Northshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Peasimy tiptoes along to the Riverbank, out onto the jetty, down to the place the reed bed thins out and the fish sing, flings himself down with his head snaking out over the slosh and slurp of the black water.

  Harumm, lumm, sloon, rumm. Fish playing with something, pushing it back and forth. They do that. Push an old barrel back and forth. Push a log, a stump. Chunk, chunk on the jetty, far down. Chunk, chunk, coming closer. And he can see it! Even in the dark, down there under the water, glowing, shining, a greeny glow, like new leaves in the sun, like moon on grass, light!

  He stares and stares as the fish bring her up, up to the surface, she glowing ever more brightly, until at last he looks directly into her face. All around her the fishes, singing, the glowing fishes spread either side of her like wings. Bump, bumping her against the stones, looking up at Peasimy as though to say, ‘Here she is!’ He knows her at once, one of the creatures from his dreams, one of those who bring the light.

  Oh, but she has changed since Thrasne carved her and put her into the River. All the features are the same, and the hard fragwood has not softened, but the little creatures of the depths have been at her, smoothing her all over with their phosphorescent slime so she gleams, shines, beams up from the waves like a beacon of greeny light, smiling, one hand held out as though for Peasimy to take it and welcome her ashore.

  And Peasimy reaches down, stronger than he could possibly be, tugging and lifting, pulling like a boatman at the capstan, hauling with an excess of power he has never had and will never have again, until she stands there, dripping on the jetty, peering at the town of Thou-ne. Only then does he go screaming off after the crier and the watch, hallooing for the lantern man, for the people to come see, and such is his fervor and volume of voice it is not long before there is a crowd gathered, full of muttering as the reed beds, staring at the woman from the River, who smiles back at them, shining, shining, shining in the dark.

  ‘There,’ Peasimy cries, over and over, in a voice totally unlike his own. ‘There in the River. The Truth Bearer. The Light Bearer. She shines, oh, she shines!’

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘Says she’s the Truth Bearer.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Somebody who brings the truth, I guess. Look at her. Ain’t she lovely.’

  ‘What’d they say?’

  ‘Said the lovely Truth Carrier was come, I think. That’s her. Up there.’

  ‘What’s a Truth Carrier?’

  ‘Oh, that’s religion, that is. Foretold to happen.’ This from one of the standabouts, a know-it-all who makes up half of what he says and switches the other half around to suit himself. No one believes a thing he says in daylight, but the dark and mist make him an anonymous voice, speaking with the authority of conviction. ‘Foretold to happen,’ he says again, pleased with the way this is received.

  And the circumstances of it all, the mist, the dark, the voice saying things that seem authoritative, Peasimy’s transfigured face, the beauty of the carved woman, all that reaches them so they go away from the place nodding their heads, believing she is whatever Peasimy calls her. Believing they had heard of the Truth Bearer all their lives, pleased and delighted, though mystified, that she has come.

  The day after goes on with saying and saying until what is said by one is said by everyone and believed by everyone. Someone – years later the distinction is claimed by half the families in Thou-ne – someone says the glowing image belongs in the Temple. By evening she is there, in the Temple of the Moons, there at the top of the sanctuary steps in front of the carved visages of the gods, looking down at the people in kindness and wonder. By evening the ritual surrounding her has begun. From the balcony high above, a novice ladles water from buckets, an endless line of buckets carried from the River itself, and in this dank sprinkle the image of Suspirra stands, shining wetly and smiling, as though forever. Peasimy kneels at the altar rail, his face glowing like the moon.

  Behind him in the sanctuary, Widow Flot stares at his back, not knowing whether she is thankful for this or not. Peasimy hasn’t been up in the daytime for a dozen years or more, and this could mean he will start sleeping at night, like most people. Which means he’ll be underfoot, during the day, most likely.

  ‘Flot-wife,’ says a voice behind her in gloomy tones, and she turns to confront Haranjus Pandel.

  ‘Superior,’ she says formally in her most discouraging tone. What is he going to make of this, now? Some new thing to bother honest people with?

