The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "Oh, after an hour or two, you get drunk with it. When everyone starts giggling and stumbling, then's time to call a halt for the day. They'll be coming up soon." He nodded at her, a friendly expression. "Medoor Babji," he mused. "What does your name mean? It must mean something."

  "It does mean something," she retorted. "As much as yours does."

  "Thrasne?" He thought about this for a moment. "It was my grandfather's name. It was the name of the place he came from, inland, where they had a farm. So, what does your name mean?"

  "The Noor have a secret language of naming. We usually don't share our secret names with Northshoremen."

  "Oh."

  He said it flatly, accepting rejection, and she immediately sought to make amends.

  "I just meant it wasn't customary. All our names are two words, and the two words put together have another meaning. Like in our home tribe, there's a man named Jikool Pesit. Jikool means 'stones,' and Pesit means 'nighttime,' 'dark.' Stones in the dark are something you fall over, so that name would mean 'Stumbler' in Northshore language."

  He turned an interested face, so she went on. "I have a good friend whose name is Temin Suteed. Temin means 'a key,' and Suteed is 'golden' ah... like sunlight. If you lock up gold with a key, that means 'treasure,' so that's her name. Treasure.

  "My grandfather's name was M'noor Jeroomly. M'noor is from the same word as our tribal name. Noor. Noor means 'a speaking people.' And m'noor means 'spoken.' Jeroomly means 'promising,' so the two together mean 'oath,' and that was his name."

  "How about Taj Noteen?" asked Thrasne, who had met the troupe leader.

  She laughed. "In Northshore he would be called Strutter."

  Thrasne shook his head, not understanding.

  "It comes from the words for cock and feather, that is, plume, and the plumed birds always strut, you know."

  "But you won't tell me what your name means?"

  She flushed. "Perhaps someday." Actually, Medoor Babji still had her baby name, and it meant something like "dearest little one." She did not want Thrasne to know that. Yet.

  He let it go, staring out across the River, upon his face that expression of concern and yearning that had so interested Medoor.

  "What's out there?" she asked, taking the plunge. "You're always looking out there."

  "There!" He was startled, stuttered a reply. "Oh, someone... someone from the crew, is all. Someone we had to leave on an island when we came in for repairs. We're to pick... her up when we're solid again, and it's been longer than we planned. We thought it would be before festival."

  "Oh." She didn't comment further. With some men she might have teased, but not with Thrasne. Whatever bothered him, it was no light thing. And whoever he had left behind, it had been no common crew member. "Well, we may see you down River, then. Our leader says we'll visit three more towns before turning north."

  "Possibly." He wasn't interested. She could tell. His lack of interest was irritating enough to gamble on.

  "Thrasne?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Who is she, really?"

  His silence made her think she had overstepped, but after a time he turned toward her, not looking at her, heaving one hip onto the rail so he could sit half facing her.

  "Did you ever dream of anyone, Medoor Babji?"

  She had climbed onto the rail and teetered there now, trying to make sense of his question. "Of anyone? I guess so. Mostly people I know, I suppose."

  "Did you ever dream of someone you didn't know? Over and over again?"

  She shook her head. This conversation was not going as she had thought it might. Nonetheless, it was interesting. "No, Thrasne-owner. I never have."

  "I used to. When I was only a boy. A woman. Always the same woman. I called her Suspirra. A dream woman. The most beautiful woman in the world. I made a little carving of her. I still have it." He was silent again, then, and she thought he had talked all he would. Just as she was about to get down from the rail and bid him a polite farewell, he began again.

  "When I was near grown, I found a woman's body in the River. It had been blighted. You know what that is?"

  She nodded. She had never seen it, but she had a general idea.

  "It was the woman I'd dreamed of. Line for line. Every feature. Face. Eyes. Feet. Everything. I brought her out of the River and kept her, Medoor Babji. Kept her for many years. And then one day I met the daughter of that woman. Found her, I guess you'd say. Truly, her daughter. The daughter she had borne long ago, before she had drowned. And the daughter was alive and the same, line for line. And she came onto the Gift of Potipur. It was before Conjunction, winter, when I found her. And that was more than a year, now."

