The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "This man who saw Southshore... Fatterday? Why didn't the Queen of the Noor hire him for this voyage?" Thrasne asked after a particularly frustrating bout of tacking.

  "When they sought him, to send him to us, he was gone, Thrasne. Noor scouts looked everywhere for him. All the Melancholies were sent word to watch for him, but he has not appeared."

  "Sounds like a madman. Perhaps he is in a Jarb House somewhere."

  Medoor Babji shook her head at him. "Then he will never come out, except as a Mendicant."

  "You won't know him then, if he does. All dressed up the way they are, with those pipes in their mouths most of the time."

  "Only when madness is about, Thrasne owner. So they say. They smoke the Jarb root only when madness is about, for they are vulnerable to visions."

  "The Mendicants? Truly? I thought they were supposed to be the only certifiably sane ones."

  Medoor Babji perched on the railing, teetering back and forth with a fine disregard for the watery depths below, setting herself to lecture, which she often enjoyed.

  "The way I have heard it is this: There are two types of people in the wide world, Thrasne owner. There are those like you, and me, and most of those we know, who see the world the same. I say there is puncon jam on the bread, and you say it, too; we both taste it. Then there will be one who says there is an angel dancing on the bread, and another who says there is no bread at all but only starshine in the likeness of food. Those are the mad ones. So, the mad ones go to a Jarb House and live in the smoke, and they become like you and me, eating puncon on their bread. But if they come out of the house, they see angels again, or lose their bread entirely. But some of them come out with pipes in their mouths which they light when madness threatens. And they go throughout the world selling their vision of reality to those who are not sure whether they are mad or not."

  "And with the money they build Jarb Houses," concluded Thrasne, amused despite himself. It was the first time he had been amused in a very long time.

  "Don't laugh! It's all true. Moreover, those who come out as Mendicants can see the future of reality as well as the present. That's what they are paid for. So it is said. Now..., I said don't laugh."

  "I wasn't laughing," he said. "I was wishing Pamra could come into a Jarb House, somehow."

  "No." Babji shook her head, sending her tightly twisted strands of hair into a twirling frenzy around her back and being sure he heard what she said. "That is a vain hope, Thrasne. She would not stay. It is not our world she wishes to see."

  Upon the River, day succeeded day upon the Gift. At the end of the first week they had made a modest festival, and this habit continued at the end of each week that followed. On the morning after one such celebration, a hail from the watchman brought them all on deck.

  The creatures came out of the oily swell of the water like hillocks, lifting themselves onto the surface of the River to lie staring at the Gift of Potipur, a long row of eyes on a part of each one of them, that part lifted a little like a fish's fin, large eyes down near the body of the strangey and smaller eyes out at the tip.

  They blinked, but not in unison, those eyes, so that the people gathered at the ship's rail had the strange notion they were confronting a crowd, a committee rather than one creature.

  One of the oily hillocks swam close to the Gift, dwarfing it, and spat strangey bones onto the deck. "A gift," it sang in its terrible voice, turning onto its back and sinking into the River depths with a great sucking of water and roil of ivory underside, like a bellying sail of pale silk.

  "What is that?" asked Medoor Babji, seeing how quickly the crew of the Gift moved about picking up the strangey bones.

  "Glizzee spice," said Thrasne. "It grows within them. They spit it onto ships, sometimes, or into the water near where ships are floating. Old Blint said they mean it as a gift. Strangeys watch ships a lot. Sometimes if a man falls overboard, a strangey will come up under him and hold him up until the boat can get to him, or even carry him downtide to the boat if it's gone on past."

  "They don't look like fish."

  "Oh, they aren't fish, Medoor Babji. Not shaped like them, not acting like them, not the size of fish. One time when old Blint was still alive, I saw one the size of an island. The whole crew could have gone onto his back and built a town there."

  "I never knew Glizzee was strangey bones."

