The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Xu-xin has mentioned your regard for the people south of you.”

  “Yes. The people of Artemisia . . . They lived very simply but I had the feeling they knew a great many things they didn’t share with or even mention to others.”

  “Perhaps I will have the opportunity to meet some of them,” the older man said musingly. “Artemisia. Ah.”

  “They would greatly treasure that opportunity,” Abasio said sincerely. The people of Artemisia would treasure it, and Abasio wanted to witness the meeting.

  Xulai swallowed her sixth cake. She had counted them, not wanting to seem greedy, for though they were delicious, they were very small. It had taken all six to make her feel more like herself. Across the road, the people stood quietly looking at her, at the dancing feet and twirling parasols, at one another. The audience did not point or murmur. Even the children were quiet, simply standing there, looking at one of the tea drinkers, then another, then another, and so on, as though they were memorizing every feature, every color, every garment.

  There was little more talk. Seeing that Xulai’s fingers had stopped conveying cakes from dish to mouth and that the others seemed satisfied, Lok-i-xan reached for her hand. “Shall we go on to the citadel now?”

  They went on as before, around the back of the hill, up toward the front again, and so, having made one complete upward-spiraling circuit, they came to the gate of the citadel, directly in line with the boulevard below. From where they stood, a long, steep, and completely empty flight of stairs descended all the way to the bottom, where the people still stood, still smiling, still silent. Lok-i-xan turned, raised his arms, and bowed. Every person in the far-flung crowd returned the bow, still silent as ghosts.

  Lok-i-xan called out something Xulai couldn’t quite catch the meaning of. With myriad voices but one phrase, the crowd replied. While some of them stayed where they were, others broke away into little groups and wandered off, talking among themselves, laughing, a cheerful babble rising from people who had enjoyed the whole experience.

  “What did you say to them?” she asked.

  “I told them you said thank you for the welcome. They said, ‘Be one of us.’ Here, we feel silence is the best greeting. Any bird or monkey can chatter, any wagon can make a noise upon a street, but to stand silent, to observe, to remember, that is recognition, don’t you think so? Of course, with children, concentration takes some teaching. Children too young to be quiet stay at home on these occasions.”

  “Quiet makes fewer demands on the ones they’re looking at,” she agreed, suddenly thankful that the crowd had not cheered and waved things at them. “It allowed us to see them, really see them, more easily than if everyone had been shouting. I will remember the tea ladies’ robes. They were beautiful. I will remember the cakes, and the children, the young man who ran to the tea kiosk, the dancers. Everything was . . . elegant.”

  “We admire and revere elegance,” said her grandfather. “Even in simple things.”

  They turned and went inside to more elegance. Abasio noted both the lack of ostentation and the very high level of craftsmanship. He also saw, with some surprise and considerable interest, that the doors seemed to sink into sockets that would very probably make them waterproof. The four of them were escorted to rooms at the end of a corridor where sliding doors could shut off the corridor itself to make the area completely private. Their baggage had already been brought from the ship by some quicker way, unpacked, and put away. Lok-i-xan left them in their common room to get settled.

  Two walls of the common room opened into bedrooms, two on each side. Each had an adjoining bath with a small, gently steaming tub and all the other accoutrements Xulai had come to think of as being essentially Tingawan. The third wall, across from the door to the corridor, held floor-to-ceiling windows that separated them from a walled garden. Xulai leaned against the window to look out at the gnarled tree at the garden’s center. It looked old enough to have lived a few thousand years. A bird’s nest rested on an ancient, twisted bough. Old and new. Water flowed into a pool rimmed with sparkling sand. Wet and dry. The rock at the roots of the tree was covered with thick, green moss. Hard and soft. There were probably a dozen other oppositions brought into harmony in the garden; she would no doubt find all of them in time, and she would be told the garden had the word “harmony” in its name. The Garden of Harmonious Waters. Something like that. Very Tingawan. She returned to her bedroom, hers by virtue of her own belongings having been hung in the beautifully carved wooden wardrobe or folded into drawers or otherwise appropriately distributed.

