Raising The Stones

by Tepper, Sheri S.

  “I’ve told you we don’t need this rope. I came of my own will, Dad. Let’s talk like men.”

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Phaed’s eyes were opaque as he agreed. “Sure, boy, sure. But later. I’ve things to see to now.”

  He opened an inner door, dragged Sam through, removed the collar with a device from his pocket, then untied Sam’s hands.

  “We’ll talk later, boy. But for now you’ll stay here. Don’t try the door, it’s too thick for you to break, and there’s bars on the windows.” He went out, and the sound of the lock clicking shut came muffled through the heavy wood.

  Sam could not remember ever feeling so helpless, so impotent. When Phaed looked at him, he looked through him, as though he saw something else beyond, some shadow Sam, some expected presence incongruent with the reality. Sam clutched his arms around himself, assuring himself that he existed in his own flesh and had not faded to shadow. He could not hear anything except his own voices gibbering at him. This is your dad, he kept telling himself. This is the dad he’d come between worlds to meet. This was the dad he had endowed with the stuff of legends. He did not remember a legend in which a father dragged his son off like a victim and imprisoned him.

  “Lie,” he told himself. He was lying to himself. In the legends, fathers did exactly that, sometimes. Except, in the legends, it was because they did not know who their sons were! Perhaps the father had the word of an oracle and misunderstood it, or the father did not know he had a son. In the legends, things always worked out that the son came unheralded, unrecognized, but was accepted once his identity was revealed.

  Could it be that Phaed did not accept him for who he was?

  Sam went to the window. Phaed had told him no more than the truth. The window was too small for him to get through and was also tightly barred. It looked down onto the street and a corner of the square, and he could see and hear those who passed by. He wondered if any one of them would respond if he yelled and felt it was unlikely.

  Tapping his way around the room he found that the walls were stone. There was only the one door, heavy and solid as a table. If he put his ear to it, he could hear sounds, barely, the clink of glasses and the mutter of voices. Phaed was drinking with someone—plotting, his mind said, and he sternly rebuked himself.

  Back at the window he glared at the street where groups of men went by, in threes and fours. One corner of the citadel gate was barely visible, and he could see men passing through. Passersby in the street showed up clearly in the light thrown by Ninfadel. The moon was directly above, making no shadows.

  It was senseless. He had come to meet his father, so why was he captive? He had come of his own will, so why was he a prisoner? He was willing to meet, to talk, to learn, even, and he was shut away alone. The thing was crazy. Phaed could not doubt who he was!

  And where was Maire? Up the hill, at the farm? Safe before the fire, with the Gharm providing food, as they had done yesterday and the day before? Why hadn’t she been brought here with him? Did she realize that he had no choice but to leave her? Did she realize he had been forced away? She could not believe he had simply gone, leaving her to whatever fate Phaed planned. He had not intended to leave her, and he prayed that she knew that. Though why would she know it?

  Because, he told himself, she knows I love her and would not leave her.

  How would she know that?

  Bleakly, he considered whether Maire had evidence of his affection. Had he ever told her he loved her in a way that made her know he meant it? Had he shown her in any way? He remembered throwing words, like a bone to a hungry dog. “Oh, yes, Mam, I love you, too.” Bones of love, without much meat; dutiful attention to occasion, but no spontaneous expressions. A bouquet on her natal day. A bottle of wine at First Harvest. And what else?

  Nothing else.

  He held the bars in his hands and strained at them, finding the pain less uncomfortable than the question. Had he ever convinced Maire that he loved her?

  Did he, in fact, love her?

  Perhaps he had never really thought she had earned his love. He had not forgiven her for taking him away from Voorstod. She could have left him here. She shouldn’t have given him the choice. It would have been easier for her if she had left him here. He had blamed her sometimes that she had not left him with his dad, or stayed with his dad herself. He had blamed her, thinking she had cared more about Maechy than she did about Sam.

  He turned from the window, running his hands along the walls, the stone walls. Out in the street there were men walking, walking among the whipping posts. Whipping posts and hooks upon the walls of the citadels, blood and pain and death. Voorstodss.

