Northshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  ‘I wonder what the bird thinks.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll never know.’

  Whirling rapidly, the feathered dancer picked up a stone and held it firmly in its beak to strike it against the ledge with a tiny battering sound. Sparks flew, dwindled, died. It struck again, and again.

  ‘Oh, Tharius. Can’t you stop it?’

  ‘I could. But then the young ones wouldn’t hatch, Kessie. The eggs won’t break without it.’

  ‘I know.’ She turned her face into the hollow of his throat, not wanting to see.

  A spark caught the tinder. The flame-bird picked up a beakful of burning tinder and laid it upon the nest, fanning it with her wings. Smoke rose in a white coil. The sticks and straw of the nest began to burn with tiny, almost invisible flames.

  ‘Did it catch?’ A muffled question from her hidden mouth.

  ‘Yes. It caught.’

  The flame-bird began to roll one of the golden eggs about on the burning nest, charring the surface of the shell, seeming not to notice its own feathers were on fire, the flesh of its legs crisping, its bill beginning to blister.

  The first egg cracked wide in the heat, the tiny nestling within it pushing out a questing beak, then thrusting the shell fragment aside with strong, infant wings as it flew upward in a wild flutter of damp feathers amid the smoke. The mother turned to the second egg, then the third. Only when this last nestling flew did the flame-bird raise itself into the air, singing, alive amidst its flaming plumage, spiraling as though in a frantic attempt to escape its own immolation.

  ‘Oh,’ cried Kessie. ‘I hate hearing them sing like that.’

  ‘Shh. They say it sings in ecstasy, Kessie.’

  Above them in the sky, the singing faded into a whisper of sound, the wings stopped beating. A black speck planed away, trailing a line of misty smoke beyond the walls of the palace.

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ she wept, raising her stained face to look at the fading trail of smoke. ‘I think it sings in agony. It would scream if it could.’ She trembled, suddenly aware of her own pain, wanting not to think of that, wanting to forget, to think of anything else instead.

  ‘Pamra used to use the flame-bird as a parable in recruitment homilies,’ she chattered, letting the first thing that came to mind flow from her mouth like water. ‘She tried to liken the Awakeners to the mother flame-bird, sacrificing itself for its children. It wasn’t a successful parable at all. Too painful. The last year or so she’d been using one about the Candy Tree which worked better. She was a marvelous recruiter.’

  His mouth turned down, reminded now of the cause of all their recent pain. ‘Where is she, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Tharius, I hope she got away. I hope she’s safe somewhere, if anywhere can be called safe. Perhaps there was enough time before Ilze got onto her trail for her to find safety.’

  ‘Or the River.’

  ‘I think not, somehow. There was a toughness about her. A kind of impenetrable naivete, but tough, nonetheless.’

  ‘The last of the Dons,’ said Tharius. ‘My great-great-grandchild. I had such hopes for her, somehow. I thought she might be another you, another Kesseret…’

  ‘I know. I know you wondered about her, cared for her. That’s why I kept close track of her. Though not close enough, it seems. She came very close to ruining everything.’

  ‘How could you keep track of her at all without attracting notice? Superiors don’t normally interest themselves in novices or junior Awakeners. Not as I remember.’

  ‘Oh, my dear. You of all people to ask such a question, when you taught me every subterfuge I know. I kept track of her through my servant, Threnot. Threnot always goes veiled, and she goes everywhere. And sometimes it was Threnot herself, and sometimes it was me, listening to a recruitment parable or watching someone at the worker pits. I spent a lot of time watching Pamra.’

  He shook his head, drawing her closer. ‘Risky, love. But kind of you in this case. Great-great-granddaughter Pamra. Well. I hate her causing you this agony, but it wasn’t the child’s fault. Perhaps we can locate her, provide some kind of assistance. It would be sensible to do that. I don’t want the Laugher to get her. I don’t want the fliers to get her. Not alone that she’s kin; more important, it would set them off again. When I heard it was she who had started all this, I thought how ironic it was – my own great-great-grandchild, without knowing it, coming close to betraying us. I’d like to help her, since she’s the last. Not that the intervening generations were much to brag about.’

