The Awakeners - Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He realized his voice had betrayed him, edged with half excitement, half fear; like a knife, it had cut into her contentment. "The word has come."

  She shivered. She had had to know, as all the Rivermen knew, and yet she had kept it closed away in the back of her mind somewhere, along with other unwanted and dangerous lumber. "When?"

  "Tonight."

  "So soon!"

  "Once the word came, it had to be soon. Immediate. We could not expect to keep it quiet long after the word was given. Too many birds. Too many messages."

  "So." She wiped her hands again, as though by wiping them she might wipe away the need for acting, for responding. "What am I to do?"

  "You are to stay here, in the house. I'll need the children as messengers for a time, then they must come in and stay close. I will spread the word now. We will spy out the pits during the day to see how many men will be needed."

  "The River?"

  "Yes. The barge is ready. The stone sacks are ready. We have men to man the lines."

  "I worry," she said, tears in the corners of her eyes. "I worry the barge may break loose. You may end up west of here. You could not return to me. How would I find you?"

  He laughed, a quick, unamused bark of laughter. "Silly woman. Such a silly Murga. After tonight, dear one, it will not matter east or west. When we have done with the Servants of Abricor, do you not think we will have done with their gods? And then do you not think we may walk where we choose? East or west?"

  That night he came with others to the pits, well after dark, to pile the bony remnants and twitching corpses into barrows, careful not to touch them with naked skin lest there be some infection from the Tears of Viranel. The barrows creaked down through the town and were emptied into the barge, and there the heavy sacks of stone were tied to the bodies while the barge made its laborious way out into the River, sweeps creaking and men cursing at the unaccustomed labor. The line that connected them to shore reeled out, span after span, and at last Raffen gave the word they had waited for. The bodies went overboard, into the massive currents of the ever-moving River, and the Rivermen turned to the winch to take up the line and bring the barge back to the place it had left.

  When morning came, there was nothing different, nothing remarkable, nothing to show that the world had changed. Except that the worker pits were empty.

  In Xoxxy-Do, where there were no piers and great rocks encumbered the Riverside, a great pit had been prepared, dug by Rivermen over the decades, deeper and deeper with each succeeding year, the stones taken from it piled above it on teetering platforms of poised logs, the earth piled behind the stones. "A quarry," they had called it, taking from it small quantities of carefully crafted blocks, chosen, so it was said, for their veining and color. There the Rivermen came to the quarry late, bringing with them the harvest of the worker pits of towns both east and west, their wagon wheels creaking in the dark and lanterns gleaming. It was early morning when the last of the bodies was laid in the great stone hollow, almost day, with the green line of false dawn sketched flatly on the eastern plains. Then the engineers moved certain logs that braced certain others in place, and the mountain of piled rubble fell, the accumulation of years fallen into the place from which it had been taken.

  If the Rivermen were to try to dig it up, it would take a generation. The Servants of Abricor could not unearth the bodies in a thousand years.

  In the towns of Azil and Thrun and Cheeping Wells, the Rivermen carried the corpses to the ends of the long piers, weighted them well, and tossed them out into the River's deep currents.

  In Crisomon a great pyre had been built, and in that township every man, woman, and child danced around the pyre as the bodies of the workers were burned to ashes. In Crisomon, conversion to the cause had been total and unanimous.

  Elsewhere that was not so. In some townships the Awakeners were vigilant or wakeful and came out of the Towers to defend the pits. In a few places the Awakeners prevailed, but in most the Rivermen won and the corpses of Awakeners were merely added to other corpses which had to be disposed of before dawn. Dawn.

  Worker pits empty when the sun rose. In B'for, just east of Thou-ne, an Awakener returned in some haste to the Tower to speak with the Superior, who was in company with the lady Kesseret, said to be Superior of a Tower farther east who had come to B'for on urgent business and was receiving Lord Deign's hospitality before going on.

  The Awakener was panting so much it was hard to discern the message that the pit was empty.

