The Revenants (24 page)

They laughed and took her to the nurseries to meet the babies and to the caves where most of the children lived.

‘Love and the delights of love are gifts of Earthsoul,’ lectured an elderly woman with twinkling eyes whom Jasmine had noticed for a certain forthright lewdness. ‘We do not throw the gifts of Earthsoul away or return them unused. It would be an insult to the Powers.’ She was firm about it, but there was laughter around her mouth. Jasmine thought bitterly of the Elder Sister in Lak Island and spoke no more of holy virgins.

Jasmine sat in a window cleft with Terascouros, warm in the westering sun, mending stockings while Terascouros talked of the Sisterhood. ‘It was the Thiene who started it, back at the beginning of the Second Cycle. The First Cycle had ended in destruction and barbarity. The wizards who had caused all the trouble – so it was said, though others said not at all, it was the wizards who picked up the pieces – had gone. That was the Departure. Then, after unnumbered years of confusion and despair, the Thiene came. I think, personally, that they were wizards also, the ones who had refused to go away. At any rate, they came, out of the east, perhaps from Tarliezalor itself. They came, dug the archivists out of Tchent and set them teaching people how to read and write once more, started the Sisterhoods, explored, built, taught. The one the Sisterhoods knew best was Taniel.’

‘I’ve heard the name in Lak Island.’

‘As you should have. The nunnery there was once a Sisterhood like ours. Later she came to be called Taniel of the Two Loves because of the two Thiene who loved her-Omburan and Urlasthes.’

‘Oh,’ said Jasmine, eager for romance. ‘Tell me about them.’

Terascouros shook her head. ‘I can’t. It is forbidden to speak of Urlasthes because it is forbidden to speak of the Remnant in Orena.’

‘Forbidden? I didn’t think you were forbidden to speak of anything, Terascouros. Or at least I didn’t think you would pay any attention to forbidding.’

The old woman made a little grimace. ‘Well. Say it is unwise to speak of them. It is like – oh, saying the name of someone you dislike in a crowded room. A kind of silence falls, and the one you spoke of hears you and looks across the room at you with enmity. So, to speak much of the Remnant brings a kind of attention we would prefer to avoid. Not from the Remnant. From another.’

‘Well then, tell me about the other one!’

‘I can’t tell you much about Omburan. He became … became a mystery, a wonder. And then, we really don’t know that much about him—only what stories came from Orena after the Concealment.’

‘Surely you can tell me something,’ Jasmine begged, fishing the darning egg out of the sock and then making a face as she found still another hole. ‘Come, now, Terascouros, you can tell me something about the Concealment.’

‘What can I tell you except what everyone knows? The Thiene lived in Tharliezalor – perhaps since the time of the wizards. It was the unnumbered years, darkness and ignorance all around. Something happened in Tharliezalor, a terrible thing, a dreadful thing, an ill for which there was no cure. Then the Thiene came out of Tharliezalor; a few, called the Remnant, went to Orena. The others, the thousand, went into the world to work and teach. Behind them they left an almost empty land, and so it stayed until Sud-Akwith went there.’

‘I know that story.’ Jasmine sighed. ‘Medlo tells it all the time, Sud-Akwith and his boring sword. Oh, very useful at the time, no doubt, but I do get tired of hearing about it.’

Terascouros went on patiently. ‘When Sud-Akwith went there, he wakened the horror. The people who were left in the east, or who had gone there, fled as though chased by devils. Now no one
can
go into the east.’

‘Why can’t they? What is it, the Concealment?’

‘For heaven’s sake, child; I don’t know. I’ve never been further east than Lakland.’

‘Then tell me about the Sisterhoods. Why did Taniel start them?’

‘Because they were to prevent what had happened in the First Cycle from happening ever again. Taniel taught that the First Cycle ended because the wizards worshipped only Firelord, Him alone, forgetting the other three Powers, Our Lady of the Waters, Earthsoul, Skysoul.

‘Earth they regarded as their treasury, to spend at will, giving no thought for future ages. Women they regarded as though they were grain fields or orchards to be harvested.’

‘Things are not unlike that now in Lakland,’ said Jasmine. ‘I thought it was the way things had always been.’

