Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  SOUTHSHORE

  Sheri S. Tepper

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Website

  Also by Sheri S. Tepper

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  When Pamra left Thou-ne, moving westward along the River road, some thousand of the residents of Thou-ne went after her. Most of them were provisioned to some extent, though there were some who went with no thought for food or blankets, trusting in a providence that Pamra had not promised and had evidently not even considered. Peasimy Flot, for all his seeming inanity, was well provided for. He had a little cart with things in it, things he had been putting by for some time. The widow Flot would have been surprised to find in it items that had disappeared from her home over the last fifteen years or so. There were others in Thou-ne who would have been equally surprised to find their long-lost belongings assisting Peasimy in his journey.

  The procession came to Atter, and though some of the Thou-neites dropped out of the procession, many of Atter joined it. Pamra preached in the Temple there, to general acclaim. Then came Bylme and Twarn-the-little, then Twarn-the-big – where the townspeople made Pamra a gift of a light wagon in which she might ride, pulled by her followers – then a dozen more towns, and in each of them the following grew more numerous, the welcome more tumultuous. Peasimy himself began to appoint ‘messengers’ to send ahead with word of their coming. It was something that came to him, all at once. ‘Light comes,’ he told them. ‘That is what you must say.’ As time went on, the messages grew more detailed and ramified, but it was always Peasimy who sent them.

  It was on a morning of threatening cloud that they left Byce-barrens for the town of Chirubel.

  The storm did not precisely take them by surprise; the day had brought increasing wind and spatters of rain from very near dawn until midafternoon. Still, when in late afternoon the full fury of the wind broke over them and the skies opened, the multitude were in nowise prepared for it. Some stopped where they were, crawling under their carts or pitching their tents as best they might, to cower under them out of the worst of the downpour. Others fled into the woods, where they sought large trees or overhanging ridges. Pamra, high on her wagon, simply pointed ahead with one imperious finger, and the men who dragged the wagon, half-drowned by the water flowing over their faces, staggered on into the deluge. It was not until they stumbled into the outer wall of the Jarb House that they realized she had pointed toward it all along. Pamra came down from the wagon, and the dozen or so of them, including Peasimy Flot, struggled around the perimeter of the place looking for a door.

  It opened when they pounded, warmth drifting out into the chill together with a puff of warm, dry air laden with strange smells and a haze of smoke. Peasimy coughed. Pamra pressed forward against the warding arm of the doorkeeper, the others following, gasping, wetter than fish.

  They passed down a lengthy corridor into the main hall to stand there stunned at the scale of the place. It was like standing in a chimney. At one side stairs curved up to a balcony that spiraled around the open area, twisted up, and up, kept on going around and around, smaller and smaller, to the seeming limit of their eyes, where it ended in a dark glassy blot, a tented skylight black with rain. It was, Pamra thought, like being inside the trunk of a hollow tree with an opening at the top and all the tree’s denizens peering down at you. Heads lined the balconies, went away to be replaced by others, and throughout the whole great stack of living creatures came a constant rustle and mumble of talk, a bubbling pulse of communication that seemed to be one seamless fabric of uninterrupted sound.

  From some of the balconies nets hung, littered with a flotsam of clothing and blankets. From other balconies long, polished poles plunged to lower levels. A brazier was alight at the center of the floor, its wraiths rising in dim veils in this towering, smokestack space.

  ‘Come in,’ said the Mendicant ironically. ‘So nice to have you.’

  ‘It is raining out there,’ announced Pamra evenly, no whit aware of the sarcasm. She drew back the cloak that had covered Lila to disclose the child, not at all discomfited by the soaking she had received.

  ‘Wet,’ affirmed Peasimy. ‘Dreadful wet. A great flood out of the skies. Mustn’t let her drown. Too important.’

  ‘Ah,’ assented the Mendicant. ‘And you are?’

  ‘The crusade,’ said Peasimy. ‘We are the crusade. Light comes! She is the Bearer of Truth, the very Mother of Truth.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Mendicant again, frowning slightly. He had heard of this. All this segment of Northshore had heard of this, one way or the other. As one of the Order’s more trusted messengers, he had more interest in it than most. A message had come through Chiles Medman, Governor General of the Order, from Tharius Don asking the Order to assist in procuring information.

  ‘Trale,’ he introduced himself. ‘Mendicant brother of the Jarb. What can I offer you by way of assistance?’

  ‘Towels,’ said Pamra simply. ‘And a fire to dry ourselves. Something hot to drink if you have it conveniently by.’ She stared around her, up at the endless balconies where people came and went, staring down at her, leaving the railings to others who stared in their turn. Pale blots. Mouths open. Hands moving i
n beckoning gestures. Something distressed her, but she could not identify it. Something was wrong, missing, as though she had forgotten to put on her skirt or her tunic. She looked down at herself, puzzled. She was damp but fully dressed. Why, then, this feeling of nakedness?

