The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  His body shook, twitched, spasmed with this thought, and the fliers on the rocks around him cast looks at one another, wondering what ailed him.

  Sliffisunda was content to wait. There was no hurry about this business. His fliers told him the crusade went on, more massively than before, with great clots of people moving west and north. Wherever they moved, the pits were full, so he cared not whether they moved or not. In a hidden valley of the steppes known only to fliers, the herdbeasts were growing with each day that passed. Already the expedition to steal other young bulls had been planned. More than an expedition, almost an invasion, with enough surprise and numbers to succeed no matter what the humans did. It might prove expedient to stop this crusade; or again, it might not. It was a thing worthy of much screamed discussion, many loud sessions on the Stones of Disputation. Sliffisunda wiped his beak on the post of his feeding trough and was content.

  And on the plains, moving southward and a little east, Pamra Don was content as well. "A journey of a week or two," she had been told. "To the Red Talons. To meet the Talkers." There were Jondarites and Chancery people escorting her.

  Once she felt a fleeting sadness that Tharius Don was not among them. There was scarcely room even for that emotion. She rode the weehar ox the general had given her, refusing to ride in the wagon pulled by Noor slaves. She abjured Gendra Mitiar with great passion to free these men as Lees Obol would require of her. Gendra listened, raked her face, ground her teeth, and said she would consider the matter. In truth, she found Pamra Don amusing in the same way Jhilt had been amusing during the early days of her captivity. So naive. So childishly convinced that her feelings mattered to anyone besides herself. So interestingly ripe to be disabused of that notion.

  One day the escort paused on a low hill to let a procession of crusaders pass in the valley, banners, a wagon, a gorgeously robed figure in the wagon. Pamra looked down at it in wonder, not recognizing Peasimy Plot. Peasimy had decided to join Pamra Don at Split River, but he did not even see her riding in her bright armor in company with the Jondarites.

  And as for the rest, it was merely travel. Creak of wheels. Plod of feet. Crack of whip. Wind in the grass. Murmur of voices. Fires at night gleaming like lanterns in the dark. Walking out into the grasses to pee, staring up at the moons which seemed to stare back in wonder, or threat, or admonition, depending upon one's point of view.

  The slave Jhilt, walking each day away in a soft chinkle of chains. The Jondarites striding along, their plumes nodding over their impassive faces, their hands upon the butts of their spears, resting at night beside the fire, polishing their fishskin armor with oil. The captain himself, on orders from Jondrigar, polishing the armor of Pamra Don. Gendra Mitiar seeing this with amusement, but not interfering. Time for that. Time for everything.

  In fact, Gendra Mitiar felt herself growing strangely weary from the journey, victim of an unaccustomed lassitude. She went to her strongbox and unlocked it with the key she carried around her neck to get at her reserve supply of elixir.

  Though it was a full season sooner than she had planned to take more of the stuff, she dosed herself liberally with the thick, brownish ichor, at which Jhilt smiled behind her hands and jangled her chains. On those chains, among a hundred other dangling charms and coins, hung a duplicate key to the strongbox. It had taken Jhilt over a year to file it to fit, but once it was done, it had taken only a minute to open the box, months ago, and taste the acrid stuff. When they set out upon this journey, it had taken only another minute to substitute for the elixir a vial of half-burned and diluted puncon jam. Who knew better than Jhilt that Gendra's aged mouth knew no savor, her aged nose knew no scent? "Have some jam, old one," she tittered to herself to the soft chankle-chankle of the chains. "Live a little."

  Though she had sometimes forgotten it during her captivity, here on the steppes Jhilteen Nobiji remembered she was Noor. If the Noor could not have justice, they would have vengeance. The key to the strongbox was not the only key that hung upon her chains, and her presence with this troop outside the barrier of the Teeth was one she had hoped for over many years.

  There were twelve days like this before they sighted the Talons, looming redstone obelisks, contorted towers that broke the line of the steppes amid a dark forest.

