The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  She carried the scent board to the table, lighted the candles, and set the smoking punk stick ready at hand. Observing that the smoke did not go truly toward the filmy draperies of the bedchamber, she took time to reset the fans. There was still splashing from the inner space. The time was not quite yet.

  Beyond the curtain, the new Lady of Loam allowed the Lord to pour the warm, scentless water over her head and hair, to lave her shoulders with it while she accustomed herself to the look of him outside his shell. He looked very bare, as all people did when divested of their out-cave hard armor or their in-cave soft armor. Bareness was frightening. Bareness preceded birth and death. Bareness inside the cave left one vulnerable to treachery. Bareness on the outside left one at the mercy of the cold and the wilderness. Showing bare skin, except for the face and hands, was a sign of unworthiness on the inside. Only Bottom Feeders went bare. And wedded couples.

  His fingers, touching her shoulder, were not unpleasant. That protrusion below, rather like a large finger, was no doubt the organ she had been told of. Surprisingly, the fact of its being there, so very overtly, did not worry her. As her mother had told her, everything was in the hands of the Mistress of the Slumber Time, whose task it was to make all things simple and easy. She need not think how or why or when or what to do. The mistress would take care of all that.

  The Lord ducked his head once more, then rose from the water, first drying himself, then holding out a great, soft towel. “Come,” he said, disguising his annoyance at all this nonsense with some difficulty. “We must lie down before she begins.” He had promised his father he would mate her well, a sacred promise, on the altar of the ancestors, like a child promising to be good! As though he needed anyone to help him do what the night required to be done! A chief’s son could not join the army and march southward until he had begot an heir, so he would beget, though this one looked incapable of carrying a child. No meat on her. All bones. And all that nonsense about the capsules. He had slept three nights with that capsule in his bed as she had no doubt done with hers. By the heights and the depths, there was too much of this ridiculous stuff gaining credence among the Hargess. Too much back and forthing between these mistresses and the mosslands, consorting with moss-demons he would wager.

  Their bed was warm. The room for first nights was carved into a wall of the Abyss where hot springs rose through the stone to the surface far above them, there to bubble and steam in countless pools and geysers before trickling down through the spongy stone to be heated once more.

  The Lady found this a happy thought. When she was truly wed and pregnant with a son, she would be allowed to ascend to the surface and see the bubbling springs and all the deep-soil lands of Loam that were held by her new tribe. Until then she would be like a fledgling, confined to her nest, as she had been at home, as she had feared being forever…She lay down as she had been bid, dutifully drawing the covers to her throat, putting her arms at her side, trying to relax. He did not touch her, which helped.

  Outside the curtains, the music began. Through the translucent folds she saw the red lights of his candles, the blue lights of her own. The music wove. She smelled something strange and intriguing, focusing her attention upon it. What was it? Something…very quiet and relaxing. As the music went on, her body went limp, feeling his beside her, as loose and relaxed.

  By the time the urgency started, she was too warm and easy to let it concern her. Her body grew tense; a tingling spread across her belly, her breasts felt tender, aching, the feeling went on, growing and growing, building up inside her without any possibility of releasing it. She reached for him, coupling with him as naturally as though they were young trees growing together, one bark enclosing the two heartwoods. The smell of him entered through her nose but spread to fill her entire body, which pulsed and thrust of itself, no guidance needed, as the feeling went on and on and on until suddenly, the world exploded. She floated in an ecstasy that was without palpable end but passed sweetly into sleep, which passed into wakening and then into hunger and tension and tempest once more into sleep, and then all over again, and then sleep, only sleep.

  Through all their waking moments, they heard the music of the harp and the drum and the two voices, the mistress’s voice and that of her assistant, the words, the music, the scents accompanying their coupling as though the musicians could see them, as though they knew exactly what was happening.

  During their final sleep, the mistress departed with all her accoutrements save the short-board of sleeproot, which would burn itself out before morning. It had been decorated with carved vines, twined together, and the names of the couple. Most brides kept it as a remembrance.