  Her room adjoined the next one, and as she stared accusingly at the adjoining door, Abasio opened it from the other side. “You’re . . . peeved?” he asked, looking from her to the door and back.

  “It just seems that everyone assumes . . .”

  “I don’t think so. The two rooms on each side simply have joining doors. I can ask Precious Wind to trade with me.”

  “I don’t want you to have another room, I just think . . . everyone knows everything about me, you, us.”

  “They probably do,” he said cheerfully.

  She moved fretfully away from him. “It’s . . . I feel I don’t have any private things, not even my thoughts!”

  He took a deep breath and sat down on the bed, bouncing a little. Very comfortable. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Let’s see. We’ve talked about many things on this journey, but we never talked religion. Do you believe in a deity?”

  “One who fiddles with people, you mean? One who saves this one while condemning a thousand others to painful death? That kind of deity?”

  “I was supposing a much more benign one. My question really is: if you did believe in a deity, would you be annoyed at the deity knowing you?”

  “Presumably the deity would have created me, so it would know me. There’d be no point in my being upset about it.”

  “Exactly.” He put his arms around her rigid form and held her lightly until the steel framework she had summoned relaxed and she felt rather like flesh again. “Exactly,” he repeated when she leaned into him, breathing against his throat.

  “You mean the ones who know all about me did make me?”

  “Not quite from scratch, but I think it very likely they had a part in your design. I also think they’ve had a very large part in bringing me into your life, and I absolutely refuse to be even slightly upset about that. It would be the basest sort of ingratitude.”

  “I have to go back to the port,” Precious Wind announced vehemently from the open common room door behind them. “I can’t bring the wolves here, and I have to talk with the people who are finding them a place with someone they trust. I had a forester in mind and they’re locating him for me. He has a . . . I suppose you’d call it a royal preserve. Clan Do-Lok doesn’t pretend to royalty, but they make very sure certain places are kept in their original state as long as possible. Then I have a meeting with the ministers, to talk about the creature that killed Bear. None of us slept well last night. I suggest the rest of you take a nap, if you can. This afternoon, Lok-i-xan is taking you to meet the Sea King . . .” She stopped, aware they had not been listening. “Abasio! Xulai!” she cried. “Did you hear me?”

  He turned, taking Xulai around with him so he didn’t have to release her. “One could not fail to hear you, Precious Wind, but you are correct in supposing we are not listening. You may have said you were very busy and were going back to the port. We accept that, just as we would accept anything you propose. Did you not create us? Have a good time. Pet the wolves for us.”

  She glared at him before realizing he was making fun of her. “You’re tired. Sorry. Have a nap.” She made a “what’s the difference” gesture as she departed.

  Xulai giggled. “She’s the deity that created us?”

  “Not all by herself. I get the impression that you were the result of a very long, difficult group effort, into which I have fallen as a more or less accidental but, one hopes, welcome in
clusion. Some bit of the pattern they needed but had overlooked to begin with.”

  “Did she imply we should take a nap?” she asked innocently. “It has been a long morning.”

  “Does a nap appeal to you?”

  She shut the doors, rejoicing to find there was a formidable latch on the inside.

  When Precious Wind returned from the ship, she brought with her the captain of the Falsa-xin and the forester she had spoken of. All of them took a meal together in their common room, where the wall of windows had been moved aside to join the room and the garden. The table was set with a variety of foods, some hot, some cold. There were various things to drink as well, some familiar, some strange. Precious Wind identified certain dishes and argued amiably with the captain and Justinian about where they had originated. She and Justinian decided that Blue should have a stall in the citadel stables. It would still leave him and Abasio farther apart then they had been accustomed to being; on the other hand, the forester had spoken with the stable master, who thought Blue might enjoy meeting some of the talking mares treasured by Clan Do-Lok.

