The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore

by Sheri S. Tepper

  ‘Soon, Threnot. Tharius Don tells me that Pamra Don is only a few weeks’ journey from the Chancery. He admits to selfishness, but says he wishes to have her in his protection before the strike. There are one or two other things he’s waiting on. If possible, he wants to locate the stolen herd beasts and eliminate them from consideration. He thinks if the Thraish have any beasts at all, they may place great weight upon some impossible future and delay acceding to reality.’ And when he has done that, she thought despairingly, will he find some other reason for delay?

  ‘They would.’ Threnot nodded. ‘Those filth bags would rather do anything than what good Tharius Don expects them to do.’ Threnot had never met Tharius Don, but she had long been Kessie’s confidante.

  ‘When they are Treeci, they will not be filth bags anymore,’ Kessie admonished, surprised that she had come to believe this. She had longed for this faith, the faith of Tharius Don, and perhaps it had come as a reward for her suffering. ‘When they have become Treeci,’ she said again, rejoicing in the calm confidence of her voice.

  8

  In the Tower at Thou-ne, Haranjus Pandel reflected on transiency. The sun was far sunk in the south. First summer had gone, and the rainy winds of autumn gathered about the tower, making the shutters creak and cold drafts creep through the stone corridors. Thunderheads massed over the River and surged over Northshore, sailing away into the north in mighty continents of cloud. Ill luck gathering, he thought. Like fliers. Dark and ominous. For days, weeks, fliers had been gathering upon the Black Talons to the east of the town, coming and going. He had never seen so many, not even at Conjunction when they came, so he believed, to breed. It was not the only strange thing to have happened recently.

  A few weeks ago had come a Laugher, down from the northlands, cut off from further travel east, so he said, by the towering height of the Talons.

  ‘I demand your assistance, Superior.’

  He was like all of them, hot and bitter, his eyes like burning coals in the furnace of his face.

  ‘How may I assist the servant of the Chancery?’ Haranjus had asked, taking refuge in formality. It would not do to be indiscreet to a Laugher. It was not smart to relax convention or ritual. ‘The Laugher’s need is my command.’

  ‘I need to get word to the Talkers, up there,’ and he had pointed to the heights of the Talons, looming at Thou-ne’s eastern border.

  ‘I … I can summon a flier,’ Haranjus had stuttered. He had expected anything but this, anything at all. ‘What is it you wish me to say?’

  ‘I will say it myself. Just take me to the roof and summon one of them, however it is you do it.’

  There was a way, of course. Twice each month, Haranjus was expected to provide a living body for the Talker’s meat. He saw that these bodies were taken, almost always, from among the travelers through Thou-ne. The town was too small to accommodate the loss, otherwise. Certainly it was too small to accommodate it without comment. Now that the Temple attracted so many travelers, it was no trick to abduct one here, one there, as they traveled on westward. His few trusted seniors had become expert at the exercise.

  And when the living bodies were ready, they were trussed up on the roof of the Tower and fliers were called. At evening. In the lowe of sunset, so the fliers might return to the Talons with their burden well after dark.

  ‘Yes. There is a bell,’ Haranjus said. ‘But I don’t have … I mean, there’s no reason to call them. They may be very angry.’

  ‘Leave their anger to me,’ said Ilze. ‘They will be more angry yet when they hear what I have to tell them.’

  He went with Haranjus to the roof, not unlike the roof at Baris, surrounded by a low parapet, fouled with shit, littered with feathers, and reeking with the musty, permeating smell of Thraish. They waited there, not speaking, Ilze because he had no inclination to speak, Haranjus because he was afraid to. When the blaze of sunset was at its height, Haranjus struck the bell.

  The plangent tone stole outward, away from the Tower, rising like a bird, lifted upon the air, winging to the Talons tops, a reverberation now softly, now loudly feeding upon itself, intensifying its own sound with echoes. When the blaze of the west began to dim, dark wings detached themselves from the distant peaks and came toward the tower. When those wings folded upon the tower top it was almost dark. The flier croaked, ‘It is not time for meat.’

