Raising the Stones

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Close by is the temple of Bondru Dharm, small and dark, making a sound like breathing, a suspiration, gentle as the breath of a child sweetly sleeping. Air rises in the temple, bringing in the cool. The God squats in a column of rising air, flushed with light. So Sam remembers him, quite suddenly—though he has not been in the temple for years—suddenly remembers with affectionate regard or perhaps only a vagrant curiosity which has distilled itself into something like fondness.

  The temple door opens easily, almost of itself. The scoopy floor presents no hazard. Sam finds the grilled door into the enclosure and squats before it, peering into the darkness to see the lights, pale galaxies of fire which appear low on the body of the God and ascend gradually, disappearing into darkness once more, over and over, rising lights, drifting as though in unlimited space, up, and out, and away.

  Sam’s eyes grow heavy. His legs feel the long miles of walking. He will rest, he says to himself, a few minutes, he will rest before he goes home to the brotherhouse. And he is all at once curled like a worm in a nut upon the mosaic floor, head pillowed on one muscled arm, legs drawn up, sleeping like a kitten, all limp, while the lights of the God pulse and dim, pulse and dim, pulse and dim.

  The air rises. The night gathers itself like a net drawn in before it is flung, darkness folding upon darkness, leaving light at the edges where dawn pushes against the horizon. When Sam wakes and rises, the tiny tendrils between the stones tickle his flesh and he is amazed at himself, amazed at the presence he senses even before he sees or hears it, something molten and golden warming the air in the temple like a brazier bright with burning coals.

  “Restful here,” the presence says.

  Sam sees the hero then, sees him and knows him at once. The hero glows, as though lit from within, a bronzy fire that shines through his short tunic, flames around his sandals and sword. On the floor beside him, as though casually dropped, is a high crested golden helmet which burns like a little sun.

  “Theseus,” Sam breathes, making it a prayer. “Here!”

  “Why not here?” asks the hero with a brotherly smile, head cocked benignly, beaming, his eyes alight. “I came to extend a fraternal hand. You wanted me, didn’t you?”

  For the moment Sam cannot remember. Wanting Theseus has not occurred to him, even in the same instant admitting that perhaps he has wanted … someone. Why not Theseus? “Did I?” he murmurs, wondering if he is dreaming. It would be churlish, he decides, to deny the hero whether it is a dream or not. “Of course, I did.”

  “As I said,” the hero goes on, striding to and fro upon the mosaics beneath the arches, “it’s restful here, but dull. The possibilities for adventure are limited. The immediate landscape creates no feelings of awe or majesty. It creates no feelings at all except apathy. There are no canyons, no precipices, no caverns. You seem to have no bandits, no despots, no Procrustes, cutting you to fit …”

  “We’re all cut to fit,” Sam objects, coming to himself, aware that he is merely listening, mouth open, taking no part iii this happening. “Oh, yes, we’re all cut to fit! There’s only room for certain habits and attitudes here. Constructiveness. Dependability. Honesty and reliability. There’s no room for epics, for sagas, for legends.” He babbles, surprised at his own lack of surprise. He sees the hero. The hero is not an imaginary image, not a delusion, not a hologram. When Sam puts out his hand, it meets flesh and leather and metal. When he sniffs, he smells sweat. Of course, he could be dreaming that he touches, feels …” We’re all cut to fit, psychologically,” he cries. “All our legends have been lopped off. Like limbs, from trees.”

  “Which leaves life boring,” the hero challenges, smiling at him, mocking him only a little. “Bored, Samasnier Girat. Aren’t you? You feel the need for a quest, don’t you? Yours is probably the same as mine was. We’re fellows, aren’t we? Comrades? I’ve come to help you.”

  “Help me?” “Raise the stone. Find the sandals, swing the sword. Find your father.”

  “But I know where he is …”

  “I knew where mine was, too. That doesn’t mean it was easy, getting there. There were many, many barriers in the way. Many villains to dispose of. Many heroic deeds to accomplish. And then while I was doing all that, there were the women, following, clinging. You have to be careful of them …”

  “Careful of them?”