  As for the wolves, the forester had approved a restricted preserve with an unused building where Precious Wind could set up her laboratory. They discussed the details of who should do the moving and when it should be done. Xulai and Abasio said very little but smiled quietly as they ate. After everyone had eaten the fresh fruits that concluded the meal, the captain and the forester departed.

  Precious Wind said, “We have a few minutes.” She gave Xulai an up-and-down look before saying with a meaningful intonation, “Your hair very much needs combing. We’re meeting your grandfather for the Xakixa ceremony.”

  Xulai turned in surprise. “No one said—”

  “I know. They told me just before our meal. Just neaten yourself. You don’t need to change your clothes, and it won’t take long. My lord, both you and Abasio are invited to come along. There’s not a great deal of ceremony about it.” She left them to “neaten themselves,” returning a few moments later to escort them down yet another very long hall to a small, bench-lined room where Lok-i-xan awaited them.

  They sat on the benches along the walls and the room moved.

  “We’re going down!” Xulai exclaimed.

  Her grandfather nodded. “The way we came today is the formal route, for festivals, for memorials, for state funerals, for greeting an ambassador, that kind of thing. Sometimes newly married couples make that walk to be sure everyone knows of their changed status. You know, former sweethearts, estranged relatives: we have those, even in Tingawa. The stairs are the penitential route, for people apologizing to their god or their clan, or the emperor. The emperor doesn’t actually live here, but his throne room is here, so it’s regarded as an appropriate venue for formal occasions. He avoids such occasions whenever possible.”

  “What does he do?” asked Xulai.

  Lok-i-xan drew a thoughtful breath. “Ah. Well, emperor is a hereditary personage. Tingawa has always had an emperor, and most of them, the very best ones, did very little. One of the problems with hereditary positions is that sometimes among such families marriages are made for political rather than genetic reasons, and the resultant children show no talent whatsoever for the role they are expected to play, or, indeed, for any sensible or productive role whatsoever. We had one emperor who sniggered, not occasionally but constantly. We had one whose muscles jumped and another who was so greedy he had to be carried everywhere he went. They were, in order, Glon-xan the Giggler, Tabi-xan the Twitcher, and Frukito-oox the Fat. So, as you can imagine, we really prefer that hereditary personages not be allowed to do much. The current one is very pleasant. He breeds ornamental fish and presides amiably over court occasions.”

  “Interesting,” said Abasio. “You were telling us about the rooms that go up and down.”

  “Yes. As I was saying, when we need to move about on ordinary, everyday business, we go up and down in these ascendables. They are moved by wind power. I am told such things were customary in the Before Time, in those great tall buildings they had. This citadel hill, if you stripped the soil away from the outside, is actually a very similar building: the ‘hill’ has been hollowed out over the centuries and except for an outside layer of landscaping is now totally occupied with offices, along with a hospital, and laboratories for our scientists. It has dozens of entrances at ground level where the stables are. The Clan Do-Lok citadel takes up the top floors and the Clan Do-Lok shrine is about halfway down; we’re going to stop there, then we have another appointment . . .”

  As he spoke, the room stopped moving and the door opened on a dimly lit corridor. Lok-i-xan’s face changed in a moment. It lost all animation, leaving only a mask that spoke of weary self-control. It was an expression that Abasio recognized from his own mirror, years ago, and he barely stopped himself from patting the leader of Clan Do-Lok on the shoulder as he left his seat to lead them down the hallway. He thought that at some time, it might be appropriate to pat Lok-i-xan, but Abasio did not feel he had that right as yet. He wondered if he ever would.

  There were doors, branching corridors, and alcoves along the way. In one of the alcoves a small group of elderly Tingawan men and women had gathered to await them.

  Xulai, alert to feelings around her, felt the tension, the sadness.

  Precious Wind put her hand on Xulai’s shoulder, squeezing it slightly. “It’s all right. You remember what we told you?”

  “The tablet with my mother’s name.”