  ‘This man asked for you,’ Haranjus said. ‘I have brought him at his command, as I am sworn to do.’ He turned then and left the roof. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to be involved in it. Nothing could have stopped him from listening at the door, however. He leaned there, ear applied to the crack, holding his breath.

  ‘I have a message for Sliffisunda of the Talons,’ Ilze said. ’There is heresy abroad upon Northshore, and Sliffisunda of the Talons must be told of it.’

  The fliers gabbled, croaked, not sure of whether they would or would not.

  ‘Sliffisunda will command it if you tell him I am here,’ Ilze said at last. ‘He knows me. Return and ask him.’

  Sliffisunda, it appeared, could be asked. He was at Black Talons. He had come there fairly recently. The fliers would return and ask him, albeit unwillingly. Sliffisunda was evidently in a temper.

  ‘Tell him to send a basket for me!’ shouted Ilze as the great wings lifted from the Tower. He stumped to the door and down the stairs, finding Haranjus somewhat out of breath in the study at their foot.

  ‘Give me food,’ Ilze commanded. ‘And something to drink. They’ll be back within the hour.’

  ‘You’re going to the Talons?’ He could not help himself. Despite all promises to himself not to ask questions, his traitor tongue did it for him.

  ‘One way or the other,’ Ilze sneered. ‘It was here the crusade started, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t wonder if you were involved in it.’

  ‘Oh, no. No. A man came from the Chancery. He said I did right to ignore it …’

  ‘Fools! What do they think is happening here? The roots of our society are being nibbled away, and they say to ignore it?’

  ‘It seemed very – innocent.’

  Ilze barked. It could have been a laugh. Like a stilt-lizard, ha-ha, ha-ha. ‘When all the fliers are dead and the elixir gone forever, then tell me how innocent it was, fool.’ Ilze, like many of the lower ranks of the Chancery staff, was naive enough to suppose that all Tower Superiors received the elixir. Haranjus Pandel did not disillusion him. Belatedly, firmly, he shut his mouth.

  In an hour the fliers arrived with a large basket clasped in their claws. Moments later, the Laugher was gone, carried away in that same basket. Shortly after that, Haranjus sent a full account of his visit, via the signal towers, to Gendra Mitiar, knowing it would reach others as well.

  9

  Ilze was unceremoniously tumbled from the basket to sprawl upon a high, dung-streaked shelf of stone. Half a dozen fliers stood about, shifting from foot to foot and darting their heads at him as though he were prey. Ilze drew his knife and made a darting motion in return, at which there was a great outcawing of mockery. This, in turn, brought a Talker, who dismissed the fliers – to their evident annoyance – and escorted Ilze through a jagged opening in the cliffside along a rough, narrow corridor that appeared to be a natural cleft in the stone only slightly improved by artifice. A number of small rooms opened from this cleft, rooms with smoothed floors and blackened corners showing where fires had been laid in the past. Rough hangings closed each of these niches from the corridor, and piles of rugs along the walls made it clear the rooms were for the use of human visitors. Or slaves, Ilze told himself. Or meat.

  He was left alone here, the Talker taking himself off without a word. Ilze was content with this. If they were interested in what he had to say, they would listen to him sooner rather than later. Though he feared them, it was worth the gamble to find and hold Pamra Don. He could not go on living until that was done.

  A scrape at the doorway drew his attention, and he regarded the pallid man who entere
d with suspicion.

  ‘Who are you?’ They both asked it, at once. It was impossible for both of them to answer, and there was an itchy pause during which each waited for the other.

  ‘You!’ grated Ilze with an impatient gesture. ‘Who are you?’

  The pallid man answered, words tumbling over one another as though long dammed up behind the barrier of his throat. ‘My name is Frule. Which tells you nothing much. I am a scholar. A student, you might say. I live here. I study the Thraish.’

  Ilze snorted. ‘And they allow that?’

  ‘They might not, if they knew that’s what I was really doing. However, I am an acceptable stonemason and a fair carpenter. The Thraish have a need for both.’

  ‘For what?’ Ilze stared around him, making an incredulous face. ‘Do they live better than their guests?’

