5 November 2003

TOOLS OF THE TRADE: The Synopsis
Examples from Liz Williams and Lyda Morehouse

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Ghost Sister
By Liz Williams

A group of Gaian priestesses from a world called Narrandera, who follow an Earth-based religion, come in search of a lost colony to Monde D'Isle, where a heretical Narranderan apparently set up a sect many thousands of years ago. The last message from the colony stated that it was cursed, but no-one really knows what has happened to it. Under the initial direction of the heretic, the colonists have evolved into a distinct human species—ones who are natural dowsers, and who can sense energy lines, or leys, beneath the earth. These abilities are accompanied by a darker side: a tendency for people to revert to an atavistic, animal state during which murder is not uncommon. They also have a unique method of child-rearing: their young are sent out to live wild in the world until puberty, where they return home and become conscious and aware. The colonists' descendents live in fortresses: guarded by mysterious lines of energy that they refer to as 'defences.'

Horrified by these traits, the Gaians attempt to make contact with the Mondhaith, only to find that the colonist's descendents do not even see them as real, because they lack contact with the world. However, acolyte Bel Zhur manages to contact a young woman named Mevennen, who is 'landblind'—in the same manner as a normal human being. Anthropologist Shu Gho, who has accompanied the Gaians to Monde D'Isle, befriends (or haunts, depending on point of view), Mevennen's brother Eleres, and shadows him throughout the aftermath and repercussions of a murder committed by his cousin Sereth. Shu gives Eleres a communicator, and tells him to contact her if he ever needs help. Convinced that he is being haunted, Eleres is seriously worried—but he keeps the communicator, and during a particularly dark period of his life, he calls the Gaians and asks for help.

Mevennen tells the Gaians of a lost city named Outreven: the first settlement of all. Convinced that answers are to be found at Outreven, the Gaians go there, to find a lost city and ancient technology: a 'biomorphic generator' which locks into the brainwave patterns of the colonists and seems to govern their behavioural tendencies. Mevennen steps into the field generated by this device, and is mentally altered so that she now possesses the usual abilities of her kind. At this point, Shu receives Eleres' plea. She and Bel decide to bring Eleres to Outreven, and to reveal to the Mondhaith exactly what underlies their peculiar biology.

Convinced that this is the source of all the Mondhaith's woes, Bel becomes determined to switch the generator off, and despite the misgivings of Shu, she tries to do so. The generator overloads, precipitating Mevennen into the murderous state which Bel has been trying to cure. She kills Bel's spiritual leader, Dia, and flees. Overloaded, the generator burns out. The Mondhaith become landblind. Disillusioned, Bel decides to leave Mondhile and go in search of a second, rumoured lunar colony. Eleres and Mevennen seek answers, and it is in the last functioning piece of the generator that Eleres learns the truth: the defences which guard their fortresses make the Mondhaith what they are. On its return home, a child will cross the defence and be mentally changed by the energy which it contains. If the defences contain the knowledge that a child needs to become conscious, Eleres thinks—placing that child in balance with its own nature—then maybe the defence could work in another way, giving a conscious human being the necessary connnection with the world.