  Instead he asks in gloomy tones, ‘What is all this? You can tell me, Widow Flot. Haven’t I the right to know? All the responsibility, and no one tells me? Did he carve the thing? Did he?’

  She stares, laughs, stares again. He doesn’t expect an answer. He doesn’t even believe it himself. He sits there on the hard, uncomfortable bench, head propped on one hand, his long, lugubrious face attentive to the glowing woman behind the rail. Is he thinking, too, that it may really be a miracle? Behind the shining woman are the faces of Potipur, Abricor, and Viranel, so familiar the worshipers do not even see them. Now, for the first time, Widow Flot sees these carved faces of the gods contrasted with a human face, the shining woman’s face, and knows them for what they are.

  ‘Haranjus,’ she breathes in the grip of discovery. ‘Potipur’s face! That’s a flier’s face!’

  And he, casting his eyes upward, sees the faces of the gods for the first time. Really seeing. Peering down at him with a hooded-eyed cynicism, beaks gaped a little as though hungry. Fliers’ faces. He has never questioned them before, never before even noticed the expressions they wear. How long, he wondered in sudden panic, how long had he been worshiping the fliers without even knowing it?

  5

  In the Awakeners’ Tower in Baris, Pamra Don lay sleeping.

  The Candy Tree filled all the space above her, glitter and shimmer of leaf behind leaf, blossoms squirming open in a sensuous dance of hue and scent, explosions of amber and gold, bursts of gemmy reds, all rustling, flushing, burgeoning into every empty space, thrusting its light and color upon her, drawing her up into itself, weightlessly … toward glory …

  Something rasped, scraped. A hard sound. Nothing alive in it. Metal on stone. The Candy Tree shivered. Pamra ignored the sound, hating it, clinging to the tree …

  ‘The new drainage ditches along the Tower wall,’ a voice in her mind said clearly. ‘A worker crew digging drainage ditches.’

  With that recognition the Candy Tree dream slipped away like smoke, and she woke thinking of Delia.

  Tangled warmth of bedcovers; a ghostly reflection staring back at her from the glass across the cubicle. Last evening, the bleeding. This morning, heavy sleep and slow waking. A longing for comforting arms. That was why she was thinking of Delia today, when she had not thought of her for a season.

  Groaning, Pamra rolled herself half upright, huddled at the edge of the bed, hugging herself as the weak tears runneled her face. Oh, it was hard enough to waken oneself after bleeding without thinking of Awakening the workers. She should have known better than to have angered Betchery with her comment about the woman’s appetite. Betchery was well known as a glutton, but she hated being reminded of it. Bleeders had ways to retaliate; unconscionable, but predictable.

  She mouthed the furred, foggy taste of sick depression; only the result of weakness, true, but enough to make one doubt one’s strength. For a moment, predictably, she regretted being an Awakener. Why keep on when it meant submitting to Betchery and all the other necessary unpleasantness?

  She responded to both regret and question as she always had. ‘Because of what my mother did.’ Muttering, the words coming out in a single connected string, as though they were all one word, an incantation uttered from habit.

  It was years since she had actually heard herself saying those words. At one time they had stirred her anger, renewed her resolution. Now they were only part of the morning litany, the childhood humiliation buried beneath ten years of ritual and accept
ance. She slumped away from the bed, aching, sagging, knowing her face must be pale as ice. What a lot to go through. And yet she was so close to senior grade.

  Senior grade. Senior retreat first, learning the mysteries that juniors were not privy to. Danger there, carefully avoided in thought. Not all those who went on senior retreat returned afterward. Skip over that. Senior retreat, then senior vows, then a luxurious room of her own on the upper floors. Meals cooked to order, not ladled out of the common pot. Respected by everyone, without exception. Even Papa wouldn’t be able to think of her as a failure when she was senior grade.

  She leaned against the window, letting the glass cool her skin, remembering Grandma Don’s sarcastic voice: ‘Pamra’s mother was a coward and a heretic. Pamra herself shows no sign of expiating that sin. She will never make an artist.’

  And her own words in response, unplanned, unintended, raggedly defiant in the subdued gathering. ‘I can be an Awakener. That’s better than artist anytime.’

