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Authors: Liz Williams
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serve? Thoughtfully, Shu put down the ancient book. She'd hoped that the texts would answer her questions, but they seemed to generate more queries than they settled. And she wondered again about that mostburning question of all: what had happened to the colonists, and why had that last transmission spoken of a curse?
Her musings were interrupted by Bel.
“Dia suggests we go exploring again,” the girl said, crouching down by Shu's side. “But not back to the ruins. To the west, to see what might lie there.”
Shu nodded. Grimacing, she stood and stretched, shaking the dust out of the folds of her jacket. She looked out at the glare of the sun, filtered by dust, as it fell over the edge of the steppe, and sighed.
“Well,” she said. “Hopefully, it's somewhere nicer than here.”
TWO
Mevennen and the Ghost
1. Mevennen
It was very quiet, there in the orchard beneath the trees. The sun had sunk low and its light spilled through the branches, drawing shadows across the dark skirt that Mevennen wore. She could only go as far as the edges of the orchard, since even the soft tides of this gentle land were overwhelming. Yesterday, she had found herself drifting away, lost in the world and incapable of speech or movement. But she had suffered from no more fits, and she did not want to stay in the stuffy tower, and so Mevennen had come back to the orchard with her sedative on hand and a journal, from Setry in the north. Eleres had come with her, just to sit in the sunlight among the trees, he said, and she did not want to think why he had brought his sword.
The woman who wrote the journal lived among her sisters. Every year, so Mevennen read, she would go out into the wastes before the fall of winter to see what the land had to say, and once she had made the twelve-yearly migration, walking with the
mehed and
her family, halfway round the world and back again.
The writer was a strong woman, wearing a hard life patiently and then stopping to write it all down. It seemed extraordinary to Mevennen, not so much because of theunfamiliar places it described, but just as the record of an ordinary life. She was so intent on her book that she had almost forgotten where she was, and was mildly surprised when at last it became too dark to read and she looked up to find herself surrounded by the dappled evening shade. She was back in the orchard, no longer in the northern port of Setry and basking in the long days along the coast; no longer a woman who was able to come and go as she pleased and walk in the wilds of the world without confusion or pain.
What would it be like
, Mevennen wondered,
to live without pain?
To be normal, to live in the world and feel its currents, its watercourses, to know where you were and what lay beneath your feet without the roaring, rushing torrent of confusion from which she suffered so much … For her, being outside was like being deafened and blinded at once, as though the world itself was shouting in her ear and shining bright lamps in her eyes: exploding in sparks inside her head. It wasn't so bad here, not with the help of the sedatives, but she could still feel it: waves of light and dark, everything too much, though now, mercifully, it was muted and distant. But Luta had said that the sedatives themselves were not good if they were taken over too long a span of time …
She glanced down at her brother, dozing with his back to a tree and his sword resting by his side. Even Eleres sometimes treated her with the brittle delicacy that Mevennen so resented. It was why she hated being ill. Not so much the sickness itself, which she was used to and could bear, but the constant kindness on the part of those who loved her most. At the heart of it, it was really being a burden on everyone, always having to be cared for, that she detested so much. And most of that burden fell on her brother and Luta. She knew that the rest of the family tried to avoid her, and she couldn't blame them. It wasn't as
Her musings were interrupted by Bel.
“Dia suggests we go exploring again,” the girl said, crouching down by Shu's side. “But not back to the ruins. To the west, to see what might lie there.”
Shu nodded. Grimacing, she stood and stretched, shaking the dust out of the folds of her jacket. She looked out at the glare of the sun, filtered by dust, as it fell over the edge of the steppe, and sighed.
“Well,” she said. “Hopefully, it's somewhere nicer than here.”
TWO
Mevennen and the Ghost
1. Mevennen
It was very quiet, there in the orchard beneath the trees. The sun had sunk low and its light spilled through the branches, drawing shadows across the dark skirt that Mevennen wore. She could only go as far as the edges of the orchard, since even the soft tides of this gentle land were overwhelming. Yesterday, she had found herself drifting away, lost in the world and incapable of speech or movement. But she had suffered from no more fits, and she did not want to stay in the stuffy tower, and so Mevennen had come back to the orchard with her sedative on hand and a journal, from Setry in the north. Eleres had come with her, just to sit in the sunlight among the trees, he said, and she did not want to think why he had brought his sword.
The woman who wrote the journal lived among her sisters. Every year, so Mevennen read, she would go out into the wastes before the fall of winter to see what the land had to say, and once she had made the twelve-yearly migration, walking with the
mehed and
her family, halfway round the world and back again.
The writer was a strong woman, wearing a hard life patiently and then stopping to write it all down. It seemed extraordinary to Mevennen, not so much because of theunfamiliar places it described, but just as the record of an ordinary life. She was so intent on her book that she had almost forgotten where she was, and was mildly surprised when at last it became too dark to read and she looked up to find herself surrounded by the dappled evening shade. She was back in the orchard, no longer in the northern port of Setry and basking in the long days along the coast; no longer a woman who was able to come and go as she pleased and walk in the wilds of the world without confusion or pain.
What would it be like
, Mevennen wondered,
to live without pain?
To be normal, to live in the world and feel its currents, its watercourses, to know where you were and what lay beneath your feet without the roaring, rushing torrent of confusion from which she suffered so much … For her, being outside was like being deafened and blinded at once, as though the world itself was shouting in her ear and shining bright lamps in her eyes: exploding in sparks inside her head. It wasn't so bad here, not with the help of the sedatives, but she could still feel it: waves of light and dark, everything too much, though now, mercifully, it was muted and distant. But Luta had said that the sedatives themselves were not good if they were taken over too long a span of time …
She glanced down at her brother, dozing with his back to a tree and his sword resting by his side. Even Eleres sometimes treated her with the brittle delicacy that Mevennen so resented. It was why she hated being ill. Not so much the sickness itself, which she was used to and could bear, but the constant kindness on the part of those who loved her most. At the heart of it, it was really being a burden on everyone, always having to be cared for, that she detested so much. And most of that burden fell on her brother and Luta. She knew that the rest of the family tried to avoid her, and she couldn't blame them. It wasn't as
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