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.
They were escorted to seats at the centre of the chamber, where Terascouros greeted her white-haired aunt with a kiss, was kissed in return and drawn into an embrace. The old woman whispered to them all, ‘We see and do not see. There is among us no doubt at all, and doubt only. We do not know what is so, though we are sure what is not. Our complacency is shattered. Now we need you, your eyes, thoughts, memories, to add to our own.’
They sat down, all but Terascouros apprehensive. She smiled comfortingly at them, patted Jasmine’s hand. ‘Just sit quietly,’ she said. ‘Listen to the singing. You needn’t do anything.’
The silence in the chamber was full of currents and eddies which they could feel brushing them. There was in one place a tension, a tightness which drew in. Elsewhere was a looseness, a letting go. One balanced against the other so that the chamber seemed to rock. The singing had been going on for some time before they realized it, and when they realized it