  ‘Differently.’ The other shrugged. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Ilze, formerly of the Tower of Baris. I’ve come to bring the creatures news of something that much affects them,’ he said in a challenging voice. ‘In return for which I hope they will help me with my business.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Finding and avenging myself on one Pamra Don.’

  ‘Oh. The crusade woman.’ The pallid man nodded wisely. ‘We’ve heard of that business, even here. What has she done to you?’

  ‘That’s my business.’ Had he tried, Ilze would have been unable to answer the question. It was one he had never asked himself. Pamra had been the cause of pain and unpleasantness. She was, therefore, fit subject for vengeance, no matter that she had done nothing at all to Ilze. ‘My business,’ he repeated abstractedly.

  ‘Let it be your business, then,’ said Frule. ‘I only asked because it helps to know what brings humans here. The Thraish have few human visitors. I have seen only one or two. There are a few others like me, who pretend to be craftsmen. And a few who really are craftsmen, not that the Thraish can tell the difference.’

  ‘Stupid animals,’ Ilze snorted.

  ‘No,’ said the other in a calm, considering voice. ‘Not, I think, stupid. Simply not very interested in most of the things humans are interested in. Though I can understand much of what they say to one another, when one has been here a time, one longs for human speech. And yet, as I remember it, we humans spend much time talking of sex or politics – that may not be true in the Chancery, of course.’ This was a polite aside with a little bow to Ilze. ‘The Talkers have no sex, and their politics are rudimentary. They do not talk of things most of us would find interesting. They talk of philosophical things. The nature of reality. The actuality of God. How Potipur differs in his essential nature from Viranel. Whether perception guarantees reality. Things of that kind …’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ Ilze said with a sneer. ‘They do not look or behave like philosophers.’

  ‘But then, how should philosophers look or behave? We cannot expect the Thraish to behave as if they were human. If human philosophers perched on high stones, engaging in screaming matches, shitting on each other’s feet the while, they would be discredited, but for the Thraish that’s ordinary enough behavior.’

  ‘And they talk only of philosophy.’

  ‘And food, of course. They talk a great deal about food.’

  ‘Dead bodies,’ snorted Ilze.

  ‘No. They scarcely mention what they eat now. All their talk is of what was eaten long ago, when there were herdbeasts on the steppes. They recall the taste of weehar with religious fervor. There is something deeply and sincerely religious among the Thraish, and it wells up from that belief they call the Promise of Potipur.’ The man nodded to himself, reflecting. ‘Do you know that promise? “Do my will and ye shall have plenty.” That seems to be the core of it. And the will of Potipur involves breeding large numbers of themselves, too many for this world to sustain, which destroyed their plenty before. I think sometimes how hard it must be for them to keep to that belief when there have been no herdbeasts on the steppes for centuries. But, I understand, there may be beasts soon again.’

  Ilze had not heard this rumor. Frule enlightened him, telling him what had been overheard. ‘They don’t seem to care what we overhear. Sometimes I don’t think they believe we are sentient,’ he commented, shaking his head. ‘They don’t seem to consider what we might tell other humans about them when we leave here.’

  ‘Perhaps they have ethics which would make such a thing impossible,’ Ilze suggested with a sneer.

  ‘Possibly.’ The man shrugged. ‘It is true that the Thraish cannot conceive of a nest sibling giving anything of value to others outside that nest, and that would probably include information. They cannot conceive of it because no Thraish would do it, for any price. Perhaps they consider us human workers as a kind of nest sibling because they feed us. Perhaps they consider us an emotional equivalent to nestlings. On the other hand, there is a kind of scavenger lizard, the ghroosh, which lives in Thraish nests, feeding on the offal that is left there, and perhaps they consider us in that light. Perhaps we are merely tolerated. Ah, well, whatever the truth of that may be, it is interesting to meet you, good to see a new face.’

  ‘How many humans are there here? And what do you eat?’

  ‘Oh, we bring some food with us. And the fliers catch stilt-lizards for us, or we climb down to the River to catch fish. Though we have to eat it there. The Thraish will not allow it in the Talons. As for how many of us? A dozen or so, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. I’ve been here two years myself, building perches and feeding troughs, mostly. Though it’s interesting, I’ve stayed long enough. It’s getting time to go.’