  Trale led them across the hall, through an arch beneath the balcony and into a wide, low room that curved away just inside the outer wall. A refectory. Pamra shivered. It was not unlike the refectory at the Tower of Baris. The smells were not unlike those smells. Cereals and soap, steam and grease, cleanliness at war with succulence. Trale beckoned to them from an angled corner, a smaller room opening off the large one, where a fire blazed brightly upon the hearth.

  ‘I’ll return in a moment,’ he murmured, leaving them there. Those who had drawn the cart stood back, waiting for Pamra to approach the fire. She gestured them forward. The room was warm enough without baking herself. She took off her outer clothing and spread it on a table. Her knee-length undertunic was only damp, clinging to her body like a second skin. The men turned their eyes away under Peasimy’s peremptory gaze, one of them flushing.

  Trale was back in a moment with towels and a pile of loosely woven robes over one arm. He did not seem to notice Pamra’s body under the clinging fabric but merely handed her one of the robes, as impersonally as a servant. Behind him came a man and a woman, one bearing a tea service, the other a covered platter at which Peasimy looked with suspicion.

  ‘Jarb,’ said Trale. ‘It is our custom.’

  ‘We won’t—’ Pamra began.

  ‘No. It is our custom. With any visitor. Call it – oh, a method of diagnosis.’

  ‘We are not ill.’

  ‘The diagnosis is not always of illness. Do take tea. This is a very comforting brew. It has no medicinal qualities aside from that.’

  They sat steaming before the fire, moisture rising from them and from their discarded clothing in clouds. Rain fell down the chimney, making small spitting noises in the fire. The wall at their side reverberated to the thunder outside, hummed to the bow-stroke of the wind. In the great hall the voice murmur went on and on. Beside the fire Trale knelt to scrape coals into a tiny brazier. Beside the brazier lay three oval roots, warty and blue, each the size of a fist. Jarb roots, Pamra thought. Trale peeled the roots carefully, dropping the peels into a shallow pan. When all three were peeled, he laid the roots into the ashes and began to dry the peels over the brazier, stirring them with a slender metal spoon. The woman who had brought in the tea buried the peeled roots in the ashes and turned to smile at Pamra.

  ‘It is only the peel which has the power of visions. Jarb root itself is delicious. The Noor eat it all the time. Have you ever tasted it?’

  Pamra shook her head, oppressed once more by the sense of something missing. ‘No.’ She ate less and less as the crusade wore on. Hunger seemed scarcely to touch her. Now, for some reason, however, she felt ravenous. Perhaps it was the smoke. Perhaps the smell of food. ‘I am hungry, though.’

  ‘They only take a few moments to steam. Some scrape the ashes off, but I like the taste.’ She drew a pipe from her pocket and handed it to Trale, who filled it with the powdery scraps from the pan. All three had pipes, and in a moment all three were alight, seated before the fire, the smoke from the pipes floating out into the room, into the refectory, away into the chimney of the great hall. The fragrance was the same one that already permeated everything. Sweet, spicy. Pamra folded her arms on the table and laid her head upon them, suddenly both hungry and tired. She had not felt this hungry, this tired, in months. Why was she here? She thought briefly of the Gift of Potipur, wishing she were aboard, translating the murmur of Tower talk into the murmur of tidal current, the thunder outside into the creak of boat timbers. She could be there. With Thrasne. Instead of here. Beside her Lila chortled and said, clearly, ‘Over the River. Thrasne went over the River.’

  Peasimy turned, his little ruby mouth open, cheeks fiery red with the drying he had given them. ‘She talked!’

  Pamra nodded sleepily. ‘She does, sometimes.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard her before.’

  ‘She talks about the River a lot. Mostly that.’ She rubbed her forehead fretfully. The sweet smell of the Jarb had soaked into the top of her nose and was filling it, like syrup.

  She turned to find the three smokers knocking the dottle from their pipes onto the hearth. The immediacy of the smell was dissipating.

  The woman raked the baked Jarb root from the fire, brushing it off and placing it upon a little plate. This she placed before Pamra with a spoon. ‘Try a little.’

  Pamra spooned off a bite, blowing on it to cool it. The root was sweet, too, but delicious. The slightly ashy taste only complemented it. She took another spoonful, then hesitated.

  ‘Go ahead, eat it all,’ the woman said. ‘There are people bringing plenty of food for you and for the others.’

  By the fire, Trale sat, rocking back and forth.

