Читать книгу Banner of Souls - Liz Williams - Страница 23

CHAPTER 2

EARTH

We have made the arrangements,” the Grandmothers informed Dreams-of-War. “You will leave as soon as can be arranged, by junk.”

“What, on a public ship?”

“Of course not. We have hired someone loyal to Memnos, you will be relieved to hear. But the ship is up-coast at present, and must return. We do not yet know when.”

“I am, indeed, relieved,” Dreams-of-War said. “I should not trust an Earth-owned ship, given the presence of the Kami here.”

The Grandmothers snorted. “You are arrogant, like all Martians. You are like cats—you all consider yourselves superior, and with even less justification. In the matter of the Kami, you know nothing and are doubtless mistaken in what you think you know. Now go. Make sure that you keep a close eye on the girl.”

Dreams-of-War left, seething.

Once inside her own chamber, she stood looking out across the early morning harbor, grinding one armored fist into the palm of the other. She had not known that it would be like this when she had joined the upper echelons of the warriors of Memnos. She had been so proud. It had been the culmination of her youthful military career, and yet it wound down to this: a series of petty slights and insults from two twisted old women. If it had not been for the ensuing humiliation, Dreams-of-War would have resigned her commission and returned to Mars.

But then, there was also Lunae. Dreams-of-War remembered the conversation that had taken place after her emotional modification.

“You have no choice,” the Matriarch had told her as they sat together in the highest tower of Memnos, looking out across the white-and-russet winter plain. “You will need it for her protection.”

“But I’ve never loved anyone,” Dreams-of-War protested. “Only human remnants who remember the days when they were bloodbirthers feel such natural love for their children.” Love was a contaminant, utterly apart from the purities of sisterhood, battle, and duty. She found a strong repugnance for the feeling, but the Matriarch had been right.

Dreams-of-War recalled standing beside the kappa in the growing-chamber, trying not to get too close to this stout toad-woman who seemed to have little sense of personal distance and who was continually attempting to pat Dreams-of-War in misplaced reassurance. She remembered watching the growing-bag in revulsion as it bulged and writhed. It reminded her of her own birth, and Dreams-of-War found that distasteful.

As soon as the squirming, grublike thing had been released from its pod in a shower of fluid, however, the small sore place within her had clicked like a switch of pain, and she knew immediately that she would die to protect the infant. It was most vexing, and she resented it with a passion, but there it was. It got in the way of all manner of things; it made her life a worry and a misery, and for the first time she was conscious of a real fear with which she had no adequate means of dealing. As soon as her duties were discharged, she told herself, she would return to Memnos, go back beneath the black light matrix, and have the whole package of inconvenient emotions surgically changed.

Now she turned her back on the city and sat down on the metal bed. The cinnabar walls of the room reminded her of Mars, as though she might glance through the window and see the Crater Plain stretching before her, Olympus towering on the horizon. The sudden longing-for-place was yet another feeling to be despised. In a fit of irritation, Dreams-of-War said aloud, “I need to talk to you! Separately.”

Slowly, gliding across her skin, the armor left her body and crept across the floor like a serpent. When the gleaming tongue reached a shaft of sunlight, it began to rise upward, hardening, reassembling itself piece by piece. Clad only in the rubbery black underharness, Dreams-of-War watched until the armor stood before her, waiting.

Dreams-of-War hesitated. Of all the aspects of her marvelous armor, this one was the most disquieting to her. And it was so because the armor incorporated something that was unnatural, alien, something that had originated with the Kami. Haunt-tech.

It was difficult to separate a warrior from her ghost-armor, for armor became the warrior. Both formed part of a fighting machine. If one died or malfunctioned, the other had a tendency to follow. Yet if the wearer were knocked unconscious, the armor would take over. Dreams-of-War had once woken to find herself pounding across a Martian plain, the legs of the armor pumping while she dangled useless within it. Dreams-of-War knew that she had become overdependent on the armor, and despite its comforts, she did not like the realization. It had been easier when she had relied on nothing but the underharness and a gutting knife, hand-fighting men-remnants in the heights.

“What, then?” the armor said, echoing through the chamber.

“I ask Embar Khair to stand before me,” Dreams-of-War said. The armor flowed, glittering, the helm snapping up over the empty neck and taking on the semblance of a face. Half of it was missing; Embar Khair had died in the armor, a chance bolt from a mountain-ghost’s bow striking her in the side of the head.

“I want to talk to you about the Kami,” Dreams-of-War said to the armor.

“The spirits-who-ride-within?” Embar Khair’s mutilated metal face managed a frown.

“The aliens,” Dreams-of-War said patiently. Embar Khair had died only a handful of years after the arrival of the Kami, but her armor had been their gift. “I need to know everything you know.”

“It is not a long story. We first learned of the Kami through Nightshade, which had sealed itself away for centuries. Then Nightshade sent a ship to Memnos, with news of new technology that had been granted by aliens. They gave us haunt-tech, and the Chain.”

“And what did the Matriarchy think about these gifts?”

“They did not trust Nightshade. I remember—” but here, Embar Khair’s form twisted, half-melting.

“Armor! What is the matter with you?”

“I cannot recall . . . I am half-here.”

Dreams-of-War rose to her feet and put her face close to the half-visage of the armor. “But you must.”

“Cannot . . .”

“Wait,” Dream-of-War instructed the armor. “I have an idea. Reduce yourself.”

The armor did so, melting down into its customary ball. Dreams-of-War picked up the ball and strode swiftly down the hallway, to the chamber that contained the mansion’s black light matrix.

She had never had reason to enter this chamber before, and she hesitated at the door. Leaning forward, she spoke quietly into the oreagraph opening.

“The Grandmothers. What are they doing?”

They sleep, the oreagraph replied after a moment.

“Good. Deactivate the weir-wards to this chamber, then tell me when the Grandmothers wake.” Dreams-of-War leaned closer, so that the oreagraph could scan her soul-engrams through the lenses of her eyes. She blinked, and then the door was opening. Dreams-of-War carried the ball of armor into the black light chamber and set it upon the couch.

“Resume your form.”

The armor did so.

“I am going to activate the matrix,” Dreams-of-War said, “to bring your spirit wholly through from the Eldritch Realm. I am unfamiliar with these matters, so you must instruct me. Will this work?”

“It should.”

“Then tell me how to turn this thing on.”

The armor issued instructions, with which Dreams-of-War complied. It was not so very difficult. Within a few moments, the matrix began to glow.

There was a sound like the echo of a shriek within the chamber. Outside the door, Dreams-of-War heard the rattle of activated weir-wards. She spoke hastily to the oreagraph. “I told you—deactivate!” The sound stopped. The armor stood before her, calm now, and full-faced. Dreams-of-War stared.

“I am here,” Embar Khair said.

“Tell me what I need to know.”

And Embar Khair did so.

The women stood at the entrance to the ship. Above them, the Memnos Tower shone red in the last of the Martian sun. Frost cracked beneath their boots.