  "And it was that woman you had to leave on the island?"

  "That woman, yes."

  "Why? Is someone after her?"

  He looked her in the eyes for the first time. "Can I trust you not to go talking about this business, Babji? It could be my life. And hers."

  "Laughers?" She held, her breath. This was the stuff of nightmare and romance. Laughers and dream women.

  Seeing his discomfort, she changed the subject. "It's nice you found your dream woman, Thrasne. Things like that don't often happen."

  "I don't know what's happened," he said in a kind of quiet sadness. "Her body lives on the Gift. But her spirit-, it isn't here yet, Babji. So, I'm patient about it."

  He went on then, for some time, talking. He told her everything he knew of Pamra Don, everything he had ever thought, even some of the things he had hoped, though he did not realize that. Far off along the shore she heard the sound of "Noor count" shrilling over the water.

  "I must go, Thrasne-owner," she whispered, interrupting him. "My leader will whip me with my own whip if I am not in place very soon." Though he would not if he knew who she was, she thought. Still, it was important he not know.

  "Ah," he said, his unfocused gaze coming to rest on her and gradually clearing to reveal the girl perched there before him, dark smooth skin gleaming like the surface of the River. Her hair fell in a heavy fringe all the way to her knees, twisty strands of fifty or so hairs, each of which hung together, never tangling, like lengths of shiny black twine beneath a beaded headband, all gold and blue in the evening light. The scales of her fish skin vest gleamed also, laced tight over the long, full-sleeved shirt she wore tucked into pamet trousers died blue with mulluk shell. Her dark hand rested upon the rail, inches from his own, and he took it, turned it over to examine the pink brown of her palm, scarred and calloused from the whip. Her eyes were dark, and her pink lips parted in complaint.

  "Come now, owner. I must go."

  "Go, Babji. I didn't mean to keep you. It's just I had not really seen you until now."

  She ran down the plank and along the shore, wondering at the expression on his face. A kindly, surprised alertness, like a child finding something interesting and unexpected. Well. What to make of that. Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Still, she was not sorry to hear him calling after her.

  "Return again, Babji. Talk has done me good. Perhaps your people would like a ride to the next towns west?"

  13

  When the Gift of Potipur left the Chantry docks, Babji's troop of Melancholies was aboard, paying nothing for the transport and living on their own provisions. Thrasne had come to trust them, and, wisely, had seen their presence as a kind of camouflage. The Gift put on sail and headed out into the River, cutting across the tidal current toward the west end of Strinder's Isle, hidden in the southern mists.

  Two days later, decks crowded with the curious Noor, Thrasne lowered a boat with two men to row ashore at the west end of the island, shot them a line, and tied fast to a great tree that leaned above the flood. It was twenty-two days after Conjunction.

  Pamra had been camped on the tiny beach for most of that time. She came aboard with Lila, hardly noticing the dark faces of the crowded passengers, not seeing at all the concern on Thrasne's face. Her eyes were deep set in a haggard face, and
her hair was tangled as though she had not combed it in days.

  She was no less beautiful than ever, but it was a terrible, anguished beauty. "Are you all right?" he begged, appalled. "You look as though you'd been ill."

  "I should have seen there were no older males," she told him earnestly. "I should have seen how worn away he was."

  "Pamra?"

  "I was so sure it was cruel. So sure. Sometimes things are cruel and can be changed. Sometimes we only make them worse. Sentimentalizing. Pretending. So tied up in my own ideas, I couldn't see what was in front of me."

  "Pamra! Who are you talking about?"

  She shook her head, handed Lila to him, made her way on board to her old refuge in the owner-house, glancing over her shoulder as she went, scarcely noticing the curious group of Melancholies at the rail, the young girl who was pressing close to her with open curiosity on her face. Passengers. Well, sometimes the Riverboats did carry deck passengers.

