Two Sisters, Chapter 10 ~ The Ghost in Her, part 2

Marc stood by Adayzjia’s side as they watched Russ leave for Meiria.  He was headed for the same Gate they had arrived through, the same Gate Marc would have to travel through to get back home by himself if his father never returned.  One Gate, a billion different destinations, and he was expected to go backward instead of forward.

Marc sighed, and looked around.  He didn’t want to admit it, but without his father he felt a little afraid.  He’d wanted so badly to see the worlds at his father’s side, prove to him that he was every inch a Key, adventuring and fearless.  He had known they were not just going on adventures for the hell of it—that Russ didn’t really want him along—but he’d hoped that when Russ let him travel through the first Gate with him, that meant he’d accepted that Marc wasn’t just some dumb kid.  But he was wrong.  He was stuck here, being babysat by a thousand year old white woman-thing.  And if he had to go back home and tell his mother that his father was probably dead, he didn’t even know the way.

“Come, Marcus,” said Adayzjia, putting one hand on his shoulder, turning him with her as she put her back to the sight of Russ traveling on his way.  A breeze blew the ruffles of her dress lightly against her body.  As it twirled through tendrils of hair that had come loose from her braid, it made the vision of her look curiously like rainbows cast by a prism dancing over snow.  He remembered winter only vaguely, but when he remembered, he remembered rainbows on snow.  The memory surfaced suddenly and he felt five again, even as he noticed the womanly curves under the fluttering fabric.

Adayzjia might have been beautiful, if she were really a woman.  No, he corrected himself, she was genuinely beautiful, it was just that every feeling a beautiful woman might inspire in him was sabotaged and turned round and confused by knowing that she was a creature.  A very old, strange, and otherworldly thing that was light-years out of his league.  He caught himself staring at her, again, and looked away.  Her hand on his back, between the shoulder blades, was distractingly warm.

She walked him back to the castle, where they were met by a man Marc hadn’t seen before, but whom he immediately assumed must be Arlic.  The man had that look of authority around him.  Tall, of indiscriminate age with a close cropped black beard, he was well dressed in a finely tailored black suit that bore the same silver crest of the fist and knife which Marc had seen on the banners in the great hall.  Hovering beside him was the same servant that had dismissed Marc rudely in the hallway.  Perhaps he was a personal manservant to the Mayor, which might explain his inflated sense of self-importance.  He looked at Marc with the same expression of sniffing disdain he’d worn earlier.  Arlic ignored Marc completely, not even sparing him a glance.  His gaze – indeed, his whole body – was focused towards Adayzjia.

“My lady,” he said, with a deep bow.  “Forgive me for not welcoming you sooner.  I would surely have done so the moment I learned you were within the city once more, but my wife told me that you wished to be undisturbed.”

“You should save your polite drivel for someone who cares,” Adayzjia told him.  Marc was surprised by her abrupt tone and outright dismissal of Arlic’s greeting.  “If you are going to hold a grudge against another man, you should at least be able to acknowledge it.”

Arlic smiled, as if he had expected the rebuke.  “I hold no grudge against the otherworlder, but his presence serves as a reminder of times better forgotten.”

“Then my presence should be a constant and painful reminder of the same time,” Adayzjia retorted.  “I came here as a direct result of the events you wish to forget.  If you shun him, you should shun me as well.”

She never stopped walking as she spoke, and Arlic was forced to fall in step beside her.  “You are a blessing to this world.  You are beloved by the people and have rid this world of its former ruler, the evil and untrustworthy Leeton.  I would never dream of shunning you.”

Adayzjia shook her head.  “I only live among you and your people because the Gatebreaker placed himself within my power, an event which would never have come to pass if not for Russell Markson.  Your argument is invalid.  I will hear no more of it.”  She waved her hand as if waving his argument away.  “You must learn some manners, Arlic Erykumyn.  This is Marcus Markson, a young Key whom I hope will prove to be extremely useful to me.  You are remiss in ignoring him.”

Marc winced involuntarily at her use of his full name.  He didn’t care for it.  He never had.  His mother’s choice of alliteration was annoying, though it sounded even more ridiculous when shortened to Marc, like a stutter.  His middle named was Russell and he’d always wished that they’d just made him a Russ Jr. and dispensed with all the M’s.

“The young Key is more than welcome.”  Arlic’s voice was stiff, and he did not smile.

“Truth be told I do not care whether you welcome him or not,” said Adayzjia, seeming almost to enjoy tormenting him.  “Now, go to the hall and see to your duties as mayor.  Tell the people I will make my appearance tomorrow; today I have other matters to attend to.”

