Banner of souls (24 page)

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."

Elsewhere

The plain was littered with chasms and boulders, oblig-ing 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 al-ready 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."

Together, they scraped aside the loose stones, reveal-ing 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.

The kappa said suddenly, "Look!"

Something was floating above the horizon, catching the unseen light like a diamond.

"What is it?"

It was gliding swiftly over the rocks: a teardrop in the sky.

"It's a wet-ship," the kappa said.

Lunae began to wave frantically. A forest of shapes was emerging around them, the voices crying out once more, pleading and begging. And now the wet-ship was drifting downward, pulsing gently, to land beside them.

The woman who stepped from the wet-ship was, at first, transparent: Lunae could see the rocks through her body. She wore a long, loose shift colored ruby, like the sail of the junk. Her face was oval, her eyes blue. Russet hair was piled upon her head between a pair of coiled horns.

"Who are you?" Lunae breathed.

As she walked swiftly forward, the woman became more solid. The translucence faded. Her lips were moving, but no sound emerged. Then, her voice suddenly came into phase, a blurring glide of speech that resolved itself into Lunae's own tongue.

"I am Essa," the woman said. She glanced at the forms emerging from the soil. "And we must leave.

Now, before they assume their whole form. They won't be able to sus-tain it for long, but it will be long enough."

The kappa bustled up behind her, agitated.

"Tersus Rhee," the horned woman said, turning.

The kappa rocked back. "You know my name?"

"You have a name?" Lunae said, startled.

"Come," Essa said. Skirting the forms, she took Lunae and the kappa by the hands. Her skin felt cool and smooth, not quite human. Lunae hung back. "Quickly," Essa said sharply. "It will not take them long."

The forms were towering now, six feet in height and more. The tortured faces dangled from thin necks and the columns of their bloodshot bodies were starting to grow limbs.

"But what are they?"

"The last remnants of bio-tech. There are not many left. Be thankful." Swiftly, Essa led them to the wet-ship.

"I'm taking you to a place of safety. Relative safety, at least. Go in. Just touch it."

Lunae put out a hand. The wet-ship slid up her arm. There was a gasping, drowning moment as the surface slipped across her face, and then she was inside. The kappa and Essa followed. Reaching down, Lunae ran an experimental hand over the floor. Her fingers passed across it, and came away with a wet sheen.

There were no visible controls within the water-pod, only a low curving seat.

"There are no straps? No means of containment?" The kappa was visibly nervous. Lunae could not blame her.

"None are needed. Sit."

Lunae did so. Again, she touched the side of the pod. Again, her hand was moistened. "How do you get it to hold together?" Lunae asked in fascination. She had heard of such things on Earth, but never seen them.

"It is an old technology. I cannot answer your ques-tion, for I do not know," Essa said, and reached out to stroke a glistening wing. The craft rose, faltered, then dipped over the plain, leaving the half-formed beings far behind.

"Where are we?" the kappa asked.

"Mars. Or what is left of it."

"
Mars
?"

Essa stroked the side of the ship and it moved into a steep glide, sliding down the hazy air toward a chasm.

Lunae had a sudden glimpse into the heart of the chasm. A bristling mass like a great sea urchin lay below, nestling between the cliff walls. Shadows wreathed its spines. It moved gently, in and out, as though impelled by breath. A face swam up from the cobwebby depths, mouthing something in fear or anger. Next moment, it was gone, like a ghost in sunlight. Lunae jerked back. Essa showed no sign that anything unusual had occurred. She touched a wing. The craft veered, then sailed out toward the curve of the world and the red range.

Earth

"So," Yskatarina said. "You did not find them. I am sorry."

"Do not be sorry yet," Dreams-of-War told her. "For they will be found."

The creature had been folded up in a huddle of legs and wings in a corner when she had next come to see Yskatarina. Dreams-of-War turned her back on it. She could still feel its presence, like a spider, sticky and itch-ing. She had no desire to be in the same room as the thing for a moment longer than she had to. And she did not feel much happier about Yskatarina.

"Can we talk outside?" she said abruptly to Yskatarina.

Yskatarina bowed her sleek head. "Of course. I have spoken to Sek. The Dragon-King has dived.

The storm has gone with it; the air on deck will be fresher."

Dreams-of-War thought of Yskatarina seducing the crea-ture, or perhaps the one who had been seduced, and shud-dered. She was thankful to close the cabin door behind her.

When she stepped onto the deck, she saw that Yskata-rina had been correct. The storm had passed; the horizon lay in an untroubled line. The air was warm and humid, covering her armor with a mist of droplets. Sek's crew worked to repair the fallen sails, which spilled over the deck like blood.

Dreams-of-War remembered the swarm and its passenger.

"Your creature," she began. Yskatarina turned to her, serene and smiling.

"He was of help, I hope?"

"It did its best," Dreams-of-War informed her sourly. "I am grateful. But the thing that attacked us—what might that have been, do you think? Did you see it?"

Yskatarina was smiling still. "I saw it. But I do not know what it could have been."

"You are certain? You have no theories?" The Memnos Matriarchy had long ago tried to introduce Dreams-of-War to the concept of subtlety; she would be the first to agree that they had failed to instill it.

