Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  Lunae is gone. You mourn a memory. Your emotions are a product of your modification, nothing more.

  She squinted into the sun, imagining that the flash and glare of its light was scouring her mind clean, leaving behind only what was necessary. And then she turned and began walking along the cliff, heading west, as the Chain spun into shadow overhead.

  It was close to dusk before she realized that she was being followed. She had made her way along the headland, following the coast, hoping to come across some village from which a boat or flyer could be procured. Dreams-of-War had little compunction about stealing from the locals. As far as she was concerned, the planet was Martian property. Once she had transport, she planned to return to one of the cities—not Fragrant Harbor, as they would be watching out for her there, but one of the other coastal centers. There was nothing, however—no villages or settlements, just the endless coast and a thundering sea rising up against the cliffs in clouds of spray. The only sign of habitation was the gradual turn of the Chain’s maw, thousands of miles above her head. Dreams-of-War trudged on into a steamy afternoon, longing for Martian cold.

  Apart from the gulls and the flies, she saw only one other living creature: a small, doe-eyed beast that stood tremulously at the edge of a clearing. It stared at her with dreaming innocence, to which Dreams-of-War swiftly put paid with a throw of the gutting knife. The animal fell without a sound, to lie twitching on the forest floor. Dreams-of-War stripped it of its skin and ate it raw, saving a leg for later. The forest grew more densely here, and she was forced to slash and hack her way through the vegetation, becoming so absorbed in her task that at first she failed to notice the new sound that had snaked its way through the cries of birds and the hum of insects. When she noticed it, however, she froze.

  It was a steady, throbbing pulse, reverberating from the trees and seeming to deaden the air. Dreams-of-War’s head rang with it, but not so painfully that she did not discern the other sound that lay beneath it: the quick snickety echo of scissors. She turned, snarling, with the knife at the ready, but it was already too late.

  Excissieres burst into the clearing, clad in waxy armor that slid over their skin in a multiple patterning of scales, eyes bright behind black visors, the sharp blades of their scissors clicking and hissing. Both bore prominent and unmistakable insignia. The Memnos Matriarchy had found her.

  CHAPTER 3

  Mars

  Lunae tried not to think of their meal as flesh that had, however far back in genetic history, been human, but it was hard. The kappa seemed to have no such difficulties, and Knowledge-of-Pain wolfed down the scraps and sinews without bothering to cook them over the fire.

  “Good,” she said when she had finished. “And it is a cold night. The rest of the meat will keep. We can butcher it, divide it into parts for the journey.”

  “The journey?” Lunae questioned.

  Knowledge-of-Pain stared at her. “To the Memnos Tower. That is where you wish to travel, I thought? To seek Dreams-of-War?”

  “Are you intending to guide us?” the kappa said.

  “I am intending to return there in any event. It is where I am based. It is the base of all members of the warrior clans when they have left the clan houses. I thought you would know this.”

  “In one tower?” Dreams-of-War had given Lunae the impression that there were many warriors within the Memnos Matriarchy.

  “In the complexes, not the Tower itself. And many are in temporary residence in Winterstrike and the cities. Besides, I do not wish to insult you, but how would a girl and an amphibian fare on their own? Already you have met the hyenae, and there are worse, by far, roaming the Crater Plain, especially this close to the beginning of winter. All manner of things hunt now, to store food for the colder months.”

  Lunae could not imagine what that must be like. The night was already chill, forcing her to huddle close to the hyenae’s blaze, and she could tell that the kappa was shivering. Her future-self had told her not to trust the Matriarchy. What, then, of this offer of aid? But they could not roam Mars alone, searching fruitlessly for answers, and her future-self had told her that if the flood was to be held back, it was at Memnos. Yet it was also at Memnos that her future-self had been captured ... Lunae swallowed fear.

  “You come from a warmer climate?” Knowledge-of-Pain asked.

  “Warm and humid.”

  “You will find little of that here. Mars is a cold world, good for the flesh and the spirit both.”

  “I see no virtue in cold,” the kappa remarked, disconsolately.

