“You won’t,” Old Yesaera said. Her voice was calm, reasonable, her wrinkled eyes were concentrated, as if she were untangling a knot.
“Why won’t I?” the captain asked, and grimaced as he was racked by some new pain.
“Because I am volunteering to take her place. The girl is already possessed. Can’t you see how her face shifts about? It’s the ghosts that ride her. But I am clean cloth. You will have no one to compete with, inside of me.”
“Very well,” the captain said. His fevered gaze shifted to Manrie. His eyes were a slit of pain. He regarded her from the collapse of his expression. “How is it done?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Don’t be a fool. My men will start killing your friends. Simple request. Not worth their lives.” His jaw was clenching. The words were like spiders escaping under a door.
Manrie thought. The Jahnajeel triplets had been ridden by ghosts, but the ghosts hadn’t stayed. Or they hadn’t seemed to stay. She couldn’t be certain. If Old Yesaera allowed herself to be possessed, she might not have the strength of will to resist his spirit. Had Manrie been able to resist her ghosts? Only in moments, and she was exhausted by the struggle. She looked down at her hands, at her ravaged nails, and thought of the needles that she had stabbed herself with, the way she had used pain to anchor herself. Then she thought of the discs. There was one in the alchemist’s cage on the hill, unless they had brought it with Retoebaeni. There were more in the pack in Old Yesaera’s house.
“Well?” the captain hissed.
She looked at Old Yesaera. The weaver had picked apart the fabric of her sleeve. Her rheumatic fingers were playing with the thread, weaving it with subtle movements. “She has to invite you,” Manrie said.
“That’s all?” the captain asked. His gaze traveled to one of the mercenaries by the door. “Do it, then. Enough of this pain.”
The man stepped forward. He was a big man, bald, with sharp blue eyes. He was weeping. He knelt by the pallet and placed a hand over the captain’s mouth. He pinched Seerlahk’s nose and Manrie could feel the heaviness of his palm as if it were covering her own face. The captain closed his eyes. His arms were stretched rigidly at his sides. His fingers scrambled at the soiled blankets. His legs kicked convulsively. The bald mercenary started to curse at him. He wept and he cursed, and his captain died.
It was still daylight, and Manrie wasn’t sure if she could feel the ghost’s presence. For a moment the room was silent. No one moved. A light breeze came through the tower window and a bird cried somewhere in the Sand Hills. Then Old Yesaera went rigid. Her eyes rolled up in her head and her face stretched horrifically, the wrinkles stretching and flattening like she was being ironed. Manrie stepped quickly to her side. She held the old woman, and Koenbahki came to help her. The weaver was trembling and her lips were moving. She smelled of bleach and carded wool. Manrie held her tight, and the slack body seemed to gather strength from her. Then the taut lips moved, and Old Yesaera whispered in her ear. “He is inside me, but I have him. Let my hands free.”
Manrie stepped back. The old woman straightened. She held herself rigidly, the hump of her back pushed painfully down her shoulders, her upright head making the wattle of her neck taut and oddly vulnerable. Her hands were playing with the loose string, her quick fingers weaving it and undoing it. Grounding herself.
“Captain?” the bald guard asked. He was still kneeling by the pallet, looking up at Old Yesaera with an expression of grief and hope.
“Dahfic,” the old woman said, and her voice was commanding, clever sounding, pleased with itself. “You should ask me the password. One must always remember to ask for passwords.”
The bald man smiled and got to his feet. Joy radiated from his face. “Captain, what is the password?”
“Zaizectu,” the captain said, and Manrie hissed in a breath.
“Zaizectu?” Little Praeda asked, as if trying to remember where she’d heard the word before.
“It worked,” the bald mercenary said.
“Yes,” Old Yesaera said in the captain’s voice. “And now we must take the palace.”
Confusion slid across Dahfic’s face. “The palace?”
“This old woman saw the fox escape when we ambushed Banjerhae. She is certain that he’s off rallying the First Families. They will be moving against us soon. Let them come here and find us gone. We’ll be in the palace, with Old ‘Pesi as our hostage. One must always consider hostages in the course of a campaign.”
The bald mercenary grinned. “The palace, then.” He glanced at Manrie and her friends. “What about them?”
