So it was with a feeling of strangeness but not separation that they saw one of the rare animals moving among the long grasses at the foot of the cliff. These were animals so rare that the people never learned them well enough to paint them, scarcely well enough to name them, never enough to dance their beings in the hunting dance. It looked somewhat like the great cats, which they usually avoided, but it was not one of those. It had a great, curved beak, shining and metallic, sharp as their knives, curved at the tip and knobbed like a fern frond at the base. It had forefeet clawed like those of a bird of prey, and it had mighty wings like the wings of an eagle. Its eyes were calm, like the eyes of an aurochs, yet full of understanding, and when it saw the men crouched at the cave entrance, it cried once and moved away.
The first hunter knew that the beast should not have been there, there in the grass at the foot of the cliff, but knowing it did not help matters. The cry of the beast had been the cry of the hunt, and he followed that cry, the men following him, spears dangling in their hands, unready, almost unwilling.
The beast led them three days south, down the grasslands to a place of meadows above the long, southeasterly flow of a great river. There, above the river, the beast turned toward them, crying once more. The hunt leader shuddered, his throat dry, and made a clumsy throw of his spear. It touched the beast, and the beast fell, its wings bearing once against the earth as though it might have wished, at the last, to fly.
It lay unbloodied, its eyes half closed. Around them was a flicker of summer lightning, the eyes of the beast glittering in that light. Two of the hunters took to their heels. The others watched while the first hunter cut off the strange, curled beak with his knife, grunting and sweating as though he struggled with some unseen enemy while the lightning flickered nearer in a mutter of thunder. The first hunter rose from the body of the beast, weeping, and stepped away with the brazen beak in his hands.
Wordless, he led them back as they had come. When they had returned to their own cave, he placed the beak far back on a shelf of stone in that part of the cave where they painted the animals. He never spoke of it again. Long after, one of the hunters asked if he had heard a voice in the thunder. The first hunter only shrugged, but he did not say he had not.
A strange beak it was. When the hunter people had passed away, another people came who found it where it had been hidden, and they took it with them in their wanderings. It was given to a trader, at last, who traded it to a metalsmith who made a vessel of it, plating it with silver. The Vessel was dedicated at a Temple of Earthsoul thereafter, and thereafter yet again was given to a great man, the Founding Doctor of a line of Healers.
All things are possible, and alive, and enduring, in Earthsoul.
MAGISTER JAER
In the Outer Sea of the known world lie those verdant isles known as the Outer Islands. The largest of these is a mountainous isle, with many fertile valleys which were Separated once, in the bad time, but are now knitted together by the ancient commerce between man and myth.
Above one of these valleys is a watch tower built, so it is said, in the long ago. A stream flows nearby, plunging over the scarp into the pools of the river valley. Ow trees bloom there, and small birds sing invisibly among the mosses. The young Magister Jaer stayed often in this place while the sun rose and set, time on time, learning the way from one place to another, learning the numen of this place, greeting the numen.
‘Contentment in time. Dweller.’
To this place, among others, the Serpent came. Jaer saw him out of eyes clear as dew in the morning of the world and smiled upon him – which the Serpent had not expected.
‘Have you sought your father yet?’ the Serpent asked, sharpened somewhat by annoyance at Jaer’s composure.
‘Yes:
The one word was all that was needed. The Serpent’s body lowered until only the head was raised above the earth. Jaer reached out a hand to stroke that scaled head, whispering.
‘I know your name.’
All things are possible,
and alive,
and enduring,
in Earthsoul.
APPENDIX
THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN WORLD
At the end of that period which the people later called the ‘First Cycle,’ (FC), there was only one of the great ancient cities left on the shore of the eastern sea, In subsequent centuries that city was called ‘Tharliezalor’ [thar-li-AY-zah-lor] which means ‘High Silver House’ in the ancient tongue. What its original name may have been, none knew. It was said, however, that from this city at the end of the Cycle, and after the general destruction which encompassed much of the known world, the wizards of the first age had departed. ‘The Departure’ is synonymous with the end of the first age. Of the wizards some said they were high lords, others said they were devils. Whatever they had been or hoped still to be at that time, they departed the great city and went westward across the world. They rebuilt the area around Tchent, establishing a university there and a great library. They set up various places of refuge, towers and redoubts, all of which were said to be repositories of hidden, ancient knowledge. They are said to have founded the city of Orena [OH-r’nah], though some dispute this, leaving a great part of their knowledge recorded there.
At the end of this migration, this period of ‘Departure,’ the wizards vanished. Some said they went westward into Wasnost [WAHZ-nohst]. Some said they went ‘offworld,’ while others claimed that ‘offworld’ was only a metaphor for death. Wherever they had gone, they had left a strange heritage behind: A group of reclusive archivists in a single complex of building and tunnels at Tchent, a remote and solitary city, Orena, numerous other refuges scattered across the earth, and a few sayings. These were called, ‘The sayings of the wizards.’
If half life disputes with whole life, half life wins.
If shadow disputes with light, shadow wins.
If science disputes with knowledge, science wins.
We are victorious. We depart.
