The Vistor

by Sheri S. Tepper

  41

  a seeress sees

  At Omega site, very early in the morning, Nell was hunched over her breakfast, marshalling further arguments for leaving the redoubt, when the alarm sounded in the cavern above.

  "That's for you," said Jackson.

  "I hear it," she said irritatedly. She was sick of the redoubt, sick of playing games, sick of Janet's obstructionism for obstructionism's sake. Neither she nor Jackson seemed to realize the purpose of their lives had changed. Nell had just decided that today would be her last day in Omega, regardless of what the others said, when the alarm rang, postponing her announcement of that fact. Of course! Day after day of useless nothing, and then someone had to come looking for prognostications just at a crucial moment! As she climbed the stairs, she heard Jackson's voice, counting coffins again.

  "Counting them won't change anything," she snapped at him over her shoulder. "Twelve wake-able, counting us. Eighty-two maybe alive but not wake-able. A hundred six dead."

  Jackson ignored her, saying to Janet, "Raymond and Nell are the youngest. What? Thirty-six elapsed years?"

  Raymond said, "Thirty-six is right. And I was thirty-two when we started."

  Janet said, "Nell was thirty. She's sixty-two. The rest of us are closer to seventy..."

  From above them, at the mirror in the anteroom to the cave, Nell could still hear them discussing her age as she confronted her own image. She always expected to see a young woman in her mirror, and seeing her real self next to that mental image always shocked her. She laughed, abruptly. What difference did it make? Youth, attractiveness, being a good mother, a professional success, all those important things now meaningless. Family gone, except for remote descendants who knew nothing of Nell Latimer. Her only associates those incessant talkers down below, intent on arguing their last years away. Alan was among the wake-able. If she could do nothing else, she'd wake him! At the very least, he could break the tie vote!

  The alarm sounded again as she straightened the golden wimple and moved through the lock to seat herself at the table. The supplicant stooped as he came through the outer doorway.

  "Admit him," she said to the computer as she reached for the cards, the bones. Few of them would trust a simple statement of fact unless it was dressed up in some kind of cryptic make-believe. A scatter of bones. Cards laid in an arcane pattern.

  "Allipto Gomator," said the man, more matter of fact than awed, which was unusual.

  "I am Allipto Gomator," she said in the throaty voice she had once strained to produce. Now her façade of wisdom was buttressed by wrinkles and the rasp of years was in her throat.

  The supplicant surprised her by chuckling. "Of course you are, Madam. We have spoken before. I know your many times great-granddaughter, Dismé Latimer. Don't you know me?"

  She had not thought she knew him until he stepped farther into the cavern. He looked ten years or more younger than when she had seen him last, which had been quite recently. He had given her information then, and he had gone seeking more! "Arnole ... Gazane," she said, wonderingly. "You were going in search of certain ... miraculous devices!"

  His face cracked wide in a gleeful smile. "Yes, Seeress. And I have so far found four of them." He stooped in a half bow. "One of which was evidently meant for me."

  When he bent forward, she saw the sign on his forehead and put her hand to her throat. "You? Your face..."

  "Awe-inspiring, isn't it?" he chuckled. "Don't know what use it is, though."

  "When ... how...?"

  "A story too long in the telling for now, Seeress."

  "Was the device meant for you ... only, or was it meant for anyone who found it?" she asked, rising from her chair to come closer to the glass bubble that separated them.

  "Oh, meant for me particularly, I think. I fetched three of the stones from a quarry up the mountain, and it's certain two of them weren't meant for me, for I handled them repeatedly while getting them loaded. The other one is wrapped in sacking, for some reason, and I haven't unwrapped it. They are strange things, marvelous things. Come out and see for yourself!"

  "I? I don't..." She fumbled for words.

  "Your many times great-granddaughter is outside. Don't you want to come out and meet her? It's less than ten steps to the wagon from your outer door."

  The protocols, under which Nell had lived for centuries, were very clear on the point. The only correct thing to do at this juncture was to have Arnole wait while she went downstairs and got the rest of the awake team to agree she could put on an emergence suit and go outside. That, however, would merely extend the argument she had been having with them for days. Janet and Jackson would say no, she and Raymond would say yes.