  Knowledge-of-Pain laughed. It reminded Lunae of the hyenae’s bark. “And I none in warmth. It must make you soft, vulnerable, overly secure.”

  “Perhaps the cold merely numbs,” the kappa said.

  “And what’s wrong with that?” Knowledge-of-Pain asked, frowning once more.

  They slept close to the fire, with the armor keeping watch. Lunae woke once in the night to see it standing above her. It had retained its human shape and was a mercurial gray in the light of the moons. Its face swam out of the liquid depths: the visage of a proud and angry woman, no longer young, with a hooked blade of nose and arched eyebrows. The face came and went, emerging from shadow. It was, indeed, like watching a ghost. Lunae regarded it for a few minutes before lapsing back into sleep.

  They awoke to a chilly dawn and a thin band of light above the horizon. Shortly afterward, the Martian day grew on, light spreading over the red rocks and casting solid-seeming shadows over the ridges of earth and stone. Lunae lay blinking in the new light, watching as Knowledge-of-Pain opened her eyes and rose immediately to her feet. The kappa lay like a boulder on the other side of the fire.

  “First we eat. Then we move,” the warrior said.

  She turned, summoning the armor with a flick of her hand. Her back was a mass of scar tissue. Lunae could not help gasping.

  “What?”

  “Your back ...”

  “What of it? Old wounds. Vulpen in the hills, wanted my spine as a trophy. He did not get it,” she added needlessly. “Instead, I removed his own backbone and had it gilded. It hangs on the wall of my chamber.”

  There seemed little to say to this. Lunae crawled closer to the fire and gnawed reluctantly on a scrap of cold flesh. The kappa woke with a faint cry.

  “Will it get any warmer?” Lunae asked.

  Knowledge-of-Pain gave her a strange look. “Haven’t you noticed? At this time of the year, the weather is always the same, unless we get a storm up from the south. Cold at dawn, then milder throughout the day, but never less than ground frost. Have you finished? Good. Then we douse the fire and take the rest of the meat.”

  Lunae and the kappa worked in silence, carving chunks of flesh from the corpses of the hyenae.

  “I’d prefer vegetables,” Lunae remarked after a time.

  “And I fish.” The kappa sighed.

  Knowledge-of-Pain produced packs of loose webbing in which to carry the meat. It dripped.

  “How long will it take us to reach the Memnos Tower?” Lunae asked.

  “Perhaps three days.”

  “And there’s no way except on foot?”

  Knowledge-of-Pain shot her a disdainful glance. “Of course, Mars has flyers, but what does a warrior need of such technology? Walking is good for the spirit.”

  “We are in a hurry, however. We are anxious about our companion.”

  “Dreams-of-War is a warrior. There is no reason to be concerned. Either she has died fighting or she is safe.” Knowledge-of-Pain’s expression left no doubt as to what was the most desirable option.

  “Nevertheless ...”

  “In any event, I have no means of summoning a flyer,” Knowledge-of-Pain went on. “The possibility of rescue softens the soul.”

  Lunae refrained from asking about the armor. Knowledge-of-Pain was beginning to bristle, rather in the manner of her absent clanswoman. With the meat safely, if messily, stowed, they set off down the slope.

  After the r
igors of their recent spin through time, Lunae could not help feeling relieved at being in one place and one age—one, moreover, in which she had been made. Despite the threats of the Crater Plain, she enjoyed the first morning of the journey: the chill, the frost that crackled beneath her feet, the clear skies across which the occasional dactylate raptor glided, leather-winged and bronze-scaled, like flying statues. The Crater Plain stretched out before them and there was a periodic glint of water in the distance, a sign of the Grand Channel. The landscape was studded with ruins: the remains of ancient fortresses, dating, so Knowledge-of-Pain informed her, from the Rune Memory Wars.

  Lunae did not find herself to be well informed about Martian history, a fact that appeared to horrify Knowledge-of-Pain. She launched into an immediate monologue, covering the building of the canals, the Beast Time, the Age of Children, the thousand-year rule of the Isidis Monarchy, and innumerable other periods of interest. Lunae listened, half from courtesy, half from genuine interest. The kappa grumbled along behind.

