The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "You'd better detail him to find more," she said. "The woman may not last a week if she doesn't eat something."

  "I can force her if you like," the captain suggested. It was sometimes necessary to force-feed captives, particularly Noor captives, who often tried to starve themselves when their families had been killed before their eyes.

  Gendra shook her head. "No. I need her cooperative with the Thraish. If she will eat Jarb root, see she gets it. At least enough of it to keep her alive." She looked up, drawn by a distant cacophony. "What's that?"

  "The Talkers on the top of the Talons, Dame Marshal. They do that sometimes, late into the night - sometimes all night long."

  "What are they doing?"

  "Arguing, so I've been told. Only the high-mucky-muck ones like the one who was here. Sixth Degree ones. They have the highest pillars all to themselves. The less important ones, they meet lower down. Some nights there will be three or four bunches of them, all going at it. Not always this loud, though. Sliffisunda must have a bone in his craw!" The captain laughed, unawed.

  Gendra's eyes narrowed once more. So. Sliffisunda had talked to Pamra Don, and then some great argument followed among the Thraish. Perhaps Gendra's case was even now being argued. She smiled. Good. Very good.

  As she rose from her chair and moved toward the tent, she stumbled, a sudden dizziness flooding over her.

  "Jhilt," she gasped, feeling the slave's hands fasten around her arms and shoulders.

  "The Dame Marshal has been sitting too long near the fire," the slave soothed, hiding a smile behind her hand. "It makes one dizzy."

  "You get dizzy, sitting by the fire?" Gendra said childishly. "You do?"

  "Of course. Everyone does." Jhilt half-carried the woman into her tent and eased her onto the bed. "Everyone does." Especially, Jhilt said to herself, when one is some hundreds of years old and is no longer getting any elixir. The woman on the bed looked like a corpse, like something in the pits, gray, furrowed skin gaped over yellow teeth, like a skull. "Everyone does," she soothed, wondering how long it would take. Jhilt had a small supply of Tears in a vial hanging on her chains. She had toyed with the idea of using the Tears before rather than after Gendra's death. She amused herself by thinking of this now, weighing the idea for merit.

  "No," she sighed at last. "The captain would know what I had done. If she merely dies, he will not know."

  Perhaps she could use the Tears on someone else. That Laugher, perhaps. That would be amusing, too.

  The disputation on the stones went on until almost dawn, not merely acrimonious, which most disputations were, but becoming increasingly enraging as the night wore on. Blood was drawn several times before the argument broke up, and only Sliffisunda's quickness in parrying attacks kept him from being among the injured. It was clear the Talkers would not accept the idea of a human god or any weehar god. Only the Thraish had a god, and the god of the Thraish was the god of all. The Thraish were the chosen of Potipur, who set aside all other creatures for the service of the Thraish. So the Talkers believed.

  Sliffisunda, bruised and tired, was not so sure. The other Talkers of the Sixth Degree had not heard Pamra Don. He did not like to think what might have happened if they had heard Pamra Don. It might be better if none of them heard her, ever. Better if Sliffisunda had not heard her himself. He settled upon his perch, head resting upon his shoulder. In the afternoon, he would talk with the human, Ilze. In the evening, he would go to the camp of the humans again and make an agreement with Gendra Mitiar. It did not matter what agreement with her was made. The woman stank of death. She would not live long enough to worry him.

  "What will you do with Pamra Don?" he asked Ilze.

  Ilze's mouth dropped open. He salivated. The stench of him rose into Sliffisunda's nostrils, sickeningly sweet. "Teach her," he said at last, a low, gargling sound.

  "Teach her she cannot do this to me."

  "Where?" Sliffisunda asked. "Where will you do this?"

  "Here. In the Talons. Anywhere. It doesn't matter."

  "Before those from the Chancery?" Sliffisunda was watching him closely. If, as Sliffisunda thought likely, all those in the crusade had been contaminated by Pamra Don's ideas, then some mere private vengeance against the woman would not suffice. Her followers would have to be convinced that Pamra Don was wrong. "Would you punish her before those from the Chancery and all her followers?"

  Ilze shivered. He wanted to say yes, but his soul shrank from it. He had orders not to touch her. If he punished her in public, they would kill him. He knew that.

