The Revenants

by Tepper, Sheri S

  The Speaker heard the answer, huddled close to his wife under the feather-stuffed quilts. Man and wife Widdek heard it, in their separate places, unspeaking. The children heard it and were for once silenced. The Widdek sons and daughters heard it in fear. He whom they called Wizard heard it from his Tower on the Eastern Mountain and ran to his ancient instruments, his mind full of shock and amazement. The Woman Who Talks With Birds heard it, from her hiding place in the still glades, and took up her staff to begin a long deferred and dangerous journey. She, perhaps only she, could have known what creature it was who answered.

  Jaera heard it. She went into the night with a gladness which had no words to express it. She was half mad with hunger and loneliness, but her feet did not stumble nor her breath fail as she sped into the moon-shadowed forest. Her music called and was answered, sought and was found. There were in that night certain eyes which found her and certain hands which held her and a certain glory which surrounded her, that night, and for two nights more. On the fourth night there was no music and she lay alone in the hut at the edge of the forest, sleeping in a stillness that was like death.

  When the dark of the moon came, the Speaker waited for any sound which he and his men might follow, but there was none. Nor was that song of the stranger bird heard in the month of first snow. Now, at long last, the Speaker reminded himself of Jaera and told some of the boys to watch her as once they had watched the house of the Woman Who Talks With Birds. They went, and watched, and returned to say that she went about her daily work, gathered wood, milked her goat, spun yarn, sat at the loom. They said that she had made a strange garment for herself which wrapped her and hooded her. The Speaker asked if it was true that her hair was the colour of copper. The boys said they had not seen her hair.

  Winter came. If wife Widdek noted from time to time that some hay was missing from the stack, or that some meat which had been hung on the doorpost was gone, well – she said nothing. At midwinter festival there was much making and giving of gifts, and if some warm cloth and wool-lined boots should happen to have been left in a fence corner by accident, it may have been that a dog dragged them away.

  Wolf month passed, and the month of thaw (though it did not thaw) and the month of wings returning came. The thaw and the wild geese came together, and with these messengers of spring came a messenger over the pass through the Western Mountains which none but the Keepers ever used. He obeyed to a nicety all the laws of Separation, sounding his wooden clapper to attract attention, placing his message box on a stone, retreating up the pass. The Speaker came to the message point, read the document in the box, signed it with his name. As the Speaker returned to the village, the messenger took up his box and went away as he had come. The message was not complex. During die summer, the Keepers of the Seals of Separation would come to the valley to Seal the new generation.

  The Speaker was not Speaker by accident. He thought first of Jaera and then dismissed that thought. The Deputy Observer was dead. The Widdeks would say and do as he bid them say and do. That matter would be a thing unto itself, but all else must be pure to the thousandth part if that matter were to be kept a thing unto itself. The Speaker set about putting the village in order.

  All men, women and children born since the Keepers had last come to the valley were summoned to the house of the Speaker two or three at a time. The birthers came, also, and several twice Sealed old men who were trustworthy. The young men and women were stripped and their bodies carefully scrutinized for deviation. The roots of their hair and their teeth were examined. One baby with a large pale birthmark on its buttocks was ordered smothered. The mother wept, and the Speaker was forced to give her the choice of silence or a whipping in the square. She chose to be silent.

  The Gate of Separation at the edge of the village on the Western path was taken down, rebuilt and painted. The Signs of Separation were renewed over every doorway. The guard tower at the eastern edge of the valley, from which the trail to the Wizard’s Tower could be seen, was strengthened and a new privy dug nearby.

  There were long hours of council. Was it true, as had been said, that die Keepers would also examine the animals? A man said that in the time of his grandfather it had been done. A dog in the village was thought to be part wolf. The Speaker ordered it killed. What of the crops and the gardens? The widow Klig had a flower in her garden which was larger than others were able to grow it. The Speaker ordered it uprooted and burned.