  When the Lady Quynis woke in the morning, she took Lord Lynbal’s face between her hands and kissed him awake. He seized her in his arms, straining against her, taking great, deep breaths of her, joining their bodies yet again with no Mistress of Slumbers present. Until last night, Lynbal had thought her plain. He had been wrong. He had thought her slightly distasteful. He had been wrong. He had accepted her as wife only out of duty to the tribe and to his place at the head of it. All of it wrong. She was the only woman in the world. He would never, never desire any other. He told himself he had decided all this, during the night.

  The truth was, Quynis was plain. Her slight body, though it could look elegant when dressed, was bony and without allure when unclad. Her marriage had sealed the pact between two tribes, at Chief Larign’s behest, though he had been dismayed when he first saw the girl. He had gone immediately to advise his son that chiefs could have more than one wife, several, in fact. Indeed, he had begun making a list of candidates, if only to placate Lynbal.

  None of this would be needed, for Lynbal would lust after Quynis and she after him during their whole lives, never, never desiring anyone else. None of the participants to the bargain had made that decision, however. Only the Mistress of the First Slumber had done so, and though it was not something she decided in every case, this time she had done so, irrevocably.

  Lord Lynbal left the bridal chamber late in the morning to keep to his usual routine with his body-men. Each midmorning they donned their armor and went out into the Abyss on patrol of their tribal lands and the neighboring crevasses. As his father, Chief Larign of Loam, was fond of saying, this routine was both traditional and sacred, no matter what else was going on. One patrolled one’s territory, and one did it all the time, even when ill, tired, preoccupied, or newly wed.

  As Lynbal passed the great hall, his father hailed him, and Lynbal swerved into the lofty cavern, lighted from above by light shafts that had been enlarged through natural clefts. Seated at a table close to the warmwall, Chief Larign breakfasted with Chief Quilac of Granite, who had escorted Quynis to Loam and stayed, with his men, for yesterday’s wedding

  After greeting his father, Lynbal turned to Chief Quilac. “I thank you for your daughter, sir. She is a priceless gift.”

  The two elders exchanged a covert glance of surprise, which Lynbal was too besotted to notice.

  “Have you breakfasted, son?” his father asked, somewhat anxiously. The boy looked as though he might be feverish!

  Lynbal smiled, a slightly lecherous smile. “Indeed, sir. I have breakfasted on ambrosia. Now, if you will excuse me, I am slightly late for morning patrol.” He bowed and strode away, leaving the two staring after him.

  “What was her name again?” asked Chief Quilac. “The ritual mistress.”

  “Norchis. Gavi Norchis. I’d heard she is quite remarkable, and in this case, it seems her reputation was warranted.”

  “How long will the effect last?”

  “I didn’t ask her. We spoke of an heir, you and I, and I told her an heir was necessary. She did say she could also arrange it so they would find it impossible to dislike or disrespect one another, which I thought a good thing.”

  “A very good thing,” said Quilac. He was fond of his daughter. Quynis had a delightful laugh; she was almost always good-humored; and she could ba
rbecue crab like no one else. Nonetheless, her starved sparrow look had persisted despite all his care or all her mother’s ministrations, and Quilac had feared she might be rejected by her groom.

  Chief Larign continued, “Norchis said as they live together, they will come to be of one mind about things.”

  “Thus supporting our alliance.”

  “Exactly. And since the Medical Machine found nothing physically wrong with either my son or your daughter, we can expect an heir shortly, one who will grow to be a natural leader of our combined clans.”

  They stared at one another, and at their cups, half in amazement at what they had achieved. Warfare among the dozen Abyssal clans had gone on since the finding of the Key, centuries before. Every twenty years or so, the tribes of the Night Mountain allied long enough to fight the tribes of the Day Mountain for possession of the Key, and between these great battles, the Night Mountain tribes fought among themselves, jockeying for leadership. Presumably the Day Mountain tribes did likewise. The Alliance of Loam and Granite clans was the first attempt at peace upon the plateau, and Quilac thought it miraculous they had actually reached this point.