  Precious Wind hugged her and stood silent. The door was opened from within. They entered the shrine.

  Abasio had seen shrines before. Artemisia had shrines. In the city where he had lived during his youth every gang had had a shrine. Since Ollie was taken from him and from the world, he had worn the library helmet to visit shrines of the world through many ages of the world. There were shrines of one kind or another in virtually every city or town he had visited on his travels. None were like this.

  Light came into the cavern here and there, glowing softly from behind a stalactite or through a tissue-thin curtain of mineral that had obviously flowed into place, molecule by molecule, over centuries of time. This was natural light, reflected downward, possibly angled and directed by mirrors so that it fell precisely upon this place and that place, giving just enough illumination to see the corridors extending into the black distance, each corridor barely lit by tiny stone lanterns that sat atop small stone tablets—thousands of tablets, thousands of lanterns, some dark, most offering a single, tiny glow. They were ranged in rows along the walls, on shelves, around pillars. Behind them the walls shone wetly. The thin slick of moisture that covered them glowed softly; the filmy pools that gathered on horizontal surfaces gleamed.

  Abasio thought that if he half shut his eyes he could believe he stood on a mountaintop at night surrounded by a heaven full of stars. Xulai, next to him, sighed. He looked down into her troubled eyes.

  “Where?” she whispered.

  He took her hand, kissed the palm. “Xu-i-lok knows. Just ask her.”

  She breathed deeply. Of course. Xu-i-lok would know. “Mother,” she whispered to herself. “I have brought you home. Tell me where to go.”

  It was the tiniest of tugging—the tug a spider’s web might have made—but she felt it. To the right. Past a line of tablets, another, to a group tiered against a wall. To the second tier, back, no, farther back. Many of these were unlighted. Many of these were the tablets of the living. Back. A little farther right . . . And there it was: engraved with the characters that were her mother’s name, furnished with the tiny stone lantern, three legged, three open sides, an ornately carved top in the form of . . . of her fisher . . . and other creatures including a hawk, a chipmunk. Xulai breathed a sob in, out, as she laid her hands upon the stone. The room had been quiet, broken only by the scuff of slippered feet, the brush of fabric, but now it was utterly silent. Within the stone lantern a firefly glow began, like a bit of luminescence on the sea, like the vagra
nt reflection of a star in a pool, pallid, softly silver, becoming green, then bluer, brighter, a little larger. Xulai held her breath. Suddenly it was a white-hot flash that lit the entire cavern before fading to become softly yellow, a candle light only, fading until it glowed steadily among the thousands of Clan Do-Lok.

  “The flash . . . ,” Abasio murmured.

  “We believe,” whispered Precious Wind, tears running down her cheeks, “that when that happens, it means the knowledge gained by the returning soul has been shared. This shrine is not for thousands of individuals. What is here is not many little flames. What is here is one clan, one flame, the knowledge and history of one people. And those like Lok-i-xan can consult it, can benefit from it. He talks with her now.”

  And indeed, he was beside the tablet, his hands upon it, murmuring. Abasio thought he was saying good-bye, but the words he heard were not the Tingawan words for farewell. Seeing the confusion in his face, Precious Wind wiped her eyes and said, “He’s not saying good-bye. He’s welcoming her home. And now I can mourn her!”

  He noticed that she had found a place to burn a lock of her hair. The ashes marked her forehead. As Precious Wind moved away, Xulai came to sit beside him, tears in her eyes as well. “I’m glad she’s home. It’s just . . .”

  “What, love?”

  “My fisher is gone. He hasn’t been with me since we came.”

  “Ah,” he said after a moment, understanding. “It was part of her.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, half smiling through the tears. “I hoped he was part of me, but I guess he was part of her. I wish I knew how she did it, how she created it and left it for me. The fisher shape was carved on the top of her lantern along with a dozen other animals. She was like me, like Precious Wind. She loved animals.”

  “My love, I think you and she love all living things.”