  "Most people don't. They think it grows somewhere on an island, and that's why the boatmen have it rather than some land-bound peddler. And you know, there's some ships a strangey will not come near. Strange in look, strange in habit, strangey by name. That's what we say, we boatpeople."

  "How marvelous," she breathed. "And probably it isn't bones at all."

  "Likely," he agreed. "But it is something they make in their insides or swallow from some deep place in the River."

  He knew there was more to it than that. When night came, he wrote in his book, all his wonderings about it, but he said nothing of these to Medoor Babji.

  9

  Baris Tower shone in the light of first summer sun, its stones newly washed by rain. About its roof the fliers clustered, perching on the inner parapet, keeping watch as they had been commanded to do. Something about Baris had been doubtful for a considerable time now. From faroff Chancery to the Talons, word had come. Baris was suspect. The one called Gendra Mitiar had sent the word. So much all the fliers knew. What was suspected, they did not know, except that it was something to do with the Superior of the Tower, with the human called Kesseret.

  And yet it was Kesseret who had told them of the expedition over the River, to Southshore. "It's only the Noor who are going," she had said. "And they are of no use to you, anyway. However, it might give other people bad ideas. You had best take word to the Talkers of this. ..."

  This word had gone to the Talons, Black Talons and Gray, Blue and Red. In each it had led to much screaming argument on the Stones of Disputation. If a human was guilty of heresy, surely she would not have given such important information? If she had given such important information, then could she be guilty of heresy? Such nice distinctions, though they were the stuff of life to Talkers, were beyond fliers' comprehension or interest. They had been told to watch. Unwillingly, they watched.

  Kessie, well aware of their constant surveillance, paid no more attention than was occasionally necessary. The story about the expedition of the Noor had done its planned work of distraction. She saw fliers constantly at the Riverside, spying on the boats that came and went. Reports would be going back to the Talons; speculation among the Talkers would be rife. So, their attention was where Tharius Don had wanted it. Now she had only to hang on, letting time wear by, praying he would not delay much longer, trying to figure out why he had delayed so long. Did he fear death that much? Surely not; surely not the idealist, Tharius Don. She could not answer the question that came back to her, again and again.

  Why had he delayed so long?

  The business of the Tower crept on at the pace of a tree's growth, slow, unobservable. She tried to keep up appearances, with everything as it had been before. She let herself become a bit negligent in recruiting, but that could be laid to her experiences with the traitor junior, Pamra Don. Her servant, Threnot, seemed to spend more time than ever walking around Baristown in her veils and robes, but if the Superior wished to gather information, no one would question that too strongly. The Superior herself looked unwell, old, somehow, which might be explained by the strain of the long journey that had returned her to Baris.

  Or could be explained by the fact that the elixir, sent from the Chancery through the office of Gendra Mitiar, was not efficacious. It seemed to have been adulterated. Kessie sent frantic word through secret routes. She did not mind dying, but she did not want to do it until after the strike. Her life had been given to the cause. She must see its fulfillment.

  In time, another vial of elixir arrived from Tharius Don, but the damage had been done. She looked in the mirror at the lines graven around her ey
es and mouth, the fine crepe of her skin. No pretense would convince her ever again that she was young. She regretted this. When the end came, she had wanted both of them to appear, at least for a time, as they had when they loved one another so dearly. It had been a culmination, a picture in her mind. A honeymoon. Ah, well; ah, well.

  She offered it up to the cause, along with her twisted fingers and toes.

  "How long, lady?" begged Threnot. She was an old woman, eighty at least. She wished to live long enough to see the end, to see the Thraish confounded, to see the pits emptied. She was glad to see the lines around Kessie's eyes. They were like the lines around her own, confirming them sisters grown old in the cause.

  "Soon, Threnot. Tharius Don tells me that Pamra Don is only a few weeks' journey from the Chancery. He admits to selfishness, but says he wishes to have her in his protection before the strike. There are one or two other things he's waiting on. If possible, he wants to locate the stolen herd beasts and eliminate them from consideration. He thinks if the Thraish have any beasts at all, they may place great weight upon some impossible future and delay acceding to reality."

