The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "Today Gendra Mitiar sends word to Jondarites in Baris for the arrest of Kesseret, Superior of the Tower at Baris." He saw it without seeing it, and then it blazed into his consciousness all at once. Arrest. Kessie. Unsigned. He whirled. The man had gone. He ran to the door, looked down the hallway. Gone. He couldn't remember the man's face. Not one of his own servants. Whose? The packet was anonymous.

  It was from someone in the Bureau of Towers, then. Someone Gendra had antagonized, perhaps. What matter who?

  He left the room hastily, setting all thoughts aside but those of the message he must send. "Highest priority, immediate attention, to Kesseret, Superior of Tower at Baris, Jondarites have order for your detention. Go at once to Thou-ne." The message would be sent through his own secret channels, of course.

  And then another. "Highest priority, immediate attention, to Haranjus Pandel, Superior of Tower at Thou-ne. Provide secret refuge for Kesseret, from Baris. Patience. Soon. Tharius Don."

  Only when these messages were sent did he sit down to try and figure out what was going on. The only message to reach Gendra lately, he assured himself, was one from Thou-ne saying that Ilze, the Laugher, had gone to the Talons. All messages from Haranjus Pandel - as from any member of the cause - were surreptitiously obtained and copied to Tharius as a matter of course. What other messages? What other messengers? In winter? None he knew of.

  Ezasper Jorn was thought by Tharius - indeed, by everyone - to be so complete a fool that Tharius did not even consider him in passing.

  14

  At the top of the pass, General Jondrigar dismounted his beast and let the handlers take it away. Now that it was assumed the fliers knew there were weehar and thrassil behind the Teeth of the North, the general chose to ride an ox whenever he liked. Since last year's depredations on the herds, he had had crossbowmen stationed with the herdsmen, ready to bring down any flier who presumed to try such theft again. Making off with a weehar calf wasn't something that could be done quietly. One flier couldn't lift the creature, unless it was newborn, and the newborns were now carefully guarded. It would take two or three fliers, together with straps or some kind of basket, to carry a young beast, and that meant a certain amount of noise. The crossbowmen were alert. The general was fairly confident the fliers would get no more.

  As for the beasts already gone, Koma Nepor had provided some clear flasks filled with a clinging liquid. Whenever the abducted herdbeasts were found, this liquid was to be thrown among them. "It contains a special strain of... ah... let us say, biological material? Eh? No matter what, exactly. It will do the job on the beasts. Additionally, it will infect any of the fliers who come into contact with them."

  Which, being a derivative of the blight, it would do. Nepor had not been successful in determining the life cycle of the blight. Something in it escaped him and his ancient microscopes. He had been able, however, to make from blighted fish a long-lived distillation that was very effective. This distillation, modified in various ways, had remarkable effects on people, and Koma Nepor had no reason to believe it would not work as well on weehar and thrassil.

  Seeing the clutter on the plain below, the general's hand twitched as he considered using the flasks upon the herd humans gathered there. "Trash," he muttered, reassuring himself with a glance at the expressionless Jondarites around him.

  "Trash." Indeed, the multicolored splotches at the foot of the pass could as well have been fruit rinds, paper scraps, shells, bones, and chips. It heaved like a garbage pit, too, alive with human maggots squirming along the River and among the buttes.

  "Where is the woman?" he asked the messenger who awaited him.

  "Pamra Don?" The messenger pointed, offering his glass. On a slight hillock overlooking the River a wagon stood, with a tall tent beside it. All around the hill, banners bloomed like flowers; red, green, blue, and Jondarite tents surrounded the whole.

  "There," said the messenger.

  Through the glass, General Jondrigar stared into Pamra Don's face. At this great distance he could see nothing but the pale oval. A woman, carrying a child. Why was it, then, he asked himself in irritation, that she seemed to be looking directly into his eyes?