  The drum was sounded for gathering, and all assembled were told to search their houses. There must be no garment in which the wool of sheep was mixed with the hair of goats. He quoted from the Great Article, ‘That which is to be eaten may be mixed, for it would mix in the body. That which is Separated by nature may be mixed, for nature will keep it Separated. That which nature does not Separate, man must Separate or he is no better than a weed which sheds its pollen or an animal which regards not its purity.’ Goats and sheep were said to be able to cross, though no one had ever seen it happen.

  ‘It means,’ said the Speaker, ‘that you can have wool and linen mixed, or you can have a stew, because your body will make everything in the stew into body or dung, anyhow. Animals and vegetables can’t cross, so you can mix them. You’ve got to get rid of any mixtures of things that can cross! Remember what the Keepers did to the man with the mule!’ This was an old and bawdy story, and there was general laughter. The Speaker was satisfied. The Keepers would find the village pure – except for Jaera.

  She could, of course, simply be killed and burned. The old men said, however, that it would be better to have something for the Keepers to root out, something properly abhorred and outcast. This would be taken as additional proof of purity and would further satisfy the Keepers. If they were satisfied, they would even take some of the younger men and women away with them to study the great way of Separation and become acolytes, Keepers, or even members of the fabled Lords Protector. This would be a great honour for the village.

  The month of flowers was almost past, and the Speaker turned his attention to Jaera once again. She was being watched. The nights were warm once more, but they could not watch during the time of the moon. That way would lie madness. He sent once more for the keen-eyed old woman.

  ‘Now that the coming of the Keepers is nigh, she must be watched even during moontime. I cannot ask it of any who may still bear or father children, for horror would come of it. You, old one, have had soft years in my care. Now comes the time of repayment.’

  The old woman cried, but the Speaker would not bend. Her fear of the moonlight and its madness and death was great, but her fear of being put out of his house was greater. She let herself be taken to a place in the forest from which Jaera’s hut could be seen, and she made herself stay there as the moon rose, bathing the world in madness. She saw nothing. Her fear was so great that she could have seen nothing, but the nights of moontime passed and she was unchanged. She began to preen herself a little, until the Speaker told her that she was so old the moon could find no juices in her to set steaming. So passed the month of flowers and the month of sowing, and midsummer month was come once again.

  It was in the first moonlight of midsummer month that Jaera came out of her hut and went to the river to bathe, and it was in that uncertain light that the old woman followed her. Even in that dim light what the old woman saw was unmistakable. She fled through the trees like a thing moon-maddened indeed to throw herself down on the Speaker’s doorstep to wait moonset.

  ‘She is big, big with child, Speaker. She is within days of her time. What will you do?’

  The Speaker’s face was ashen, and he placed his hand across her mouth. The Keepers might arrive at any time. They could not find the outcast pregnant or with a babe as this would be clear evidence that someone in the village had – no, it was unthinkable. Someone else? Who? There had been no strangers. Perhaps during the moontime? That as it, the moontime. If she bathed during moon-time, might she not also have climbed the Eastern Moun-tain? But then, why re
turn? Would the Keepers believe it? They would not believe that she would go out in moon-time. They would not believe the old woman, for her own presence there would damn her as madwoman and liar. They would not believe him. No, they would believe that it was someone in the village.…

  The old woman was counting on her fingers. ‘That time, Speaker. That time of the strange music. It was then –’

  The Speaker shook his head impatiently. The Keepers would not believe that, either, though the whole village had heard it. He did not want that time talked of. No. Jaera must be taken and burned before she gave birth to some monster. Now, and silently, before the village wakened. He went to wake his sons. There would be fire before sunrise. The hut would be gone.

  But Jaera was not in the hut. She had heard the startled gasp of the old woman, seen the bent figure stumble through the trees, followed to see it crumple on the Speaker’s doorstep. Even as she followed, she felt the first pains. She had gone on past the village, past the empty watchtower, pausing when the pains came to pant, holding her hand across her mouth to stifle any sound. She did not know what the villagers would do, but she feared what they might do. Her robe and hood covered her. The pouch at her belt held the flute with her name and the ring carved from bone, and the three green feathers.

