Raising the Stones

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Stenta sat upon a cushioned chair and held out her cup to be refilled by her eldest child. A disinterested observer would have seen no apparent difference in their ages. The slight, lithe forms were of a kind. The tight caps of dark fur were identical. The eyes and button noses and unlined skins appeared no different in the daughters than in the mother. Even the sinuous movements of arms, the mannered extensions of the four-fingered, two-thumbed hands, the ritual courtesies of full and half-obeisance, were the same in both generations, save that Stenta did not bow quite so deeply nor kneel so swiftly. As the eldest, the Gem (for the Gharm saw their old people as jewels to be treasured), she was entitled to deference, no matter that the outsider would scarcely notice how much was given her. Among themselves, they were aware, and what others thought or perceived about so private a matter was of no concern.

  Now Liva, seeing the strain settle upon her mother’s face at the mention of kindred in bondage, cast a quick glance at Sarlia and begged, “Tell us of the Tchenka, Mama-gem.”

  “You have heard,” the older woman breathed into the steam of her teacup. “Ten thousand times.”

  “Were it ten thousand times ten thousand, it were not enough,” said Liva, ritually. “No retelling is too much.”

  “So much is true,” Stenta agreed. The stories of the Tchenka were the heritage of the Gharm, to be passed on intact and unchanged to all future generations. Even though the Tchenka themselves might have been left behind—and no one was sure whether they had stayed or died or followed—still their history should be told. They were the spirits of the Gharm, no matter how long ago or faraway. It behooved every Gharm to hear; and hearing, tell; and telling, teach.

  Stenta began, singing in the breathy chant that was the best she could manage these days, “Long ago was Billa-needful …”

  • Long ago was Billa-needful, waking out of darkness and emptiness, aware only of a something-hunger. What am I? Billa asked itself. Why do I wake thus? Where do I find myself? When is this time, beforeness or afterness? Who is in this place with me?

  Long did Billa meditate upon these questions, until at last Billa decided to test first whether any other being was present. So Billa sang one note, sending it into the darkness and emptiness until all the void was filled with the note. And the note went away into silence, leaving no echo and no answer.

  There is no answer, so then, I am alone, said Billa-needful. And since there comes no echo, I am in empty; and since there comes no echo, I am before anything has occurred; and since I am before, I wake to create; and since I am in empty, I am All-There-Is-Now.

  And long Billa meditated upon these answers, until at last Billa decided to create others which would echo.

  I shall make others, said Billa. I shall make some to sing with me. So, Billa-needful sang into the nothing one song, and it was named He-Is-Accomplished. And Billa-needful sang another song, and it was named She-Goes-On-Creating. And He-Is-Accomplished was a male and She-Goes-Creating was a female, and the two of them went out into the nothing where they sang with Billa-needful until all of nothingness was full of song.

  And He-Is-Accomplished heard the song and was content, but She-Goes-On-Creating took the song and rounded it and made many worlds of it, large and small, and set the smooth songs spinning around the fiery songs and the cold songs spinning around the smooth songs, and all music gathered up to leave no sound between so that the songs spun in silence. And when Billa-needful saw what she had done, Billa-needful was pleased, saying, “Now may happenings occur and one thing cause another and time come into creation and the reason for my being be fulfilled.”

  But He-Is-Accomplished was uncomfortable, for there was much doing and confusion among the circling worlds, so that He-Is-Accomplished suffered greatly from itchiness.

  “There is peace in silence between the worlds,” he said, moving away from the worlds, “and that is where I will dwell.”

  So Billa-needful encircled all, watching what occurred, while He-Is-Accomplished dwelt in silence and She-Goes-On-Creating dwelt in song, and so all was inhabited. So say all Gharm, so be it, coribee.

  • The annunciator at the door brought all three of them to their feet. “Someone comes!” cried the mechanical voice, like metal foil, blowing in the wind.

  Liva motioned the other two to sit. “I will see to it,” she said.