  They would kill him at once. Those from the Chancery would do it. Her followers would do it. And no one would care enough to save him from them. "If you would protect me," he whined, hearing the whine and hating it.

  "Ah. Well, suppose you don't do it. Suppose we do it, the Thraish. How should it be done?"

  Ilze had only thought of whips, of stakes. "Tie her to a stake," he said, then stopped. The Talkers didn't use whips. "Eat her?" he offered.

  Sliffisunda cawed his displeasure, pecking Ilze sharply on one side of his head so the blood flowed. "Take into our bodies the foul flesh of a heretic? Stupid human!"

  "Well, do whatever you do, then," Ilze sulked, trying to stanch the blood.

  "We have a ceremony," Sliffisunda said. "A ceremony."

  Night came.

  Sliffisunda came again.

  Pamra Don came again, to the fireside.

  "Do your followers believe as you do?" the Talker asked her, already certain of the answer.

  "Yes. Most of them. All of them, in time. All mankind, in time." It was not the question she had expected, not one of the questions she was ready for, but the Talker asked nothing else. He turned and left her, going to Gendra Mitiar to carry on a lengthy, soft-voiced conversation which Pamra could not hear.

  Jhilt could hear it.

  "You wish to be Protector of Man?"

  Gendra Mitiar nodded. Her voice was very husky tonight, and it tired her to talk.

  "What can Thraish do to guarantee this?" he purred.

  "Wait until Lees Obol dies. I will let you know. Then send a messenger. Tell the assembly the elixir will be decreased unless I am elected. In which event it will be increased."

  "And when you are Protector, you will increase the quota of humans? You will eradicate the Noor for this?"

  "You have my word."

  "And in return for this agreement, you will give me the person of this woman, this Pamra Don?"

  "As you like Uplifted One. She is nothing to me. What do you want her for?"

  "To prove she is a false prophet, Dame Marshal. In ceremony before all her followers at Split River Pass. To show them Potipur will not be mocked."

  Gendra laughed, thinking of Tharius Don. "How may I assist you, Uplifted One?"

  Jhilt heard all this, her ear tight to the tent flap.

  When Sliffisunda had gone, when Gendra Mitiar was asleep, an uneasy sleep in which her heart faltered and her lungs seemed inclined to stop working, Jhilt walked out to the cage of seeker birds that every Jondarite troop carried with it.

  The message bone was already in her hands.

  "A message for Tharius Don," she said, keeping her voice bored and level. "From the Dame Marshal."

  The Jondarite keeper made a cursory examination of the seal. It looked like the Dame Marshal's seal, and who else's would it be? The bird came into his hands willingly, accepted the light burden as trained to do, and launched itself upward to turn toward the north without hesitation, strong wings beating across Potipur's scowling face.

  Jhilt shivered, thinking of what was in that message.

  "You cold?" leered the soldier, opening his cloak in invitation.

  She shook her head. "The Dame Marshal needs me," she said, turning back toward the tent. Though, indeed, if the Dame Marshal needed her at all, it would not be for much longer. Queen Fibji should be told of this conspiracy against the Noor. Jhilt had no seeker birds for the Queen; therefore she
must find some Noor signal post that would have them. Gendra would not spend time looking for a slave, not now, not as weak as she was and with so much going on. Jhilt fumbled among her chains for the other key, the one that unlocked her jingling manacles.

  Moments later she moved off across the steppes, silent as the moons.

  22

  A yawning servant brought word to Tharius Don in the middle of his sleep time.

  "The general asks for you at once in the audience hall, Lord Propagator. Most urgently." He waited for some reply, and when Tharius waved him off, he scurried away into the darkness. The midnight bell had only lately struck. Tharius had heard it in his sleep, through the purple dusk that was night in this season.

  He wrapped himself in a thick robe with a hood and made his way down the echoing corridors and endless flights of stairs to the audience hall. Muslin curtains hung limp against the closed shutters, like so many wraiths in the torchlight. At the side, where Lees Obol's niche was, the curtains were flung wide, and General Jondrigar stood there, face impassive and his hand upon his knife. Something in his stance recommended caution to Tharius Don, who approached softly, pausing at some distance to ask, "You needed me, General?"