  The Superior was silent, but the lady Kesseret seemed to understand what had been said.

  "Then you will not need to go to the fields today," she said calmly. There were great wrinkles around her eyes and lips, and her voice was thready. "Rejoice."

  "But, but," the young Awakener stuttered, "but, what shall I do?"

  "Go to the chapel and pray," she suggested.

  "What should I pray for?"

  "Enlightenment. Patience. Resignation."

  Were these not what she herself had prayed for? She searched Deign's face for signs of shock. None. Both of them had been ready for this. Now it had happened, and she must plan to leave B'for to travel westward to Thou-ne. In a few days or weeks, if they were permitted to live that long. She would not fail to be in that place where Tharius Don would come for her or send her word.

  In a few towns the word had not arrived in time, or there had been no Rivermen to receive it. In a few towns there had been no strike, no disturbance at all. The Servants of Abricor fed as usual in the bone pits, looking up with surprise to see their fellows from neighboring townships circling high above, dropping down to sit with them in long, dusty lines upon the pit edges, talking of this thing.

  "No workers in our town," the fliers said. "No workers." "Sometimes there are no workers," they told one another. "Sometimes it happens."

  "Not often," they agreed. "Not so many places all at once." It was almost noon of the day after the strike before they sent some among them off to tell the Talkers at the Talons.

  "How long?" the Rivermen asked one another. "How long will it take before they do something?"

  "Pile the fish upon the wharves and wait," they said to each other. "Each day, fresh fish, there for the eating."

  It took only another day before Servants descended upon the towns, snatching at children or smaller adults. In Baris one among them distracted a group of townsmen while others made off with a living, pleading victim. In some towns, the Rivermen were ready for this; ready with crossbows and stone-tipped bolts, ready with nooses and obsidian clubs. In other towns the victims screamed into unheeding air, were flown away to be dosed with Tears and left in some pit or other until ready for eating.

  The Servants had never considered human anger. In the wake of these seizings, anger rose like a veil of smoke around the towns, palpable as wind. Even they who had not been Rivermen, who had revered the Awakeners, even they could feel nothing but anger as they saw their children hoisted aloft, blood dripping from sharp talons as the screaming prey were carried away. Towns in which the first victims were easily taken proved to be impregnable on the second try. Doors and windows were closed. Farmers were not working in their fields. Children were not playing in the streets. Where groups moved, armed men moved with them.

  On the wharves the fishermen, guarded by bowmen, drew in their nets and piled the bounty of the River upon the wharves.

  On the third day after the strike, Servants attacked some of the towns, tearing at shutters with their talons and beaks, screaming rage at the inhabitants, making short flights to the Riverside to attack the fishermen and to drop tiny blobs of stinking shit upon the fish piled there. The bowmen were practiced by now and used their bolts to advantage. The fliers, in their rage, scarcely noticed how their numbers were being reduced.

  In Zephyr, Murga and Raffen sat in their kitchen, listening to a fury of wings outside, like the sound of a great, windy storm. The children cowered beside them, both frightened and excited by this f
renzy. "When will it be over?" they asked, not sure whether they wanted the excitement to end.

  "Soon," said Raffen. "They will weaken soon." He sighed. Thus far, not a single one of the fliers had taken any of the fish from the shore. Though many of the Rivermen were not unhappy about this, Raffen believed in the purity of the original cause. He had not wanted the flier folk to die. "They will weaken soon," he repeated, hoping they would grow weak enough to succumb at last to reality and eat what was offered them.

  In most Towers, Superiors ordered their Awakeners to stay within. Even those most dedicated to the worship of Potipur, and to the virtual immortality that worship might have gained them, learned that discretion was needed. Blinking lights told them of Awakeners in neighboring towns beaten to death by mobs of outraged citizens. Seeker birds arrived to tell them of Awakeners burned in their Towers because they had seemed to favor the Servants of Abricor. These messages had been planned by Tharius Don and long arranged for, designed to be sent a day after the strike to prevent the Awakeners from interfering with what was going on.