  She ticked them off on her bandaged fingers. ‘Your son, Birald. Your granddaughter, Nathile – bit of a fishwife, that one, so I’ve heard. Pamra talked to Jelane about her unpleasant grandma. And then your great-grandson, Fulder Don…’

  ‘Useless. Like a piece of fungus. All sweaty and damp. Not much of an artist, either, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And finally your great-great-granddaughter, Pamra Don. Something about that one, Tharius, love. Something more to her than to the others. A kind of shining, sometimes.’

  ‘Awakener, heretic, and now fugitive,’ he said bleakly. ‘The best of the lot, and what an end to come to.’

  She squeezed his hand. ‘Old Birald wasn’t that bad, actually.’

  ‘You knew him?’ He was astonished at this.

  ‘I knew everyone in Baristown. I knew Birald before I came to the Tower. I was twenty then. He was a couple of years younger than I, a stiff, fussy youth, always looking over his shoulder. He ended as a crotchety old man who carved leaves and flowers on door lintels, holding on to the artist’s caste by his fingernails. Oh, God, Tharius, but speaking of fingernails, my hands hurt…’

  He reached for the carafe on the table and poured a glass of its waters for her. ‘Kessie. Oh, Kessie, you did get the drugs I sent? You did get them in time?’

  ‘You know I did.’ She drank what he had given her, thankfully. ‘I’ve told you over and over. It was all that kept me going. Knowing I wouldn’t actually feel the pain, not in my body, at least. Knowing you were here, doing whatever you could to get me out of that… that nightmare.’

  ‘I couldn’t do anything! I saw Shavian Bossit throwing suspicious glances my way when Gendra spoke of putting you and the Awakener to the question. He knows I came from Baristown, and he knows I’ve spoken out against this inquisition atmosphere the fliers want to force us into. Trust Shavian to put egg and fire together and hatch a plot.’

  ‘You think he suspects?’

  ‘Suspects? Of course he suspects. Everyone! Of everything! Suspicion is his standard mode of operation. He maintains the household by suspicion.’ Tharius gritted his teeth.

  ‘I mean, do you think he suspects us? Do you think he is convinced there really is … a heresy? From his point of view, I suppose that’s what it would be.’

  ‘No. Not yet. The thing that’s occupying his mind just now is another matter. There’s supposed to have been a miracle in Thou-ne. Some idiot fished an image out of the World River, and the people demanded it be taken into the Temple. They’re almost worshiping it, calling it the “Bearer of Truth.” It shines, so they say. There are people traveling from six towns east just to visit the Temple, even though they know they can’t come home again.’

  ‘The Bearer of Truth?’ Kesseret frowned. ‘An image? I hadn’t heard about that. Do you think it’s connected in any way?’

  ‘Shavian may. He has a habit of connecting everything. And it may be more than habit. During the last convocation, he spent an unwarranted amount of time with the Talkers. It was almost as though he were trying to usurp Ezasper Jorn’s prerogative as Ambassador. He’s ambitious, is Bossit.’

  There was a sound from the next room, a hesitation in the music, then the dissonant fall of a hammer. In the silence they could hear a monotonous thrumming. Martien thrust one hand into the room, knocking on the open door.

  ‘Tharius. Someone’s coming down the private corridor. It sounds like the old weehar. Mitiar.’

  ‘Da
mn,’ Tharius said, unwinding himself from the lady Kesseret. ‘That’s Gendra’s majordomo with that damn drone. Quick, Kessie. Get yourself into bed.’

  ‘I really should sit up—’

  ‘Quickly. Don’t argue. Back to your hammers, Martien.’ Quickly he closed the window, pulled the chair into the center of the room, and seated himself in it, reaching a long arm toward the bookshelves. ‘Something dull, Kessie? An eschatological essay, perhaps?’ He leafed through the volume and began to read, his voice dry and instructional.

  The thrumming came closer, a low moaning, ‘Whoom, whoom.’ The sound ceased outside the door to the suite. In the outer room Martien’s music was interrupted once again, this time by a crash as the door opened and a loud voice cried, ‘Dame Marshal of the Towers, Gendra Mitiar.’

  ‘She didn’t even knock,’ Kesseret hissed between her teeth. ‘Your private corridor, and she didn’t knock!’