  This outcropping of redstone ran all the way from Northshore to the Teeth of the North, somewhere mere edges along the land, elsewhere squat cliffs lowering over the plain. Here the stone had been eaten by the wind and rain, chewed into monuments as full of holes as a worm-gnawed pod, and here the Talkers maintained one of their four strongholds. Black Talons, so they said, for strength; Gray Talons for wisdom; Blue Talons for vengeance; Red Talons for blood.

  Sliffisunda had come from Gray to Red, and the significance of that had not escaped him. "From thought to action," he cawed to himself when the human train was sighted. "So, now we will have something interesting, perhaps some satisfaction."

  The Jondarites made camp some distance from the foot of the Talons, yet close enough that the Talkers might come to them without exertion. The tents were set in a circle; the Jondarites took crossbows from their cases and placed quarrels for them ready at hand, the heavy, square-headed bolts most efficacious against fliers.

  Though there had been little opportunity to use weapons against the Thraish in some hundreds of years, the stories of the last Thraish-human conflicts were well remembered among the soldiers of the Chancery, and the general had told them to be ready for any eventuality.

  When all these preparations had been completed, Gendra Mitiar sent a messenger to the foot of the Talons with a letter for Sliffisunda. He might come, she said, to their camp. To question Pamra Don. And to discuss certain matters with her, Gendra Mitiar.

  Sliffisunda did not come, himself. He sent a Fourth Degree underling and the human, Ilze. It amused him to do this, setting the humans one against the other.

  He did it sometimes with slaves or craftsmen, making one's safety dependent upon betrayal of the other. So, now, he thought Ilze might work against Gendra Mitiar to obtain the person of Pamra Don.

  But she, remembering Ilze in the Accusatory, was disinclined to pay him attention.

  "I must speak with the Talker," she said. "I don't know what he was thinking of, sending you." She sniffed, raking her face, staring at him as though he had been some kind of bug. Her teeth ground, and he tensed in every nerve, expecting pain.

  That sound had accompanied pain before, and he wanted to scream at her.

  "Sliffisunda wants to see her," he grated.

  "Fine," Gendra said. "Let him come to see her. Talk with her. Question her, if he likes. I need to talk with him, too, and I'll not be hauled up there like some sack of laundry."

  Taking a quick look at the alert Jondarites, Ilze retreated, quelled for this time. He had not laid eyes on Pamra Don. For all he knew, she was not even with the group. She, however, spying through a slit in the tent side, had seen him very well; seen him and disregarded him as an irrelevancy. He would hurt her if he could, but he would not be allowed. The Chancery folk would not allow it. Her great-great-grandfather, Tharius Don, would not allow it. She explained this to Neff and her mother and Delia as all of them nodded and smiled.

  Back at the Talons Ilze's failure was reported to Sliffisunda, who cawed laughter.

  "I did not think he would do any good!" The Fourth Degree Talker who had reported on Ilze kept his beak shut, wisely. Sliffisunda shuffled back and forth on his perch, darting his head from side to side. "Well, I will go talk to this old human. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or next day."

  He let two days pass before going to the camp. Gendra, who had studied the fliers for some time, was not concerned about the delay. The lassitude that had bothered her on the journey had not yet abated, and she remained in her tent, ministered to by Jhilt. Pamra, meantime, preached to the Jondarites. They, remembering how their general had responded to her, varied in their response from polite to enthusiastic.

  And at last Sliffis
unda arrived. The Talkers had lately taken to regalia, a tendency borrowed from humans, and Sliffisunda wore a badge of degree slung about his neck as well as various sparkling ornaments on his legs, feet, and wing fingers.

  Warned of his coming, Gendra had Pamra brought out of her tent, fully accoutered in her Jondarite armor, and set in a chair beside the fire with Jondarites at either side. If the old rooster wanted this one, Gendra thought, he would have to give something significant in return, though nothing of this appeared in her face or voice as she first greeted the Talker.

  "I am honored," she said. "We grant the request of Sliffisunda to talk with - even question - the woman, Pamra Don."

  "She was to have been sent to us," the Talker cawed, depositing shit on Gendra's words.

  Gendra's fingers twitched toward her face, then stilled, knotted. So, it was to be a battle of insults. "One pays little attention to what Talkers demand," she replied in a bored voice. "Unless one is given reason to listen."

