apparition with some other god’s ritual.
No, I’m going to try approaching it like a consolation. The symbolic part, anyway.”
“And that’s not blasphemous?”
“I’m not going to invoke the god, I’m just going to see if it responds to symbols that aren’t invested with a god’s presence. You suggested that Genedirou might have just stumbled on
something that works. I’m wondering if what he stumbled on was the secret of getting an
apparition’s attention, the symbolic part, and Sukman’s involvement was something he came up with later.”
“That doesn’t explain how Sukman, through Genedirou, was able to affect the apparition.”
“One mystery at a time. If I can learn something through Baz, that’s one more piece of
information I can use on Genedirou.”
“Or against him.”
Zerafine remembered the exhausted, half-naked thelos in the garden. “I’d like to avoid being his antagonist. If we’re going to fight, let it be his fault. I almost feel sorry for him.”
It was a good day for a long walk. The sky was partly overcast, dimming the sun’s rays, and a cool breeze found its way between buildings now and again. Their route took them through a residential neighborhood raucous with children’s shouts and the sound of men and women
calling out greetings to one another from their doorsteps. The noise was enough that the sounds of real, terrified shouting didn’t register with Zerafine until a woman’s scream shattered the air.
They ran toward the sound of the screaming, pushing through increasing numbers of people, until they burst into a part of the street that was completely clear. Clear, except for a woman screaming and wringing her hands, and a man curled on the street, pelted repeatedly by seicorum the size of a man’s doubled fist flung about by a ghost. An enormous, enraged ghost. Right, my actual job , Zerafine thought, disoriented.
Gerrard cursed and pounded toward the ghost, sliding across the cobbles for the last few feet and using his weight and momentum to push the man out of the thing’s range. Zerafine ran after him, pulling her hood over her head and saying a few curses herself; he was completely
unarmored, hadn’t so much as worn his seicorum helmet since they’d arrived in Portena. Gerrard had landed on his knees and had his arms over his head, but held his ground. As long as the ghost had a target, it wouldn’t try to attack anyone else. She leaped over him and reached out to embrace the ghost with her arms.
It was furious. She’d never seen such anger, such passion, from a ghost before. It fought her, its body of gigantic seicorum stones flying past with such force she had a moment’s fear, against all reason, that her cloak would not be enough to protect her. That momentary lapse sent it flailing wildly in all directions, and she had to breathe deeply, once, twice, a third time, to regain her control.
Its memories were so fragmented that at first they made no sense: flashes of color and sound only, nothing coherent. It was like trying to reassemble one of Sukman’s windows, all irregular pieces, none of them seeming to match. Sukman. Intuitively, but counter to logic, she drew the silver spiral in her mind and turned it gold. She would never, never have used this symbol, which should have driven a ghost mad, or madder. Yet in her mind she held it out, willing the ghost to see it as an acknowledgement of its pain and fury. The storm abated just enough for her heart’s eye to catch hold of a memory more solid than the others, a memory of satin sheets—but nothing more. Carefully, she used the spiral to seek out memories that connected to the first: guilt, fear, anger, pain. The woman had died in agony, some illness her people couldn’t afford to ease, or an illness with no possible relief. She had been mistress to many different men over the years, a woman kept in luxury, discarded when sickness began to show itself on her body. Her name was
No, I’m going to try approaching it like a consolation. The symbolic part, anyway.”
“And that’s not blasphemous?”
“I’m not going to invoke the god, I’m just going to see if it responds to symbols that aren’t invested with a god’s presence. You suggested that Genedirou might have just stumbled on
something that works. I’m wondering if what he stumbled on was the secret of getting an
apparition’s attention, the symbolic part, and Sukman’s involvement was something he came up with later.”
“That doesn’t explain how Sukman, through Genedirou, was able to affect the apparition.”
“One mystery at a time. If I can learn something through Baz, that’s one more piece of
information I can use on Genedirou.”
“Or against him.”
Zerafine remembered the exhausted, half-naked thelos in the garden. “I’d like to avoid being his antagonist. If we’re going to fight, let it be his fault. I almost feel sorry for him.”
It was a good day for a long walk. The sky was partly overcast, dimming the sun’s rays, and a cool breeze found its way between buildings now and again. Their route took them through a residential neighborhood raucous with children’s shouts and the sound of men and women
calling out greetings to one another from their doorsteps. The noise was enough that the sounds of real, terrified shouting didn’t register with Zerafine until a woman’s scream shattered the air.
They ran toward the sound of the screaming, pushing through increasing numbers of people, until they burst into a part of the street that was completely clear. Clear, except for a woman screaming and wringing her hands, and a man curled on the street, pelted repeatedly by seicorum the size of a man’s doubled fist flung about by a ghost. An enormous, enraged ghost. Right, my actual job , Zerafine thought, disoriented.
Gerrard cursed and pounded toward the ghost, sliding across the cobbles for the last few feet and using his weight and momentum to push the man out of the thing’s range. Zerafine ran after him, pulling her hood over her head and saying a few curses herself; he was completely
unarmored, hadn’t so much as worn his seicorum helmet since they’d arrived in Portena. Gerrard had landed on his knees and had his arms over his head, but held his ground. As long as the ghost had a target, it wouldn’t try to attack anyone else. She leaped over him and reached out to embrace the ghost with her arms.
It was furious. She’d never seen such anger, such passion, from a ghost before. It fought her, its body of gigantic seicorum stones flying past with such force she had a moment’s fear, against all reason, that her cloak would not be enough to protect her. That momentary lapse sent it flailing wildly in all directions, and she had to breathe deeply, once, twice, a third time, to regain her control.
Its memories were so fragmented that at first they made no sense: flashes of color and sound only, nothing coherent. It was like trying to reassemble one of Sukman’s windows, all irregular pieces, none of them seeming to match. Sukman. Intuitively, but counter to logic, she drew the silver spiral in her mind and turned it gold. She would never, never have used this symbol, which should have driven a ghost mad, or madder. Yet in her mind she held it out, willing the ghost to see it as an acknowledgement of its pain and fury. The storm abated just enough for her heart’s eye to catch hold of a memory more solid than the others, a memory of satin sheets—but nothing more. Carefully, she used the spiral to seek out memories that connected to the first: guilt, fear, anger, pain. The woman had died in agony, some illness her people couldn’t afford to ease, or an illness with no possible relief. She had been mistress to many different men over the years, a woman kept in luxury, discarded when sickness began to show itself on her body. Her name was
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