  She put her feet on the mountain path, and there was a great gush of water from her body. She rested, climbed a little, rested once again. Far in die west the moon was sinking toward the broken line of mountains.

  She climbed again, turning as the pathway turned itself slowly across the face of the sheering hill. She grasped needles from a tree and chewed them, concentrating upon the bitterness. She rested again, climbed again. The moon fell, and below her in the valley she heard the clamour of men and dogs, not loud, almost as though they were trying to be silent. She could see the flare of torches moving south from the village toward the forest’s edge where die hut stood. She sobbed and climbed once more. The pains were close together now, and she had to stop more frequently.

  Fire blossomed in the valley, and the sound of dogs belled out as it did when they hunted by scent. She still climbed upward, stumbling at last between two strange, squared pillars of ancient stone, feeling an odd tingle through her body as she did so. Then the pains were so great that she could not move. Her body would not obey. Above her the stars began to swing in long arcs of fire, singing, and the music she had heard in the month of harvest was around her once again.

  The men found her body there, almost between the squared pillars, or at least they found what the dogs had left of it. There was no sign of whatever it was she had carried in her belly. They took the body in the cloak and carried it to the place where the frame of the hut still blazed. By morning there was only a pall of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh around the place. Someone whispered that wife Widdek wept.

  When the Keepers came, in their flapping black robes with their strange hairless faces and high, shrill voices, they were Well satisfied. They listened as the Speaker told them of two ‘questionables,’ both women, who had been burned. All in the village were examined and Sealed. The Keepers took six young people away with them. No one mentioned the strange music they had heard in die valley the year before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JAER

  Years 1153-1158

  ‘What will you name the child?’ asked the old man. The villagers would have found him horrifying, with his yellow skin and unfolded eyelids. When he had come through the village six years before, he had worn a mask and gloves.

  ‘Ah well,’ the other replied, rubbing his black hand fretfully across the white wool of his head. ‘How does one know? How does one know, even, that it was wise to save him? Poor little bird, lying there all bloody between his dead mother’s legs.’

  ‘You needn’t have gone scrambling down the hill like a goat.’

  ‘I know. I know. But there was such anguish in the signal, such pain…’

  ‘Ephraim. Ephraim.’ He smiled, affectionately.

  ‘I know.’

  They sat for a time silent, watching the fire as it leaped and played, throwing shadows across the bundle beside the hearth. The bundle stirred, whimpered, was quiet once more.

  ‘So. What will you name him?’

  ‘Oh, something after his mother, poor child. She was, I think, about sixteen. Outcast these last two years.’

  ‘What was her name, then?’

  ‘They called her Jaera. What they meant by it was something else again.’

  ‘I haven’t studied the language.’

  ‘Why should you? It’s only spoken here and in one other valley. At one time there were thousands of them, but they get fewer every year. Look across the valley. You can see outlines of fields that haven’t been tilled in generations. A few hundred years of killing everything that looks or acts a little different –’

  ‘What do you think they meant by “Jaera”?’ he interrupted.

  ‘Well, jae is three. When it’s written as a pictograph, the three feathers, it means the third month. The third month is called the month of wings returning, which is “ovil v’nor.” But, wings returning is also a metaphor for spring. Then there’s raha, – which is written as a water jug – which, when spoken, means either that or “life,” but it can be a metaphor for “joy” or even “fulfillment.” Her sad little mother could have meant “Springtime life” or “Third month baby” or “Spring joy.” The rain that falls after the snow is called “ra’a v’nor,” which could mean either “rain returning,” or “life returning.” In my mind I called her “Renewal.” She had hair like flame.’

  ‘Mutation?’

  ‘Who knows. Maybe they were right to call her atavist. Some lingering genes of the old, mixed-up times.’