“But, my lady, everyone has been awaiting your return from Varaneshe with great anticipation, and today was the day promised—”

“I know, Arlic, but I have an important guest whose arrival was sudden and unexpected.”  She waved him off.  “I do not want to be disturbed.  Now go.  If you absolutely need me for something direly important, send Halla.”

With that, she opened a door to a small sitting room and ushered Marc inside.  Many books lined the shelves along the walls, except for one wall which was made entirely of glass and looked out on a garden.  It was at odds with the dour stoney closed in architecture of the rest of the castle, and when Adayzjia noticed him staring at it, she said, “Beautiful, is it not?  I had this room done over completely for my use.  Elharan is all dark corners and gray walls; I need a room that welcomes the sunlight.”

She sat down on a plush white sofa and motioned for Marc to do the same.  He sat down across from her, on a thinly cushioned wooden chair that was more decorative than comfortable.  She smiled at him, as if amused by his reluctance to sit too close to her.

“I wish I could show you Varaneshe,” she said, as he twisted uncomfortably in his seat.  “It is a far different city, designed by different minds than the ones who saw fit to make this castle.  I prefer Varaneshe, that is why I spend most of my time there.  A pity there are no Gates nearer the south, or your father would have come to me there, I am sure.  I should see if I can convince a Gate to set up shop in Varaneshe.  They still shy away from the city, since the Gatebreaker lived there for so many years.”

“The Gatebreaker?”

“Edward Leeton, of course,” Adayzjia said.  “Your father has really told you nothing of his history, has he?”

“I know who Edward Leeton is.”  Marc sat up a little straighter, proud of it.  He’d left the book in the room, in his backpack, and suddenly regretted that.  The book was important; he shouldn’t have abandoned it in his hurry to find his father.  “He was a Key who traveled to lots of worlds and wrote all the stuff he found out down in a book.  I’ve read the book.”

“Ah, well then you know some of it, but not the important parts,” Adayzjia said.  “I gave that book to your father.  I noted that Leeton stopped writing in it when he settled down here in Alisiya, and he left out the fact that he committed atrocities against the very Gates who had made his travels possible for so many years.”

Marc frowned.  He didn’t want to believe it, for some reason, even though he’d never met the man personally and didn’t know anything about him besides the fact that he was an avid recorder of information.  “What atrocities?”

“When he decided to make this world his home, he broke all the Gates which led to it.  Including me.  He wanted to create a world closed off to other Keys, a world safe from any outsider, where no Gate leads.  Some were destroyed permanently, others I was able to restore after I assumed this form.”

Marc didn’t know what it meant for a Gate to be broken; that was not something Leeton had put in his book, it was true.  “How did you do that?” he asked.  “Restore yourself, I mean.”

“I took the life of the Gatebreaker,” Adayzjia said simply, without a hint of guilt or remorse.  “I took the entirety of his life energy and it healed my wounds and gave me the power to heal all those whose Gateways he had destroyed.  I stepped down from my post on the Silver Road in order to take on the role which Leeton once held in this world: he named himself its King and so I am its Queen.”

Marc swallowed nervously.  “Does that . . . does that happen a lot?  A Gate killing a Key so they can become human?”

“I am not human,” Adayzjia answered with a soft chuckle.  “Did you think I was?”

“N-no.  I just don’t know what else to call it.”

“The name for what I am does not matter.  You may think of me as a Gate.  Gates do not begin our lives as portals between worlds, that is simply where we all end up.  An afterlife, you might call it.  I was born, had a childhood, a family, and a life before I took up my position on the Silver Road.  But even then I was a Gate.  Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Marc admitted.

She smiled.  “It isn’t necessary that you do.  But please do understand that Gates do not kill Keys.  We are symbiotic, you and I, we have no wish to destroy your kind.  All Gates would whither and die, fade away into nothingness, if no Keys existed to pass through our portals and on to other worlds.  Do not fear for yourself when you travel the Silver Road.  The Gates are your friends.”

He was not certain that he felt reassured.  “But you did kill Leeton.”

“I did.  He owed his life to me.  I will not tell you how it is possible to harm one of my kind, for that is a thing no Key should ever do.  But for nearly a hundred years I was broken, in a state near death, cut off from the Silver Road and in pain.  I was a danger to any Key who might try to pass through me, for a broken Gate needs so much energy to operate the portal that it might drain the Key without meaning to.”

She stood up, and went over to stand by the glass.  “Finally there came a day when Leeton once again passed through in search of his daughter, and he acknowledged that I had every right to take his life in order to repair myself.”