  Sliffisunda almost crouched in surprise. So, the humans could engage in Talkerly disputation! Almost always the humans were like spoiled eggs, stinking soft. This one was not. He turned away from her, showing his side - not quite a fatal insult, though close. "What reason would humans understand?" he cawed.

  "More subtle reasons than a Talker could ascertain, perhaps," she replied, turning her shoulder toward him to signal the Jondarites. "The Thraish have not been noted for good sense."

  He stretched his wings wide and threatened her. She gestured again at the Jondarites. He looked up to see a dozen crossbows centered on his chest. He laughed and subsided. "So. So, Gendra Mitiar. What have you to say?"

  "I have to say your interest and mine are the same, Sliffisunda. Do you speak for the Talkers?"

  "I speak to Talkers," he boasted. "And they listen."

  "Ah," she murmured. So, he could not commit the Talkers to anything, but he could argue a case. If she succeeded in acquiring an alliance with him, she would buy an advocate, not a potentiary. Still, what matter? Those in the assembly would accept a Talker's interest as representative of the Thraish. They would not know the difference.

  She turned full face toward him and said, "I have a case to put to you, Uplifted One...."

  She spoke of her desire for the post of Protector of Man. She spoke of her intentions, once that post was hers.

  "There is no reason the Thraish cannot increase in numbers. Human numbers can be increased to feed them. The Noor are no good to you because the color of their skins will not allow the Tears of Viranel to grow properly within them. Let us eradicate the Noor. Let us replace them with settlers from Northshore."

  Behind the tent flap, Jhilt quivered in shock. This she had not heard before.

  "How will you convince the Chancery to do this?" Sliffisunda asked, interested despite himself. Even though none of this would be needed when the herdbeasts multiplied, it was still an interesting concept.

  "If your numbers are increased, the amount of elixir can be increased. More humans can receive it. Those whose votes are needed in the Chancery assembly will be promised elixir. A simple thing, Sliffisunda."

  "How will you wipe out Noor?"

  "War." She shrugged. "General Jondrigar needs opportunity for war."

  "Not enough Jondarites." This was said as mere comment, not as objection.

  "True." Again she shrugged. "We will need to conscript men from Northshore as well. Any man, I should think, who has not fathered a child in a few years."

  Who will then not be available to support children he has fathered, Sliffisunda thought, while keeping silent. The Thraish understood nestlings. Even Talkers understood nestlings. When the parent was lost, the nestlings were lost. Many would die if this woman came to power. The pits would be full. And if that went on for a long time, the Thraish could expand in advance of the day he had planned. The woman was ambitious, but not wise. He could use her, despite her disputatious nature. "Let us talk," he said, smiling inside himself.

  On the day following, Sliffisunda arrived to question Pamra. This was a simple feint or, as the fliers put it, hadmaba, a threatening posture designed to bluff rather than injure. Sliffisunda wanted to support Gendra Mitiar; he did not want her to think he did it willingly or for his own purposes. So, let her think he was really interested in this pale, thin woman with the blazing eyes with the child on her lap.

  "Tell me of your crusade," he said, expecting nothing more than ranting or evasions.

  "You do an evil thing," she said in a level tone, fixing him with her eyes. "All you fliers." The child fixed him with her eyes, strangely.

  He hunched his shoulders, staring at her, ignoring her young. "What evil is that?"

  "It is for you the workers are raised up," she said. "I did not know that until I came to the Chancery, until my great-great-grandfather Tharius Don told me. I thought it was for the work they did, as we were taught. I thought it was Potipur's will. I had been taught that. It was false."

  "It is Potipur's will," Sliffisunda replied, amused. "Potipur has promised the Thraish plenty. The bodies of your dead are the plenty he promised."

  "A true god would make no such promise. A true god would not do evil. Therefore, Potipur is not a true god, he is merely your god, a Thraish god. Not a god of man."

  "Does man have a god?" Considering the trouble the priests and Towers had been to suppress all humanish religions, it was amazing that she had come up with this.

