The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore by Sheri S. Tepper
‘What is the child’s name?’ he asked her.
‘Lila,’ she answered. She told him about Lila. He understood about one-tenth of what she said, and disbelieved most of that. The child was very strange. Its expression was not childlike. The way it moved was not childlike. It could not be her sister, and yet it could not be what she said it was, either. Tharius turned his eyes away to poke at the food without tasting it, watching this year’s flame-bird as it built its tinder nest on the ledge, flying back and forth across the window with beakfuls of fiber from the pamet fields.
‘Do you see him?’ she asked suddenly, her eyes fixed on the open window.
‘The flame-bird, yes.’
‘Flame-bird,’ she said. Yes. Neff was a flame-bird, born from the flame of his funeral pyre. How clever of this man, this ancestor, to have known. She reached out to take his hand, wanting to share with him what she knew, what she felt, about Neff, about Delia, about the God of man. Words poured from her, a spate of words, tumbling over one another in their haste to be spoken.
‘Tell me,’ he asked finally, marvelling at what he thought she was saying to him, ‘is Neff in the keeping of the God of man?’
She nodded urgently. ‘Yes, oh, yes.’
‘But he is not a man. Neff, I mean. Treeci, didn’t you say? Not human at all.’ Treeci! His heart pounded. The Treeci existed. They really did. Just as the books had said, just as they needed to be. Beautiful. Civilized. As the Thraish would be, too. ‘Neff was a Treeci. Not human?’
‘Not then, no,’ she said. ‘But now, now he is …’ She had not thought of this before, but of course he was. She saw him, radiantly winged, not the Neff of Strinder’s Isle, but Neff with arms to hold her and a mouth that spoke to her, kissed her gently through the flames. ‘He’s a man now. Not like I am, or you, Tharius Don. Something finer than that.’
‘An angel, perhaps.’ He was trembling, awed, feeling himself in the presence of something exalted and marvelous.
She considered this. ‘Angel’ was a very ancient word, but one that every Northshoreman knew. A kind of beneficent spirit. Without sex or identity or kind. Suddenly she knew that was exactly what he was. ‘An angel, yes,’ in a tone of ringing rapture that made him want to weep.
‘And the general saw all this, when you explained it to him!’
She tried to explain this as well, and Tharius Don’s soul, ever eager for proof of his thesis, took it in like water upon sunparched earth. Even in this unlikely soil, goodness would grow! Oh, if Pamra Don could find a soul in Jondrigar and warm it to thaw, what might she not do for the Thraish! He longed for someone to discuss this with. Kessie. Kessie had told him the girl had this talent. Why had he not understood what Kessie meant? She had called it ‘recruiting,’ but it was so much more than that! Oh, if Kessie were here. But she was not! No one was. Only himself, and Pamra Don, and the world out there waiting a message from him.
Which he had dreaded to send. Which he had put off sending for some little time. The cause had been ready for a year or more, ready as it would ever be, and yet he had not sent the word. Why? He had asked himself this, morn and evening, wondering whether his own dedication was as great as it once had been. Was it failing purpose? Or did he fear his own inevitable death when the elixir was no longer available?
Or was his delay, his procrastination, foreordained, perhaps, in order to allow this thing, this miraculous thing, to happen.
‘You told the general the truth,’ he urged, ‘and the general accepted that?’
She nodded. That was what had happened.
He shook his head, awestruck into silence. She had told the truth, and the general had accepted it. Tharius Don had never doubted the existence of the divine, and her statement confirmed his belief. Yes. He had delayed in ordering the strike because something greater than himself had chosen that he do so. Perhaps the Dons had indeed been chosen for something marvelous, for some great purpose. But it might be Pamra Don, not Tharius, who was to accomplish this great thing. He stared at her, watching the glitter of her eyes as though it had been stars, moving in the heavens to spell out a command.
There was a knock at the door, a knock too soft to break through his reverie, which was then repeated until he heard it.
A messenger with a letter from Shavian Bossit.
He broke the seal and read it, read it without really seeing it.
‘The Jondarite captain at Split River Pass has received a delegation of Talkers, and they bear a written message as well. Sliffisunda demands Pamra Don be sent to him. The Thraish want her at the Talons for questioning. Gendra and I are inclined to agree it is a good idea, and Gendra offers to escort her and oversee her safety.’
Pamra was saying something, but he didn’t hear her. He read the message again. At first it made no sense, but then its purpose bloomed in him like some gigantic, fiery flower, its perfume enwrapping him, spinning him in a sudden delirium. Pamra Don was wanted at the Talons, by the Thraish. Pamra Don, who had done a thing for the cause that Tharius Don had never thought of doing. Pamra Don, who had converted the general in one day. Pamra Don, who saw the souls of Treeci and people reborn as angels.
And yet, how could he know? How could he be sure? He turned to her with a fierce and longing love to demand the answer.
‘If you were to speak to the Talkers – to the fliers, Pamra. If you were to tell them the truth, would they believe?’
She looked at him uncertainly, past him at the glowing figure of Neff, outside the window. Radiant. Breast stained with red, nodding to her as he always did. Yes, yes, anything was possible, anything was conceived. Yes.
‘Talkers?’ she asked.
‘The fliers. The fliers who talk. You know.’
She did not know. Still, anything that talked should be told the truth. ‘It’s better to know the truth,’ she said. Neff would know. Wasn’t he kin to the fliers? Wouldn’t he know?
‘If I send you to them, Pamra? Can you convert them as you did General Jondrigar?
‘It’s better when people know the truth,’ she said again, a thing she often said when nothing else seemed to fit, for that is what Neff often said to her. Her voice was calm, her face serene, still colored by the rapture that often came over it. ’It’s better to know the truth.’
