Spirit's Chosen by Esther Friesner

never once lost control of your actions because of overwhelming anger or grief? Have you never … never …”
    “Never …”
An uncanny feeling came over me. As I spoke, the sound of my words began to change, to become something … visible: a wisp of fog, a twinkle of sunlight, the ghostly face of a lovely woman. Her lips moved, and the words flew from my mouth to hers, each one building on the last, forming her hair, her neck, her shoulders, her arms, and every part of her body down to her small bare feet.
    “Never … never … never … you never stopped loving me, Hideki, not for a day, not for a moment, not for a single breath, not even after I died. You loved me better than yourself, and yet there were times when some irritation or problem or trouble made you bellow hurtful things at me. You were sorry afterward, when you were calm again. You begged me to forgive you, and when I did, you said you didn’t know why I wasted mercy on a witless creature. How did I answer you then, beloved? Tell me what I said to you, my only love.…”
    The apparition faded and I found myself looking intothe old noble’s ashen face as he spoke: “You said … you said
‘Mercy is never wasted,’
Haru.” He covered his face with his gnarled hands and began to weep. We all watched as he turned from us and walked away.
    In the stunned silence following his departure, I became aware of my clanfolk’s solemn gazes shifting to me. “What is it?” I asked. “What do you want? I don’t know what came over Lord Hideki or why he called me by that name. Who is Haru?”
    “Haru was Lord Hideki’s wife,” Master Michio said. “I was still living in this village when they married. He adored her, but she died too soon and he never took another bride. All this happened long before you were born. You never knew her, yet when you spoke to Lord Hideki just now, it was her voice we all heard. That is, all of us here who are old enough to remember the sound.” He took my hands and squeezed them gently. “She spoke through you, Himiko. Not even I have been given so much power over the spirits of the dead.”
    I drew my hands from his grasp and went to untie Kaya’s bonds. No one stopped me, but no one helped me, either. The knots were tight and complex; it took me some time to loosen them. I worked in silence. I could not find an adequate way to respond to what Master Michio had just told me. I could not believe what had happened to me.
    The silence was everywhere. The only sounds I could hear were the stirring of a breeze through dead grass, the barking of a dog somewhere in our village, the distant cries of birds, summoning the springtime. Even Kaya was muteand stiff. My strong-willed, independent friend was not even able to look me in the eyes steadily. What had I become?
    When the last cord fell from Kaya’s wrists, we stood up together. Every face around me was a mask of awe. Only Master Michio had the ability to bring the Matsu back from that awful stillness.
    “May the gods witness what I say,” he intoned, raising his palms. “I speak without a chieftain’s authority, but pray I have a chieftain’s wisdom. I will not condemn an entire family to die because only one of them attempted to commit a grave crime.”
    Most of the people murmured their agreement, but a rumble of objection sprang up among the men surrounding my mother, most of whom were clan elders, noblemen who had served Father as counselors in happier days. One of them shouted: “So that’s how things will be from now on? Our laws will be kicked aside because of some shaman’s deception? Some of us remember how things were when Lady Tsuki reigned! She had a way of calling up the dead when it served her. Even then, I wondered if she
really
had such power, but I thought I was too young to dare question her. And what use would one lad’s protest have been, when she had our whole clan too scared to raise a whisper against her?”
    His speech conjured up