  And in the Talons was a fury such as Northshore had not seen in a thousand years.

  Upon the Stones of Disputation the Talkers sat in their tattered feathers, screaming at one another of fault and blame and guilt and shame, while below them in the aeries the last of the Talkers' meat struggled mindlessly in the troughs.

  Sliffisunda brooded alone in his own place, considering the likelihood of survival, his mind sharpened by the knowledge that there had indeed been a heresy afoot.

  "Promise of Potipur," the surviving fliers cried, dropping from the sky like knives of black fire upon the Stones of Disputation while the Talkers scurried for cover.

  "Promise of Potipur!"

  From his concealed room, Sliffisunda heard them, heard the shrieks of pain and rage as those like himself were slaughtered by the angry flocks, his mind working relentlessly as he determined to go on living whether any other of the Thraish lived or not. He would wait until dark. He would fly into the north, to the Chancery, to that place he had flown once before, against his own will, where the herds of thrassil and weehar still grazed on the grasses of Potipur's Promise. Enough to feed himself, he thought. For years. The hot, lovely blood of thrassil. In the north.

  He forgot that others of the Thraish had already been sent to hunt among the herds beyond the Teeth.

  28

  On the great moors of the Noor, Peasimy Plot learned of the conflagration to the south. Some among his entourage could read the flicking lights. There was even one who was sought out by a seeker bird. The days brought increasing information, until even Peasimy could not but be aware of what was happening.

  "Light comes?" he asked, almost whimpering in his hatred for whoever had done this without him. "Light comes?" He had sworn vengeance upon those who had burned Pamra Don, and now those who had burned Pamra Don were dead or dying without any action by Peasimy Plot. Without his hand in their guts, his knife in their throats. He had fled - though, he told himself, he had done so only to consolidate his strength - but still they died. How dared they?

  "Who did it?" he asked at last, while they conferred and tried to come up with an answer. "Who killed them?"

  "Someone in the Chancery," they said. "It had to be someone in the Chancery."

  "Heretics," he hissed. "All those in the Chancery. We go to war!" For it had been near the Chancery that Pamra Don had died. And near the Chancery that the great assembly had seen him flee away. And from the Chancery that some troop of soldiers had been seeking him ever since. He would make sure there were no witnesses to that defection left to speak of it.

  "War," he said again, telling his close advisers to make that message manifest among the multitude.

  During the night some among the followers faded away to the south, but enough others were still there when the sun rose, polishing their axes and making ready new bolts for their bows, to make a great army.

  Not far to the east, General Jondrigar pursued Peasimy Plot, eager to chastise him for his insults to the Noor.

  After about a week, and in only a few towns, a flier or two descended upon the wharves to gorge themselves on the fish piled there. They did not return for another meal. Scarcely had they time to arise from their feasting before the talons of other, more traditional Thraish hurled them from the sky. Then there was screaming and feasting of flier upon flier, with much buffeting of wings and thrusting of beaks. For the most part the Rivermen were faithful to the instructions of Tharius Don, taking no action against the fliers unless they themselves were attacked - they or other humans in the towns. In some, however, it was an excuse for general slaughter, and more of the fliers died.

  "When?" asked the children. "We don't hear anything anymore."

  "Now, I think," said Raffen the Riverman. "Let us go out."

  The streets were littered with bits of broken shutter, with blown feathers, with the wind-tossed refuse that accumulates in every town unless swept away daily by those whose business it is to keep the streets. People wandered here and there, peering around them as though to see whether there might not be just one Awakener among them, just one group of workers. There were none. The Tower stood in its park. No one had looked inside it yet, but it gave the appearance of a place that was tenantless. Empty. Like a shell when the nut has been eaten away.

  A bustling man came to Raffen for advice. There were dead in the town to be disposed of, and Raffen went away with him to instruct the townsfolk how this should be done in the future.