  She was tired of it. The rules were outdated. She rose from the table in Allipto Gomator's green robes and golden wimple, opened the lock with a manual override, and went out of the cavern into the clean, pine-smelling air, feeling the wind on her face for the first time in almost forty waking years. For a moment her eyes closed and she simply leaned on the wind, letting it fill her with delight.

  "Ma'am," said Arnole, taking her by the arm.

  He led her to the wagon where two stones stood next to the sacking-wrapped bundle. She thought they were slabs of obsidian, perhaps, big pieces, standing taller than she, curved, glassy, with a good many lights in them. Wide and thick at the bottom, the slabs tapered to a knife's blade thinness at the curled upper edge. Rainbow obsidian it had been called. Indians had used it in jewelry.

  A young couple stood beside the wagon. She didn't know the man, but the young woman ... yes, she had a recent ping-picture of this young woman, though the picture did not show the swooping line of light upon her brow.

  "Dismé?" she asked. "I'm Nell Latimer."

  The girl's eyes opened wide. She drew a quick breath and fumbled in the pocket of her cloak, drawing out a bundle that she unwrapped to disclose a book.

  "This is yours," she said, awed. "You wrote this."

  Nell stared at the book, then at the girl. "My journal. Now how on earth did you get that?"

  "My father said that a wiseman named Alan or Ailan—not one of the Spared, someone else—gave it to one of my father's ancestors when we first came to Bastion. My father's people were Comador, and we are not far from Comador here. Perhaps it was given here, at this place. You are my ancestress."

  "You've read it?"

  "Oh, yes. It took me such a long time. Things are spelled very differently now."

  "Did you understand it?" Nell asked, intrigued by the contrast between the sweet naiveté of the girl's voice and the ageless gravity of her eyes.

  Dismé's voice roughened. "I understand what it is like to live with someone who conspires at one's destruction, as your husband did you. My step-sister has conspired at mine."

  "Come," Arnole interrupted impatiently. "You can talk family later, but for now, Allipto ... Nell ... step up."

  Michael helped her into the wagon, and she took one step to the nearest of the stones, running her hands over it curiously. It was glassily smooth, with a kind of humming vibration...

  The world stopped. She was somewhere else, learning things she had no names for. She was being instructed. Nell was in abeyance. The mind she shared was full of those treasures she had always sought, the workings of the universe, the reasons and intentions of the galaxies. Time passed forever.

  And then, the lights went out, she blinked, and came back to herself standing in the bed of a wagon beside a dusty track, high on a mountain, while before her the chunk of whatever-it-was glittered its way into darkness like a bouquet of sparklers on a long-ago Fourth of July.

  A similar stone confronted her across the dwindling fountain of sparks, its glossy surface reflecting her face. Though some of the lines had disappeared from her face, she was still recognizable, even with the twisted line of light she wore upon her forehead, a duplicate of the ones worn by Arnole and Dismé.

  "Elnith? Elnith?" Arnole was crowing, as he did a stiff-legged war d
ance around the wagon. "I knew it had to be you. Who else could have slept here all those years...?"

  Nell sought for the word, the denial, perhaps? The comment? The affirmation? Nothing came. She knew ... everything. She had no words for what she knew. The pause became an anticipatory silence. There were no words she could use for the reality and truth and understanding she had been given.

  "Elnith is of the Silences," Arnole murmured to no one in particular, as he and Michael helped her down from the wagon. He took her arm to escort her back toward the cavern, saying, "We need you, and we will wait for you out here. However long it takes."

  Nell paused, turned, beckoned to Dismé. When the younger woman approached, Nell took her by the hand. At the touch, Dismé felt a wind blow through her mind, a quick riffle of memory, fleeting images, a catalog of happenings. Then Elnith's hand drew her down into the cavern where the two of them confronted three people sitting at a table, so deep in argument they didn't even look up at their approach.

