But there was nothing. No shadowy figure stepped into the circle. No voice croaked from beyond the grave. There was no sign that the influence that had laid its hand on Tynisa would unmask itself.
‘What’s wrong?’ Che demanded. ‘Make it come out.’
‘Che…?’ Tynisa herself looked almost embarrassed.
Maure grimaced. ‘It’s not so simple. I have never before needed to force a ghost to do anything. Normally they’re only too glad to get the chance to speak, to make their demands, to set right old wrongs. Normally they have messages to impart. Believe me, Che, normally I’d have to beat one off with a stick, given this kind of opportunity.’
‘But it’s here, it’s right here.’ Che knew it in her heart. She could almost taste the metallic, sour savour of Tisamon in the air. ‘Call it out.’
‘I’ve called. It won’t answer. It’s staying where it wants to be,’ Maure explained. ‘It doesn’t need to talk to anyone else.’
‘Che, this is ridiculous,’ Tynisa said. ‘What money has this woman had from you?’
‘Listen to me!’ Che stood up, ignoring Maure’s attempt to hush her. ‘I know you’re here, Tisamon. I know you’re with Tynisa right now. I can practically see you riding her shoulders. Is this what you wanted? Is this what you’re reduced to? Come out and face me, will you?’
Only the rain answered her words. No spectre made itself known.
‘Che, this isn’t funny,’ Tynisa remarked after a suitable pause. ‘I don’t appreciate my father’s name being abused like this. If I thought this halfbreed put you up to it, I’d kill her right now, but it seems that you’re driving all this nonsense yourself. I know you got hurt in the war, Che, but to resort to this…?’
Che stared at her, seeing the embodiment of calm reason in Tynisa’s face, whilst the invisible shade of Tisamon lurked secure behind her eyes. She had assumed that Maure would haul the ghost out by main magical force. She had thought this must be what the necromancer’s work entailed. But now it seemed that the shade could continue simply to squat within Tynisa’s mind, like a creeping poison, and they could not touch it.
She looked helplessly about the room until she met Maure’s cautious gaze. ‘Well then,’ she said sickly. ‘If not that, then I must find some way myself. Whatever mantle I’ve been given must be good for something. I’m not done with this.’
‘Che-’ Tynisa started again, but the Beetle girl made a slashing motion in her direction, prompting an astonished silence.
‘Another,’ Che instructed Maure. ‘Call up another.’
‘I need some link, at least. I can’t just-’
‘His name was Achaeos, a Moth-kinden of Tharn. He was my lover, and he was dealt a wound by Tynisa, before his death,’ Che spat it out harshly, ignoring the way her sister flinched from the words. ‘Tell me that’s not enough.’
‘It will do.’ Maure grimaced again. ‘Achaeos of Tharn, then… Achaeos, beloved of Cheerwell Maker.’ She closed her eyes again. ‘Wherever your spirit resides, whatever still remains of it, come forth. Here stands your lover, Achaeos. Surely you must desire some words with her?’
Che sought within her mind, trying to piece together a complete picture of the man she had known. But it was like stepping out over a yawning chasm, because she now found that she was barely able to. For so long after his death she had borne her grief, had been tormented by dreams, had even thought that his angry ghost was haunting her. The actual man himself, the sum of the feelings she had invested in him, had receded under the weight of those mostly self-imposed torments. So now that she came to find him again, the surviving impressions were distant and cold.
But it must be enough. It will be enough. Achaeos!
Maure kept shaking her head, though. ‘There is nothing.’
‘Call him again.’
‘You don’t understand, Che. There is nothing.’ When it was plain to her that Che genuinely did not understand, she elaborated, ‘When I called on the Mantis, I felt the tug, a connection, even though he would not come forth. With this Achaeos, there is nothing. No touch, no contact… no ghost.’
Che stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked tightly.
‘I’m sorry, Che. No ghost. Whatever happened to him, he’s left nothing behind. Either some greater force has claimed him, or he has passed beyond, without so much as a scrap of him remaining. That’s rare, in fact, very rare, but it can happen.’
Che felt her hands begin to shake. ‘Some greater force…’ she managed to get out. As he had died, Achaeos had been in communion with the cursed Mantis spirits of the Darakyon, channelling their power into a grand ritual taking place in Tharn. Che had been helping him, lending what strength she could. She had felt the cold death sent by the Darakyon surge down the link, and she had known at once when Achaeos had died, the connection between them severed as if by a knife.
And they got him, and then the Shadow Box was sundered, and they ceased to be – and whatever was left of Achaeos went with them, scattered to the four winds.
No last reconciliation. No apologies. No parting words. No closing of the wound. No final blessing that would let her live her life again without all the grief.
Only then did Che realize how she had staked far more on that, emotionally, than on trying to draw the poisoned dart of Tisamon out of Tynisa’s mind. Her intentions had become hopelessly tangled and self- involved.
She glanced from Maure to Tynisa, as though looking for an escape.
‘Che, listen to me,’ her sister said patiently. ‘None of this is real. I understand why you’ve resorted to it, but you’ve got to face the real world.’ Confronting that bland scepticism, Che now almost believed her. After all, how much easier life would be if everything, from Khanaphes onwards, had been only a bad dream?
But she knew it was real, and she knew that if Maure could not so much as detect a loose thread of Achaeos, then the Darakyon had got him, and that was that.
And, with that revelation, she could not stay in the incense-heavy air of the claustrophobic room, so she fumbled a panel aside and dashed out into the rain, unable to face either of the other women any more.
Maure was on her feet instantly, chasing after Che. It was not clear whether it was to comfort the Beetle girl or because, for all her words and wards, the mystic did not feel safe close to Tynisa’s rapier without Che there to protect her.
Tynisa shook her head, listening to the rain. Che was out there getting wet, but experience had told her that running around after her sister, once the girl got upset, achieved nothing. Che was best left to herself to calm down, then come back embarrassed at whatever outburst she had been provoked into. And the best medicine after that would be to act as though nothing had happened, and thus spare the girl’s blushes. Still, Maure obviously had not known Che long enough to learn that lesson. Now that it seemed the mummery was over for the evening, Tynisa decided to wait out the worst of the rain under Gaved’s roof, and then set off on the long road back for Leose. She had unfinished business there, for certain.
And such foolishness, she considered. Still, Che is my sister, in fact if not in kinden. She called and I came, despite this waste of my time. Nobody can ask more of me than that.
She stood up and leant over the circle, trying to fathom how people could imagine that such marks on the ground could have any power in the real world.
Tynisa…
The world seemed to lurch around her. Her name whispered, at the very edge of hearing. For a moment she felt a tide of fear rising up in her, primal and unreasoning, and tainted by memories that she had cast off or locked away. But no, I do not believe…
Tynisa… have I found you? It is so hard to tell.
Although the voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and within her, she conceived the feeling that someone stood behind her… someone familiar.
There is a door here half open, the voice whispered, still coming from just beside her, and yet far, far away. I see you only as in twilight, but it is you, is it not?
The room seemed darker than before, the fireflies no longer lighting anything but themselves, the incense smouldering into ash. The rain outside had blotted out the sun and covered the entire house in shadow.
She swallowed. If I speak, I will admit to hearing it. I must not answer it. But she knew that voice now,