“They come with us.” Dahfic made to object, but Old Yesaera held up a hand, “They come with us to the palace, but leave them here for now. Gather the other lieutenants. We will confer in the courtyard.”
The room became colder when the mercenaries had gone out. Manrie and Koenbahki stood by the window, looking down. Maedreth and Praeda were at the captain’s desk, and Praeda was scribbling over the correspondence. A brisk breeze was blowing off the hills to the west, sending a skitter of debris to pockmark the air.
“How long until dark?” Manrie asked.
Koenbahki was thinking about something else. “If I were the captain, I wouldn’t have chosen the old lady. I would have chosen someone young, and strong, like one of his own soldiers.”
“Soldiers die.”
“Old women die. Manrie, what happens to the ghosts after you die?” Her eyes sharpened as if she was startled by her own words. “I don’t mean you! Not you! I mean anyone.”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, if someone is carrying a ghost, and that someone dies, are they both just regular ghosts, or is the first ghost still possessing the second ghost?”
“‘Bahki, I don’t know.”
Koenbahki reined in the rush of thought. She reached out shyly and touched Manrie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Speculation is a curse.”
“Maybe the witch has cursed you with it.” It was meant to be teasing, but it sounded harsh.
“Manrie, I said that I was sorry.”
“Yes. You’re right. I don’t know why I’m mad.”
“I’m mad,” Praeda said from the table. “I don’t like this tower. It stinks.”
It did stink. Of sweat and polished leather and musty ink. “Come stand by the window,” Manrie said. “We can spy on them together.”
The four of them watched, crowded together and kept warm by each other’s bodies, as the mercenaries gathered around Old Yesaera and conferred. Few of them could look directly at her. Their bodies seemed to want to flinch away from her presence.
“You’re right,” Manrie said softly. “He should have picked a different vessel. They don’t like that he’s in her.”
“I wish we could hear them,” Praeda said, resting her chin on the windowsill, and Manrie sighed. She could send Big Praeda, but did it really matter what they were saying? She would not send Katemzan, who would struggle against her and bring a chorus of swords and armor and coin purses and soiled underwear into her head. And she would not send Magda, as she needed her kindness. She would never allow Cloedeya to leave her consciousness again. But she felt his yearning. He was incomplete, still bound by the okubrahchi to a spirit who wasn’t there. She thought that she would have to make a note in the bestiary. The effects of the okubrahchi’s bonding after death, both on the spirits of the dead and the living mourners.
Thoughts of the bestiary took her mind to Old Yesaera’s house, and the hole in the floor beside the loom. She imagined the dead climbing out of it. They would find the bag with the spirit stones there. They would stay clustered around it. If she sent Big Praeda to fetch Melsa, would they be able to break from the spirit stones and return to her? Was the love they shared with Cloedeya stronger than the stones?
She did not feel the stones pulling on the four ghosts inside her at that moment. She had never thought seriously about the radius of their power. Was it a mile? Two miles? The dead had swarmed to three different stones in Hasra. In Cahntada, she had walked through the city, and the dead seemed to come from everywhere. But Cahntada wasn’t very big. In Libreigia she had walked a winding route through the neighborhoods, walking until her legs were tired and the disc felt heavy in her arms. Yenceyan was huge, occupying four hills, with its neighborhoods walled off by seven walls. One stone couldn’t possibly collect all of the city’s dead.
There was a conference in her mind. Big Praeda wanted to try. Cloedeya wanted to go with her, but Manrie wouldn’t let him. She felt his distress, and a sharp jealousy. She hadn’t eaten the okubrahchi. She could never belong within the fierce, passionate mating of the three spirits. She wished, suddenly, that she was ridden by other ghosts. That she had known how to do this, when she laid Aizdha to rest in Tzurfaera. That Taeyaho, and his song, was in her mind. But all people, she supposed, had their own deep admixture of love and loyalty, and it was very possible that Aizdha’s ghost would disappoint her, that Taeyaho’s would aggravate her with his nonsense songs. She wanted them, but only in part. It was good that she did not know what happened within her friends’ minds. She wanted Koenbahki to remain a mystery, her consciousness walled off, her intentions known only through her actions, through the way she took Manrie’s hand and held it.