  Maire had never told him about the prophets, or the hooks on the walls. Would his own life end there? Did they kill their victims first? Or did they hang them on those huge sharp hooks still living? Did the metal hooks pass through living flesh, flesh that bled and writhed?

  Sam found himself weeping without knowing why. He had never feared death, but now, suddenly, he trembled with fear, slumped to the floor, wept passionately, exhaustingly, until he could weep no more. He lay where he had fallen, empty, worn out from apprehension, at last falling into a doze.

  A noise in the street brought him awake. The moon was now making long shadows, and the men below were half-hidden, half-disclosed by the mantic light. Mugal Pye, two other men. Their voices came clearly, a sibilant hiss meant not to be heard, but heard nonetheless through some fluke of acoustics in the narrow street. It was a white-haired man, snarling at Mugal Pye.

  “What are you doing here, Pye?”

  “Came here because Phaed’s son’s here, Preu Flandry!”

  “What do you need with the son, you’ve got the mother.”

  “Hell, no, we didn’t get her,” Mugal snarled.

  Flandry’s voice, “How could you not? She’s an old woman! You had men, you had sniffers with you.”

  Mugal Pye’s voice in belligerent answer: “Because she got down to the west shore, that’s why. The woman must run like a rabbit. There were some fishing boats there. Looks like she knocked holes in all of them but one, and took that one.”

  “Got to the blockade, did she?” Preu asked, wonderingly.

  “Who knows. Got there or drowned! Though it could have been a false trail. We’ve got one more place to look.” This was a third voice, from a man standing clearly in the moonlight.

  “The Awateh wants her, Epheron Floom,” hissed Preu. “It’s why I came! Giving her to Awateh will get us off the hook.”

  “What the Awateh wants is an example made,” agreed Mugal Pye. “So if we can’t find her, what?”

  “If we don’t find Maire, it’ll have to be Phaed’s boy, then,” said Flandry. “He’s here, and there’s three of us with you, Epheron. We could get him now.”

  “Not so fast, not so fast,” hissed Pye. “Phaed’s got men up there with him. We’ll wait until he leaves, until his son is alone, tomorrow …” Pye’s voice trailed away as he went down the street, tugging on Flandry’s arm.

  There was no light in the room Sam was in. The men could not have known they were overheard. Sam’s world gradually came into focus again. Pye and Epheron had been after Maire, but she was safe. Undoubtedly the Gharm had spirited her away. And Jep was safe, and Saturday. The army of Ahabar was on the borders of this place, and time and the Godstuff would work their spell. The forces of righteousness had conspired to help him, though he had not deserved it. He wept again, this time thankfully. He would tell Phaed about the connivance of the two. Even his own life might not be at risk.

  Sam stood up and stretched, feeling something inside himself loosen and break. His life was not threatened just yet. Sometimes the only thing a hero could do was exist bravely under difficult circumstances. A hero was a hero, even in captivity. At least he could try for a certain style and dignity, a certain polish and shine. Theseus would approve of that. So he’d concentrate on surviving.

  He lay down on one of the dirty beds
and slept.

  Phaed pulled him off the bed when it was barely light. Sam told him of the conversation he had overheard, and Phaed reacted with a sneer.

  “Bastards,” he said. “Oh, yes, those bastards. Well, we’ve planned for that!”

  He tied Sam’s hands in that painful way again and dragged him out into the street, across the empty square, down an alley, and into an old building that looked as though it had been deserted for years. Sam could probably have escaped; he thought he was almost as heavy as the older man, almost as muscular, but he didn’t try. He had already decided he would bear his captivity and see what happened. He did not respond to Phaed’s muttered comments, but merely came along, silently, unresisting.

  When they had reached the derelict building, however, he asked, “Why are we here?”

  “Oh, you’re talkin’ now, are you? Well, that’s a relief. I thought there for a time you’d gone mute.”