  “... Of course, our own history does not resemble your own. Some believe otherwise, but it is my own view that Mars has only ever possessed one gender, unlike the splitting that occurred on Earth—it is thought, due to changes in the genetic structure from the adverse effects of solar radiation, or viral infection.”

  “But there are male creatures on Mars,” Lunae protested. “The hyenae, others ...”

  “Stray mutations, nothing more. Kept for purposes of amusement or the hunts,” Knowledge-of-Pain announced firmly.

  “I wonder that there seem to have been so many of them on Earth.”

  “They were phased out swiftly enough,” Knowledge-of-Pain said. “What is the point of having two kinds of humans, after all?”

  “But there are many kinds of humans and protohumans,” Lunae said.

  “And most of them are a single gender. A degree of purity is thus maintained.”

  The kappa was frowning. “How, then, do creatures like the hyenae breed?”

  “There are females, but few of them, and without intelligence. They live in caverns, where they pup. They never see the light of day.” Knowledge-of-Pain dropped to a crouch and ran a hand over the loose, stony earth. “Tracks.”

  “More hyenae?”

  “Perhaps. Or more likely, mirror-men.”

  “What are they?”

  “Other dwellers of the plain. If we meet one, you will find out.” Knowledge-of-Pain grimaced. “I do not like to talk about them.” She rose and strode onward.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mars

  Dreams-of-War struck out with the gutting knife. The blade glanced over the excissiere’s side, adding a real lesion to the flickering images that crossed the woman’s flesh. The excissiere snarled, lashing a war-whip. It caught Dreams-of-War across the thigh. She fell into a roll, came up again. The excissiere bent, slashing with her scissors. Dreams-of-War’s teeth met in her forearm, releasing a mouthful of toxicity into the excissiere’s bloodstream. The scissor-woman dropped, twitching in the dusty earth. Dreams-of-War tried to rise and could not. There was the whistle of a second war-whip, then only the hot dark.

  When she next returned to consciousness, she knew immediately that she was on Mars. The knowledge came to her with a great glad rush, swiftly followed by dismay. If she was, indeed, on her home world, that could only mean one thing: capture and disgrace. The armor’s lack was a palpable sensation; she felt as though she had been stripped of her skin. She raised her aching head and looked around.

  Her limbs were free, but the flesh was striped and mottled with slashes and bruising. The second excissiere must have held back, since she was whole and not in a thousand tiny pieces, but the skin over her ribs still burned with the ritual scissor-strikes, and the lash of the war-whip had raised a great weal across her shoulders. The torn flesh had been dressed with oil and held together with clamps.

  She lay upon a metal bed: a traditional piece of clan furniture, with a waving headboard decorated by horned skulls. When she swung herself from the bed, her bare feet scraped softly upon the coldness of an iron floor. There was a window in the wall, a tall, narrow opening through which an occasional gust of wind whipped. Dreams-of-War got to her feet and went unsteadily to the window. Bracing her hands against metal walls, she peered through.

  Olympus rose in the distance, a snow-tipped, perfect cone towering up against the sky. She could see a russet patch of forest spreading around its foot, the ruin of the Tellur Fortress snaking up between the trees. Familiarity, memories, home. She knew exactly where she was. She knew this view, had spent hours or more crouched in a window seat during the days of her warrior induction after leaving the clan house, gazing out across that great cone, those distant forests beyond the Crater Plain. That view had been different only in that it had been seen from lower down. She was in the Tower of the Memnos Matriarchy.

  Dreams-of-War stood by the window for a long time, gazing out across the plain. She told herself that she should move, act, plan—but something kept her there beside the window, drinking in the view like wine. At last she dragged herself away and crossed to the door. It was, un-surprisingly, locked. Dreams-of-War picked and scratched at the edges with her nails, more for the sake of it than out of any genuine hope, and returned to sit on the bed and take stock.