  Despite himself, he was intrigued.

  "If the Thraish have a god, then men, also, have a god. My voices tell me that if there is not One, over us all, then there are several, for each race of creatures."

  "Or none?" he asked. "Have you thought of that?"

  She shook her head at him. "My voices say there is. A god. Of humans and Treeci, for we are like."

  Sliffisunda shat, offended, turning his back on her. She did not seem to notice but merely stared at him as though he were some barnyard fowl. He screamed at her, wings wide, and she merely blinked. "Foul Treeci. Offal. Fish eaters."

  "The Treeci are wise and benevolent creatures," she said. "As man can be if not brutalized by wickedness. Raising up the workers is a wicked thing to do, Sliffisunda. We know your pain and do nothing. Thereby we condone it. Thereby we are made brutes. Not by the workers themselves, but by the Thraish, who require they be raised. So my voices say."

  Gendra, sitting on the other side of the fire, blinked in amazement. She had not heard more than five words from Pamra Don during the entire trip. Now this!

  What had gotten into the woman?

  "Heretic!" Sliffisunda cawed. "Unbeliever in Potipur."

  "If Potipur is only a Thraish god, why should I believe in him?" she asked. "If the weehar had a god, would it be the god of the Thraish?"

  Theology dictated that the weehar could have no god except the Thraish god, but Sliffisunda had his own doubts about that. He recalled the quasi-racial memories of the fliers' last hunt, as he taught them to nestlings. Certainly the weehar had not seemed to rejoice in Potipur. Perhaps the weehar did not rejoice because they were being punished. But for what? What sins could a weehar commit? The sin of offal eating? The sin of debasement? The sin of doubt in Potipur's care for the Thraish? The sin of failing to breed? The sin of failing to give honor? How could the weehar or thrassil commit any of these? More likely the weehar were only things, needing no god at all. As the humans were things.

  Sliffisunda shook his head. The woman didn't talk like a thing, which was troubling. Abruptly he rose, stalked to the edge of the encampment, and raised himself into the air. Too troubling. Too much talk.

  Behind him, Pamra watched him go, a little wrinkle between her eyes. It was hard, so hard. She could not reach him. She looked around for Neff, for her mother. They would have to help her with this one. She could not feel her way into his heart, not at all. They stood remote, their effulgence dimmed in the light of the day, hard to see. She listened for their voices and was not rewarded.

&
nbsp; Nothing. Tears crept into her eyes, and she shook them away angrily. If they did not speak to her, it was because they didn't need to. She could not expect them to be with her every minute. Perhaps they had other things to do, other people to guide as well.

  Sliffisunda arrived at the Talons in a foul mood. He stalked into his aerie, snatching a mouthful of food as he passed the trough, ripping an arm from the twitching meat and cracking it for the marrow. It had no savor. The human, Ilze, was waiting outside. Sliffisunda could smell him, that sweetish, human stink which only the Tears of Viranel softened and ameliorated into something almost satisfying. Almost. Sliffisunda drooled, thinking of weehar. A human god? To believe in a human god, that would be a sin. But if weehar believed in a god at all, what god would it be? Sliffisunda made a noise like a snarl in his throat. Under the Thraish, the weehar had ended. Under the humans, they had multiplied.

  Which god would the weehar accept? And that could be the sin for which they were punished - except that the punishment had come first.

  Ignoring the crouching human on his porch, Sliffisunda launched himself toward the Stones of Disputation. This was not a matter he cared to think about by himself.

  Behind him, Ilze pounded his knee with his fist, livid with frustration. Where was Pamra Don? Why hadn't this Talker brought him Pamra Don?

  In the camp, Gendra Mitiar watched Pamra Don, her eyes narrowed. She had noticed for the first time that Pamra Don ate almost nothing. The woman seemed built of skin tightly drawn over her bones, like a stilt-lizard, all angles, with eyes like great glowing orbs in her face.

  "Doesn't she ever eat?" she asked the Jondarite captain.

  "Very little," he admitted. "A little bread in the morning. She seems to like Jarb root, and one of the men sought it for her during the journey."