  Murga and the children went on wandering the streets. On the highest point of the town, the Temple still stood, its high dome gleaming white with paint. From inside came the sound of hammers.

  "What are they doing?" Murga asked a passerby.

  "Taking the moon faces off the wall," came the answer. "They are setting up an image of the Light Bearer instead."

  Murga took the children by the hands and led them to the Temple to see what was going on. The Temple floor was littered with shattered stone before the wall where the masons' hammers were at work, but the image that stood at the top of the stairs was one Blint-wife had known well. She was carved in ivory stone, her arms curved around a child. It was a copy of the statue in Thou-ne.

  "Thrasne's woman!" Murga whispered to herself. "That's Thrasne's woman!"

  The serene face gleamed down at her, unmoved, unmoving, just as it had always seemed aboard the Gift.

  "Well, at least she's got her baby," said Murga, unawed by this elevation to divinity. "At least that."

  29

  The Gift had returned to Northshore, thanks to the skill of the sailors, three towns east of Thou-ne. Those who had sailed in her gathered at the rail, watching the familiar shoreline grow closer, each of them aware that something was wrong, was missing, without knowing precisely what until Medoor Babji said, "There aren't any fliers!"

  It was true. There were no wings aloft except for the little birds. There were no great, tattered shapes floating above the Talons.

  There were great heaps of fresh-caught fish on the piers, which no one seemed to be eating or selling. Within an hour of their arrival, they had been told why and how, and Thrasne had gone to the Temple to see the wall where the moon faces had been. A stone carver was there, working on a large figure. When Thrasne asked what it was to be, he said it was to be the Light Bearer. A woman, with a child in her arms. It did not look at all like Suspirra, but then the carver was not very talented. Or so Thrasne thought, wondering what Pamra would think of this image. He said something of this to the carver, twitting him only a little, saying the image was not really like unto her.

  "Well, as to that" - the man spat rock dust at him - "likely she will be carved in a hundred fashions or more. What was left of her after they burned her, so I'm told, didn't leave much for us to model from."

  Thrasne had him by the throat before the poor man knew what he had set off, and it was only when two people came up from the Temple floor, pulling at him
and screaming in his ear, that he let the carver go. They told him then what they knew, which was not much and already overlaid with myths.

  "She rose," one woman whispered. "Like the flame-bird, burning, into the very heavens, singing like an angel."

  Thrasne stumbled out of the place.

  There was a hurt place inside him, one he could cover with his outspread hand, a hot burning as though he were being consumed from within. He burned as Pamra Don had burned. The fiery spot widened, spread, reached the limits of his body, and then erupted through his skin in a fleeing cloud of spiritual flame, vaguely man-shaped, the heat of it an emotional blast which fled away as a hot wind flees.

  He could feel it as a presence departing, an actuality with motivations of its own, now vanishing from his understanding. In that momentary excruciation he felt he had emitted an angel which now expanded to fill all the universe, becoming more tenuous with every breath until all connection with Thrasne was teased away into nothing.

  He flexed his hand across the place the angel had left, somewhere near his stomach or heart, an interior place that had nothing to do with thought but only with the tumbling of liquors and the rumbling of guts, the living heart-belly of his being. Where the fire had burned was a vacancy. A hole. He poked a finger at himself, half expecting it to penetrate into that emptiness, but he encountered only solid muscle and the hard bones of his ribs. Whatever the emptiness might be, it was not physical, and there was no pain associated with it. The angel had taken the pain with it when it departed.

  "Pamra Don," he said, testing himself for a response. There was none. Perhaps a twinge of bittersweet sadness, like dawn mist blown across one's face, carrying the scent of wet herbs, evocative of nothing but itself. "Pamra Don?"

  And then again he tried, "Suspirra?"

  To find her gone as well.

  So, what was it that had fled? A ghost? A fiery spirit? A succubus who had lived beneath his heart?

  Or was it some soul-child of his own, self-created, dreamed, hoped-for, stillborn in this world but released into some wider universe?