Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4 by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online

said, “Sorrow gives way to anger. I will go up and ask them what they
mean by it.”
    “Oh no—do not, for all
our sakes.”
    “Yes but I will.
To damage and debase the flesh is wicked enough. But to meddle with the psychic
parts is beyond enduring. The gods will take note, Mother, of our righteous
distress, and come to my assistance.” In this pious belief she was, of course,
quite mistaken (since in those days the gods cared nothing for mankind). But
the mistake sustained her and she rushed from the hall. Along the passage she
went, where the servant was snoring still, and up through the house to the room
they had allotted the magician. Here she rapped on the door before her valor
should desert her, and called out: “Let me enter at once!” No one replied.
    “I will come in!”
exclaimed the girl. And she thrust wide the door and ran through.
    How odd the
familiar room looked in its guttering prodigality of candles. But more than
light, it was a darkness there that had changed it. For the space seemed full
of a living dimness, an invisible, swirling, murmuring something—she did not
know it for what it was, the ambience of a weighty spell, but it turned her
cold, so she would soon have run out again. Then she beheld, through the fog of
the sorcery, the magician lying there on the quilts, heavy as lead, seeming not
to breathe, locked up in such a closed prison of sleep that it instantly
suggested death. And this sight, though it was more terrifying than anything
else, also stayed her.
    Just then, a
whiteness that had seemed to hang like steam over the cushions on the floor
rose up.
    Now the elder
sister was surely transfixed. She stood in horrified wonder, all eyes. Two pale
and ghostly girls poised before her, their long bright hair spilling around
them. Both were naked, both were known. One was the younger sister, one other
the elder sister—herself. Neither did these two possess, either of them, a
shadow, and it was clearly to be seen how the candlelight passed straight
through each.
    “Do not be
afraid,” said the ghost of the elder sister to the reality. “Oloru brought me
forth from you and Oloru left me power to tell you of it.”
    “Say what you are,”
trembled the girl.
    “Your shadow, or
that which enables you to cast one—some of your substance, yet not your self.
With me, and with this other”—here the ghost indicated the ghost of the younger
sister—“the monster Lak had his wishes. To him it seemed he ravished and rent
and mastered flesh, but he did not. Nor is it anything to us what he did with
us. Neither, when we presently return to you, will you think anything more of
it than we.”
    “But you are my
immortal essence,” cried the girl in a worse dismay than ever. “He has done all
these things to my soul and the soul of my sister.”
    “No, we are not
your souls. Your souls are not of this fashion. Only colored air are we. Let me
come back to you, and you will know at once all is well with you.”
    “Come back then,”
said the girl, and she braced herself for pain or lunacy. But the ghost drifted
to her like a moonbeam and glided over and through her, and was one with her.
And with great happiness the girl saw her shadow appear immediately on the wall,
like an omen of perfect good.
    “Now go, and
bring here to me the one to whom I belong,” said the second ghost in a
petulant susurrus of the second sister’s voice.
    “But he—’’ said
the girl, recalling Lak slumbering like the dead not ten paces from her.
    “He has other business.”
    “Where then is
Oloru my brother?” demanded the elder sister; relief had made her bold. But the
ghost did not respond, merely folded its hands patiently, just as the younger
girl did when she was exasperated.
    The elder sister
felt she had no choice but to hurry below and tell the glad tidings. As for
Oloru, she blessed him, and her tears fell warmly, for she knew herself whole,
as the ghost had assured her she would, and her rescue was