Beneath Ceaseless Skies #23 Read online

  “No, you never told me any such thing.”

  “Can you get caught up in your own spell?”

  I could not answer. Enanatuma was desperate to know if she had broken faith with one betrothed to take up with another. I was certain to spend the rest of my life questioning whether I had broken that betrothal myself to bring Shulgi into her life. It was also possible that Amar-Sin’s story was truly just his imagination, or something he had invented to try to raise his position in House Elam. But was it possible that the spell I had cast to give Shulgi a noble line had not been my first spell on his behalf? Had I first done something to get rid of Amar-Sin?

  I would never know. Magic was truly oil fire; it had spread and spread until even I was burned. The spell meant to save the life of my love had led to my dearest sister killing her own lover. I knew in my soul that it was true. Admitting it would give no comfort to my sister, though. All she had left now were memories of her husband, and I wouldn’t do anything to poison them.

  “You will forget again,” I promised her. “Think only of Shulgi and your love for him, and you will forget these other ghosts of memories. But now it’s time for you to leave. Take my veil.”

  I draped it over her and she vanished from sight. Her strong arms pulled me into one last hug and then she was gone.

  I would never see her again, never hear of how she fared or whether she even still lived. Would she ever put the necklace on, I wondered, just to look at the reflection of her husband’s face in a bronze mirror or a still pond?

  As I waited through the hot day for nightfall so that I could leave the house unseen, I fell asleep on Enanatuma’s bed. It was well past sunset when Shulgi shook me awake. A surgeon had indeed been by, as a row of coarse stitches adorned his cheek. He had cut himself more deeply than Enanatuma had been wounded, but I doubted any but the three of us would ever know the difference. Just two of us now.

  “You knew Enanatuma. You were both dancers, sisters at the temple,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I forgot about you when I married Enanatuma. Not willfully, not like a man putting aside thoughts of an old love for the sake of the new. I forgot you, completely.”

  “Shulgi,” I said, desperately not wanting to have this conversation. “You’ve forgotten many things.”

  “They’ve been coming back since this morning. It’s like the story of my life is actually two stories, and I remember them both. They both seem equally true. I’m not sure which is true.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was my spell that....” Broke you? Is driving you mad? ”It’s my fault.”

  “Yours and Enanatuma’s, yes? The two of you plotting together and never once speaking of any of this to me!” He paced again, the violet robes snapping around him in sympathy to his growing fury.

  “It was to keep you safe. Everything I did was because I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying.”

  “You made my life a lie!” He turned to face me, and there was something deliberate about the space he left between us. “I have many hateful things to say to you, to you and my now departed wife. How you used me; how you played with me, just another doll in some girls’ game.”

  “No-”

  “I won’t say them. I choose not to. If I even still have a choice. Enanatuma is gone, now I want you gone as well.”

  “I cannot leave Ummur,” I said. “I promised to watch over your children.”

  “I will not see you,” he said, spitting out the words. “Ever. I will not once ask myself if I’m not secretly pleased that she is gone and you remain. I will not wonder if that was even your intention from the first.”

  “Shulgi, I never-”

  “Go!” he roared, his face so contorted with rage I feared for his stitches.

  So I left.

  * * *

  I watch over them still, he and the children both. He found the armband I had made for him; I have seen him wearing it. It had been left in Enanatuma’s clothes chest; he must have taken it to be a last gift for him that she had never had a chance to give. The children have wards as well, spells imbued in pretty little stones they just happened to find lying in their path and picked up and kept, as children are wont to do.

  I wondered what Shulgi thought of it all. I wondered if he would forget me once more, as his past as a noble son would once more become “true” for him, matching his present life as his past as a builder of walls did not.

  And sometimes, as I lay in the heat of the day waiting for sleep to take me, I wondered if he had been right about my intentions, and whether he ever did think about me in Enanatuma’s place. And I would admit at last, now that it was too late, that it had never truly been the priests’ library that had kept me in Ummur after my banishment.

  Then I would go to sleep in my little room among the rotting dead, waiting for the day when Enanatuma’s children would be grown and I would be free to leave Ummur. Waiting, and fearing when the time came I would find I could not go, and I would linger on to be near to the man who would not see me. Me, the only true ghost in Ummur.

  Copyright © 2009 Kate MacLeod

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  Kate MacLeod lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband and two sons. When she’s not working or homeschooling her boys she likes to write. Her work has previously appeared in Allegory, Beyond Centauri, Warrior Wisewoman 2, and is forthcoming in the anthology Fantastical Visions V. She can be found online at KateMacLeod.net.

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  COVER ART

  “Endless Skies,” by Rick Sardinha

  Rick Sardinha is a professional illustrator/fine artist living and working on the outskirts of Providence, Rhode Island. His passion is to create in traditional oil media, however, he is just as comfortable in front of a computer and often uses multiple disciplines in the image creation process. More of his work can be seen at http://www.battleduck.com.

  This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy and share the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.

  Table of Contents

  “Between Two Treasons,” by Michael J. DeLuca

  “Oil Fire,” by Kate MacLeod