  "Dead," Jondrigar replied. "I think. Dead."

  "Dead? Who?" Only to understand at once who it was and why this midnight summons. "The Protector?"

  The general nodded, standing aside to gesture Tharius forward. In the niche, still overheated by the little porcelain stove which was only now burning itself out, the bed stood with its coverlets thrown back. On the embroidered sheet the body of Lees Obol lay immobile. His eyes were open. One arm was rigidly extended above him, as though petrified, pointing.

  "Telling me, go!" Jondrigar said, indicating the hand. "Telling me. As he always did.'

  "Rigor," Tharius murmured. "All dead men get rigor, General. It doesn't mean..."

  "Telling me go," the general repeated, his eyes glowing. "Rigor comes long after. He died like this. The message for me."

  Tharius moved to the bed, put his hands gently upon the ancient face, the neck, the arms. Rigid. All. Like rigor, yes. Or blight. His face darkened. So. Plots.

  Perhaps.

  "When was he last seen alive?"

  "You were here one time."

  "Yes. Last evening. Shavian Bossit and I met in the hall for a few moments. I didn't look in on Lees Obol, though Shavian may have done."

  "He did. Through the curtains. Jondarite captain reports this to me." Jondrigar took off his helmet and ran a trembling hand across his mane. "Jondarite captain looked in every hour. Served tea late, as Protector wanted. Then, at midnight bell, he looked in again. This is what he found."

  We could have a bloodbath here, Tharius thought. Better defuse that. "We have been surprised he has lived this long, General. We all knew he would die very soon. The elixir does not give eternal life. Only more years, not an eternity."

  "No one killed him."

  It could have been a question, or a statement. Tharius Don chose to interpret it as both.

  "No one killed him. Age killed him. As it will all of us."

  "But he left a message for me," the general said again. "He told me to go."

  Tharius thought it wiser to say nothing. He had no idea what was in the general's mind and chose to take no chance of upsetting him.

  "The Noor Queen. She is coming to Split River Pass," the general said suddenly. "I need to go there."

  Tharius thought the general's mind had slipped and said soothingly, "There will be a council meeting within hours. You should be here for that."

  The general nodded. "Yes. Then I will go to Split River Pass." He turned and made his way out of the hall, unsteadily, as though under some great pressure.

  Tharius felt a fleeting pity. Lees Obol had been all Jondrigar's life. What would he do now?

  He put the question away. There were customs to comply with. "Send someone to Glamdrul Feynt," he said to the Jondarite captain who hovered against the wall.

  "Tell him to look up what funeral arrangements were made the last time a Protector died, then come tell me what they were. Send someone else for servants. Wash the body and clothe it properly. Then get the messengers moving. Let them know at the Bureau of Towers. Tell them to get the word out to the towns. There will probably be some period of mourning. Find out who's running things over there while Gendra's gone, and send them to me. Oh, and find my deputy, Bormas Tyle, and send him to me as well."

  Tharius chewed a thumbnail. Should a seeker bird be sent to Gendra Mitiar?

  Suppose Pamra Don was just now having success with the Talkers? Suppose this message interrupted something vital? He shivered. Better let it alone. Send a message later, if at all.

  He turned, catching a glimpse of a scurrying figure out of the corner of one eye.

  Nepor? Here? Surely not. Probably a curious servant, fearful of being caught away from his assigned duties. Well, they would all have their curiosity satisfied soon enough.

  "Done," whispered Koma Nepor, pausing at a shadowed doorway.

  "Dead? Ah. How did he look?"

  "Who can say, Jorn? I didn't look at him. The Jondarite ... put the tea kettle down on the table by the curtain as he always does. From my hiding place behind the curtain, I put the blight in the kettle. The old man called for tea; tea he was served. An hour later, off goes the captain, here comes the general. Then here comes Tharius Don, much whispering and sending of this one and that one. I didn't stay to listen."

  "What happened to the kettle?"

  "The servants are in there now, cleaning up. They'll take the kettle and cups away. The blight's only good for an hour or so. All gone now, I should think. That's what took me so long to develop, finding a strain that wouldn't last."

  "No evidence to connect you, then."