  “No, not mute,” said Sam. “It’s just hard to talk with you because you’re not what I remember.”

  “I’m sure Maire remembered me well enough.”

  “She talked of you seldom,” said Sam. “I didn’t believe what she said.”

  “What did she say?” Phaed was interested.

  “She said you were a killer.”

  “True,” said Phaed.

  “That you killed women and children and other innocent people. That you hunted people down and killed them.”

  “Why wouldn’t you believe that? Any good man of the Cause would do the same.”

  “I didn’t believe it because I’m not part of your Cause,” Sam said, barely able to get the words out. “No decent man would be part of your Cause, so no decent man would believe it.”

  Phaed laughed. “Oh, decent, is it? Like those dogs from Ahabar, hm? Like you farmers? Like you servants who take other men’s money to do other men’s will? Decent!” He hawked and spat, showing what he thought of such decency. “Slave-men. Not even free!”

  “Why are we here,” asked Sam, again, gesturing with his chin at the surroundings.

  “We’re here, boy, because the Awateh wants blood. You say my friends didn’t find your Mam to give him, not that I’d intended they should.”

  “You arranged her escape?”

  “Say I foresaw it. I may have dropped a word here and there. The Gharm are easy to manipulate with a word, here and there.”

  “Did she get clean away?”

  “She’s where I know where she is, boy.”

  “Why did the prophet want to kill her?”

  “The Awateh’s getting old and frumious. The blood of unbelievers makes him feel young again. Apostates are even better. Ordinarily, we’d go catch a few backsliders from Wander or Skelp and bring them in for the old man’s delectation, but the blockade’s been moved through Skelp and Wander and sits now at the border of Leeward County, so there’s no apostates we can get at. We could always accuse someone of our own, but with us in our current disfavor, that might come back to roost upon our shoulders. So Flandry and Pye think you’d make a nice morsel for the old man, buy them some goodwill, which is otherwise in short supply, but I’m not of a mind to oblige them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Well, now, I’m not sure. Could be I’m a bit upset at all the fingers pointed at me over that harpist Gharm. The Awateh and the prophets agreed she should be done, but when it went wrong, they didn’t point fingers at each other. No, they pointed at Preu and Mugal Pye, and even at Epheron, who had little enough to do with it, and at me, boy! So I’m disinclined to give anythin’ of mine to the Awateh. Let him find his fun elsewhere.”

  Sam was not so eager to die that he wanted to argue. “You plan to stay here?”

  “Pye and Flandry’ve always talked too much, luckily for us. Well, so when they come lookin’ for you, they’ll find the house empty. Likely they’ll think we two have left Sarby. Perhaps they’ll think I’ve taken you to Cloud, so they’ll go whippin’ back there to protect their own interests. Meantime, I’ve got some things stowed about this old place, a mattress or two and a few blankets. A pot to cook a bit in. There’s a stove that works in that room over there, and there’s water runnin’ in there, as well.”

  “What was this place?”

  “Used to be a maternity home, with midwives and all.”

  “Why did they shut it down?”

  “There’s one in Panchytown, and that’s close enough. No need for two of ‘em.”

  Sam looked down the hall, a long hall, with empty rooms on either side. Fewer babies in Sarbytown. “Phaed, has it never occurred to you that your doctrines don’t work too well.”

  Phaed struck him across the face, knocking him down. “Shut you, boy. I may question doctrine and I may question prophets, but you haven’t earned that right. You don’t question your elders, either. You’ll learn.”

  “So you intend to keep me here. Forever?”

  “Until you learn,” said Phaed. “However long that takes.”

  • In the cave in the mountains south of Sarby, a day and a night went by. Maire had slept for much of it. Now she sat in the cave opening, feeling lonelier with each moment that passed, more cut off from life, more separated from her own people. She felt a part of herself was missing, and that part growing deeper and wider with every day.

  “It’s dying,” she said to the silent Gharm beside the fire. “Inside me, I can feel it dying.”

  “What is dying, Maire Manone?”