  “Careful,” her mother said, out of habit. “Do not open unless you’re sure.” There was no such thing as safety, not even here in Fenice. Not when the men of Voorstod were determined upon killing every Gharm they could. How many of the innocent had died for no reason at all save the vicious pride of the Voorstoders? So now, Stenta repeated, “Careful.”

  “So, Mama-gem,” Liva agreed. She peered at the door screen, noting the royal livery on the man carrying the package, the label and shape of the box he bore. “Your gown for the concert, Mama-gem! From the Queen’s own dressmaker.”

  Liva opened the door, presented a finger for the messenger’s snipper to painlessly drag away a cell or two, and accepted the box. The royal page stepped inside and opened it for her, thus showing there was no danger in it. In these days of the Voorstod terror, so much was courtesy on Queen Wilhulmia’s instructions.

  Liva carried the box in one hand, the frock over both arms as she returned to the inner room like a moving sheaf of diamonds, glitteringly resplendent, a preserved rainbow of light.

  “Oooh,” breathed Stenta, who had been fitted only into the basic garment, before the Phansurian bead-artists had been at it. “Oooh.”

  Upon the high-necked breast of the dress was worked the heads and bodies of two saber birds, facing one another. Their head and wing plumes arched away onto the shoulders and down onto the drooping, bannerlike sleeves of the dress. Tail plumes filled all the space to the hem, every plume with a gemmed eye. On the back of the dress, butterflies flew from the hem toward the neck, around a space of Phansuri silk at the hip and thigh, where Stenta would sit, filling all the rest with glittering beauty. The saber bird was the clan Tchenka of Stenta’s mother. The butterfly was the clan Tchenka of Stenta’s father. Stenta had been born out of the Butterfly people into the Saber-bird people, though there were neither butterflies nor saber birds where any of them had lived for generations. On the neckband of the gown was a tiny frog, worked in emerald beads. The frog was Stenta’s personal Tchenka. The dress was of scarlet and yellow and every shade between these two: wine and gold, pink and melon, orange and ochre.

  The style was an adaptation of that traditional to the Gharm for festive occasions, though there had not been within living memory such a gorgeous or extravagant application of tradition. Sarlia stroked the beads, marveling at their chilly, heavy surface, like flowing metal.

  “Mama-gem,” said Sarlia, “the sleeves are so heavy. Surely you will not be able to play, wearing this.”

  Stenta came forward to peer closely at the garment. In a moment she found the seams she sought, opened them, and removed the sleeves. Beneath were other sleeves, close, light ones of Phansuri silk, red as new blood.

  “I come on the stage all glorious,” announced Stenta with a straight face, walking with decorous steps around the room. “I glitter and shine and bow to the conductor, and he to me. I bow to the audience, holding out my arms so the sleeves hang down like flags. I wave my hands, so, showing yet once more how graceful we Gharm are. I go to the harp. I seat myself, being careful that under me is this place on the dress where there are no butterflies to make uncomfortable places on my bottom. I hold out my arms, straight, letting the sleeves glitter. A woman comes from the wings and leans above me, unfastens my sleeves, and takes them away. The undersleeves are red, very highly visible, so everyone will see how my arms move. So, now I may play. So we have rehearsed it, to make a show. The conductor says I am so small, I must shine like fire for them all to see me.”

  “Beautiful,” said Liva. “I’ll hang it up, Mama-gem.”

  “No,” her mother instructed. “The beads are too heavy, You
must lay it flat, in the spare bedroom. The Queen’s dressmaker told me. Even so, it will stretch a little during the concert. It was made to wear only this one time.”

  “And the bracelets?”

  “What bracelets?”

  “The ones in the box with the dress,” said Sarlia, drawing them out. They glittered with the same colors as the gown, though their faceted surfaces were set with gems rather than beaded.

  “Ah, ah, how kind of the Queen,” said Stenta. “She does too much.”

  “I’ll put them with the dress,” said Liva. “Then Mama can tell more of the Tchenka.”

  She went off to the guest room, returning a few moments later to refill their teacups and demand that the story of He-Is-Accomplished and She-Goes-On-Creating be continued.