  ‘Go where?’ Ilze was suddenly very interested. Did the Chancery know of these human lice, creeping among the feathers of the Thraish?

  ‘Back home,’ the scholar said with a vague gesture. He peered closely at Ilze, not reassured by what he saw in the Laugher’s face. ‘You wouldn’t be of a mind to make trouble for me with the fliers, would you, Laugher? For my saying I’m studying the Thraish.’

  ‘Is it in accord with doctrine?’

  ‘I’ve never been told it’s forbidden.’

  ‘Which is not the same thing,’ Ilze sneered. ‘I’ve other stuff on my plate just now, student. I will remember you are here, however, when my current task is done.’ He turned away in contempt, and when he turned again, the man was gone. Ilze threw himself down on the piled rugs and waited, not patiently. When the day had half gone, a flier pushed into the room, perhaps the same one who had led Ilze here.

  ‘Sliffisunda of the Talons will see you, human. Follow me.’

  Which Ilze was hard-pressed to do. Twice he had to be lifted in the claws of the fliers before he was deposited at last on an elevated ledge above a yawning gulf. A jagged hole led to a space among the stones where Sliffisunda stood before a curtained opening. Ilze was not invited to enter, and he shivered in the chill wind of the heights.

  ‘You wish to report heresy,’ it croaked at him. ‘Heresy, Laugher?’

  ‘There’s that woman, Pamra Don,’ Ilze snarled without preliminary chat. ‘She’s guilty of heresy. This crusade of hers is a heresy. The Talkers – all the Thraish – will soon learn to regret it.’

  ‘We have listened to what she says, Laugher. It is nothing much. Meantime, pits are full. Fliers find much meat.’

  ‘You have listened to what she says in the public squares, Sliffisunda. You have not heard what she says in the Temples.’

  ‘Tower people tell us, nothing much.’

  ‘Then Tower people lie.’

  Sliffisunda hissed, head darting forward as though he would strike. ‘Why would they lie?’

  ‘Because they have been corrupted, stolen from the faith. They are not believers in Potipur. They dissemble, Talker. Pamra Don is a heretic, and she leads a band of heretics.’

  ‘And yet pits are full.’

  Ilze gestured impatiently. ‘Of course. For a little time. Until she gains strength. Then there will be no more bodies in the pits at
all.’

  Ilze had expected rage. There was no rage. The Talker hissed once more, then turned his head away. For a time there was silence. ‘How long, Laugher, before this crusade does, as you say, “gain strength”?’

  ‘Years,’ Ilze admitted. ‘It moves slowly, true. And yet, not many years. It will get all the way around the world in twelve or fifteen years, if it continues at its current pace.’

  ‘And in that time, we may expect pits to be full?’

  ‘Probably. But that’s temporary, and purely local. Only where the crusade is passing at any given time.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Talker turned away again, hiding his face so the human would not see his expression. One might let the crusade alone. In fifteen years, when it had rounded the world, the Thraish would be ready to strike at them all. In the meantime, many humans would have died and been eaten, the fewer to fight later. However, Thraish numbers could not be increased on the basis of purely local plenty, and if some accident happened, if breeding stock were lost to winter cold, then fifteen years might be too soon.

  On balance, it might be better if the crusade were stopped. On balance, it might be better if things were as usual for the next few years. Peaceful. The humans kept biddable and quiet. It was something for the Stones of Disputation, something he could discuss with his colleagues of the Sixth Degree.

  ‘You wish to stop this thing, Laugher?’

  ‘I can stop it, yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Pamra Don is being taken by Jondarites to the Chancery. You Talkers must demand she be turned over to you. It was she, after all, who emptied the pits at Baris. You have just ground for complaint. Demand she be given to you. Then give her to me!’

  If Sliffisunda could have smiled, he would have done so. Transparent, this one. And still as fiery as when the Talkers and Accusers had done with him, before he was made a Laugher. Set on the trail of Pamra Don, nothing would stay him, not even his fear of the Talkers.