  “The God inside me. It’s been there … since Sam was a child. First Bondru Dharm, then Birribat Shum. Our own thing, like your Tchenka.”

  “So She-Goes-On-Creating said.”

  “Perhaps it cannot live in any one of us alone. It needs the … the what, do you suppose?”

  “Whatever it is that grows where we put it, beside the temple. Whatever grows in us all.”

  “Do you suppose I can get it back? A new one? Or when this one dies, will that have been my only chance?”

  The Gharm patted her. “Maire, I am your friend. We have each other.”

  She wept, trying to smile through the tears. “We’re so separate. Each of us, always. So separate. I first knew that when I had babies. They’d cry, and I’d try to help, try to figure out what was wrong. But they were separate, as though there was a wall between them and me. Even when they learned to talk, the wall was still there. What they said and what I heard were always different things. Between me and Sammy! A wall, like stone. He would look at me with his eyes blank, listening politely, but not hearing, not caring. And then we came to Hobbs Land. And after a time there, the wall seemed to get thinner. It wasn’t that I could read his mind. I still didn’t know why Sam does the things he does … all those books. All that reading in the Archives, all those old legends. No, it wasn’t that I could read his mind, but I was beginning to see something of the mystery in him. Perhaps, if I’d been able to stay there, I would have understood him at last!”

  “As the Ones Who say,” murmured the Gharm. “A way. A convenience. A kindness.”

  Maire wiped her eyes. She heard a stick crack among the trees. The Gharm stiffened and crouched.

  “A kindness you say?” came a voice from the forest, full of rough, gloating joy. “So we’ve found you, Maire Manone!”

  They stepped out of the trees. Mugal Pye and half a dozen other men, all wearing the large caps of the Faithful. The Gharm tried to run, but they caught him and killed him before her eyes, as though they were killing a chicken. Then they turned to her.

  “Phaed spoke to us of this place long ago, Sweet Singer. No doubt he forgot he told us of it. When we did not find you at the shore, we thought to try here. Pity. You gave us a good run.”

  Maire rose. So. So she had come home again to all the legends she had left behind.

  “Where will you take me?” she asked, already knowing.

  “To the prophet Awateh,” Mugal Pye said with a sly grin. “And we will not bother to tell old Phaed we’re oil the wa
y.”

  • Daytimes, Sam was chained to a post in an upper corner room of the building. The chain was long enough that he could get from his mattress to the toilet. It was long enough that he could sit at a window, looking out.

  Nights he sat on the mattress while Phaed taught him doctrine, hitting him with the butt of his whip whenever he did not respond correctly. After a time, he began responding correctly without thinking what he was saying. So animals were trained, he thought, wondering what one of the High Baidee might do under the circumstances. Find a way to commit suicide perhaps. Under ordinary conditions, Sam might have searched for a way to do just that. However, down from the hill above Sarby, something was growing. Sam knew it and hung on. Part of his strength came from conviction that things would change; part came from curiosity. He wanted to see what the God of Hobbs Land would do to Sarbytown.

  “Who is the God of Voorstod?” Phaed would ask.

  “The One, the Only, the Almighty God, in whose light all other gods are shown to be false idols created by men.”

  “What is the desire of the One God?”

  “That all living things shall acknowledge Him.”

  “And how is this to be achieved?”

  “By teaching those who will learn, and by killing all others.”

  “I don’t understand this doctrine,” said Sam.

  Phaed raised the butt of his whip, and Sam fended him off. “I didn’t say I disagreed with it, I said I didn’t understand it. I’m asking you to explain it to me.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “If God is Almighty, as you say, then why doesn’t he inspire all people to acknowledge him. Why be so wasteful about it?”

  “What’s wasteful about battle?”

  “People getting killed, mostly.”

  “There’s too many people anyhow, most places. There’s always been too many men. One man can service half a dozen women or more, it’s wasteful having more men around than needful, so we have wars, to clear away the excess. The stupider and slower ones die, the survivors breed. That’s the way of things.”

  “But you don’t have more women than men. You have it the other way around.”