  • She-Goes-On-Creating wandered a time upon the worlds and among the stars, singing as they sang, but the surfaces of the worlds were dull and uninteresting, like beads, while the surfaces of the stars were furious and uncomfortable. “I will sing life,” said She-Goes-On-Creating, as she stood upon a world, “I will sing life to make things more comfortable.” And she put out her hand and sang water into being, and then grass into being, and when they were created, she put them on many of the worlds while she sang forest into being.

  After that she sang Water-Dragon into being, and after Water-Dragon, she sang Desert-Dragon, and after Desert-Dragon, Forest-Dragon, and then all other dragons of every kind, and sent them to the various worlds where they were to live …

  • “You don’t want me to say the entire catalog, surely,” said Stenta. “You have known the list of the Tchenka since you were eight!”

  “So we have,” Liva agreed. “Dragons first, then fish that eats grass in all its kinds, fish that eats on the bottom in all its kinds, fish that eats other fish the same; then bird that eats grass, bird that eats in the field, bird that eats other birds; so on and so on, creatures of every kind. All the Tchenka, lost forever.”

  “Well, it may be they are not lost, though such is the story,” sighed Stenta. “And finally, She-Goes-On-Creating meets together with all the Tchenka at the foot of the eternal mountain to decide what should be done to keep everything in balance. But the Tchenka of humans would not agree to keep humans in balance, so the other Tchenka killed them, and man has had no Tchenka since.”

  “Which is why he kills everything,” said Liva, “for he is not cousin to the creatures of the worlds as the Gharm are.”

  “It is why those of Voorstod are so evil,” said Sarlia, “for they have no indwelling spirit whatsoever.”

  “Tss,” whispered her mother. “Do not offend the Tchenka by mentioning Voorstoders. I will play you quiet, as She-Goes-On-Creating sang the quiet into which He-Is-Accomplished went.”

  She went to the harp, which stood beside the window, a great concert harp, the largest any Gharm could play, very narrow, to hold all the strings, with the strings set very close, as they could be for the slender Gharm fingers. “I will play the song She-Goes-On-Creating sang to create the saber bird,” said Stenta, laying her hands upon the strings.

  She played and the-women-her-daughters were silent. Outside in the street, people stopped what they were doing and simply stood, heads turned toward the sound. Wherever the music was, the birds came into being, head and wing and leg, brilliant body and brilliant tail. They moved. One could see them moving in the music. One could tell what they looked like. They danced with their beaks pointing upward. They danced on their toes. They leapt and turned, wings spread wide. It didn’t matter, not too much, that they were not on Ahabar, or in Voorstod, that they had died on Gharm with all the trees and forests and swamps and streams which had been Gharm, for they survived still in the music. When the music was over, for a long time, it was as though the birds were in the room, as though their souls were there, listening, brought back from whatever place they had been.

  “Go home now,” said Stenta to her daughters, her face calm and radiant as dawn, as though she had been speaking to angels. “Go help your daughters feed the children. I will rest, for soon I will play for the Queen.”

  • • •

  • On the escarpment of Hobbs Land, Shan Damzel dreamed of Ninfadel.

  “Don’t forget to wear your faceplate,” said the officer at the outpost. “Don’t forget to wash off the mucous before it dries.”

  Shan went away from the outpost. It receded behind him as things in dreams recede, becoming unreachable, unattainable. He was remote now, all alone, standing on the hill overlooking the river. Raucous sounds came to him, and he looked down to see Porsa by the river, and then they were coming at him faster than he could have imagined possible.

  He tried to run, but his feet wouldn’t move …

  He only had time to get his faceplate down before …

  Something inexorable swallowed him up.