This was one of the sayings. After a time, most of them were forgotten, and anything that sounded obscure or foolish was said to be ‘a saying of the wizards.’ After the Departure there was a thousand-year period of violence, famine, war, and ignorance. Literacy was preserved only in Tchent and Orena and perhaps in a few other isolated places. Some say this period of darkness was foreseen by the wizards. Others say that the period was caused by the Departure. Whatever the cause, the lives of the people were brutish and brief, and history existed only in legend and stories passed from generation to generation.
Into this dark world came the Thiene, no one knew from where or why. They were people of marvellous persuasive powers, people of great skill and knowledge, and they joined tribe after barbarian tribe together into a skeletal civilization. They coaxed the archivists out of Tchent and sent them among the people as teachers, sent them to distribute copies of books newly printed in the languages then spoken. The Thiene founded the Choirs of the Sisterhood, insisting that members should be recruited to live full but sequestered lives spent in the study of the Powers, that is the natural powers of the earth and the universe. Taniel was the best known of the Thiene of that time since she actually lived and worked with the first Sisters to compose the discipline of their Order. It was to these Sisterhoods that the history of the First Cycle was given, including the story of its destructive end, prior to the Departure. Taniel taught that the First Cycle ended, at least in part, because of the worship of Firelord to the exclusion of all other of the Powers. This imbalance had brought the world to ruin, and the Sisterhoods were established that the balance might be restored.
The Thiene provided a number of the lost years, giving the date of their entry into the affairs of the world as 1200 SC, Second Cycle. The Thiene were said to be the donors of certain artifacts and tools which they called ‘fairy godmother gifts.’ What was meant by this phrase is uncertain, though it is certain that the Thiene regarded it as humorous.
It is thought that there was
some intermarriage between the Thiene and other people of earth. Tar-Akwith often bragged of having had a Thiene great-great-great-grandmother. His wife was a woman of Tchent, among whom there was rumoured to be quite an admixture of the line of Thiene. Certain there is no recorded contact with the pure Thiene after about 3500 SC, though some of the Choirs are said to have been visited by Taniel long after that time.
The name of this people has been rendered variously as Thiene, Diane, Diona, or even Thynys or Dynys. Some place names around the Inner Sea, itself often called the Sea of Thienezh, indicate that the people may have come from there, or gone there. The Straits from the Inner Sea are called Thien Straits. The city of Sushuba was formerly called Dynysa. The River Talthien is still known by that name.
The history of the Second Cycle went on in a generally peaceful vein after the loss of the Thiene for some hundreds of years. In the year 40’0, Tar-Akwith VII established the Northkingdom, an extensive federation of subordinate states which extended from Tharsh across the settled lands to the edge of that forbidden circle which girdled Tharliezalor in the east. He died in 4110, to be succeeded by his son, Dynys-Akwith I. Sud-Akwith, later called The Great, was born in 4115. In 4150, Dynys was killed in battle, and Sud-Akwith succeeded to the sword, the Akwithian symbol of sovereignty. Sud-Akwith engaged in several wars of conquest, seeking to incorporate isolated areas which had not previously become part of the Northkingdom. Among these was the area around Tchent, which was taken in 4162, arid the far eastern City of the Mists, taken in 4180. In 41’0, Sud-Akwith sought to memorialize the centennial of the establishment of the Northkingdom by rebuilding Tharliezalor, the ruins of which had been undisturbed by men for over three thousand years.
Among the documents in Tchent were some which were purported to be prophecies of the Thiene, warnings against disturbing the ruins of Tharliezalor. The archivists brought these to the attention of Sud-Akwith, quoting the ancient sayings of the wizards to indicate that a half life of shadows dwelt with Tharliezalor. Sud-Akwith heard the archivists out, but he was determined commemorate his reign of the Northkingdom with some great accomplishment.
He entered Tharliezalor with a great troop of armed men and battalions of workers. ‘Those who dwelt beneath the city’ attacked almost at once. These creatures of darkness were called serim by the people of the Northkingdom. In the language of the Fales they were called Hlaflich, or Mot ditch. The people of the Axe King, much later, referred to them as dumma d’rabat, animals of the depths, or hagak d’tumek, beasts of stone. Whatever they were called, they were grey, cold, ravenous, and hard to kill. Sud-Akwith and his army was driven from Tharliezalor and pursued, with great loss of life, into the west, the serim laying waste and poisoning the land they crossed.
Had it not been for the discovery of the miraculous Sword of Power or Sword of Fire, an instrument divinely designed for the killing of serim, the Northkingdom would have ended then. The Sword is identified with the Lord of Fire and with the gifts said to have been laid in store for mankind in the dawn of time by the Powers. Others of the gifts were said to be the Vessel of Healing, the Girdle of Binding, the Crown of Wisdom, the Gate of Time, the Eternal Goad, the Chair of the Oracle, and a long list of lesser marvels. These gifts, including the Sword, were said to be imbued by the will of the Powers with qualities necessary for the salvation of mankind and the earth. Certainly, Sud-Akwith was saved by the Sword though he was driven out of the east.