  ‘Shh, Kessie. Remember who she is.’ He smiled quickly as he leaned back in his chair and called through the open door, ‘Ah, Gendra! I see you do not need to be invited to come in. Have you come to tender apologies to the lady Kesseret?’

  There was a bark of humorless laughter from the outer room. ‘I’m sure all my subordinates understand necessity.’ She came into the doorway, showing a voracious arc of yellow teeth. ‘We must all make sacrifices. And it is not necessary to apologize for necessity. Isn’t that so, lady?’

  Tm sure it is, Your Reverence.’ Kessie lay pale upon the pillows, not needing to play a part. At the sound of Mitiar’s voice her hands and feet burned agonizingly, and she found herself remembering the flame-bird as unexpected tears flowed unheeded down her face, sudden and unstoppable as the spring spate.

  ‘Gendra, if you will?’ Tharius was on his feet, escorting the woman out, pulling the door almost shut behind them. Kesseret heard him in the outer room. ‘Have you no sensitivity at all? By Potipur’s teeth, woman. At least let her recover!’

  ‘I was told she was little injured,’ the Dame Marshal snarled, aggrieved. ‘The Ascertainers said she seemed to feel little pain. Had it not been for the infections, she would have been long since healed.’

  ‘Let them do to your hands and feet what they did to hers, Gendra, then tell me if you consider yourself little injured. Let your hands and feet swell to twice their size in the winter caverns, let you burn with fever! Would you have been happier if your blasted Ascertainers had broken her? Made her whimper for mercy? Made her confess to something she hadn’t done in front of a roomful of fliers? Would that have satisfied you, made you sympathetic?’

  ‘Why should I be sympathetic? It was she who housed the conspirator.’

  ‘Oh, pfah, Gendra. Conspirator! Don’t talk nonsense. Only the Talkers profess to believe that, and even they doubt it. You owe the lady Kesseret your thanks. Don’t you understand she protected us all by her demeanor? If it weren’t for the lady Kesseret’s courage, the entire Chancery might be under siege by some thousands of paranoid Talkers. By all three gods and their perverted offspring, Dame Marshal, but you’ve more gall than good sense.’ He heard himself raging and didn’t care. Let her make what she would of it.

  Stiffly, she answered. ‘I would not have come if I had thought she would not welcome—’

  ‘She may understand the necessity of what you did to her, but for the love of Potipur, don’t expect her to welcome your visits now.’

  This was a word too much. Gendra snarled, ‘She’d better welcome them if she intends to go back to the Baris Tower as Superior under my orders.’

  He did not relent. ‘Of course she goes back to the Baris Tower. And you’ll let her alone until then and not harass her after she’s returned. I swear to you, Gendra, you’ve laid an obligation for vengeance on me already. Don’t make it worse.’

  ‘Why you, Tharius? Hnnn? What is she to you?’ It was both a sneer and a threat.

  ‘An old friend and my cousin – oh, yes, Gendra, my cousin. Though we must perforce set aside family relationships when we receive the Payment, those of us who have family members also receiving the Payment are blessed with kin who remember us as we were. My cousin, I say it again. Also a loyal member of the service. That’s what she is to me and should have been to you, if you’d forget your damned Tower discipline for a moment and think of people …’

  Their voices dwindled away down the corridor. Into the silence behind them the sound of the flat-harp flowed; water music, a few tones repeated over and over in differing orders. Rippling. Lulling. Martien was covering the anger with calm, washing the pain away.

  Tharius shouldn’t have spoken so. He shouldn’t have angered Gendra. He shouldn’t even do anything to make her angrier or more suspicious. And yet Kesseret warmed at his words, at his defense of her. For a little time she forgot the conspiracy to which her life had been given and let the waters of surcease wash around her.

  After a time, the lady slept.