‘It was what the Sisterhoods were supposed to prevent,’ sighed Terascouros. ‘We have not protected the world as we were told to do by the Thiene. Too many centuries have passed. We have forgotten why we were organized. There are still some thousands of Choirs, all hidden, all self-sufficient to a great degree. If the outer world ends, we can emerge to offer teaching and healing as we have done before. But I think this time the outer world will not end without taking us with it. That nunnery in Lak Island, Jasmine, was once a Sisterhood. I know the place. Yet you know how far into nastiness it has sunk, to take your child, to allow the taking of your child. What difference, after all, between the teaching of those and the teachings of Gahl?’

‘They did not… cut…’

‘Not the flesh, no.’ And after that Terascouros brooded and would not talk about it.

Thewson and Leona went out into the world to fetch the dogs, returning a day later. Leona was not one who talked much, and Thewson often did not talk at all. Still, in the long miles they fell into a kind of shared feeling which allowed them to speak and hear one another. Leona asked, and Thewson told of his spear. ‘This blade is an old, old blade. Perhaps my father’s father’s father carried this blade.’

Leona commented bitterly that they had both been given hand-me-downs. It took some time to explain why hand-me-downs, things which Thewson treasured, were despised by the people of the moors. Finally, Thewson said, ‘Wao’su, Leona. Lamazh sofur fanaluzh. That is a saying of my people. “It may be wisdom to look at ancient things.” See how you wear the old circlet they gave you. It was not new-made for you, but you were new-made for it.’

Leona laughed shortly. ‘So were you new-made for your spear, dear warrior. I will think on your wisdom.’

‘Will you tell me why you become the Umarow, the Great Beast? Is it so with all your people?’

‘Perhaps this power is latent in my people. Perhaps only in some. If the sphinx comes again, I will ask her, for it is a great riddle.’

‘No, Lady. Do not have anything to do with that one. Ask no questions of that one. Better to see the basilisk than to question the sphinx. See how my people dare use the skin of the basilisk to bind our blades to the shaft of the spear. We would not dare use the skin of the riddle-maker so.’

‘I did not see the basilisk. It was dark, and I was blinded by the lights in the tower and wild with the pain of the wounds they had dealt me blindly.’

‘Did you find the sleeper, Jaer, where the Keeper said?’

‘I found long corridors and harsh light and the smoke of burning. I found a place where some in red robes cried endlessly in a great hall. I broke their chains and drew out the nails and saw them scrabble across the floor into a yawning pit which mumbled and munched in the very throat of earth. I found treasuries. I found Jaer in a room at the base of the tower, in a cell which I broke, among others which I killed. There were old women there, sleeping, dreaming. I could smell the drug on them. I remember it, but as though it had been a dream. The gryphon is not afraid, Thewson, never afraid, but it grieves. Strange, to be so huge and so grieved. I wonder what it is the gryphon grieves for?’

Thewson wondered as well. It distressed him for long hours to think of the Great Beast, hunted by the youths of the Lion Courts, killed and skinned, somehow grieving. He shook his spear moodily, did not speak for some time, thought seriously of returning to the south.

However, instead he went with Jasmine to glean in a field newly harvested, taking food with them, and new cider. When the other gleaners had gone, they hiked to the top of a long, east-west ridge to the north of the fields and stood there gazing away to the north and east, from which the threat seemed to come. Thewson was not one to talk much, but Jasmine made up for that.

‘Since I was a tiny child, I have wanted to be like Leona. So tall and queenly, with hair like silver gilt. She walks like a queen, too; she would look well in the embroidered gala clothes we wear in Lak Island. Then I think of her as the gryphon and do not know whether I would be like that or not. Yet when we were on the trail, Thewson, and I watched you two together, I thought that you were like the legendary ones, day and night, light and dark, the king of shadow and the queen of dawn.’

Thewson snorted, a kind of laugh which betokened deep amusement. ‘Leona would not be queen to any king, little one. She is lover of women only, and not often that, I think.’

Jasmine was surprised into silence, then suddenly aware that she had known it all along. ‘Well, that is too bad. I was wondering, you know, what kind of children you two might have. It must be hard for you, Thewson, to find women who are as tall and well built as the women in your own land must be. We here in the north are smaller folk. As my people would say, “As is skimpt seeks skimpt, as is fleskt seeks fleskt.” I have seen no woman sizable enough for you except Leona.’