Sounds on the stairs broke her reverie. Praeda tried to hide in the folds of Manrie’s robes. Maedreth was muttering ‘don’t see me, don’t see me.” Koenbahki squeezed Manrie’s hand. The door opened and the bald mercenary came in. He was flanked by three others, and he didn’t bother speaking to his prisoners. He collected the correspondence from the desk, glowering at Praeda’s scribbles, and then the other soldiers surrounded the women who stood by the window and moved them briskly down the stairs.
Dusk was coming as they made their way through the city. The strangely abandoned city, like a forest at night, full of furtive sounds and eyes shining out of hiding places. A starving city, and one plagued by ghosts. The buildings tried to assert a sense of order from their flat walls and measured procession along the city blocks. But every imperfection in their plaster, every off-kilter slant of roof and sinking door jamb, spoke a deep unease. As if the city were saying *I am here now, but soon I’ll be a memory, or a ghost.*
They came to the vast plaza in front of the palace wall, the one that Katemzan’s spirit had crossed earlier in the day. The crowd inside of it had grown, and there were people there who were still standing upright, who were hungry and still had the strength to do something about it. But they were frightened of the mercenaries. And confused by Old Yesaera’s presence among them. The onlookers called her name as she went by, their voices full of surprise and tinged with hope. She ignored them. The mercenaries sliced through the crowd like a blade cutting skin, leaving a scar of uncertainty and anger in their wake.
Through the gate and into the palace. It felt desolate, abandoned. King Pesijhalaeya had never had children, although he had been married four times. A memory from Cloedeya. The king appearing at the side of the wagon late at night. Still carrying his body like a young man, even though there was gray in his beard. A smile on his face and worry in his eyes. *You have been all over this land. Surely there is something I could eat, or drink. My seed is barren. There must be some fruit, some herb, that will bring me offspring.*
Cloedeya was offended by the emptiness of the palace. He remembered how full it had been, with courtiers coming to and fro, and Mueslahvin, smiling as he strode from place to place. Pesijhalaeya’s closest confidant and most able minister, tutor to the scions of the First Families, patron of poets and singers, a man of quiet conversations in corners, easing hurt feelings and petty annoyances with attention and calm decency. And still, people had been jealous. Ursha Balmahlda, whispering about him behind his back. Her son, Ongorin, stepping forward from a crowd of bravos, a sickly, taunting smile on his smug face. The little kitchen boy found dead, murdered because Mueslahvin had sent him on an errand to the Zahrakeids, and he had seen something that he wasn’t supposed to.
Manrie was dimly aware that these weren’t Cloedeya’s memories. Koenbahki was saying something to her, and a mercenary was pushing roughly at her shoulder. She looked up. She was in the palace courtyard, and the sun was setting beneath a dun colored wall. “He’s here,” she said, loudly. “Mueslahvin’s ghost is here.”
Ahead of her, Old Yesaera stopped and stood very still, and the column of mercenaries became taught and watchful. The weaver turned back and walked through their ranks to face Manrie, who could not tell if the gaze that looked at her from the wrinkled face belonged to Yesaera or to the captain. “How could he be here?” she asked. “He died far to the east. Along the shore of the lake.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“He’s here,” Manrie repeated. “Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel his memories brush against you?”
“I can,” Koenbahki breathed, and Maedreth hissed “Don’t see me!”
“It’s why the people are coming here. Why they’re outside the walls, but afraid to come in. It’s why the palace is abandoned. Where are the guards? Why haven’t the First Families come here, to try to establish their legitimacy? To try to rule? This place is haunted by the man you killed.”
Old Yesaera’s face twitched, and her mouth stretched downwards unnaturally. “I didn’t kill him,” she said. “One must always rebut a false accusation.”
“Captain,” Dahfic said, running a hand across his bald scalp, “we should take the king and go.”
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“Captain, conditions have changed.”
“No,” Old Yesaera said, shaking her head as her expression stretched and flinched, “we must capture him. Bottle the ghost. Girl, you will let him ride you.”
“I won’t.”
“Then we’ll kill the little girl.”
Manrie stared at the old woman. She wanted to weep. Then she felt a presence come close. A voice whispered in her ear. *Pretend.*
“When he rides me, I’ll become unconscious. I’ll fall into a trance. I can’t help it.”
“Nonsense.”