  • Jep learned to dig ditches, at first painfully, and then much less so. At first digging by hand seemed a daft, silly thing to do, when there were machines that could do it easier and better, but here in Voorstod there were many daft, silly things going on. So he worked hard, hoping to finish the task, only to find there were more ditches to be dug, and still more. After the third or fourth agonizing day of it, he realized the labor was set specifically to tire him out, possibly so he would sleep, certainly so he would not have the energy to be rebellious, so he would have no time or strength to think about escape. The farmer didn’t need these ditches, or, if he did, he didn’t need them done quickly or finished soon. With this realization came sense and a kind of fatalistic serenity. From that moment on he worked easily, gently, as though, he told himself, he were uncovering a God, neatly setting the turves aside in parallel lines and piling the dark soil inside them, making of the task a work of art.

  Work was not easy, as it would have been at home. He could not see into calming distance. The whole world was confined by mist, into the compass of his own emotions. There were feelings all around him, anger and hatred and menace. Each time one of the men came near him, he could feel roiling dissatisfaction, barely withheld belligerence. The animosity was not toward him, especially. It was not even toward the Gharm, especially. It simply was, a condition of their being, born in them as gills on a fish, suiting them to breathe only angry and hostile air.

  The bellicose atmosphere frightened Jep. He could feel a reflection of it in himself, as well, rising up from a hot well in his belly, something responsively molten there, something heretofor unsuspected. He kept it carefully controlled, remembering the time after Bondru Dharm had died. Then, too, there had been anger, though the children had felt it less than the adults. Of course, the children had been working on the temple. There were no temples here.

  Though … why shouldn’t there be?

  That night, when the Gharm, Nils, brought his food, he begged the little man to sit with him a while before the fire.

  “I’m lonely,” he said, sounding as pathetic as possible. It wasn’t difficult. He was lonely, with a deep, aching sense of loss for all familiar and comforting things.

  “If the men come …” the little man temporized.

  “They don’t come. Not anymore. Sometimes in the day, but not at night.”

  “It’s true,” Nils agreed. “They are living in a house down in Sarby, not far from here. It’s warmer there, in the valley.”

  “All of them?”

  “Mugal Pye and Epheron Floom, those two.”

  “Not Preu Flandry?”

  “No. He’s gone back, so they say, to Cloud.”

  “What do those others do there in Sarby? They’re not keeping watch on me. This,” and he indicated the collar he wore, with its faceted, gemlike inserts, “this keeps me close. So, why do they stay?”

  “Making things,” the Gharm said. “The Gharm there often see them making things, and they tell us. Jewelry, like. And little boxes. Things.”

  “Devil things, no doubt,” brooded Jep. He had no illusions about the Voorstoders. He had not yet
detected any goodness or kindness in any of them. It was almost as though they were a separate race, and Jep spent much time during the lonely days thinking how this might be. Speciation through isolation, possibly. He had learned about that in school. Men had developed a few species since the Dispersion. How long had the Voorstoders dwelt apart from other men, on that planet with the Gharm? How long to turn into devilish creatures, who made devilish things.

  “Devil things, no doubt,” assented Nils.

  The door opened a crack and Pirva slid through, eyes wide. “You didn’t come back,” she told her mate.

  “I know.” He soothed her, inviting her to join him at the fireside. “The boy is lonesome.”

  “Poor boy,” she said softly. “Taken from his mamagem.

  “It is not my mother I miss so much,” he told her. “I was old enough to leave my mother’s house and go into the brotherhouse. It is that I am a One Who.”

  “One Who what?” she wanted to know.

  “One Who serves the God,” was his answer. “One Who serves the God Birribat Shum. And there is another One Who, closer to me than a sister. So it is the God I miss, and Saturday Wilm.”

  “Is that a name?” they asked. “Saturday Wilm.”

  He nodded, choking down a hot, bitter hard-edged chunk that had come into his throat. “That is her name,” he told them. “And she will come for me, somehow. We need each other.”

  “But that is not the person they expect,” Nils said in a puzzled voice. “It is Maire Manone they expect to come, not Saturday Wilm.”

  “I do not know what Maire Manone will do,” he said. “But Saturday Wilm will come. And she will bring …” His voice trailed away, for he had just thought of it. She would bring. Of course she would bring. “She will bring with her what we all need.”