  “Women. They’re tricky.”

  “Yes,” says Sam, realizing the hero has just told him a great truth, “Yes, they are.”

  “They don’t understand men. They pretend, sometimes, but they really don’t understand men,” says Theseus, his voice growing faint. “They don’t see the world as we see it. …”

  Sam nods, believing the words though he is not sure what the hero means.

  “You need a sword belt, Sam Girat,” the hero whispers. “You have no sword belt for your sword, when we find it.”

  “Don’t go!” cries Sam, aware that the hero is becoming tenuous, misty. Sam puts out his hand and feels something spongy and unreal.

  “I’ll be back,” the hero whispers. “Later. Watch for me.”

  And he is gone. Night is gone. Through the slit windows, the pale tentacles of morning are insinuating themselves, sucking their way across the temple floor. Sam goes out where dawn marks the eastern sky with a long, violet line which spreads upward in shades of purple and plum, exploding instantly into pink daylight.

  “I saw him,” Sam erupts with joyous laughter. “I really did see him. Theseus! I saw him!”

  He capers like a goat. He dances. He frolics his way to the brotherhouse, occasioning interest, wonder, perhaps a little fear in those who are up very early and see him leaping along the path like a young milk-vlish. At home, he crawls into bed and falls at once into deep sleep while the day-to-day world wakes and surges around him.

  • • •

  • In later years Sam remembered wakening after the episode in the temple with the absolute certainty the hero was real. That same day, Sam had started making a sword belt from a pattern found in the Archives. He made it of worked leather with semiprecious gemstones set into it. One could pick up the stones along the little streams anywhere in Hobbs Land. Sam had made a special trip to borrow a polisher at the craftsmen’s market at Central Management. He hadn’t been accustomed to doing that kind of work, and it had taken him some little time, doing it right, doing it over until it was right.

  When he had finished with it, Sam kept the sword belt hanging in the back of his closet, behind his off-time robes. Later on, again at the hero’s suggestion, he had made a helmet decorated with gold medallions, so he could be properly dressed when he found the thing under the stone. He never doubted he would find it or them, or something else like them. Theseus was clear on that point. Sam would not only find the sword, he would find adventure and challenge and heroism of his own. He would find a destiny fitting who he actually was, which was not a farmer upon dull Hobbs Land, dedicated to grains and legumes and increasing the production of hairy-legged milk-vlishes.

  “Patience,” said the hero, again and again.

  Even though years were going by, Theseus was surprisingly little dismayed. “Patience. The time comes,” he told Sam. “Inevitably, it comes. When it is meant to be, it happens, that’s all.”

  Sam had been patient. He had become thirty lifeyears, and thirty-one and thirty-two, and then he had become Topman. Becoming Topman, in a way, helped solve his problem with patience. Being Topman was kingly and heroic and even godlike enough for him to go on with, for a time.

  And in Voorstod, upon Ahabar, his father lived still, as he had always lived. Among the legends.

  • • •

  • In Voorstod, in the town of Cloudport (often called simply, Cloud), on the cobbled street that went from the square on up the hill to the citadel of the prophets, stood a tavern sign called the Hanged King. The tavern sign showed the king hanged by his feet and pierced through with daggers, his crown still jammed tight on his head. It was a measure of Voors
tod’s hatred for the royal family of Ahabar that the face on the king was that of the first ruler, King Jimmy. Scarcely a season went by that some drinker did not suggest repainting the sign with the face and figure of the current monarch, Queen Wilhulmia. Since that would mean changing the name of the tavern, however, the owner had held out against the suggestion. “Kings and Queens come and go,” he had chuckled. “The Hanged King goes on forever.”

  At a corner table covered with the circled stains of tankards and charred places where men had knocked out their pipes, Phaed Girat, with his usual bull-necked im-perturability, sat talking with a little man he had only just met, one who had been sent down to meet Phaed, so he said, from Sarby. He had a few amusing words to say about Sarby, up there in the far north, where the mists gathered thick as wool. Things washed in Cloud would stay wet for a week, he commented, but things washed in Sarby never dried. People went wet like frogs in Sarby, where they saw the sun only once every ten years or so. So said the little man in a jokey voice belied by the pinched look of his nostrils and the suspicion in his eyes.