  She did not really need to look behind her to know that Neff still followed her, as he had since the night after the fires. The smoke had risen in the village, and he had come. Stodder hadn't seen him. Pamra had. He had been with her since, face alight with curiosity and wonder, flowers in his hand, a recusant ghost.

  And he was not alone. The pillar of golden dust beside him was her mother. And the accusative formless shadow was Delia. Three.

  "Pamra, love. Are you all right?" Thrasne asked, following her into the house.

  She let him hold her, even held him in return, aware at some subconscious level of the need in him, perceiving feeling in him she had never recognized, not even in herself until it was over, depending upon his kindness not to bother her with whatever it was.

  "I'll be all right, Thrasne. I'll be all right." She stepped away from him, shutting him out. She had to be all right. There was something Neff wanted her to do, something she owed him. Him and her mother, and Delia. When she was very quiet, she could hear their voices.

  14

  The Ascertainers maintained a domiciliary compound with dining hall, exercise yard, and dormitory, some above the ground, some below for winter occupancy. All was gray, splintery, very old. They kept it neat but could not keep it clean. The dust was too ancient, too deep in the cracks. When Ilze was given a broom to sweep it away, he knew he swept only the top layer of something that had been there for longer than he could imagine. Lifetimes. Some of the boards in the walls were newer than others. Some of the beams a lighter color. He saw it being replaced, piece by piece, over the centuries, never changing, always renewed. Why had they needed a place like this that long ago? Why did they need it now?

  His Superior was in the compound, as well as some dozens of others, all with the same dazed look of incomprehension that Ilze knew he wore. There was no prohibition against talking together, but they seemed reluctant to do it, as though someone might be listening. As though anything said by anyone might lead to more questions. Even conjecture seemed dangerous. Only with his own Superior did he whisper his questions, await her answers.

  "I don't understand," he said, gritting his teeth, trying to reach her with his voice as he had been unable to reach the fliers. "I thought if we got to the Chancery, we were safe! I haven't seen any humans at all except the guards and someone in a veil and some half-wit carrying buckets. Why were those foul poultry allowed to misuse me so? I don't understand any of this. Help me understand it."

  "Shh, shh, Ilze. Be thankful you are alive. I am thankful I am alive. You were not the only one mistreated, so hush. Think. You will need to think."

  "Think of what? I've done nothing but think since I've been here, and I've been here forever. I need some answers."

  "I meant for you to think strategically. Listen to me. We came here, to the Chancery. We demanded to see the Protector. Instead, we were sent to the Accusatory and sometime later were there questioned by the Servants of Abricor. But there were human Accusers watching, Ilze. Behind the veil you may be sure was a human Accuser." Her mouth twisted bitterly at these words, as though she needed to spit. "And the Servants of Abricor didn't take us away. We stayed here."

  Her hand on his arm stopped his quick, angry words. "We stayed here, Ilze. And we're alive."

  He was forced to consider the implications of this. "You think... you think it was some kind of agreement?"

  "I listen in my mind, Ilze, for hints of conspiracy or ignorance or trouble. What words were said here? I can imagine what the Talker said, the one who came for us, the one you forced to bring us here. He demanded that you and I be bound securely and given to them. And then Lees Obol, the Protector of Man, would have said, 'No, no, my friends, my treaty mates, but these are humans. Humans are not sent to the Talons. Humans must be examined here. By us.' And then the Talkers would have blustered and demanded. What would they have said?"

  Ilze thought about this, frowning, realizing he knew quite well what the Talkers would have said. "They would have said they did not trust the humans. They must question us, they would have said, because they did not trust the humans. Perhaps that is not what they said, but that is what they meant."

  "Such was my own thought. A certain lack of trust. So, the Protector, for some reason - which I will learn if Potipur grants me time - allows us to be questioned by the Talkers. But not taken away. And not seriously injured. I will not even have scars." Think about that, she urged him silently, wanting him to realize that both of them had been equally mistreated. “Both of us, Ilze. When you leave here, you must remember they tortured both of us.”