  And when he has done that, she thought despairingly, he will find some other reason for delay.

  "They would." Threnot nodded. "Those filth bags would rather do anything than what good Tharius Don expects them to do." Threnot had never met Tharius Don, but she had long been Kessie's confidante.

  "When they are Treeci, they will not be filth bags anymore," Kessie admonished, surprised that she had come to believe this. She had longed for this faith, the faith of Tharius Don, and perhaps it had come as a reward for her suffering. "When they have become Treeci," she said again, rejoicing in the calm confidence of her voice.

  10

  In the Tower at Thou-ne, Haranjus Pandel reflected on transiency. The sun was far sunk in the south. First summer had gone, and the rainy winds of autumn gathered about the tower, making the shutters creak and cold drafts creep through the stone corridors. Thunderheads massed over the River and surged over Northshore, sailing away into the north in mighty continents of cloud. Ill luck gathering, he thought. Like fliers. Dark and ominous. For days, weeks, fliers had been gathering upon the Black Talons to the east of the town, coming and going.

  He had never seen so many, not even at Conjunction when they came, so he believed, to breed. It was not the only strange thing to have happened recently.

  A few weeks ago had come a Laugher, down from the northlands, cut off from further travel east, so he said, by the towering height of the Talons.

  "I demand your assistance, Superior."

  He was like all of them, hot and bitter, his eyes like burning coals in the furnace of his face.

  "How may I assist the servant of the Chancery?" Haranjus had asked, taking refuge in formality. It would not do to be indiscreet to a Laugher. It was not smart to relax convention or ritual. "The Laugher's need is my command."

  "I need to get word to the Talkers, up there," and he had pointed to the heights of the Talons, looming at Thou-ne's eastern border.

  "I... I can summon a flier," Haranjus had stuttered. He had expected anything but this, anything at all. "What is it you wish me to say?"

  "I will say it myself. Just take me to the roof and summon one of them, however it is you do it."

  There was a way, of course. Twice each month, Haranjus was expected to provide a living body for the Talker's meat. He saw that these bodies were taken, almost always, from among the travelers through Thou-ne. The town was too small to accommodate the loss, otherwise. Certainly it was too small to accommodate it without comment. Now that the Temple attracted so many travelers, it was no trick to abduct one here, one there, as they traveled on westward. His few trusted seniors had become expert at the exercise.

  And when the living bodies were ready, they were trussed up on the roof of the Tower and fliers were called. At evening. In the low of sunset, so the fliers might return to the Talons with their burden well after dark.

  "Yes. There is a bell," Haranjus said. "But I don't have... I mean, there's no reason to call them. They may be very angry."

  "Leave their anger to me," said Ilze. "They will be more angry yet when they hear what I have to tell them."

  He went with Haranjus to the roof, not unlike the roof at Baris, surrounded by a low parapet, fouled with shit, littered with feathers, and reeking with the musty, permeating smell of Thraish. They waited there, not speaking, Ilze because he had no inclination to speak, Haranjus because he was afraid to. When the blaze of sunset was at its height, Haranjus struck the bell.

  The plangent tone stole outward, away from the Tower, rising like a bird, lifted upon the air, winging to the Talons tops, a reverberation now softly, now loudly feeding upon itself, intensifying its own sound with echoes. When the blaze of the west began to dim, dark wings detached themselves from the distant peaks and came toward the tower. When those wings folded upon the tower top it was almost dark. The flier croaked, "It is not time for meat."

  "This man asked for you," Haranjus said. "I have brought him at his command, as I am sworn to do." He turned then and left the roof. Whatever it was, he didn't want to be involved in it. Nothing could have stopped him from listening at the door, however. He leaned there, ear applied to the crack, holding his breath.

  "I have a message for Sliffisunda of the Talons," Ilze said. "There is heresy abroad upon Northshore, and Sliffisunda of the Talons must be told of it."

