“Yes …” came Sula’s slow reply. “I do. But I’m afraid”
“That makes two of us—” He returned his attention to G’han.
The sword gleamed oddly in the oil lamp’s flickering light. Taran’s breath caught as it came to hover above Sula’s throat and G’han spoke again. This time the response came more slowly.
“He is a Yenized sorcerer. An Enlibrite wizard cursed the ship eight hundred years ago. The spell took him by surprise, but when it wore out he was ready, and in the moment when the ship returned to time and his body turned to dust he transferred his spirit into—that cabinet—” G‘han looked at it with new appreciation. Then the spirit spoke again.
G‘han’s face darkened and as he translated once more the sword dipped until its edge brushed the smooth skin. “He says that when I banished him from wood and stone he was free to find a new home, and the girl was closest. He says,” G’han added distastefully, “‘She was a good choice. This girl’s body is young and sweet. I will enjoy my new life as a sorceress …’” The words trailed off into manic laughter that echoed around the room.
“How dare he! No—don’t interfere!” screamed Sula as Taran started forward.
“Not if you don’t have a body—” observed Latilla, frowning as the sorcerer spoke once more.
“He says you won’t kill your daughter—” said G’han.
“But that’s not Sula,” Latilla answered him. “She wasn’t much use when she was in her body, and her body without her is no use to me at all. You don’t seriously expect us to unbind you, do you?” She addressed the sorcerer directly. “Even if you won’t speak our language I can see that you understand me,” she added as the girl’s features spasmed. Uneasily the eyes followed her as she paced up and down.
“Yes—” she said to the others, “I think the thing to do is to make this body so uncomfortable that he’ll want to leave it. And if that doesn’t work, well, there’s always your sword … .”
“No, not the peppers! Please, no more … .”
Even from the kitchen, Taran could hear his sister’s voice quite clearly. So could she. They had never imagined their mother could be quite so … inventive, even though she’d done no permanent damage to Sula’s body, so far. He was unpleasantly reminded of the potions Latilla used to force down him when he was sick. He’d been half convinced she meant to poison him.
She was making progress, though. The ghost had admitted he could speak Ilsigi. He had become accustomed to being lonely, but he had forgotten how to bear physical pain. And the girl’s body was a prison as well as a refuge, in which the spells G’han had cast on his bonds kept him from working his sorceries.
The ghost had already tried to bribe them with the gold in the cabinet’s secret drawer. Only this afternoon, that would have solved their problems, but the stakes were higher now.
“But if you banish me I will go mad!” came the cry. Taran raised an eyebrow. Outside, dawn was breaking. Was the ghost breaking as well?
“Go back in there—”said Sula. “I want to see.”
“It does sound as if he’s giving up,” Taran agreed. But when he opened the door, what he heard was a girl’s hopeless weeping. “Sula, keep talking to me so I know you’re here—” he murmured, “or I’m the one who’ll go mad.”
Latilla looked down at the limp body with the burning eyes. “No madder man you were,” she said persuasively. “The cabinet kept you safe before—you can dwell there again. Isn’t that better than drifting without place or name?”
“I can’t …” the ghost gasped. “The spell only worked for that moment when we were outside time and between the worlds.”
There was a short silence, and for the first time Taran glimpsed defeat in his mother’s eyes.
“Taran … it’s not going to work … I’m sorry. I know you can’t carry me forever. I’ll go … .”
“Don’t you dare!” whispered Taran as he felt her presence begin to withdraw. “I can get used to it. Sula, you have to stay!”
They both stiffened at the sound of G’han’s dry laugh.
“I am the Master of Fourteen Spirits, and the first of them toys with time like a toddler his blocks. With such gifts I can carve a way into Paradise and scar a sliver of time for you to slip through. Taran, come hold up our friend, and you—” He addressed the ghost, “Leap out of that body and go back where you belong!”
As Taran heaved up his sister’s body, G’han settled into his odd, balanced stance once more. For a moment everyone was absolutely still. Then the sword flared, sending a flicker of dawn-light across the interior of the cabinet and leaving a glowing wake behind it that outlined a passage into shadow.
“Now go!” snarled Latilla. “Or his next stroke will pass through that pretty neck!”
Taran felt Sula sag in his arms as with a fading howl the ghost obeyed.
G’han slammed shut the cabinet’s doors and slashed a sigil across the wood to bind it. Carefully, Taran laid his sister’s limp body down. Her fair skin was blotched and her hair straggled around her face. Her breast rose and fell with her shallow breathing, but Taran did not need to look into her empty eyes to know that no one was home. In his own mind he still felt Sula’s fear.
“She must return to that body,” said G’han. “It can exist on its own for a little while, but without a spirit, soon it will begin to fail.”
“Sula—it’s all right. He’s gone. Go back into your body now,” said Latilla, but Taran shook his head.
“He pushed her out. She doesn’t know how to return.”
“Ah—then there is one thing left for me to do.” Latilla had never seemed so tired, so old. “I bore you two in my womb, and welcomed your spirits,” she said then. “Maybe what you need is for me to hold you again. Lie down, Taran, and take her in your arms. Lay your heads in my lap, and I will sing to you … .”
Even yesterday Taran would have balked, but the hours in which he had shared Sula’s mind had changed him. He put his arms around her body as he would have held his own. There was a comfort in his mother’s soft lap, and a healing in the lullaby she sang, that took him back to the days in which he and his sister and his mother had all been one. Exhaustion overwhelmed him then and his eyes closed.
When Sula woke, morning light was pouring into the room. She was lying on the floor of the dining room with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, and she hurt everywhere. For a moment she could not imagine how she came there. Clearing sight showed her brother curled up beside her and her mother asleep at the table with her head pillowed on her arms. Only G’han was still awake, sitting cross-legged by the door like a sculpture of some exotic god.
“What happened to me?”
“Oh, many things—maybe your mother should tell—” G’han began, but his next words were drowned out by a sudden thunder of knocking at the front door.
“You open up in there, Latilla, or we’ll break it down! Don’t think yer son can save you this time. My men’ll break him as well!”
“It’s Rol!” gasped Sula as the others sat up. “He’ll kill us! He’ll take the house—”
“No he won‘t—” With clothes awry and hair askew, Latilla looked like a harridan, but a fey light danced in her eyes. “I can pay him, remember?” She scooped half of the gold pieces that lay scattered on the table into a leather bag and tossed it in her hand. “All I owe him, and—” Her gaze paused at the cabinet and she smiled. “I can return his merchandise as well. Taran, G’han—pick up that thing, and follow me.”