  "No evidence to connect us, Jorn. None. Shall we go to our beds now, so's to hear it properly, wakened from sleep?"

  They went off down the twisting corridor, two shadows in the shuttered gloom, whispering, heads bent toward one another like Talkers, plotting on the stones.

  "When will you give General Jondrigar the letter?"

  "Later. There'll be a meeting to discuss the funeral. After that."

  Their forms dwindled into shadowed silence.

  Shavian Bossit was wakened from sleep to receive the news. He sent a message at once to Bormas Tyle, awaiting his arrival with some impatience.

  "Where've you been?" he demanded when the other arrived. "I sent for you over an hour ago."

  "So did my superior," the other replied, glaring at him. "Tharius Don. It seems we have lost a Protector. Are we about to gain another?"

  "It's sooner than we'd planned."

  "Nonetheless welcome."

  "True. But we're hardly ready. Gendra's still alive. So is Jondrigar."

  "So they're still alive. For a few weeks, perhaps. Support one of them for the post.''

  "The general? Ha!"

  "Well, Gendra, then. In her absence. Elect Gendra as Protector, which will vacate the position of Marshal of the Towers. Feynt will take over there, as we've planned, and that will give you two votes. Meantime, the general will not last long. I will take his position when he dies. Last, Gendra will fade away, and you will have Feynt's vote, my vote, and your own. Enough, Bossit." Bormas Tyle slid his knife in and out of its holster, a whisper of violence in the room. "A few weeks or months more and we will have succeeded."

  "I suppose. Still, something's bothering about all this. The servants are whispering about Obol's death."

  "Did you expect them not to?" Bormas snorted. "Servants whisper about everything."

  "Just the way he died. As though he'd been frozen. One arm pointed out like a signpost."

  "Some deaders do that."

  "I suppose," Shavian said again. "Very well. We proceed as planned. The council will meet in the morning, an hour before noon. And what about the funeral?"

  "I don't know. Tharius has our old charlatan in the
files looking up what happened last time. I can't even remember who the Protector was before Lees Obol."

  "His name was Jurniver," Shavian said, abstractedly. "Jurniver Quyme. He lived four hundred and sixty-two years. He came to office in his two hundredth year. He made fifteen Progressions. He died long before I was born. Feynt knows all about him. It'll be in the files."

  "Old faker."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "He pretends to be ancient and crippled whenever anyone wants anything. Watch him, though, when he thinks no one's looking. He moves like a hunting stilt-lizard, quick as lightning."

  "It's a game he plays for Gendra's benefit."

  "It's a game he plays for his own. Keep it in mind, Bossit, when he's Marshal of the Towers. Feynt's no fool."

  "Would we be planning together if he were?" Shavian made an impatient gesture.

  "Get on with it. I'll have to see what happens at the council meeting. If you can find Feynt, tell him we've talked." And he turned away across his room, groping his way to the shutters and throwing them wide. The sweet breezes of summer dawn immediately raised the muslin curtains, flinging them like perfumed veils into the room, where he struck at them impatiently. Outside in the plaza the trees' leaves had unrolled to their fullest extent, glistening in the amber sun, a bronzy green light that covered everything like water, flowing and changing, rippling along the stones and over the walls in a constant tide. ‘Riverlight’, it was called. Summer Riverlight, created by the wind and the trees.

  The fountain played charmingly, the little bells hung in its jet tumbling and jingling. On the nearest meadows the weehar lowed and the thrassil neighed, gentle sounds. With the wind in this direction, one could scarcely hear the axes, far off in the hills.

  At the center of the plaza, near the fountain, Tharius Don and Glamdrul Feynt stood in the midst of a crowd of servants and craftsmen, hands pointing, voices raised. Funeral arrangements, Shavian told himself, yawning. Evidently there was to be a catafalque in the ceremonial square prior to entombment. Respected members of the Chancery were not put into pits on their deaths. It was presumed the Holy Sorters would take them directly from their roofless tombs into Potipur's arms. Shavian yawned again. The truth of which would be easy to ascertain, he thought, if anyone wanted to climb over a tomb wall and look. Since he was reasonably certain of what he would find - considering the number of small birds and vermin that congregated around tombs - Shavian was not tempted to do so.