  “So what are you folk doin’ up there, in Sarby?” Phaed rumbled at him, stroking the whip at his side with one thick thumb. “You have wise prophets, I suppose, and many of the Faithful. Awaiting apocalypse and strong for the Cause, are you?” He pushed his big cap back on his head, letting the front of his hair show a little, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. It was warm in the tavern, for the provisioner had built a fire to drive off the damp.

  “Strong as any, I imagine,” said the other. His name was Mugal Pye, and he was known as a quick man, with a word or with a knife. He was also known for his handiness in the assembly of various deadly explosives and sneaky weapons. People, speaking of him, said he was clever as a

  their churchin’ and their nonsense. Oh, they grieve so over their children that they’re unbearable to live with, or they contract to go settle on some farm world, or they spend their time frettin’ over the Gharm pups. You wouldn’t argue with me would you, Mugal Pye? That women are a burden to the Cause.”

  The little man had been watching Phaed narrowly, and now he nodded, though not with any great show of agreement. “I suppose they are. And seein’ how you feel about ‘em, it’s a good thing then I wasn’t sent to talk to you of that.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  They drank a while, not saying much, until Phaed demanded, “Well, did they send you to talk of anythin’ then?”

  The little man made circles on the table top with his tankard. “They sent me to talk of one certain thing, the matter of a certain Gharm harp player out in Ahabar who’s come to our attention.”

  Phaed growled a little between gritted teeth. “I know which one you mean! Have you in Sarby heard what the Queen of Ahabar intends? Have you heard she’s holdin’ out some mysterious great honor for this Gharm? What are they thinkin’ of out there! It’s a slap in the face of every man of Voorstod.”

  “Of all of us,” agreed Mugal Pye, the dagger-points in his eyes glinting. “All of us, man. Too long the Gharm’s been out there in Ahabar, attractin’ attention, mockin’ us, while those of Ahabar make much of her. It’s time the matter was put an end to.”

  “So,” growled Phaed. “What do they call her? Stenta Thilion, is it not? Two names they’ve given her, as though she was a human. Was there spawn of hers?”

  “She had a mate, but he’s long dead,” said Muhal. “As for her spawn, they’re not in the Three Counties. They’re out in Ahabar somewhere.”

  “And where did they settle?”

  “In the eastern provinces, so I’ve heard. Near Fenice.”

  “We’ve managed before, in the eastern provinces.”

  “That’s true, that’s true. But we’ve made it look like accidents, Phaed. That’s what we’ve always thought best. Not to do anything openly in Ahabar.”

  “It’s time we did! It’s time we started takin’ out the Gharm in Ahabar, in bunches, if we can manage it.”

  Mugal Pye squinted and turned his glass, musing. “There’s those that’s who say we’d bring the army in.”

  “You know that’s foolishness. Wilhulmia won’t order the army in without Authority sayin’ so,” Phaed declared with a fine brave thump on the table.

  System government resided on Authority, one of Phansure’s many moons, while the army was stored on another, called Enforcement. On Authority and Enforcement of governance of System depended, or so it was assumed, though some felt Authority had outlived its ability to govern anything larger than a fairly small committee.

  Phaed went on. “It’s time, I tell you, Mugal Pye. What will Ahabar do? I’ll tell you what they’ll do. The Queen will weep and rage, and then she’ll call for Authority to discipline us. And Authority will hem and haw and say maybe yes and maybe no, and they’ll refer the matter to the Religion Advisory to tell them whether our ownin’ slaves is religious or not. And the Religion Advisory will refer the matter to the Theology Panel. And what have we paid all that metal and gems to this one and that one on the Theology Panel for, except to guarantee they say maybe yes and maybe no for a thousand years if need be. And what will happen in the end is nothin’. The Panel will say nothin’ to the Advisory. The Advisory will say nothin’ to the Authority. Authority will do nothin’. And Ahabar will do nothin’. Meantime we’ll have rid ourselves of a traitorous Gharm and put the fear of Almighty God into ten thousand more!”

