “Even a toxic drain must lead somewhere.” The kappa turned and began waddling along the stony bank.

  CHAPTER 2

  Earth

  Dreams-of-War and Yskatarina’s companion flew across the water. She looked down on a turgid swell. Glancing to either side, she saw the creature’s wings reach out in a graceful sweep of black lace wire, seemingly too fragile to ride the churning winds. Pulses of information, of a complexity that the armor was unable to analyze, snapped along the synapses of the creature’s spidery limbs and ran along the interiors of the horns. Some kind of broadcasting equipment, or sonar. But Dreams-of-War also detected a kind of exultation running through the thing—an emotion that was familiar and yet entirely unhuman.

  “You will not understand me, passenger,” the thing warned. Its voice hummed and buzzed inside her mind like a distant hive.

  “I do not intend to try,” Dreams-of-War replied.

  “You should approve of me,” the creature said, very sly. “Am I not a made-thing, like all higher forms of life?”

  “You are clearly one of the Changed.”

  “Parts of me lived and died as men,” the thing informed her.

  “As men? Or humans?”

  “The former.”

  “I am unfamiliar with male things,” Dreams-of-War said curtly. The creature wheeled, wings breaking the crest of a vast curl of wave. “There are few of them left.”

  “Have you ever met a man, girl of Mars?” The voice was sidling, filled with mockery.

  “As I told your mistress”—unfortunate term, but she had spoken too quickly—“I am familiar with men-remnants. There are a handful in the amusement circuses in Caud. They keep them for sport. And there are those that live in the hills: hyenae, vulpen, awts—mutations all. But they are the brute form, with little intellect left.”

  “Amusement parks,” the creature voice said with wonder. “Yes, I have been to Mars. It does not surprise me.”

  Was there mockery in that inner echo? Almost certainly.

  “Why should humanity bother with outmoded and antique dualities, or with the complications of outworn instincts? We are all made-beings now, with no need of mating, of sex, of the desires and emotions that are thereby entailed. Pleasure can be attained through devices.”

  “Do you attain it so?”

  “That is none of your business!” Dreams-of-War snapped. “But, in point of fact, I do not bother. I consider pleasure to be overrated. Loyalty and power are all that matter.” But again, that maternal rip and twang whenever she thought of Lunae... Loyalty, she thought. It is all loyalty, all duty. There is no need to think of love.

  “Indeed,” the thing agreed with a mild peacefulness. “We are all made. Now, take note and care. We are close to the storm’s heart.”

  Dreams-of-War looked toward the far horizon. The storm crackled with green fire along its edge. There was no longer any sign of the Dragon-King.

  “That machine should have been destroye
d,” Dreams-of-War snapped. “Such things are dangerous, running on ancient programming. And what is it doing here? There are some in the Small Sea, but I recall no attempt by Mars to reform this world after the Drowning.”

  “Perhaps not. But it seems attempts were made, nevertheless,” the creature said. “I believe that the storm is a by-product of its weather-control operations.”

  “Can lightning affect you?” Dreams-of-War asked. She was not exactly afraid, riding upon the body of this creation, but she could not help but wonder what might befall her should the creature be struck down.

  “Of course,” the creature said, surprised. “I am enduring, not indestructible.”

  “It was kind, then, of Yskatarina to lend you to me,” Dreams-of-War said grudgingly, but she wondered what Yskatarina’s motives really were. Kindness surely did not enter into them. “Could her family build another, if you are destroyed?”

  “Perhaps,” the creature said. “Look downward. Can you see it?”

  Dreams-of-War peered ahead. They were approaching a great roil of water, a canopy of sea-spouts rising up from the waves, drawn on the wind. The green fire flashed between them, casting the sea beneath into pools of grassy light. Dreams-of-War had a sudden longing for desert, for the bleak endlessness of sand.

  “I see the storm,” she said.

  “No, not the storm. The machine.”

  Focus ratcheted in as the armor undertook visual adjustment, and now Dreams-of-War could see the Dragon-King below. The weather-forming machine had split, its parts separating so that she could see within it. Its interior was studded with wrecks: a metal vortex of captured shipping, contorted and welded to the lattice. At the heart of it, half-consumed, lay a liner bigger than any she had ever seen. Its prow rose up as an immense double arch: It had clearly been some kind of hydrofoil. It was perhaps a mile or more in length.

  “What is that ship?” Dreams-of-War demanded. “Where does it come from?” She did not know of any city-state that had possessed such a large vessel.

  “It is from the far past.”

  “What? They had no such vessels then, surely. Are we going down to the machine?” Dreams-of-War asked. But surely this was far from where Lunae had fallen into the water, and if she had somehow been drawn into this huge device... Dreams-of-War, with woe, realized that she would not know where to start looking. No matter, she told herself. The armor would know, since it had imprinted Lunae.

  But the creature said swiftly, “No. We must not; it is too dangerous.”

  “Unstable, you mean?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” The thing turned, gliding at the edges of the storm. “I have scanned the waves all this while. There is no sign of your companions. And below, I can sense, there are small swarms of creatures, but they are not human.”

  “Are you sure? Then what are they?”

  “Made-creatures. The creations of the one who piloted this vessel. The girl is not among them.”

  “Then Lunae is drowned,” Dreams-of-War whispered, and felt herself grow cold. The armor had detected no trace.

  “Do not give up hope just yet.” The creature arced above a wave, dived down through icy spray.

