Rachel Aaron: Spirit’s End

If that is true, then I would be glad to offer you the task, the Weaver said to Miranda, his face breaking into a warm smile. Considering all you have done for us already, Spiritualist, I would be honored to call you sister.

Miranda just sat there, her eyes flicking between the Weaver, Eli, and the white seed in the Weaver’s hands. Eli could almost see the wheels turning in her head, and he kept his face earnest, willing her to accept. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said she would be a good choice, but he’d left out the part where such a choice would benefit him doubly. If Miranda became Shepherdess, the world would get a competent minder for the first time in centuries, and the Spirit Court would lose the only person they had who could possibly catch him. He’d miss their rivalry, true, but it was a small price to pay for the good of the world, and he was in a heroic mood today.

Finally, after almost two minutes of silence, Miranda took a deep breath, and Eli burst into a wide grin. She was going to do it. He could see it by the way her mouth was set in that responsible frown of hers. But as he was celebrating in his mind, planning all the work he was going to do in Zarin now that the Spiritualist was out of the way, Miranda opened her mouth and ruined everything.

“No.”

No? the Weaver said.

“No?!” Eli shouted at the same time.

Miranda glared at them both. “I won’t be Shepherdess, but not because I don’t want the job. All my life I’ve had to face the knowledge that I can’t help every spirit, that I can’t fix every bad thing. As Shepherdess, I could, and that’s very tempting, but it’s also wrong.” She lifted her head, chin set at that stubborn angle that made Eli’s heart sink. “I can’t accept because I don’t think there should be a Shepherdess at all.”

Eli buried his face in his hands, but the Weaver said what he’d meant to anyway.

What in creation are you going on about?

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” Miranda said. “When the Shaper Mountain showed Slorn and me his memories, he showed us the world as it was before the Shepherdess. A world of change under a sky full of stars. A world without Powers.”

We needed none, the Weaver said. The Creator was with us then.

“The Creator didn’t manage the day-to-day life of the spirits,” Miranda said. “He was too busy creating what the demons destroyed. But the spirits, the winds and mountains, the seas, they lived free. As I understand it, the lessening wasn’t a problem then. Everything was awake and aware. Spirits grew instead of shrinking, and even though they lived under the constant threat of demon attack, they thrived. It was only after we entered the sphere that things started falling asleep, right?”

True, the Weaver said.

“How could they not?” Miranda said, holding out her hands. “There was nothing to fight, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. Even the demons weren’t a problem anymore, and the Shepherdess took care of everything. You said yourself that this was a lifeboat, not a home. Everything was under emergency rule, and as the emergency became the new normality, the spirits fell into complacency. With nothing to do, no power of their own, and no escape from the Shepherdess who demanded their loyalty rather than earning it, what other choice was there but to bury themselves deep and fall asleep?”

The Weaver started to speak, but Miranda looked down, clenching her fists in her lap. “I love the spirits,” she said. “I love serving them. I love protecting them. Ever since I first heard their voices as a little girl, I knew they were my calling. A Spiritualist was the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be, and I will not accept that slowly falling into a stupor is the only possible future for the spirits I’ve sworn to protect.

“But the Shepherdess got one thing right,” Miranda continued, lifting her hands to her chest. “Us. I’ve heard my whole life that she made us blind, but that’s not all she made us. We each have a bit of her will. That’s how we’re able to command the spirits, because we each carry an echo of her power.”

And that’s why one of you must become the Shepherdess, the Weaver said.

“No,” Miranda said again, shaking her head. “I’ve always noticed that spirits who live around humans are more awake than spirits who live in solitude. If the world really was lessening like you say, then all the spirits should be falling asleep at the same rate, but they’re not. A Shaper’s work stays awake for years in the hand of a good wizard, and in Zarin even the cobblestones wake easily. Do you see what I’m saying?”

No. The Weaver sighed.

“I do,” Eli said. He pushed himself up on his elbows, biting back the nausea so he could look Miranda in the eye. “You’re saying spirits are falling asleep because there’s nothing to do. They’ve been locked up in this tiny box with a Shepherdess who spent her whole life trying to keep them calm. She told them what to think and what to say and gave them no challenges and no real threats other than humans, and then never for more than our short life spans.” He felt himself starting to smile. “Horrible as Gaol was, everything there was awake. The threat of the duke kept them that way.”

“Right,” Miranda said, her face lighting up. “Of course, I’m not saying we should terrify the world, but I am saying that if we want spirits to stop sliding into sleep, if we want the world to grow again rather than settle, we’re going to have to change the way we do things. Now is not the time to thrust another Power back on top of the heap. We have to give the spirits power over their own lives again, like it was always meant to be.”

That would be a disaster, the Weaver said. Spirits are panicky in the best of times. They’ll tear each other apart without a Shepherdess.

“Only because they’ve been told for so long that they can’t live without her,” Miranda said heatedly. “Of course spirits are panicky. They have no power. But I have seen spirits stand against demonseeds even when they can’t do anything. Spirits as a whole may be prone to panic, but that’s true for humans, too. Individually, any of us can be brave if we have cause to stand firm. I’ve worked as a Spiritualist all my adult life, and the one thing I’ve learned over and over is that the spirits are all different. Some are clever, some are helpful, some are stupid, and some are cruel, but they’re all individuals, and they don’t deserve to have their choices made for them without their say, even by someone who has their best interests at heart.”

What would you have us do, then? the Weaver said. Let the Shepherdess’s power rot?

“No,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “Give it to the spirits. You said it yourself. This is their world. For five thousand years they’ve had an all-powerful mother telling them how to live. Their complaints were ignored and their voices silenced whenever they questioned her rule. Under such a system, how could the world do anything but stagnate? Well, I say enough. This world may have been created as a temporary shelter, but it’s our home now. If we want to keep living in it, we need to accept the truth that things change, and so must the Powers if they are to keep serving the world they were created to nourish and sustain.”

Change how? the Weaver said. This world stands on our work.

“On you and the Hunter’s work,” Miranda said. “But the world doesn’t need a Shepherdess any longer. If you want to avoid spirits sinking into sleep, then you shouldn’t use that seed to create a new Shepherdess. You should use it to give all spirits a fraction of the Shepherdess’s will, just as humans have. That way, just as one human’s will cannot dominate another’s, so will all spirits be free of human control.”