“She will,” Koenbahki insisted. “It happens every time.”
“It didn’t happen to the old lady,” the captain said through Old Yesaera’s stretched and quivering lips. “I am riding her, and she is walking about, giving my orders.”
“It doesn’t matter. It happens to me. I don’t know why.”
The captain shrugged Old Yesaera’s straightened shoulders. “Very well. Let it happen. Some of the men will carry you. One must always adjust to field conditions.”
Manrie looked about. The setting sun made a corona of Old Yesaera’s hair, and the men standing behind her seemed caught in its light. *I don’t know what I look like, when a spirit rides me,* she thought, and Big Praeda provided the image. She saw herself, her eyes held wide, her face thrust upward, her mouth hanging open. An ugly, distorted image of herself. She imitated it, pulling her fingers from Koenbahki’s grip so that her hands could shake at her side. She fell backwards and someone caught her. Strong arms were lifting her. Strong hands gripped her under the armpits, hurting her. She pretended to float in the ghost’s memories, and the ghost helped her by brushing past her, leaving a sense of a scene, a tapestry draped room in a fine house where an old woman, Candwa Zahrakeid, had been imprisoned by her son. Game pieces set out on a board, and the taste of lavender tea. A moment of peace in a busy day, the old woman smiling, a true friend, a confidante.
The sky disappeared as Manrie was carried beneath the roof of a portico, and then into the deep shadows of the throne room. It was cold, the hearth ash piled and silent, the torches burnt to cinders. The only light was the red glow that came through the western windows. Swallows had begun to build nests in the ceiling timbers. Katemzan Daturi swam to the front of Manrie’s consciousness and turned her head towards the wonderful fleece. The king was sitting beside it, and the fox squatted at his side. The fox looked deliberately away from the fleece, a smile twisting his narrow face. Old Yesaera stalked up to it and stared down.
“You dare to be here?” she asked.
The fox grinned up at her. “You thought I was stirring the First Families against you? I like you more than any of them.”
Manrie was deposited on the floor and Koenbahki sat beside her and put her head in her lap. Maedreth sat too, and Praeda lay down on the floor and curled against Manrie’s side. A spectral hand seemed to touch Manrie’s brow. Mueslahvin, blessing her with a memory. A small boy, brought into the throne room, squatting oddly on bare legs, lifting a foot to scratch an ear. He knew no language. He didn’t seem to know that he was a boy. King Pesijhalaeya leaning forward, fascinated. “Raised in a fox den? He’s a wild creature, isn’t he Mueslahvin?”
Old Yesaera glowered down at the fox. “Would you join my company? Would you support me if I chose to rule this city?”
A swift, vulpine glance at the fleece. “It doesn’t intrigue you? You are immune to its fascinations? Your soldiers are afraid to look at it.”
The weaver raised her head and looked at it directly. “This old woman has her uses. One must always make use of the tools to hand.”
“Will you take it and destroy it? Burn it in the hearth?”
“Do you want it destroyed, fox? I am told that you are the one who brought it to the king.”
The fox closed his luminous eyes and then opened them again, slowly. “He was like a dandelion. The seeds of his mind were blowing everywhere. And the shepherd had killed the mad ram, the one that was eating the other sheep. I found him on the hillside. It was in the midst of summer. Poor man, he had starved to death as he stared at the fleece. But I thought, there are slaves who will feed the king.”
“Ursha Balmahlda says that you were in league with Mueslahvin,” the captain said in Old Yesaera’s ancient voice. “She says that Mueslahvin ordered you to entrap the king’s mind with the fleece.”
“No, no,” the fox said softly, mournfully. “It was my own foolishness. But I will admit that Mueslahvin did nothing to stop it. That was his foolishness. The First Families would never let him rule by proxy, no matter how gifted he was.” The fox cast a darting, clever glance into the corner of the room, then let his gaze settle on Manrie. She stared back at him, pretending that she was looking elsewhere, that she was lost in the memories of the ghost. “Burn the fleece,” the fox said softly. “Burn the fleece and free the king. Leap from that old woman into him. He was mad before he ever looked into the fleece. His mind will never be able to resist you. The city will be yours.”