  “Wait!” Dreams-of-War cried, but the creature was already flying swiftly back to the junk. “Wait, I—” But the sea was speeding beneath them.

  CHAPTER 3

  Earth

  In the light cast by the lamp, the Animus’s hide gleamed bloodred. It lay coiled before the antiscribe, the lenses flickering before its eyes. Yskatarina watched as information unskeined itself, unraveling from the faceted eyes of the Animus down into the antiscribe’s lenses. She knew that it was only illusion, a whimsical by-product of the download process, but it seemed strange all the same, to see these numbers and letters drifting through the air like moths.

  “There was no sign of her? You are certain?”

  “There was no sign. I tasted her DNA from a hair she shed on the deck. I would be able to sense her if she had been anywhere within the radius of my sonar.”

  Yskatarina shook her head, pacing the confines of the cabin. “The thing that attacked us was one of Prince Cataract’s creatures, I am sure.”

  “You think it was aiming at you and me, rather than the girl?”

  “I believe Prince Cataract’s children are seeking revenge.” She paused. “He was not the kindest parent, perhaps, but all they knew, and they were male, and bred for war and vengeance, too, perhaps. And now Lunae is lost. If she has drowned... Well, Elaki will be pleased. But not I.” Yskatarina slapped her palm down on the table. “I still do not understand why she is so important to Elaki. We have to keep looking for her. I will speak to Sek.”

  “Yet something good has come out of this, at least. We have more understanding of that piece of armor.”

  “You are sure that you have all the specifications?” Yskatarina asked. “That armor is the key to the ship, I’m sure of it. Prince Cataract suggested as much, and I have spoken to the former Matriarch. The Kami has accessed some of its memories. Embar Khair went with the Grandmothers when they traveled from Memnos to Earth. She was the one who flew the ship. Two pieces of early haunt-tech, both connected. Understand that armor, and we understand the ship.”

  “I answered you before,” the Animus murmured. “I have it all.”

  “And she suspected nothing?” Yskatarina paused. “More to the point, the armor suspected nothing? I would not be surprised if the Martian failed to see her hand in front of her face on a clear day.”

  “I do not know what the Martian may have thought. I cannot see inside her head.”

  Yskatarina sighed. There were times when the Animus was overliteral, or perhaps it was just that his thoughts ran upon a different track. “But the armor?”

  “I do not know. I don’t think so. I was careful.”

  “It should not have been able to tell,” Yskatarina mused. “It is an old piece of tech.”

  The Animus turned back to the antiscribe. In silence, Yskatarina watched the codes ratchet down into nothing-ness.

  “It is done,” the Animus said.

  “Good.” Her eyes met those of the Animus. “Nothing of this goes back to Nightshade. I am working for myself now. For us. ”

  “Do you miss it?” the Animus asked. “Your loyalty and love for her?” There was a curious sadness in his artificial voice and it struck Yskatarina as strange, then, that out of all those whom she had known, it sometimes seemed that the Animus was the one who most completely understood what it was to love.

  “No,” she said slowly. “I do not miss it. Memnos has freed me from her.” She touched a hand to the Animus’s claw. “All of these elements—the Martian’s armor, Prince Cataract, the Dragon-King—all are links in the chain that will get us to a place of power. Trust me.”

  The Animus stared at her. “You want Nightshade.”

  “Yes,” Yskatarina said, very softly. “I have become sick of being controlled by others. I want Nightshade. And then I want more.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Elsewhere

  The plain was littered with chasms and boulders, obliging Lunae and the kappa to follow the lower banks of the river. They made slow progress and at last the kappa sank down onto a nearby rock.

  “I can go no farther. My feet hurt.”

  Lunae sat disconsolately beside her. “So do mine.” She had tucked the skirts of her robe up under the sash, but already the hem had become ragged and frayed, torn on the sharp stones.

  “And there is nothing to eat,” the kappa said after a pause.

  “Or drink.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Lunae, I think you are going to have to move us once again. I know why you’re reluctant. Believe me, I share it. But even so ...”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “We ought to try to rest,” Lunae said at last. The kappa looked as miserable, footsore, and hungry as she herself felt. The kappa nodded.

  “I suppose so.”r />
  Together, they scraped aside the loose stones, revealing a thick layer of earth, then wrapped themselves in their garments as best they could and lay down, back to back. Lunae lay awake for what seemed to be hours, worrying about the kappa, Dreams-of-War, herself. At last she fell into an uneasy doze, plagued by strange half-waking dreams in which the Grandmothers, separate now, stood over her and berated her in their echoing voices.

  Then she was fully awake. The strange twilight glow was unchanged, but she could hear voices, carried on the wind that was now blowing over the rocks and striking her face with a hot sift of sand.

  Free us. Free us. We would be free ...

  The words were unchanging and desperate.

  “Who are you?” Lunae whispered. “Where are you?”

  But there was no answer, only the wind-borne voices, speaking now in a multiplicity of tongues. The kappa rolled over, to lie blinking and alarmed amid the stones.

  “Lunae! What is it?”

  “I can hear voices.” She seized the kappa by the arm.

  But the kappa was staring. “What is that?”

  Away to the left, a patch of earth was beginning to move, congealing until it formed a globule of black liquid, shot with blood red. It began to rise, gathering the thin soil into itself and liquefying it. Lunae helped the kappa to her feet and they started to back away, but more areas of soil were assuming form. A face appeared at the crest of the first shape; distorted into a silent howl.