  ‘I wish we’d gotten there sooner.’

  ‘It was no matter. The blood poured out of her as though out of a pitcher. She was smiling. I wonder who the father was.’

  ‘Any one of them, I suppose.’

  ‘No. There was something more to it than that. Something happened last summer while you were away south. Strange.’

  ‘Tell me about it in the morning. Where shall I put this?’ He held up the strange flute and die pouch.

  ‘Let me see those once again, Nathan. See. There where the symbols are scratched in? “Raha,” but it’s broken. If it’s broken, it becomes “Rana”: death. I think the Wanderer did this. I know she was there, then gone. This could be her work, done hastily. It’s a kind of flute. You could have heard her playing it any time the moon was up.’

  ‘Put it away for now. If we’re to keep the small one, we’ll be up and down in the night a dozen times. Now, what will you name him?’

  ‘Oh, maybe “Jaer Ravnor.” Spring life returning.’

  ‘Or, “Winged life returning.” Or “Winged joy.” ‘

  ‘Any of those,’ said Ephraim, drily. ‘Good names for a hero. Maybe he’ll grow up to be a great cultic hero and find the Gate for us.’

  ‘Ephraim, do you still believe in that sort of-’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m too old to believe. Still.…

  They took another look at the baby, closed tight in sleep, fists curled like fronds. Ephraim pulled down die blanket, then stirred, uneasily.

  Nathan gasped. ‘I thought you said it was a boy.’

  ‘It was a boy.’

  ‘It’s not a boy now!’

  The two old men stared at one another. In Nathan’s mind was the thought that Ephraim was very old. In Ephraim’s mind was the thought that Ephraim was, indeed, very old. They went off toward their beds in considerable disquiet. In the morning the disquiet changed to disbelief. Jaer was a boy child once again. Sometimes Jaer remained a boy for as long as a week or two at a time thereafter.

  That first morning, very early, Jaer woke wet and hungry. Before his eyes were open, before he drew a deep breath, he cried. Down the coiled corridor, a distance away, Ephraim and Nathan woke, startled at the unsounded lamentation of separation and loss. On
ly then did they hear the thin, reedy voice of the newborn and stumble toward that sound as quickly as they were both able.

  Thereafter, Jaer slept with one or the other of them, a sugar tit ready at the bedside, milk warm beside the fife, and when he was old enough to be taught anything at all, they taught him (her) not to cry in that way. They told him that it could possibly be heard at great distances by those whom it might be better not to disturb. Jaer learned this. And to walk. And to speak. And began to learn to read.

  Jaer was five.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MEDLO

  Year 1158

  In the rounded tower above the castle garth at Rhees, beside a diamond-paned window which peered at green lawns pimpled with peacocks and gardeners, the Lady Mellisa lay upon her chaise in earnest conversation with her said-to-be brother, Pellon. The object of their conversation was stretched upon the lawn beside a pool, a young man of indolent appearance, one arm thrown listlessly across his upturned face and the other trailing into the sun-warmed water.

  ‘He’s a flower,’ repeated Pellon with a sneer.

  ‘You mean, he’s a sissy.’

  ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, he’s a flower, a lily, a rose, a florist’s shopful. He’s a what-you-call-it.’

  ‘Well, what do you call it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t spoil my tongue with it.’ Pellon waved his hand before his mouth as though waving away the odour of the unspoken word. A tall man, with voluptuous moustaches and oiled muscles, he strode pridefully to and fro in the lozenged sunlight, making fists so that his glistening chest and arms bulged. He wore the Thyllian-vor, the honor vest, its polished hide inset with basilisk badges and studs of silver culminating in the silver chain which joined it across his naked chest. At his back swung the shining half cape without which no noble of the peninsula would have appeared in public, its folds swinging gracefully as he posed. ‘And while you are far from old, my lady, and thus far from thought of that departure which must come, alas, to even the loveliest of ladies of the land, and while –’