  He did not hurry his trip down the pass. At the bottom of the pass there were warehouses to inspect. He received a report that worm had gotten into one that stored dried fish as well as roots and grain captured from the Noor. He specified the materials in that particular warehouse be used to feed the multitude. He was told what the spy balloons had seen from on high, a great number of approaching Noor, also crusaders, the steady trickle rising from Northshore into the northlands and thence to the place they stood.

  "And a war party of young Noor, General. Just above Darkel-don. We could have a troop there in two days."

  The general shook his head. "Not now, Captain. Not with all this nonsense going on. I want a battalion here, spaced out around this mob. I want crossbowmen stationed on the slopes of the Teeth and on some of those buttes. You'll have to scale some of them and let rope ladders down. No threats, mind; Tharius Don doesn't want this flock of nothings injured. Nonetheless, we won't take chances."

  And he grinned his predator's smile, hard as iron, his gray, pitted skin twitching as though insects were crawling on it.

  Only when all that business was attended to did he go on out onto the plain and to the tent his aides had set up at the foot of one of the buttes, protected from the wind. Evening was drawing down, and the cookfires were alight. They bloomed around him like stars, many nearby, fewer farther away, only a scatter at the far horizon and beyond, showing where the stragglers were.

  A large fire marked the hill where Pamra Don's tent stood. He looked at it for a time, scornfully, then sent word to the commander of the troop guarding her. He wanted the woman brought to him tonight. As soon as he had eaten.

  He had not finished when they brought her, carrying the child. He pointed with his chin at a chair across the tent, far from the fire. The soldiers escorted her there and stood at either side, calm and alert. General Jondrigar stared at her over his wine cup, waiting for her to say something. Prisoners always said something, started pleading sometimes, or offering themselves. Pamra Don said nothing. The child stared at him, but Pamra was not even looking at him but at something else in the room. The general swung his head to follow her line of vision. Nothing. A bow hung on the tent pole. His spare helmet. His spare set of fishskin armor, with the wooden plates. She wasn't looking at those, surely. Nodding in that way.

  Seeming to murmur without actually making a sound. He went on chewing, suddenly uncomfortable.

  "You can go," he muttered to the soldiers. "Wait outside." For some reason he did not want them witness to this . . . this, whatever this was. Not rape. Even without Tharius Don's command, he would not have done that where anyone could see or hear him. Not good for discipline. When the men had gone, she still did not seem to see him.

  "Do you know who I am?" he asked her at last.

  She turned toward him eyes that were opaque, almost blind. They cleared, very gradually, and she focused upon him. "I . . . they said you were General Jondrigar."

  "Do you know what I am?"

  "You ... no. I don't know."

  He rose to walk toward her, leaning forward a little, thrusting his face into hers. "I am Lees Obol's right arm, his protection, leader of his armies. ..."

  Her face lit up as though by fire. She leaned forward, across the child, to take him by the shoulders, and by surprise. He could not remember a woman ever having touched him willingly. Aunt Firrabel, of course, but only she. And now this one.

  Where she touched him burned a little, as though he were pressed against a warm stove, and he could not take his eyes from hers.

  "General Jondrigar," she said, "the Protector of Man has need of you. Lees Obol has need of you."

  Of all the things she might have said, only this one could have been guaranteed to draw in his whole attention, focused as by a burning glass upon a radiant point
.

  He lived for nothing but to meet the Protector's needs. Who could tell him what those needs were better than his own eyes, his own ears? Still, her eyes burned into his own with a supernatural glow. Perhaps some messenger had conveyed something to her. Perhaps the soul of Lees Obol had spoken to her.

  "What need?" he gurgled, barely able to speak. "What need has the Protector?"

  "The Protector has been misled by evil men," she said, fulfilling all his fears and hopes at once. Had he not suspected plots against the Protector? Had he not prayed to forestall them all? "They have told him that the fliers are more important than men, have told him some men are more important than others. They have made his great title a trivial thing."

  "No," he croaked. "They would not dare."

  "They have," she asserted, her face radiant with truth. "I tell you they have! What is the Protector of Man if any man is nothing? Have you thought of that, General? If even a single man is nothing, of what value is the Protector of Man?"