  “Phaed Girat, though I may live to regret it, I tell you the truth. There are those among the prophets who agree with you.”

  “So then, let’s do it.”

  “Well, we would do it, save no one knows quite where Stenta Thilion is, there in Ahabar. The Queen has kept her and her family guarded and hid. Which is why I’ve come to you, Phaed Girat.” “You need my nose, is it? Need my nose to sniff her out. Well, we’ll find her!” Phaed puckered his brow in concentration. “Any musician worth her keep has to come out of hidin’ to play a bit, once in a while. I’ll find out, myself, when that is and where that is.”

  They drank in silence, not seeing the Gharm who swept the floor or the Gharm who polished the tables or the Gharm who carried bottles up from the cellar. The Gharm were small and ruddy-dark and as human in intellect as any Voorstoder, but they were invisible in Voorstod except when they ran away. Phaed did not think of them as he stroked his whip and frowned deeply, plotting how he would find Stenta Thilion, the harpist, whose family had been three generations in Ahabar and who was reknowned throughout all its provinces; the harpist, whose great grandparents had fled from Voorstod over a hundred years before, but who was still accounted an escaped slave by those of the northern counties.

  • When he had drunk slightly more than he could hold, Mugal Pye left the tavern, staggered up the hill and around a corner to find himself at the door of a dark narrow house with blind windows, where he knocked three times, then three again, then one, holding onto the door to keep himself from slipping.

  The door creaked open to disclose an old man with white hair to his knees, one Preu Flandry, who looked carefully up and down the street before standing aside to let Pye enter.

  “So you’ve met him,” Preu said, as Mugal took off his cap and shook loose his own wealth of hair, like a tangled dark rain falling almost to his thighs. So the men of the Faithful wore their hair, for their power was in their hair.

  “I’ve met him,” the other agreed, shortly, thrusting his tangled locks behind his ears and bowing with perfunctory reverence toward the niche with its resident skull. So the Faithful, among themselves, made ritual obeisance to death.

  “And what d’you think?” his host asked, leading the way into a dusty room to the right of the hallway.

  “About what?”

  “About Phaed, man! Will he help us or won’t he?”

  “He’s a zealot for the Cause. He’ll help find the Gharm woman.” Mugal Pye hiccuped and shook his head.

  “We already knew he’d do that! That was somethin’ for you to
talk of, is all. It’s his wife we’re wonderin’ about. He was besotted about her, that we know, too.”

  “That was years ago. She was young and pretty then. Likely she’s neither anymore.”

  “Did you talk to him of women?”

  “I did.” Mugal nodded slowly, for a long time, as though he had forgotten his head was moving up and down. “He did not seem overly interested in ‘em. Rather the reverse, I’d say.”

  “Ah, but we’ve been taught that,” the older man said softly. “Oh, yes, that’s what we’re taught. The prophets have said, often enough. ‘Let women go,’ they’ve said. ‘Our faith is a faith for men.’ Throughout all Voorstod, that’s what’s been said.”

  Mugal kept on nodding, accepting this as the simple truth it was. “So Phaed had a wife he was besotted about. And so she left, as women do.” He sat down and collected his thoughts with difficulty. “The thing I don’t understand is why you lot want her back.”

  The older man shook his head, pursing his lips. “The prophets want her back, Pye. After tellin’ us for generations to let the women go, now somethin’s happened to make them think we may not have women left enough to bear us sons.” The old man said it almost apologetically, but not enough so to stop the flare of anger in the other’s eyes.

  “I thought eschatos was imminent, Preu Flandry!” Mugal Pye cried in a strident voice. “The end of things was to be sudden and soon. We’ve been promised the apocalypse. In our lifetimes, we were told!”

  “And so it may be,” whispered the other.

  “The eschatos, the end of things, when we will stride across worlds with the sword in our hands.” The little man’s voice rose in impassioned complaint, like the wail of a hungry child.