  The fliers gabbled, croaked, not sure of whether they would or would not.

  "Sliffisunda will command it if you tell him I am here," Ilze said at last. "He knows me. Return and ask him."

  Sliffisunda, it appeared, could be asked. He was at Black Talons. He had come there fairly recently. The fliers would return and ask him, albeit unwillingly. Sliffisunda was evidently in a temper.

  "Tell him to send a basket for me!" shouted Ilze as the great wings lifted from the Tower. He stumped to the door and down the stairs, finding Haranjus somewhat out of breath in the study at their foot.

  "Give me food," Ilze commanded. "And something to drink. They'll be back within the hour."

  "You're going to the Talons?" He could not help himself. Despite all promises to himself not to ask questions, his traitor tongue did it for him.

  "One way or the other," Ilze sneered. "It was here the crusade started, wasn't it. I shouldn't wonder if you were involved in it."

  "Oh, no. No. A man came from the Chancery. He said I did right to ignore it. . . ."

  "Fools! What do they think is happening here? The roots of our society are being nibbled away, and they say to ignore it?"

  "It seemed very... innocent."

  Ilze barked. It could have been a laugh. Like a stilt-lizard, ha-ha, ha-ha. "When all the fliers are dead and the elixir gone forever, then tell me how innocent it was, fool." Ilze, like many of the lower ranks of the Chancery staff, was naive enough to suppose that all Tower Superiors received the elixir. Haranjus Pandel did not disillusion him. Belatedly, firmly, he shut his mouth.

  In an hour the fliers arrived with a large basket clasped in their claws. Moments later, the Laugher was gone, carried away in that same basket. Shortly after that, Haranjus sent a full account of his visit, via the signal towers, to Gendra Mitiar, knowing it would reach others as well.

  Ilze was unceremoniously tumbled from the basket to sprawl upon a high, dung-streaked shelf of stone. Half a dozen fliers stood about, shifting from foot to foot and darting their heads at him as though he were prey. Ilze drew his knife and made a darting motion in return, at which there was a great outcawing of mockery. This, in turn, brought a Talker, who dismissed the fliers - to their evident annoyance - and escorted Ilze through a jagged opening in the cliffside along a rough, narrow corridor that appeared to be a natural cleft in the stone only slightly improved by artifice. A number of small rooms opened from this cleft, rooms with smoothed floors and blackened corners showing where fires had been laid in the past. Rough hangings cl
osed each of these niches from the corridor, and piles of nigs along the walls made it clear the rooms were for the use of human visitors. Or slaves, Ilze told himself. Or meat.

  He was left alone here, the Talker taking himself off without a word. Ilze was content with this. If they were interested in what he had to say, they would listen to him sooner rather than later. Though he feared them, it was worth the gamble to find and hold Pamra Don. He could not go on living until that was done.

  A scrape at the doorway drew his attention, and he regarded the pallid man who entered with suspicion.

  "Who are you?" They both asked it, at once. It was impossible for both of them to answer, and there was an itchy pause during which each waited for the other.

  "You!" grated Ilze with an impatient gesture. "Who are you?"

  The pallid man answered, words tumbling over one another as though long dammed up behind the barrier of his throat. "My name is Frule. Which tells you nothing much. I am a scholar. A student, you might say. I live here. I study the Thraish."

  Ilze snorted. "And they allow that?"

  "They might not, if they knew that's what I was really doing. However, I am an acceptable stonemason and a fair carpenter. The Thraish have a need for both."

  "For what?" Ilze stared around him, making an incredulous face. "Do they live better than their guests?"

  "Differently." The other shrugged. "Who are you?"

  "I am Ilze, formerly of the Tower of Baris. I've come to bring the creatures news of something that much affects them," he said in a challenging voice. "In return for which I hope they will help me with my business."

  "Which is?"

  "Finding and avenging myself on one Pamra Don."