A pity that such methods could not be installed with the same facility as emotions.

"I assure you, I have none. But there are many strange things in this part of old Earth. Many fragments and rem-nants of lost cultures and species. Most of them seem to war with one another."

"Your companion," Dreams-of-War mused. "Do other families, other clans of Earth, possess beings like this one?"

"Perhaps. I could not say." Yskatarina turned to face her. Her limbs, which were today fashioned of wrought metal, flashed in the sunlight. "There is a great deal that you do not know about Earth. There is much that we do not yet know. The lunar laboratories were extensive as well as ancient, and there are all manner of rumors regarding their production lines before the stone-plague petrified the folk. They manufactured for every aspect of life in the so-lar system—pleasure, pain, industry, war."

Interesting list order
, Dreams-of-War thought. And if anywhere could be said to have been the originator of ge-netic modification lines, it was not the moon, but Mars and Nightshade. "The history of this world is well docu-mented," she said, taken aback.

"By Martians."

"Of course. By who else?"

Yskatarina smiled again. "You must understand that the Martian story is not the whole story. There are other accounts, secret histories of how the world came into be-ing, how societies have formed."

"Naturally," Dreams-of-War replied. "There will al-ways be myths and legends, stories of origin."

"That is not quite what I meant." Yskatarina leaned back upon the rail. "Let me digress. What of your own his-tory, the story of Mars? The history of your own sect?"

"This is well-known," Dreams-of-War said, pleased to have a chance to boast a little after the discomfiture of her flight. "The manuscripts date back many thousands of years. They tell of a time in our far past, when the cities of the plain were connected by great canals, where the Riders went out to subdue unruly men-remnants. They tell of the distant origins of my own people, the Royal Warriors of the Age of Children and the Lost Epoch."

"I have heard of the Martian canals," Yskatarina said. "I have visited Mars, for a short while, and glimpsed the canals only from the air. But I should like to study them more closely."

"No traces of those ancient cities or their waterways remain," Dreams-of-War told her. "They were lost in the dust storms that ravaged the planet during the Lost Epoch.

What you see on Mars today—the Grand Channel, for ex-ample—is a re-creation of those great structures. But these are themselves antique, dating back to the period before the colonization of Earth."

"What would you say if I told you that there is a leg-end that it was not you Martians who colonized this world, but the other way around? Men and women of Earth who traveled to Mars in distant antiquity, before the Drowning, and set up settlements? Who, over the course of a millennium, created an atmosphere and terraformed the planet until what had been barren, freezing desert be-came the lands of seas and plains and cities that you know today? That there were no great canals, only ancient sto-ries, which were later held up as truth?"

Dreams-of-War smiled. "I would say that a conquered people need to recover their pride as best they may, and that a comforting lie is as good a way to accomplish this as any."

Yskatarina inclined her head. "You are entitled to your opinion. I tell you merely as a matter of curiosity."

"It is an intriguing myth," Dreams-of-War conceded, for the sake of courtesy.

"I need to speak with Sek," Yskatarina said after a pause, "so that my companion may tell her what he has seen."

"Do you wish me to be present?" Dreams-of-War asked.

"There is no need. My companion will tell her every-thing that must be known." Yskatarina flicked a finger. The creature emerged on deck, facedown now and bouncing on insect limbs. The tail coiled above its head, flickering and caressing the horns. "Come," Yskatarina instructed it. She bent, locking the door of the cabin. To Dreams-of-War she added, "We will speak later."

Dreams-of-War watched as the creature, obedient as a plainshound, followed her along the deck.

Its mistress, indeed
, Dreams-of-War thought with re-vulsion. But Yskatarina interested her. There was some-thing about the woman, a foreign scent, a demeanor different from any that Dreams-of-War had yet encoun-tered. She looked back at Yskatarina's cabin, then along the deck. The figures of Yskatarina and her companion were moving toward the prow: Yskatarina stalking on ele-gant metal legs, the creature scuttling behind like a spider's shadow. Dreams-of-War decided to take her chance. Swiftly, she activated the hand-tools of the armor and picked the lock, then ducked through the doorway into Yskatarina's cabin.

She did not know what to look for, and what if there was nothing? In the chest she discovered Yskatarina's spare limbs, stacked neatly in pairs. Some were ornate: gleaming black metal ornamented with pearls, a substance that re-sembled carved garnet, intricate plastic cages.

Her next investigation proved more fruitful. Within the chest was a narrow box, chased with a lacquered phoenix. It would not open.

"Assist me," Dreams-of-War commanded her armor. It obliged with a narrow, pointed spire that, when inserted into the keyhole, caused the lid of the box to click up. In-side, neatly packed, were star-charts. "Tell me if you hear someone coming," Dreams-of-War said to the armor. She fished the first of the charts from the box and unscrolled it.

It was a map of the solar system: familiar, unremark-able. Here was Earth, with the Chain clearly marked in sil-ver etching. Here was Mars—Dreams-of-War suppressed a sudden nostalgic pang—and the made-worlds surrounding Io-Beneath and the Belt. And here, out beyond the ancient boundaries, was the planet of Nightshade, depicted by a black sphere and a golden star. The star was many-pointed, a bristling mass, identical to the symbol on Yskatarina's shoulder.