Within five years after this defeat, the people who had lived in the eastern lands came pouring into the west. They came in terror, saying they could not breathe in the east, that shadows oppressed them, that an unknown and horrid world was closing upon them. The people continued to come westward until there were no human settlements remaining east of Tchent and eastern Lakland. A curtain of shadow seemed to fall over the eastern lands, and only a few hardy explorers attempted to travel there from time to time. Soon, even this exploration ceased, for the lands were known to have fallen under a Concealment. There were rumours at this time that the Thiene had returned or were about to return; in particular there were stories concerning visitations made by Taniel to the Choirs and to Orena. Certainly there was some understanding of the Concealment in Orena which was not current elsewhere.
The story of Sud-Akwith’s growing pride and intransigence is too well known to detail here. In 4200, Sud-Alcwith cast the miraculous Sword into the Abyss of Souls, at Seathe, dying almost immediately thereafter. Following his death, the kingdom should have descended to his only son, Widon the Golden. Widon, however, said that he would not pick up what his father had cast down unless it returned to him of its own will or the will of the Powers. Instead, he gathered a great host of his followers around him and went away into the north along the river which is still called Akwidon, or King’s Road. TTie fall of the realm of the Northlords, the dislocation caused by people fleeing from the Concealment, even the rumours that the Thiene had returned, all served to create a vast disorder. The world entered another period of unnumbered years, and fell into general barbarity. Warrior bands sprang up, conquered small territories, moved to and fro across the land. One such band became stronger than others, and the Third Cycle (TC) is said to have started with the time of the Axe King who numbered his reign from the birth of his grandfather, as Sud-Akwith had done.
The Axe King began his rule in 102 TC, in 135 attacking the archives at Tchent, long the only bastion of learning in the encircling dark. The archivists fled the complex of Tchent through ancient escape tunnels, taking most of the archives with them. It is generally supposed that they went to Orena, though some are known to have entered the Sisterhoods. Many of the treasures stored in Tchent were abandoned by the archivists and taken by the Axe King, including the legendary Girdle of Our Lady which had been brought there from the City of the Mists in the time of Sud-Akwith. The Girdle is mentioned as a feature of the ‘Search of Chu-Namu,’ an almost legendary quest said to have started in 140 TC and to have continued for five hundred years during which Chu-Namu did not age. Thus the Girdle was identified as the Girdle of Binding, one of thegifts of the Powers.
The reign of the Axe King ended with his death in 164 TC, and the warrior bands he had led split into factions led by one or another of his sons or nephews. At least one of his sons was known to have led a great band of the D’Zunalor into the northlands in emulation of Widon the Golden. The D’Zunalor had an exaggerated veneration for the legends of the Akwith Kings.
In 210 TC, He from Gahl [Obnor Gahl – Whip Valley] began his teachings in the town of Soolenter in the Savus Mountains. During the early centuries of Gahlism, cities and towns were slow to change, but the teaching began to have far reaching effects by the ninth century TC. In 990 a woman of Hanar, later identified as Geraldhis, a prophetess, brought a prophecy to the Sisterhood at Gerenhodh and to Orena later in that year.
In the year 116’ TC, the world was changed.
THE ROAD OF THE AXE KING
The ancient route taken by the Axe King in his conquests of the lands lying to the east of the Outer Sea was called the Road of the Axe King. The rule of die D’Zunalor began in Rochagam D’Zunabat, the Plain of the people of the Axe, the native land of several tribes of nomadic, warlike herdsmen. These tribes were united under Zunabat, the Axe King, in 102 TC. Taking advantage of the general disorder, Zunabat gathered the tribes into his own system, governing through local ‘Axemen’ sworn to his service, the Rochazuna.
The Road included the cities of Gombator (River City), Labat Ochor (King’s Tower), Tachob (Granary), a city in the valley of the Del which may have been called Hanar (Camp), Obnor Gahl (Whip Valley, named for the punishment of dissident troops which took place there), the Ochor D’Batum (Towers of Stone, i:e., the World Wall Mountains) and finally the city of Dochor (‘Of Towers’), now called M’Wandi. These cities, together with intermediate stations, made up the road of the Axe King, and it was said a message could be sent from Gombator to Dochor in twelve days through post riders.
It is thought that the people of the Fales are directly descended from the Axe King’s people, with some admixture of other peoples who invaded the Fales from islands in Wasnost, to the west. After the death of Zunabat, however, the tribes lost cohesive structure, the cities of the road became gradually autonomous, and the many of the D’Zunalor moved away to the northlands beyond Tranch. Gombator is now called Tanner.’ Tiles’ is the current name of Labat Ochor.
Sheri S. Tepper (1929 –)
Sheri Stewart Tepper was born in Colorado in 1929 and is the author of a larger number of novels in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery, and is particularly respected for her works of feminist science fiction. Her many acclaimed novels include The Margarets and Gibbon’s Decline And Fall, both shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, A Plague Of Angels, Sideshow and Beauty, which was voted Best Fantasy Novel Of The Year by readers of Locus magazine. Her versatility is illustrated by the fact that she is one of very few writers to have titles in both the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks lists. Sheri S. Tepper lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The Revenants Page 39