  He murmured, “We all have our scent rituals, we all have our scent mistresses and masters. They do much good, relieve much pain, assist in much healing, but I have never known one able to do this much. Could this Gavi Norchis do something that would bring other chiefs of the north to our alliance?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chief Larign, with a carefully innocent look. “I never asked her.” As indeed he had not. He had, however, told her what he wanted before she had worked her scent magic on Chief Quilac at the last Truce Gathering of the Clans. And here Chief Quilac sat, all unwitting, as a direct result of her craft. Since Gavi could do things no other ritual master or mistress could even attempt, her next duty would be to work on Chief Badnor Belthos of Burrow, to make him a peace lover and bring about the wedding of Larign’s daughter, Lailia, and the Burrow heir, Balnor. The mistress would do it in the same fashion she had done this, and toward the same end.

  “We should find out.” Chief Quilac pursued his own question. “If we could bring Belthos in…Why, if we could bring ALL of them in, we might have a chance at conquering the Night AND driving away these invaders sitting on our shores.”

  “Do you really think that possible,” Larign exclaimed, with every outward evidence of surprise. “I must ask her at the earliest opportunity.”

  “Don’t ask, tell!” demanded Chief Quilac.

  Larign shook his head, smiling ruefully. “She is an artist, my friend. They don’t work well when forced. We must be patient, let her see how well this first step has worked out, how it helps us all. She much dislikes any idea of making people do things against their will.”

  “As I understand it, that’s not what she does. She lets their own will make them want to do things!” He winked.

  “Ah-ha. Oh, yes, ha-ha. Very good. We’ll have to see what we can do.” He returned to the herbal mixture in his teacup, a new tea the herbalists had put together. He had not yet decided whether he liked it. There was a spiciness that pleased him, but the underlying fungal tones threw it off…

  Quilac asked, “What have you heard about the outlanders? Recently, I mean? Are there still as many of them?”

  Larign set his cup down with a sigh. “Just as many, yes. Perhaps more. Strangely, however, almost all the ones who come are elderly, and they don’t last long. It’s as though they come here to die.”

  “They’re taking risks with it, then.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” Larign agreed. “Much else might bring them, but nothing else would keep them here.”

  “Don’t they know what happens to people who do what they’re doing?”

  “They may not. They’ve only been here a few years, and they have a halfway sort of discipline that keeps them from the worst sort of addictions. They haven’t witnessed anyone totally given over to it, haven’t actually seen the death it brings. And, as I say, many of them are old, and it isn’t a bad way to go, if you’re old. Very little pain.”

  Quilac shuddered, making a gesture of aversion. “If one doesn’t mind the horror of what comes after, that’s true.” He collected himself, allowed a moment’s silence before changing the distasteful subject. “Do you think the decision made at the last Truce Gathering of the Tribes was a good one? Do you think they’ll really leave on their own if we leave them alone?”

  Chief Larign sat back in his chair, pursing his lips. “From what we have seen, their presence here is temporary. They’ve brought in no settlers. The old ones who came are gradually dying, without issue. I think it’s wise to let nature take its course and remain hidden on our heights. When our army marches to the south, as it will do as soon as Lynbal begets an heir, we will have to detour around their encampment, but that’s a small price to pay.”

  “Remaining hidden is sensible so long as those Derac are still here. Archives has much to say about the Derac, most of it bad.”

  Chief Larign nodded his agreement. “We don’t want war with the Derac. Eventually, they, too, will be gone. Then we can begin colonizing down below.”

  “And if in the long run they don’t go? If they find out what…”

  Larign interrupted hastily, not wanting to hear it said. “They won’t find out. If they did, we’d have to drive them out. And you’re quite right. It will go better if we are all united in doing it.”