  17

  Six stone courtyards separated the library wing from the Bureau of the Towers, each succeeding each through long, echoing corridors lit by occasional oculars that split dim puddles of watery light onto the clattering stone. Jorum Byne, majordomo to the Dame Marshal, led the procession, the long neck of the single-stringed viol held against one shoulder as he plied the bow with his right hand, whoom, whoom, whoom. Two functionaries followed after, laden with documents and dispatch boxes. Then came Gendra herself, her teeth grinding endlessly in time with the viol, and last her personal servant, Jhilt, in a shankle, shankle of chains and rustle of stiff fabrics. Jhilt was a Noor slave from the lands north of Vobil-dil-go. There was no reason for her to wear chains. Though her personal duties in providing various kinds of pleasure for the Dame Marshal were not pleasant for her – were, indeed, often quite painful – escape from behind the Teeth was impossible. Still, she wore chains. Gendra Mitiar liked the sound of them, finding them even more pleasing in that there was no reason for them at all.

  Except for the palace itself, the Bureau of the Towers loomed higher than any building in the Chancery, its vast hexagonal bulk heaving skyward in stark, unornamented walls of black brick, windowless as cliffs. Behind those walls in serried ranks were four divisions, each with six departments; each department with ten sections, each section with a Supervisor; each Supervisor responsible for ten Towers and thus ten townships. Each Supervisor had a deputy and an assistant. Each of these had a clerk, perhaps more than one. Some Towers, after all, were much larger than others, and the supervision of them was therefore more complex.

  Deep in the bowels of the bureau lay the labyrinthine vaults of Central Files, their complexities guarded and their secrets plumbed only through the let and allowance of the Librarian, Glamdrul Feynt, who did not, as might be naively supposed, have any responsibilities at all for the library wing of the palace. There had not been any books or records worthy of attention in the library wing for generations. What was there could be cared for, if at all, by Tharius Don, cared for by Tharius Don simply because it did not matter. Such was Feynt’s opinion. He had not seen the books in the library wing. He did not need to do so. He had seen what was in the files, and everything of importance was there.

  So now, Gendra Mitiar, passing by the great corridor that led to her offices and reception rooms, her dining halls and solaria, elected to descend the curving stone staircase that led to the vaults below. The railing of this stair was carved in the likeness of fliers slaughtering weehar, thrassil, and an unlikely animal that was the artist’s dutiful though uninspired conception of the legendary hoovar. None of the party except Jhilt – who shuddered to see the ravenous talons so bloodily employed, reminded thereby of certain habits of the Dame Marshal’s – paid any attention to the railing. Gendra did not see it. She had stopped seeing it several hundred years before.

  The whoom, whoom, whoom of the viol announced her coming. Far down an empty corridor that dwindled to tininess at the limit of its seemingly endless perspective came a faint echo – a door slamming,
perhaps, or a heavy book dropping onto stone. At this, Gendra halted, snarling at Jorum Byne to stop the noise. Jhilt, too, was silenced with a gesture, and the five waited, heads cocked, listening for any defect in the dusty silence.

  “’Roo, ’roo, ’roo,’ came the call, softened by distance into a whisper. ‘Haroo. Your Reverence. Dame Marshal. Haroo?’

  ‘Tosh,’ growled the Dame Marshal. ‘Jorum, go find him. Bring him here. And don’t lose sound of him. He’s half-deaf and likely to go limping off in six other directions.’

  Pleased with her own wit, she chuckled, grinding her teeth together as she found a bench along the wall to sit upon, not bothering to dust it, though it was deep with the even gray coating that covered every surface in the files. The bench was in a niche carved with commemorative bas reliefs, fliers and humans locked in combat, fliers and humans solemnly making treaty. Dust softened the carving, obscuring the details. No one had looked at it for generations.

  ‘Glamdrul Feynt is too old for this job,’ Gendra assured her clerks and bearers, going so far as to glance at Jhilt as though the information were so general it might be shared even with so insignificant a person as she. ‘Too old, and too deaf, and too crippled. Trouble is, hah, what you might suppose, eh? Trouble is, no one else can find anything! We give him apprentices, one after the other, boys and boys, and what happens? They vanish. Lost. So he says. Lost in the files, he says. Can you imagine. Hah!’

  ‘It is said,’ ventured Jhilt in a whisper, ‘that a monster dwells below the tunnels here, coming out at night to feed upon those in the Chancery.’

  Gendra found this amusing. ‘A monster, hah? Some toothy critter left over from ages past, no doubt? A hoovar bull, mebee? Got frozen in a glacier until we built Chancery atop him, hah?’ She roared with laughter, stopping suddenly to listen to the clatter of approaching footsteps, one firm, one halting.