  She still retained most of her internal armory, which was a promising sign. If they had not stripped her of everything, then it seemed feasible that she would be permitted to make a showing for herself in a hunt. That did not hold much chance of survival, but at least it might give her the opportunity to salvage some dignity. Things, Dreams-of-War considered, were looking up. At least, if she did not think too closely about Lunae.

  The day dragged on. Dreams-of-War, after a compulsory session of banging on the door and berating her captors, felt that honor was partially satisfied. She went to perch on the windowsill, to stare out across the falling dusk. The air was colder yet. She realized with dismay that she had lost track of the year on Mars, but it was bound to be one of the long winter months. Summer at these latitudes was mercifully brief. Dreams-of-War breathed chill air and thought with a shudder of the humid reek of Fragrant Harbor. It all seemed suddenly so distant, nothing more than a dream. Only Lunae seemed real.

  Earth rose. A small moon crept over the horizon and lay in the east like a droplet above the edge of the world. High on Olympus a light flickered. The ruin of the Tellur Fortress was a patch of shadow against the slope. The air became suddenly electric and anticipatory. There was the whisper of a haunt-lock being disengaged. Dreams-of-War waited, holding her breath. The door of the room swung open.

  Four women entered. One was Yskatarina Iye, whose eyes slid over Dreams-of-War with careful indifference. There was no sign of her companion. She was followed by two excissieres, both in full armor, scissors at the ready.

  The fourth person was one of the Changed, moving with unsteady concentration. Her head wobbled back and forth as though seeking balance, and occasionally she blurred in and out of phase. She smelled of death. Dreams-of-War thought: She has been reanimated. She is a Kami. The being wore the robes of a Matriarch. Dreams-of-War surged up from the windowsill and launched herself at Yskatarina’s throat.

  “Where is the previous Matriarch? And where is my armor?”

  The excissieres hauled her unceremoniously back and pushed her onto the bed. Dreams-of-War sat quivering with fury, a pair of glassy blades at her throat.

  “The armor is safe,” the Matriarch said, voice creaking from her throat.

  The armor. Not: your armor. Well, Dreams-of-War thought, biting back rage, it will never be mine again, but no matter. I’ll still kill her.

  Yskatarina nudged the Matriarch. “You told me that you would make a decision.”

  “I am aware of that,” the Matriarch said. She blurred again. “And it has been made. There is a form, which all hunts must follow. You know this, I assume?”

  Yskatarina inclined her head. “Of course. But
I protest.” She stared at the Matriarch. “I should not have trusted Sek to do the job. I want her killed now, without ceremony.”

  The Matriarch gave a thin crescent smile, displaying a row of sharp teeth. She gestured to the excissieres and they stepped forward, brandishing scissors. Yskatarina slid back in alarm.

  “But the excissieres still answer to me. And I should like to see a hunt, even through a far-viewer. This body remembers it.” The Matriarch’s dull eyes filled with a sudden, dreadful eagerness.

  Dreams-of-War could see from Yskatarina’s face how little she liked this, but then she seemed to acquiesce.

  “Very well, then. As long as she dies.”

  “I am to engage in a hunt?” Dreams-of-War queried.

  The Matriarch stared into the twilight, but Yskatarina answered, “Just so.”

  “First the change-tigers, now this. And what has become of my armor? Am I to use it for the hunt?”

  “No. The armor of Embar Khair is safe, though you may not recognize it when you see it again,” Yskatarina informed her. “You will be hunted in what I understand to be the traditional manner, by excissieres.”

  The Matriarch turned, and without another word, lurched from the chamber. Yskatarina stared after her in what appeared to be some consternation, then added with a trace of irony, “I’m sure it will be an honorable death.” She, too, departed, followed by the excissieres. The door was locked behind her, leaving Dreams-of-War to seethe in silence.

  They came for her after twilight: two excissieres, bearing hunting gear. Desperate to be free of the confines of the room, Dreams-of-War swiftly put it on and strode to the door.

  “You are anxious for this to be over with,” one of the excissieres said with a razor smile.

  “Of course. I am a warrior.”

  “The hunt is in traditional form. You will be given a three-hour start. At midnight, the hunters will set forth and will search until they find you. You will fight, and die.”