Looking out over the garden, she seemed to be staring back into the past.  “I do not like to recall the horror of my condition all those years, young Key.  There was no . . . color.  No color at all.  Everything was gray and dark.  I was alone, powerless, trapped in an eternal shattering.  It is as if I took a hammer and struck this pane of glass, and its moment of breaking then stretched out forever.”  She touched the window lightly.

Adayzjia turned back to him, the light thrumming behind her eyes.  “A Key who would do such a thing to any Gate has betrayed his own nature as well as that which he destroys.  Leeton did this not only to me, but to many others.”

The chair creaked underneath Marc.  “I would never do that.”

“Good.  I am not saying you would, I just want you to understand that although you look up to this Leeton as great Key, you must not idolize him.  He was full of faults and made many bad decisions which destroyed countless lives.”

Marc didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded.  All great men had faults, didn’t they?  It didn’t mean that the wonders of the worlds which Leeton described in his book were any less true.  He tried to fight the feeling of disappointment.

“Now, Marcus—” Adayzjia’s tone brightened, as if she was ready to set aside the serious discussion of Gatebreakers and broken lives, “—what can you tell me of Sien Auriel?”

He started, and the chair gave another ominous creak.  “I . . . I . . . I don’t really know.  Why?”

She shrugged.  Her shoulders made it an elegant motion whereas every other person he’d ever seen shrug looked a little monkeyish while doing it.  “Do you know of such a person?”

“I might.  Why?  What do you know about him?”

“So suspicious.”  She laughed a little.  “I know nothing of this boy, except that he is a Key and was seen passing between worlds in the company of your sister.  Or perhaps I should say, your sisters.”

“I’m not suspicious,” Marc denied.  “I just . . . well I didn’t really know if it meant anything.  I mean, I didn’t really know him?  He was Elly’s boyfriend.  But that was last year.”

“One year is a very short time, even in a human life.  You knew that the Auriel boy was significant to your sister’s disappearance but you did not share this with your father.”

“I wouldn’t say that.  I didn’t know anything, I just thought, maybe it was possible.  Anyway, why does it matter?  My father went after Elly and I’m stuck here.  Not that I mind being with you, I mean . . . not that that matters.  I just.”  He stopped, flustered.

She laughed.  “I do not blame you for being unhappy that your father left you behind.  However, I do not intend for you to be ’stuck’ here.  I have something I need you to do, but first you must promise me that you will trust me.”

This was interesting.  He got up from the uncomfortable chair and went to stand beside her at the window.  “What do you mean?”  She was so tall.  He had to gaze unnaturally far upward to look at her face, not at her chest.  It was unfortunate.  He was trying so hard not to creep.

“Before I tell you, you must trust me.”

He nodded acceptance easily; if she was going to let him do something, anything besides sit around feeling awkward in her presence, it was worth a declaration of trust.  After all, his father trusted her, why shouldn’t he?  “Yeah, I’ll trust you.”

“Good.  Because I must first admit to you that I have mislead your father.” 

“What?”

“Your sister did not go to Meiria.  She went to a place called Airidan: the homeworld of her companion, Sien Auriel.”

Marc was taken aback.  “Why? Why would you send him to the wrong world?”

“I was hoping you might understand why,” Adayzjia said.  “I was counting on it, actually.”

Marc stared at her, trying to find some sort of explanation in her unsettling gaze, but he couldn’t.  “Is Meiria really as dangerous as you said?  Is he in danger there?”

“It is as dangerous as it needs to be to keep your father occupied in his search for your sister,” Adayzjia said, unconcerned.  “I would say that he is safer in his fruitless search there than he would be if he actually managed to track her down.”

“You think that Elly would hurt him?”  Marc almost laughed.  “No way.  They’re like . . . really close.  She’s his favorite, she adores him too.  If you knew anything about our family, you’d know that.”

“You forget that your sister is two people.  And your father is determined to kill one of those people, the one that has thus far defied the natural order of things in order to survive.  Trust me, Marcus.  I am old and there were things I saw in my youth that you could not imagine.  When I tell you that it is extremely dangerous to cross a ghost imbued with the power of the Chaiorra, you must believe me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell my dad this?  Just tell him to leave Elly . . . River . . . whoever she is, alone?”

Adayzjia smiled, and she seemed almost sad.  “And what do you think your father would have said to that?”

Go fuck yourself, probably, he thought.  “I . . . I guess you’re right,” is what he said.  “He’s going to go after her no matter how dangerous it is.”