  ‘Did you have a vision?’ asked Peasimy curiously, studying the man’s face.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘What was it of?’

  ‘Of you, Peasimy Flot. And of Pamra Don. And of what is to come.’

  ‘Oh!’ Peasimy clapped his hands, delighted. ‘Tell us!’

  Trale shook his head. ‘I’m afraid it can’t be told. There are only colors and patterns.’

  ‘Red and orange and yellow of flame,’ said the woman. ‘Black of smoke.’

  ‘Red and orange and yellow of flowers,’ said the man. ‘Black of stony mountains.’

  ‘Red and orange and yellow of metal,’ said Trale. ‘Black of deep mines.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like much of a vision,’ pouted Peasimy.

  ‘Or too much of one,’ said Pamra, one side of her mouth lifted in a half smile. The Jarb root had settled into her, making some of the same kind of happiness Glizzee spice often made. Not rapture. More a contentment. Warmth. It had been a sizable root, and her sudden hunger was appeased. She smiled again, head nodding with weariness. ‘I’m so sleepy.’

  ‘Come with me,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll find a place for you to rest.’

  They went out into the great hall again and up the spiraling balcony. A twist and a half up the huge trunk, the woman pointed into a room where a wide bed was spread with gaily worked quilts. The door was fastened back with a strap, and the woman loosened it now, letting the door sag toward its latch.

  ‘Sleep. When you’ve slept enough, come back down to the place we were. I’ll be there, or Trale. Will the baby be all right, here with you?’

  Pamra nodded, so weary she could hardly hold her head up. She heard the latch click as she crawled into the bed, felt Lila curl beside her with a satisfied murmur, then was gone into darkness.

  Outside the room people moved to and fro, some of them pausing to stare curiously at the door before moving away to be replaced by someone else. Inside the room, Lila squirmed out of Pamra’s grasp, turned to let her feet drop off the edge of the bed, then stagger-crawled to the door to sit there with her own hands pressed to its surface, smiling, nodding, sometimes saying something to herself in a chuckling baby voice, as though she watched with her fingers what transpired outside the wooden barrier.

  Below in the firelit room, the three Mendicants crouched before the fire, staring into the flames. Peasimy had fallen asleep where he sat, as had the men with him.

  ‘Mad,’ said Trale at last. ‘There’s no doubt.’

  ‘None,’ agreed the woman. ‘She hasn’t eaten for weeks or months. She’s all skin and eyes. She’s an ecstatic. A visionary. The fasting only makes it worse. The minute the smoke hit her, she felt hungry. She’s half starved herself.’

  ‘How long do you think we can get her to stay?’ the man asked.

  ‘No time at all. Tomorrow morning, perhaps. If the storm goes on, perhaps until the rain stops.’

  ‘Not long enough to do any good.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s too bad, isn’t it?’
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  Trale nodded, poking at the fire. ‘Well, a time of changes is often unpleasant. I don’t see the Jarb Houses seriously threatened. Or the Mendicants.’

  ‘There will be a need for more houses.’ The woman made a spiraling gesture that conveyed the wholeness of the edifice with all its murmurous inhabitants.

  ‘Perhaps some of the people in residence will be able to leave,’ the man said. He sounded doubtful of this.

  ‘Some are ready to leave as Mendicants.’ Trale sighed. ‘Taking their pipes with them, as we do. The others – if they go, they go into madness once more. More houses will be needed, but it’s unlikely we’ll be able to build them.’

  ‘We could keep her here.’

  ‘By force?’ It was a question only, without emotion. But the woman flushed deep crimson. ‘I thought, persuade her, perhaps.’

  ‘Try,’ Trale urged her. ‘By all means, Elina, try. It has not a hope of success, but you will not be content unless you try.’

  Late in the day a bell rang and people began filing down from the chimney top toward the refectory. Children leapt from the railings into nets and from these into other nets below. Some whirled down tall poles. A train of whooping boys came spinning down the spiraling banister, loud with laughter. The tables filled, and there was a clatter of bowls and spoons. Out in the chimney hall, Elina pared Jarb-root peels onto the brazier, renewing the pale wraiths of smoke which filled all the space to its high, blind skylight. Pamra opened the door of her room and came out onto the balcony to look down, Lila held high against her shoulder. Elina beckoned to them, and Lila squirmed out of Pamra’s arms, over the railing, plunging downward, arms spread as though to fly. Elina caught her, without thinking, only then turning pale with shock while the child chortled in her arms and Pamra, above, put hands to her throat as though to choke off a scream.

  ‘All right,’ said Lila. ‘You caught me.’

  ‘Did you know I would?’ the woman asked in an astonished whisper.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Lila. ‘The smoke is nice.’