  Silence had opened to receive that statement, an embarrassed silence that grew into coolness, into distaste, into disaffection. There had been no way to back down, no way to change her mind. They had rejected her when the words were said; she could only go on after that.

  Once in the Tower, she had not seen Prender or Musley or Papa or Grandma again. Someday she would see her half sisters and Papa, perhaps. After she was senior, not before. And not Grandma Don, of course. Grandma would have been taken to the Holy Sorters long ago, though Pamra doubted she had been Sorted Out.

  Disgusted at the memory, she pushed herself away from the window. Nothing was real this morning. Propelling her weakness through the day would be like swimming through mirage. Stripping off her gown, she began the morning ritual which got her dressed, her hair braided in the distinctive Awakeners pattern. Robed and sandaled at last, she left the cubicle to pause at the top of the women’s stairs for the Utterance.

  ‘Rejoice! I go to Awaken those whose labors sustain us. Thanks be to the Tears of Viranel, to the Servants of Abricor, to the Promise of Potipur, and amen.’ Though her shaking hand upon the banister belied her voice, the statement was made firmly aloud, requiring response.

  ‘Rejoice and amen!’ chanted a voice from down the corridor, echoing and anonymous.

  So released, she stumbled down to the women’s refectory and a deserted table. The smell of the morning grain ration sickened her, but she held her breath and forced the porridge down. Her body would not make new blood if she didn’t eat, and no amount of religious posturing would get her through the day unless she felt stronger.

  Ilze’s voice came from behind her, formally cool, yet with a slight tone of anger. ‘Pamra, you’re white as pamet. Have you just been bled? Who did it?’

  Pamra kept her face forward. While talking at morning meal was not forbidden, it was considered indicative of a lack of seriousness. Still, he was a senior and her mentor. He had a perfect right to come into women’s quarters, a perfect right to question her. She whispered, ‘It was Betchery.’

  ‘Betchery indeed. I should have known without asking.’ He was lean and brown with a bony, handsome face and hungry eyes. Despite his evident concern, Pamra felt a sense of danger whenever he was near, as though she might burn if he focused on her more closely. She shifted uncomfortably beneath his unsmiling regard, keeping her eyes down where they belonged, uneasy under his stare.

  ‘You’re in no condition to be on labor roster. Take it easy today, and I’ll see what I can do.’ He touched her, almost a caress, lingering longer than necessary. Beneath his hand, her skin quivered, not welcoming the touch, not daring to reject it. He turned, saying, ‘Well, enough of this rejoicing. I have yesterday’s plowed fields to inspect.’

  ‘Rejoice!’ Pamra responded formally. ‘The Awakening is at hand.’

  He left her with an amused smile, shaking his head very slightly. Ilze frequently seemed to find her amusing, and this slight, half-concealed mockery often puzzled her. This morning, however, she was too weary to be puzzled by anything.

  In the open corridor between men’s and women’s quarters, she waited at the bleeders’ hatch for someone to bring whatever supplements the Superior had ordered. Betchery brought them out, fat Betchery, sneering and popping candies into her mouth as Pamra tried to choke the pills down dry. It was Betchery’s habit of gluttony that Pamra had commented on to Jelane. Unfortunately, Betchery had overheard the conversation.

  ‘Rejoice, Awakener,’ said Betchery, handing over the two daily flasks of blood and Tears. ‘Lookin’ a trifle pale, there.’

  ‘Rejoice and amen.’ Pamra would not give her the satisfaction of anything but ritual. Rejoice and amen, and amen to you, Betchery, bitch. If you come dead under my hands, you’ll not be Sorted. She went out into the morning, no longer trembling, merely angry-sad as bleeding usually made her. It brought a brooding melancholy that made the world seem colorless – a painting done in shades of brown and tan with none of the usual life and vitality.

  The water in the trough on the high steps riffled in the light wind of the year’s second summer, warmer and less rainy than the autumn that had just passed. Thin, early-morning clouds streamed north in the onshore winds; later they would puff like pamet pods to hang their heavy veils over the fields. A flight of young flame-birds fled across the sky, their orangey feathers spark bright in the sun. Down in the Baristown plaza, a line of swaying Melancholics moved across the pave, chanting to awaken the people. Only they or the Awakeners would be up this early. The parkland that separated the Tower from Outskirt Road at the edge of Baristown lay green in this early light, quiet, silvered with dew.