  Elnith struck the table they sat around, startling them into annoyance that turned at once to amazement. Jackson lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair. Janet turned very white, while Raymond sat unmoving, his mouth open. Standing silent before them, Nell placed her hand on Dismé's lips, which opened to say commandingly, "All those in the coffins are to be taken outside, where Rankivian, Shadua, and Yun may reach them."

  "What the hell, Nell?" demanded Raymond.

  "Hush," Dezmai said in her own voice, and he was still.

  "Good Lord," murmured Janet. "Look at their faces!"

  Elnith stilled Janet with a glance, then turned to go up the sloping floor toward the coffins. In that moment, Dezmai departed, leaving Dismé behind in her own self to face the gaping incomprehension of the trio before her.

  "I know who Nell Latimer is," Dismé said. "I don't know any of you, but I'll tell you what has happened. My friend, Arnole Gazane, brought three devices in his wagon. The devices identify members of the Council of Guardians. Nell was identified by one of the devices and she is now ... a host for Elnith of the Silences, as I am a host for Dezmai of the Drums. Arnole has been identified as Bertral of the Book..."

  "What is this nonsense?" snarled Janet. "This playacting, this..." She sputtered into silence, turning to the other two for support, but their eyes were fixed on Dismé.

  "Go up and talk to Arnole," she said. "He knows more than I do, and it won't do any good to expect Nell to talk while Elnith has hold of her. Our ...visitors know more than we do. When they speak, they speak from knowledge. When you've spoken with Arnole, I think you'll decide to do what Elnith asks."

  "Who are you?" Raymond demanded.

  "My name is Dismé Latimer. Nell Latimer is an ancestress of mine. Dezmai is my inhabitant."

  "I don't believe this," muttered Janet.

  "Believe or don't believe," said Dezmai, in sudden thunder. "We do not care for your disbelief." She went to join Elnith.

  Janet stared after her from an ashen, angry face. "This is gibberish," she said. "This is ... ridiculous."

  "Look at her," whispered Raymond, pointing in Nell's direction. "Really look at her. This is frightening, awe-inspiring, marvelous, maybe, but not ridiculous." He got up and started for the stairs, Jackson following, though reluctantly. When they had disappeared above, Janet stood looking alternately upward and at Elnith, indecisive as ever. Finally, with a grimace of frustration, she went after the two men.

  Elnith was left below amid the ranked coffins of Nell's people. Inside Elnith was Nell, enclosed in a space of hazy distances. Without warning, a third entity entered the space and spoke. When she left, Elnith went with her, and Nell bent forward, gasping, as though she had bled out, her life power exhausted. Dismé held onto her sympathetically, knowing how it felt at first when the visitors departed.

  "Is she gone?" Dismé asked.

  Nell nodded. "While she was in there, I wanted to know who Rankivian and Shadua and Yun are, and SHE told me we used black arts to let ourselves sleep all these years. SHE says it was done for a good reason, but the technique is black because of the danger to the souls of the sleepers."

  "The ones who won't wake up?"

  "Even some of those who do wake up, maybe. They get lost. They turn inward. Rankivian is the one who can reclaim them. He's coming here to reclaim them. SHE says so."

  "Elnith says?" Dismé asked, like a cricket chirping from beneath a hearth stone, shrill and incredulous. "She speaks?"

  "No. Not Elnith. SHE! The one who came with the Happening. SHE who has come down from the dark northlands..."

  She looked about to collapse. Dismé held her arm.

  "I have to sit down," Nell gasped. She did so, putting her head down on her knees, hands linked behind her neck, crouched into the smallest possible volume, as though wishing to retreat into nothingness.

  "It gets easier," said Dismé, putting her arms around Nell to warm her. "After a while, you can let them come in and go out without feeling like that."

  Nell whispered "How long have you..."

  "Several days now, four or five. The first few times are the worst, really."

  "SHE said you can speak to people, at a distance. You need to tell them the monster takes its strength from pain. Tell them to kill those in pain, not to let them go on hurting..."

  Dismé regarded her thoughtfully. "You're sure? I'll have to go up, outside..."

  "First we have to wake the sleepers. You can help me."