  "Man?" he asked, uncertain how she had meant it.

  "Northshoremen," she whispered, "Jondarites. Chancery-men. Noor. Yes. Even the Noor. For if the Noor are made less, then their Protector is made less. A blow at the Noor is a blow at Lees Obol.... And the workers, too, General. Were they not once men? If they are used and eaten, is not Lees Obol minimized by that?"

  "Who does these things?" he asked, still a little uncertain, his slow, ponderous mind finding its way among the things she had said. Part of it had been clear the moment she said it. If a treasure was of no value, then he who guarded it was of no value, either. He could grasp that, all at once. It needed no explanation.

  "Who?"

  "You know who. Who here in the Chancery treats with the fliers, General? Who here in the Chancery maintains the Towers? Who goes ravaging among the Noor?"

  "We?" he asked, uncertain, in growing horror. "I?"

  "You have said." She nodded to him. "You have said, General. All of you, here in the Chancery. You have betrayed Lees Obol!"

  He roared then, striking her hands away, glaring at her with red, righteous eyes.

  How dared she? How dared she? And yet. Yet. The roar died in his throat. She stood there still, glowing, totally unafraid, looking at him with pity.

  "It's not your fault," she whispered. "You didn't know. Not until I told you."

  "I know now," he growled. It was a question, but it came forth as a statement of fact. "I know now."

  "Yes." She waited for a time while he stood there, immobile, the child on her shoulder; then she turned and left him, without another word, walking out through the tent flaps where the soldiers waited. One of these men called, uncertainly, "Shall we take her back to her tent, General?"

  He muttered something affirmative, unable to form words, standing there in silence, brooding beside his fire, slowly building the edifice his nature demanded, the structure that must properly house the Protector of Man. It could have no window or door to admit error. Monolithic, it must stand forever. Lees Obol must be better served, and he could be better served only if man were better served.

  What had she said to him? There were only those few words. He said them over to himself, again and again, seeking more. There must have been more. And yet, had she not said everything?

  Late, past midnight, he sat there, getting up from time to time to add a stick to the fire, sitting down again. Very late in the night he rang the bell that summoned his aides. When they came, he astonished them with the messages he gave them, each signed with his own seal.

  When only one was left, he said, "That woman, the prophetess. She is a warrior for Lees Obol."

  The man, not knowing what to say or if it was wise to say anything, merely nodded, attempting to look alert.

  "She needs armor. A fighter needs armor. Tell my armorer. A helmet for her. Made to her measure. And a set of fishskin body armor, such as we wear. And boots. Have him plume the helmet with flame-bird plumes, like mine, and make her a spear.''

  The man presumed to comment, "Can she handle a spear, General?"

  "No matter. Someone can carry it at her side. Let it bear a pennant. Tell the armorer. He will know. And bring one of the weehar oxen over the pass for her to ride, one of the young ones."

  The man went away, shaking his head, puzzled, wondering what the prophetess would think of all this.

  She, when the armorer came to measure her the next morning, thought it another sign. Neff from his shining cloud approved, and the radiance and the shadow both nodded.

  15

  Tharius Don's frantic message came to Baris at first dark. Each evening at this time, Threnot went for a walk along the parklands. From time to time on such forays she encountered wanderers who might, perhaps, have been accounted a little furtive if anyone had been inclined to care who a servant talked with during her frequent strolls. The wanderer encountered this night was less furtive and more in a hurry than most. Threnot returned swiftly to the Tower. Only an hour or so later, she might have been seen to leave once more, going down to the town on some errand, her veils billowing in the light wind. The flier detailed to watch such comings and goings nodded, half-asleep. When Threnot was later seen to leave the Tower yet again that night, the flier scratched herself uncomfortably, for she had not seen the woman return from her second trip. Three trips in one night was not unheard-of, but it was rare. Perhaps she would mention it to the Talkers.