  Gavi Norchis never thought of herself as having been born into a family. She had been reared by a shifting scatter of human flotsam containing several free-floating females of various ages and a number of itinerant males who drifted in and out with the winds. The woman called Tela had definitely been Gavi’s biological mother, though which male had been father, Tela swore she had no idea. Tela denned in a deep but narrow cave far down the Abyss, nearest the tribe of Loam but not part of it, a bit farther from the tribe of Granite, but not part of that, either. Such people seldom lived to be old, being as they were the many-generation descendants of engine room people and galley help, barely literate even then, totally illiterate now, people known as Bottom Feeders among the Abyssians. Gavi’s folk were bottom-most among them, dwelling in depths where the Abyss narrowed to nothing among a great litter of boulders and sharp shattered stone wetted by curtains of steam and spouts of hot water from the springs. The one thing that could be said for being a Bottom Feeder was that one found no difficulty in staying warm.

  Bottom Feeders lived by picking through trash and trapping crack rats for their skins. They drank the sap of the greater jar trees that grew in rock crevices, so called because the trunks swelled into the shape of giant ewers, anchored in place by long, twisted roots sunk deep into rock crevices. Greater jar trees gave off a thin, sweet sap that was both filling and dangerous. Though it gave a feeling of well-being and the energy to live, it slowly killed brain cells. People who drank only jar sap grew so stupefied that they did not eat or drink or move away from their beds to excrete, finally starving to death in their own filth. The fact that such fate was rare was due more to the difficulty of sapping the trees than it was to the good sense of the users.

  When Gavi was four or five, something had gone wrong in the cave, something more wrong than usual. Gavi became aware of it only when the shouting escalated and she felt the all too familiar blow of a belt across her back, the signal to start running downward into ways too narrow for older people to follow. That time she had gone down farther than ever before, for her flight had attracted the attention of a band of young tribesmen, brainless young males led by a wiry, evil boy-child whom the others called Belthos.

  It had taken almost all her strength to stay ahead of them, and finally, driven to the end of that childish strength, she had committed the foolishness of crawling into a crack with one turn so narrow that while the boy could not enter it, neither could she turn around. She had no choice but to go on, slithering and creeping, finally arriving at an opening into a smooth bubble in the s
tone, a spherical cell evenly heated by hot springs, a rounded den with no cutting edges and with three openings: the one she had come in by; another that split into two tunnels, one to the abyss she had just left, the other to a neighboring gorge in Burrow Tribe lands; and a third one, straight through the wall of the plateau onto rocky shelf above the mosslands, high enough to be hidden but low enough on the cliff that one could see what was happening down there.

  This shelf was laid out in hexagons, the remains of the great basalt crystals that had broken off to make the ledge, one of them broken slightly higher than the others to provide a convenient seat. The ledge lay directly behind a cascade that had deeply notched the escarpment rim, a cataract so shredded by winds that long before reaching the shelf it had become a veil of fog, a soft screen through which one might observe the lower mosslands while remaining quite invisible…and wet. Moreover, from this lookout ledge a narrow and hidden trail extended behind pillars and through cracks down the face of the escarpment to an exit at its foot amid a tumble of boulders. Even the way out of the boulders was tricky, though Gavi knew immediately it had been used before. Intrusive rock corners had been knocked off purposely, with repeated blows, and a store of firewood was piled in a crack, protected from above.

  At first, Gavi had used the warm bubble lair only as a retreat, a place to escape punishment or evade harassment. Soon, however, as she repeatedly explored the route down onto the mosslands, she discovered that living was much easier down there than it was on the height. It was warmer. Water was easy to come by. Food was more abundant. Some moss trees oozed delicious and satisfying sap that dried into ready-made candies. Some extended long, arched branches where tart-flavored fruiting bodies hung like rows of bells. There were many crabs, and some of the small, tan-furred creatures that lived among the moss were quite tasty when cooked. Even the fire was no problem. One had only to dig up chunks of old mossroot and stack them in any cave to dry. Moreover, in the moss forest she had no one to feed but herself. In this land there were no sullen drifters snatching her slender gleanings from her fingers before she had a chance to swallow them.