  Dismé watched Nell do the first two, then went down the aisles of coffins, doing the same, setting each of them on emergency waking cycle, both the living and the dead. Finished, they went up and out, and Dismé went to find a quiet, high place for her dobsi to speak from.

  Raymond was talking with Arnole and Michael, all three of whom turned as Nell approached, saying, "I'll need your help, yours and anyone else we can get. The coffins will open soon, and we have to bring the people out into the sunlight. It must be done before the horror, the beast arrives."

  "The thing is coming here?" cried Michael. "How did you know about it?"

  "SHE knows it," Nell replied. "Yes, it is coming here. We need to be gone before then."

  "Is there a lift that goes down into the cavern?" asked Arnole, suddenly practical.

  Raymond replied. "It will hold six or eight people at a time, once they're out of the coffins."

  "You want the dead out here?" Jackson asked.

  "The Council wants the dead out here," said Nell. "The Council of Guardians. This place is awash in trapped souls."

  "Would someone please tell us what's going on?" demanded Raymond, querulously. "How did this Council of Guardians get into the act?"

  "Later," said Nell, heading back toward the cavern, Arnole following her.

  Raymond found Dismé wandering thoughtfully, so he asked her the same question, at which she took a deep breath and told him what she knew of the Council of Guardians and the book of Bertral, summoning Michael to fetch the book from the saddle bag. Soon the three sleepers were looking through it—Raymond with belief, Jackson wavering, and Janet remaining convinced the Council was pure superstition. The three argued among themselves, finally taking their argument back into the redoubt, from which the elevator rose and fell throughout the afternoon. By late afternoon, all the sleepers had been carried into the light where lines of still bodies lay upon the stone.

  The doctor had been delayed by copses and collapses on a road he accused of being uncooperative. The obstacles had eaten time, preventing the doctor and the little people from arriving until evening. It was still light, though barely, when the doctor halted the team and stared down into the rocky pit where the seeress had her lair. Laid out on an area of flat, gray stone were a great many bodies, with people moving among them. From far down the road, lanterns were approaching.

  "That's the seeress," said the doctor, amazed. "She's outside!"

  "Seeress?" said Bobly, doubtfully. "Doctor, that's Elnith's costume from the book."
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br />   "I'll look her up," said Bobly from the back of the wagon.

  "The book's in the saddlebag," said the doctor, inattentively.

  "Then Michael has it," said Bobly, in disappointment. "I wanted to know what she's Guardian of."

  "I can quote it from memory," said the doctor.

  This is Elnith of the Silences, in whose charge are the secrets of the heart, the longings of the soul, the quiet places of the world, the silence of great canyons, the soundless depths of the sea, the still and burning deserts, the hush of forests...

  Hers the disciplines of the anchorite, the keeper of hidden things, hers the joyous fulfillment when high on daylit peaks she shall answer for the discretion of her people. No hand of man may touch her scatheless, beware her simplicity.

  "Who are the others?" Bobly asked. "And who's that old man on the high rock, looking at the sky."

  "I don't think I've seen the oldster before. That's my horse, so Michael and Dismé must be here, but whose is that other wagon?"

  By the time the tired team had plodded down the several switchbacks to arrive at the cavern, the people there had gathered to face them, as if they feared what or who might be arriving. Seeing this, the doctor stopped at a good distance, jumped down and helped Bobly alight.

  "It's Doctor Ladislav," called Dismé.

  Above them, the figure on the high rock was slowly descending. From among the lines of bodies, the seeress came. She walked directly to the newcomers and took the doctor by the hand.

  "Allipto Gomator?" he asked, wonderingly, for she was unlike the woman he had last seen here.

  "I am Nell Latimer," she said. "Allipto Gomator was a part I played as a way of getting information from the outside world. I am also, so it seems, Elnith of the Silences."

  Dismé came forward to greet them. "My old friend Arnole is coming, doctor. He's Bertral of the Book. He really is! The Book belongs to him and I don't think he'll give it back."

  Nell was moving inexorably toward the wagon, tugging the doctor along beside her. "Come. I was told to show you this." When they arrived, she pointed imperiously at the stones.