  Perhaps not. The ancient tension between Talker and flier had in no sense been changed by recent history.

  Actually, only the first and third veiled women had been Threnot. The second had been Kesseret herself, fleeing to the house of a Riverman pledged to the cause.

  Threnot joined her there some hours later, and when dawn came, both women were on a boat halfway to the next town west. In the hours between Kessie's leaving the Tower and Threnot's leaving it, word had been spread in the Tower that the lady Kesseret was ill of a sudden fever, that she would stay in her rooms until healed of it, keeping Threnot with her to nurse her. Kesseret's deputy had been told to take charge of Tower affairs and asked not to bother the Superior for five or six days at least.

  "I have taken water and food and all things needful to her rooms, Deputy," Threnot had said in her usual emotionless voice. "The Superior is anxious the Tower should avoid infection."

  ‘Infection’ was a word generally used to mean any of several nasty River fevers that were occasionally epidemic and frequently fatal.

  "She asks to be left alone until she is well recovered, which I have no doubt will occur in time." Threnot looked appropriately grave, and the deputy - not an adherent of the cause - entertained thoughts of a possible untimely demise and his own ascension to the title.

  Therefore, on the morrow when Jondarites came bearing orders for Kessie's arrest (emanating from Gendra, but countersigned by the general), the officious deputy told them of the Superior's illness in such terms as did not minimize the likelihood the sickness might prove fatal. The word "infection" was used several times again, at which the Jondarites had second thoughts and departed. They would return, they said, in a week or so. Nothing in their instruction had indicated sufficient urgency in the matter to risk infecting a company of troops.

  On board the Shifting Wind, the lady Kesseret, Superior of the Tower of Baris, became simply Kessie, marketwoman, one of the hundred thousand anonymous travelers on this section of River and shore. Her hair was not braided in the Awakener fashion; her clothes were ordinary ones long laid by for such a need; when she looked in the mirror, she did not see the lady Kesseret. If Gendra had looked her full in the face, she would not have seen Kesseret, either.

  And Kessie amused herself bitterly, hour on hour, wondering whether Tharius Don would recognize her if he ever saw her again.

  16

  Rumor spread through the palace like a stain of oil on water, at first thick and turgid with unbelief, becoming thinner and brighter with each retelling, until at the end it was a mere rainbow film of je
st, an iridescent shining upon the surface of the day.

  The general, accompanied by a woman? The general's weehar ox harnessed with another? His banner companied with another banner? Laughter burst forth at the thought, jests abounded, giggling servitors lost their composure when confronted by glum-faced Jondarites, themselves privy to the rumor but unable, because of the exigencies of discipline, to show any interest in it.

  "True," the palace whispered, cellar to high vault, "it's true. The crusade woman has converted Jondrigar. She has put flowers on his head!"

  Tharius Don shook his head, incredulous. Typical, he thought. The more outrageous the rumor, the more quickly it would spread in the Chancery, where excitements were few and urgencies infrequent. Any titillation was worth its weight in metal, and a laugh at the expense of the general was worth ten times even that. Flowers on his head, indeed. Tharius made his way to the high Tower, his powerful spyglass in hand, wanting to judge the progress of the procession now coming toward Highstone Lees, along Split River from the pass.

  The drummers first, then the spearmen. Then the banner carriers - with two banners. And then... Then, Tharius Don's eyes told him, then the general on a weehar ox with flowers on his head.

  They came marching through the ceremonial gate, drummers, spearmen, banner carriers, then the general and Pamra Don, walking side by side while the weehar oxen were led off to be fed hay and groomed for another such occasion. Tharius Don so far recovered himself as to put on hierarchical garb and come out to meet them. While nothing had prepared him for this unlikely event, he had managed to survive the political climate of the Chancery for a hundred some years by reacting quickly to events no less improbable.

  "General." He bowed, awaiting some explanation and trying not to stare at the chaplet of flowers that both the general and Pamra Don wore around their helms.

  Pamra Don carried a child. The child stared at him, smiling.