  Ilze, who believed he carried scars he would never lose, did not reply to this. "And now?"

  "And now something else. Some further part of the game. These fliers... oh, but they are concerned with Rivermen. Endlessly they asked me about the Rivermen. They asked you as well, I suppose. Always about the Rivermen." About which we know nothing, she urged him silently. Nothing at all. Either of us.

  "They did. But I know nothing about the Rivermen! I'm not one!"

  "But they must find out, Ilze. If they cannot find one who knows, then they must ask those who do not. They must find out."

  He ignored the illogic of this, still trying to comprehend. "I didn't know the Servants could talk. I didn't know they had... had a society of their own."

  She became very dignified, almost prim. "Just as there are secrets seniors do not share with juniors or novices, so there are secrets Superiors do not share with seniors. You would have learned all about the Talkers in time, if you had earned advancement. As you would have done." Oh, yes, she told herself. He would have done. And pity the Tower he would have headed in his time.

  "These others, the Talkers... ?"

  "There are not many of them. They come from the flier caste, from the Servants of Abricor. They do not seem to run in particular lines of descent, so I am told. They are hatched infrequently, once in a thousand hatchings. It is what our scholars call a sex-linked characteristic. All Talkers are males. When the ordinary flier males breed, they die. The Talkers are identified while still young; they are fed a special diet to prevent both breeding and death."

  "A special diet?" He thought about this before answering. "When we're through with the workers, we drop them in the bone pits and the Servants of Abricor eat them. We all know that. No one cares. What do the Talkers eat?"

  "Our flesh is poisonous to the flier people, Ilze. In time you would have studied our history, how we came to this world to find the Servants already here; how they grew monstrously in number until the world could not feed them, until the herds of thrassil and weehar were gone; how they hunted us, only to find us poisonous. You would have read of Thoulia, one of their Talkers. Thoulia the Marvelous. It was Thoulia, who showed them how to soften our flesh with the Tears of Viranel, and it was then the wars began in earnest between our two races. We killed them by the hundreds, Ilze, and they killed us, until there were few of them left and not many more of us. Until the treaty was made at last which allowed them to take our dead... Our
dead are what they eat. Do you see why they fear the Rivermen so?"

  He did not see. He could not see because of his anger. He did not realize she had not answered his question.

  She went on, voice calm, willing him to listen and understand. "If the cult of the Rivermen were to prevail, the fliers would die. All the Talkers. All the Servants. They would starve. There would be nothing for them to eat."

  Gradually he perceived the implications of this, implications so enormous he could not face them. All the philosophy, the theology, all his studies - oh, one knew there were evasions, one knew there were euphemisms employed, but still. Basically, one believed. Every senior Awakener knew that all the dead go into the worker pits except the Awakeners themselves. Even knowing this, still, still one believed. One understood the need for a pious mythology to keep the ordinary people quiet, but that did not nullify the essential truth. Senior Awakeners knew that truth. They had been accepted as the elect of Potipur.

  Common people, common people had to be led, instructed, used, then purified through that final agony. It was not Holy Sorters who put the sainted dead in Potipur's arms, it was the Servants of Abricor who carried their souls to Potipur. The common folk could not expect a fleshy resurrection, but that did not affect the spiritual one. But for Awakeners-, for Awakeners it was a real immortality. In the body. It was the Servants of Abricor who carried the bodies of dead Awakeners directly to...

  The thought stopped, blocked, destroyed by what she had been saying. Obviously this was not true. Obviously.

  "What happens to us, to the Awakeners?" he snarled at her, his fingers digging deeply into her arm. "If the Servants don't carry our bodies directly to Potipur, what really happens to us?" He hated himself for asking the question, sure she was laughing at him as he had always laughed at Pamra.

  "If we are not clever and if our colleagues detest us sufficiently to take vengeance, we go into the pits with common folk," she said haughtily, ignoring his grasp. "With our hair rebraided to make us look like merchants or carpenters. In this way the myth is kept alive that no dead Awakener is ever seen in a worker pit.