Thewson smiled, lying back against the sun-warmed trunk of a tree. ‘Jasmine. That is the name of a flower. In the Lion Courts we name the women not often for flowers. Our women are given names like “swift fish” or “yellow bird.” Perhaps in our land we would name Leona “stork girl” or “tall tree.’“

Jasmine made a face.

‘But in our land,’ he went on meditatively, ‘you would be called the name of our flowers – zhuraoli, the little fire, or xufuasua, waterwing, what you call lily. The tall men put lilies in their hair sometimes, you know. Men would rather wear a lily than a stork.’ He laughed.

‘Well, Jasmine is not for wearing,’ she retorted.

‘Is it for always talking?’ He tugged her down onto the ground next to him and drew her close. ‘See where the mist is, there in the valley. And far north is dark, and all around is strangeness and change. It may be I will not see the Lion Courts again.’

Since this sounded like sorrow, Jasmine reacted to comfort him, and when she found it was not really sorrow, it was too late to stop the comforting. They returned late to the hill, both comforted.

And Terascouros went with her own daughter, Teraspelion, to the high ridge above the valley into which the men of the Hill had teased the ghosts. Men had walked near the ghosts with hot torches, enticing the mists over a pass into this pocket where they now seethed in disquiet, growing in strength and substance with each passing day. Since that time the Sisters had watched them, studied them, worried over them with increasing fear.

‘In the name of ten thousand fire imps, Terascouros, what power did you summon up there in Murgin?’

‘I don’t know what it was, Daughter. Leona told me to call on certain powers. I did so.’

‘Earthsoul?’

‘No. And yet… perhaps yes.’

‘It wasn’t something we are forbidden? Not…’

‘No. Certainly not.’ Terascouros was indignant. ‘I would not reach out to touch –
that
. It wasn’t like
that
at all. It was earthy, warm, perhaps a little hard, but still yielding, listening, helpful in a stubborn, intransigent way.’

‘Very descriptive,’ said the younger woman drily. ‘Could you control it?’

She snorted. ‘As I could control a hurricane. No. I could not control it. I could ask. It could agree or not agree. In this case it agreed.’

‘Well, the Council has forbidden any further doings of the kind. I hope you had not grown fond of this weapon, Mother. You may not use it again. Not when it leaves these … things behind it.’

‘I know. Old Aunt told me. Not even to save my life, she says, or the lives of others. We must go to the knife before we create more of these. I lie awake in the night wondering whether that which guides Gahl and that which lies behind the Concealment are the same. I wondered if I had done wrong in listening to Leona to cast Murgin down and leave these here. Fo they are growing; they are becoming capable of violence and injury. Soon they will be powerful, but Aunt will not let us destroy them, even though we can.’

‘The Thiene taught that all must return to Earthsoul, that nothing may be everlastingly Separated or destroyed. We can sing these ghosts out of existence, Mother, but that denies what the Thiene taught. To do so diminishes Earthsoul. It may be necessary, but we do not know enough yet. If you call up those same powers to pull down Zales – for there is a city there as bad as Murgin was – we will have more of
these
. If you do not, the Gahlians will swarm over us and take us away to the last child, away to their surgeries and their knives. Must our choice be only whether we will be killed by live Gahlians or dead ones?’

Terascouros shook her head. Left to herself she thought that she would have sung whatever song was needed to send these wraiths into oblivion. In the mist were darker blots which twined and drew themselves up into shapes of terror. Her throat was dry, and she recognized the rush of fear with no surprise. Heartsick, she turned away to return with Teraspelion to the Hill. There they learned that the Council had summoned the travellers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE COUNCIL

Year 1169–Late Winter

The Council chamber brooded in silence, weighted with a feeling like woodsmoke, thin, nostalgic, at once bitter and sweet. Eyes stared into distance, searched for memories, past joys, turned over present sorrows in fingers of thought, told lives like beads, took quiet inventories of years. The texture of the chamber was of worn brocade, immensely detailed, yet faded, colours greyed, threadbare in places. As the travellers entered among the Sisters, pictures fled across their minds—not their own memories, but others.