  Beyond the park and the plaza, the avenue stretched south to the bank of the World River. There the tidal bulge pulsed westward as it followed the god-moons Viranel and Abricor, hanging like pale, round lanterns in the western sky. Potipur brooded beneath the horizon. Conjunction would come at midwinter this year, more than a season from now. Conjunction, when all the Servants of Abricor disappeared for a time and the workers were allowed to lie quiet.

  Along the pulsing waters of the Riverside a worker crew was dumping loads of rock to extend one of the fishing jetties, the workers crawling like gray maggots on the clumsy structure. Beyond them on the brown-dun flow a boat passed, pushed onward by the tide, and the striding form of a Laugher moved on the River path at the same speed, as though boat and man were tied together. Pamra made the sign of Aversion, turning her eyes from the Laugher. Always better not to see them. Against a hillside to the west another worker crew was plowing, the shapeless forms oozing among the occasional copses of broad-leafed puncon trees left standing both for their shade and their fruit. Beside each crew an Awakener leaned on a tall mirrored staff, blood flasks hanging from the shoulder. Pamra was usually first to the day’s labors. Seeing these others before her reaffirmed her weakness, her tardiness. She must move, get the day’s work under way.

  But first she could receive her own Payment, that moment of her day blessed by Potipur. No matter what else happened, the early-morning rapture made it all worthwhile.

  She took a deep breath, and raised both arms in the ritual gesture toward the west, the direction of the World River, of the moons, of the sun, toward which all things moved. Her breathing slowed, her skin began to tingle. Eastward then, holding her hands before her face in the gesture of negation, the unworld direction, the way no one could go, from which all things came but into which nothing could return. She bowed north, to the forests that carpeted all the lands to the edge of the Great Steppes and beyond the steppes to the Chancery, where the Protector lived, mighty and omniscient, behind the Teeth of the North; bowed south to the River, World-Girdler.

  Then she held her breath, waiting for it.

  A welling joy that had no focus in this world, a transcendent glory in her flesh, a dizzying beat of her blood, a rush of pure pleasure throughout her body, a bath of ecstatic fire.

  ‘It’s the pills they give you,’ Jelane had said to
her. ‘It’s the pills that give you that feeling.’ Jelane was a junior who had come into the Tower shortly after Pamra.

  ‘No,’ Pamra had told her. ‘It couldn’t be just pills. That wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Well, it is, Pamra. By all the three gods but you’re dumb. Why do you think you get that rush every day right after they give you your supplements! It’s kind of a little Payment, for being a good girl when they bleed you.’

  ‘No,’ Pamra had said, choking down her resentment and anger. Why should anyone listen to Jelane – Jelane, who spent every third day being restricted or getting two lashes for infractions? Jelane was a selfish, heretical little fool. If it was the pills, then how explain that the rapture came at other times, too? She said this, defiantly, not expecting Jelane to believe it and not caring whether she did or not.

  ‘Well, maybe you get other times,’ Jelane had sniffed. ‘None of the rest of us do.’

  How could one live in the Tower without the rapture? How could one do recruitment without the rapture? How could one get through the day? The rapture came from Potipur as Payment to His, servants; nothing else made sense.

  When the glory faded, she went to Awaken the workers.

  Of the twenty or so fresh bodies brought every week from Wilforn, the next town to the east, several still lay in the Baristown pit, their canvas wraps virtually unstained, the masking hoods whole and untattered. Only the swollen blue feet emerging from the wrap showed the first signs of corruption. These were the Wilforn dead who had not been Sorted Out, who had instead been left in the workers’ pit to fulfill their obligation.

  Pamra bowed her head and gave the invocation in a calm, beckoning voice, then raised the first hood just above the purple-lipped mouth to pour the mixed Tears and blood from her flask between the dead lips.

  ‘Drink and rise,’ she intoned. ‘For work awaits you.’