The ghost inside of Old Yesaera seemed to consider. The old woman slowly swung her gaze about the room. She stared at Manrie for a long moment. Then she nodded to Dahfic. “Fetch some logs. Build a fire in the hearth.”
The mercenaries were nervous. They moved about their tasks quickly. Torches appeared from somewhere, and their orange glow began to fill the room, dissipating the spreading darkness. Yet with the sunset came the sense that the living were not alone in the palace. The faces of the dead gazed from the shadows. Manrie turned her head from the fleece, moving within the pretense of a convulsion, and stared towards the entrance doors. Koenbahki’s fingers massaged her forehead, and she leaned close to whisper.
“Are you all right? Are you there?”
Manrie saw a great procession of ghosts, crowding into the room. A shade moved among them, tall and handsome, smiling, and the other ghosts turned to him in hope. Mueslahvin. Had he led them all here, from the battle field where they had fallen? They seemed very ordinary, like the ghosts of Hareramanda. “Praeda, will you look?” Manrie whispered. “Will you look at them? They’re not frightening. They’re sad.”
The little girl shifted beside her. Her voice was too loud when she spoke, but no one noticed. “I see them,” she said. “They look hungry.”
“I wish Cloedeya could feed them,” Manrie whispered, and her mind filled with the vision of a banquet. Of a table set for the living and the dead. Aizdha was there, sitting beside her, smiling as he ate. Smiling at her. And a woman was seated opposite her. A hungry, sad woman whose name she couldn’t remember. But the woman was eating, and smiling shyly, and Manrie imagined the living Praeda going to sit in this woman’s lap. Melsa was sitting nearby, and Big Praeda was sitting next to her, and Cloedeya wasn’t cooking, but sitting at the table, and Uku was with him, and Taeyaho. The table was endless. It went on and on. She saw Daas Draebeye, his blind eyes staring straight ahead, and Catrilisa was spooning soup into his mouth. The Man on the Mountain, Haerahiz, was there, and he was sharing a loaf of bread with Retoebaeni and Draejed. Even Baenlaez as there, at the very edge of her vision. He was eating a plate of mushrooms with great satisfaction.
The vision made her laugh, and a shadow loomed over her. “Why is she laughing?” Old Yesaera asked. Or the mercenary captain, using the weaver’s voice.
“She laughs sometimes, when the ghosts ride her,” Koenbahki said softly. “Who knows what memory she’s trapped in.”
“And Mueslahvin? He is secure within her?”
Manrie was looking up at Koenbahki’s face. Firelight warmed the skin of her chin, the perfect line of her jaw. “Can you see the ghosts?” Koenbahki asked.
“They come every night,” the captain said dismissively. “I’m not surprised that they are here. When this is done, we will lay them to rest. With those stones that attract the dead. One must always keep track of useful tools.”
“Captain,” Dahfic called from the hearth, “the fire is ready.”
They had built it large, filling the great maw of the hearth with giant logs. The men who had dragged the logs into the throne room gathered around the blooming heat, as if needing to warm themselves after their passage through the spirits that crowded about the doors. “Koenbahki,” Manrie whispered, and Koenbahki bent over her, her hair falling in a screen across Manrie’s cheeks. “Be my eyes,” Manrie hissed. “Do you see the ghost of Mueslahvin?”
“I saw him before, but he’s hidden himself among the other spirits. They’re moving the fleece towards the fire, and the king is following after it. He looks very pathetic. He’s gotten so thin. I think he would have starved to death, if we hadn’t come.”
“And the fox? Where is the fox?”
“Where he was before. He looks very eager. The captain is a fool to do anything that the fox suggests. Everyone knows that the fox can’t be trusted. Oh. He sees me looking at him. He is coming over here.”
There was a patter of bare feet on the flagstones, and then a voice spoke softly into Manrie’s ear. “Tell me, girl, have you learned it yet?”
Manrie’s heart was beating rapidly. “Learned what?”
“How to talk to monsters.”
“Learn it? How could I learn it?”
A small laugh. “And yet you are talking to me.”
The patter of feet moved off. Koenbahki said, “They’re throwing the fleece on the fire.” There was a yell and voices raised in a clamor. “Oh no. The king is trying to leap in after it. They’re holding him. They’re dragging him back from it.”
“I need to see,” Manrie said.