“Exactly.  I decided that your father needed to be kept away from your sister, for his own good and for the good of this world.  You see, young Key, the fact that this ghost has not returned to this world in order to seek out the river, the source of her existence, does not mean she will not.  She will seek to enter this world eventually, and so I must deal with her.  She poses a great threat to the safety of my people.  If she steps foot in this world, it is possible that the river may awaken and embrace her as its master.”

He nodded slowly.  “And that would be bad?”

“It is something I cannot allow.  However, I am conflicted in this manner because even though I do not wish to endanger my people, I am the one responsible for giving this river the terrible power it holds over this world.  And so I am responsible for this ghost.”  Restless, she left the window to pace up and down the room.  He watched her run her hand absently over the spines of the book on the shelves as she passed them.  “When I chose to set up my Gate in the spot where the river flowed down from the mountains, I inadvertently gave the river the power of the Silver Road.  And that power grew over time as the river’s life giving power drew yet more life to it.  Such is the way of what you might call magic.  River of life, the people here call it.  River of souls, river of death, river of ghosts; all these would be just as accurate.  The river sleeps when it does not have one living soul to control it, but when that soul is present, it holds the entire world in its grasp.  Such was the case for over a hundred years while the girl named Alisiya lived.  Water, in any world, is the giver of life.  It flows through everything.  Nothing can be without it.  So there no escaping it.”

She had turned several paces around the room, and now returned to stand by the window.  He hadn’t moved, and felt a little dizzy from watching her.  “What can I say?”  Another elegant shrug.  “I thought I was old, and ready to pass on to my next stage of being, but in actuality I was young and foolish.  I made a mistake which has cost many people their lives, and has warped and changed others.  I do not rule this world for any particular love of power, but because I have realized that I must be its guardian, its protector, against the danger which I have created.”

She seemed to him very beautiful, and noble, and sad, looking out over the garden through the sheet of glass as she spoke.  The sunlight warmed her icy skin and made her eyelashes glow, white like thin lace over her faraway eyes.  He found that he was holding his breath, and in the ensuing silence he released it.

“But what do you want me to do?” Marc asked.  “Elly’s my sister.  I’m not going to do anything to hurt her.”

“I do not want you to.  I was hoping that you disagreed with your father when he said that Elly must be fixed, that the presence of her shadow is somehow an evil thing.  I was hoping that you might see the other side of it.  I need someone who wishes no harm to either Elly or the River Child.”

“I don’t know,” Marc said.  “I don’t think my dad even wants to hurt them, he just wants what’s best for Elly.”

“He wants what he thinks is best.  He wants the kind of daughter that he can understand.”  She smiled pitingly.  “Your father is a good man, and a good Key, but he is far too afraid of ghosts to be trusted with the mission I would like to give to you.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to go to Airidan and talk to this ghost inside your sister, for me.  There is a message I would have you give her on my behalf.”

“That’s it?”

“You want there to be more?”

“No . . . I just . . . why can’t you go to her?”  She might want him to trust her completely, but she’d already admitted to manipulating his father. . . .  He wanted to trust her, wanted her intentions to be as beautiful and noble as she herself was, that much he knew, but knowing it made him wary of his own instincts.  How could he truly trust something so far above him, so old, so inhuman?  So attractive?  She could fool him completely, and how could he be smart enough to know?

“My place is in this world,” she said to him.  “And you are her brother; she will be more inclined to welcome you than a strange old Gate like me.  Will you do it?”

How could he not?  Even if he wasn’t sure what was going on, it was his only chance to have any part in it.  “What’s the message?”

“Tell her that the moment she enters this world, I will know of it, and that she must come to me, if she is to come at all.  Tell her that I will aide her in whatever it is that she seeks to do, so long as she agrees to bring no harm to my people and to not turn the river to evil.  Tell her that I am a powerful friend, and a powerful enemy.  It is entirely up to her which I will be.”

He frowned.  “I thought you didn’t want her to come here?”

“I do not, but there is little I can do to prevent her.  I could ask my fellow Gates to prevent her entering, but that would be creating an enemy of her and it would not guarantee that she would not find some way to enter.  If she is truly tied to the river, it will call to her, and I fear that though I created it, it has grown more powerful than me.  If she threatens this world I will not hesitate to fight her, but I would rather not have to.  That is why I send you, and not your father, who is determined to treat her as an enemy.”

“Why are you so sure I’m not just like my dad?”

“I have a good sense of what a Key is about,” Adayzjia said, putting a hand on his arm.  It made his heart beat faster, though out of pleasure or fear he could not tell.  “You are young and open minded, and you love your sister in a way that your father cannot.  You look up to her; I can see this in you.  I trust this about you.  I think that your sister, and the ghost in her, will feel the same way.”

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