“Manrie…”
“We’ll tell them I’ve come out of my trance. Help me up. I need to see.”
She stood, and Koenbahki took one hand, Praeda the other. Maedreth loomed behind Praeda, in her own compelling shadows. “Don’t see me, don’t see me,” she breathed. The fox padded about them, grinning up as it circled them.
The fleece was burning, its many whorls catching fire and keeping their pattern as they turned to ash. The air filled with a rancid smell, and the ghosts were drawing closer. King Pesijhalaeya struggled in the arms of his captors. Old Yesaera stood with her back to him, watching the fire. The stoop had returned to her shoulders, and the flames seemed to glimmer about her braided hair. The king began to howl with grief.
Then he went rigid, and Old Yesaera turned back to him, smiling. “I will step into him, now,” she said, addressing the room as a whole, and Dahfic, looming at her side, wiped sweat from his bald head with a broad hand.
The fox came to a stop in front of Manrie and gazed up at her from his haunches. “A beautiful trick,” he said, smiling widely.
“Why is that fox whining up at us?” Koenbahki breathed. Her eyes shone with fear.
“You can’t hear him?” Manrie asked.
“Hear him? Of course I hear him. Stop whining, fox.”
Another voice was ringing out. An old voice, but full of authority. “You can release him now. I have him. His mind is mine.”
Old Yesaera was sagging. Dahfic was stepping towards the king. “The password, captain.”
“Zaizectu,” Old Yesaera breathed, as if caught in a revery, and Dahfic turned to her and frowned.
The king laughed. “Never mind, old friend. It is me. It has worked. Now we must move against the First Families. As quickly as we can. Tonight.” He shrugged off the mercenaries who were holding him and turned towards the fox. “Are they gathered together?”
“Oh no,” the fox said with his vulpine grin. “I have sowed discord. Yes I have. The Balmahlda are gathering their forces on their hill, while the Zahrakeid cower in their houses.”
“We will strike the Zahrakeid first. Dahfic, you will lead the raid. You can kill Cramvit Zahrakeid, but spare his nephew Darahna. Darahna is about to become head of the family. It is good that Cramvit always treated him so badly.”
Dahfic, looking bewildered, said, “Should we bring him here?”
“Yes. With any other hostages you can gather. Take the main company. Leave the rangers to protect me.” He stepped forward, quelling Dahfic’s hesitancy. “Go, my friend. One must never waste time when maneuvering.”
This platitude seemed to reassure the lieutenant. He turned and began to issue orders. The king, grinning, stepped back from the fire and went to sit on a dais. Old Yesaera followed him as if she were in a trance, and Manrie found herself moving closer to him as well. He smiled at her, as if inviting her, and her friends came in her wake as the fox gamboled about their feet. They came together below the dais, and the king, seated regally on his ornate stool, smiled down at them. He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Are you holding him securely?” he asked Old Yesaera, and she smiled.
“I have him. I can hold him for now.”
“Hold who?” Manrie asked, and then she knew. She stared at the old woman. “Did he never have any control over you at all?”
Old Yesaera’s knotted fingers were playing with her unravelling sleeve. “I have always thought that men who have to bolster themselves up with platitudes are very weak. He is a weak ghost. But I dislike holding him. The sooner I can rid myself of him, the better.”
“Then you,” Manrie said, turning back to the king, “aren’t the captain.”
He smiled down at her. “No.” He said. “This kingdom has had enough of petty men grasping at power. The people are starving. They are grieving the past. And now I can rule without pretending that I’m merely a seneschal.”
“You are Mueslahvin.”
“Yes.”
“And the king?”
“Poor ‘Pesi. I loved him very much. But he has been gone for a long time. Lost within his madness.”
Manrie stared up at him. She glanced to the side and saw that Koenbahki was frowning. Praeda was clinging to her skirts. And deep inside of her, Katemzan Daturi and Magda the chaplain had sent up a howl of warning. “No,” she said.
Mueslahvin stared at her out of a gaunt and unshaven face. “No?”
“No. You might begin thinking that you have a right to steal someone else. To take their face, their persona. You might even do some good at first. But in time, it will turn you into a monster.”
The fox whined at her feet. She looked down at it, away from the seneschal’s wrathful glare. It grinned up at her, then looked away.