He took it for affirmation.
‘Rest,’ he told her with an exultant glad smile. ‘I’ll come back and talk with you more later.’
He went down to the council meeting, where Jorn and Mitiar, with their arguments for sending Pamra to the Thraish well rehearsed and arranged, were amazed to find such disputation unnecessary.
‘I agree Pamra Don should go to the Thraish. Take her,’ Tharius said. ‘Keep her safe, Gendra, but take her along.
Take her, and the child, but be sure she talks to Sliffisunda himself.’
‘I think Sliffisunda will require that,’ Shavian interjected in a dry voice. ‘There will be no problem.’ He wanted to ask Tharius what had happened to him. The man was dizzy with joy, like a child on festival morning when the Candy Tree had grown in the night. Like a young Chancery man at his first elixir ceremony. Full of light. Buoyed up. It was almost tempting to delay the meeting a little in order to find out why, but Gendra’s offer to leave the Chancery was too much a godsend to risk losing. Easier on everyone if she’s away for a while, he assured himself. Gives us time to get ready for it. And he glanced at the chairs against the wall where Glamdrul Feynt and Bormas Tyle huddled together, exchanging occasional whispered words. The perfect picture of conspirators, Shavian thought, shaking his head at them warningly.
The three of them had only the bare outline of a plot as yet. It would require three deaths: that of the general, that of Gendra Mitiar, and that of Lees Obol. One, two, three. Like a starting chant for a race. One to get steady, two to get ready, three to go.
Since Glamdrul Feynt was to end up as Lord Marshal of the Towers, he would dispose of Gendra Mitiar. Bormas Tyle wanted to be General of the Armies, which meant
Shavian started from agreeable visions of this future and was brought to himself.
‘It’s decided, then,’ Gendra Mitiar intoned. ‘I’ll take her to Red Talons.’
‘That’s closest, yes,’ Tharius Don approved.
‘You’ll keep her safe?’ asked General Jondrigar, his voice heavy and obdurate as iron, oily with suspicion. ‘You, Mitiar, you’ll keep her safe?’
Gendra smiled maliciously. ‘Of course, General. Of course I will. That’s why I’m going.’
The smile made Tharius wince, but only for the instant. Of course the old fish was up to something, but it didn’t matter. What did she think of Pamra Don? Did she think anything at all? How could she know that Pamra Don was the divine intervenor, the peace bringer, the messenger of God, sent to mitigate violence and death? The messenger sent to Tharius Don to say he had been right in holding his hand, right to delay the strike. It would not be needed. The Thraish could be converted. The cause might be fulfilled without violence.
‘It’s settled, then,’ said Gendra Mitiar. ‘We’ll leave in the morning.’ She cast an enigmatic look at Ezasper Jorn, who had been silent throughout the meeting. He and Koma Nepor had exchanged two or three carefully casual glances, nothing more, though inwardly they were jubilant. The old crock had fallen for it. She thought she was going to gain support for herself. By the time she got back – it would be too late. If she got back at all.
So, the Council of Seven adjourned. Both they and their ancillary personnel rose to move about the room. Shavian Bossit rang a small bell, its sound hanging in the hall like a strand of tinsel, a bright shivering of metal. Through the high doors came screeching carts bearing tea; a dozen soft-footed servitors in gray livery to tend the tall silver and copper kettles with handles worked into nelfants and gorbons and other mythical animals, the charcoal stoves below them emitting a pungent smoke. Plates of cakes were passed: puncon tarts, nutcakes, sweetbean, and mince. The council members floated upon an ebullience that was infectious, every member of it assured that his or her own ambition was shortly to be fulfilled.
Ezasper would be Protector. Shavian would be Protector. Gendra would be Protector. Each of them knew it, was certain of it, glorying both in the absolute sureness of it and in the fact that no one else knew.
Koma Nepor would be Marshal of the Towers. Glamdrul Feynt would be Marshal of the Towers. They chatted with one another, laughing, each glorying in the other’s eventual discomfiture.
The general would use his position to rectify distortions and lies. He thought of this as he listened to Bormas Tyle, who was certain he would soon become general. The two of them stood together in a window aperture with their cakes. General Jondrigar even made a little jest about the flower chaplet he had worn. They laughed.
And Tharius Don stood alone, happier than he had been in fifty years.
From behind the curtain a querulous old voice exclaimed, ‘What’s everyone laughing about? Tell me the joke. Tell me,’ and several Jondarites went to busy themselves within.
To the assembled council, Lees Obol’s command only seemed amusing, and even the general smiled. How could any one of them explain his joy? Each, knowing the reason for his own, thought better to pretend it was inexplicable.
The euphoria passed. Voices died down. The babble gave way to whispers, winks, nodded heads. Cups were set down on the waiting trays. Servitors scurried about with napkins to brush up the crumbs. The carts went screeching away, complaining into the vaulted silences. Ezasper Jorn hesitated in the doorway long enough to whisper to the Chief of Research, ‘As soon as she’s well gone, Koma. As soon as she’s well gone.’ And they, too, departed in good humor.
Above, in his guest suite, Tharius Don sat down with Pamra before the fire while Lila waved her hands at the flames and chortled in words he could not understand.
‘Let me tell you about the Talkers,’ he said gently, watching her face to be sure she paid attention.
But she, nodding and making sounds as though she were listening, heard very little that he said. She was far away, in some other world.
15
At the end of each month those aboard the Gift celebrated riotously on the extra day. Eenzie the Clown juggled hard melon and eggs on the main deck, discovering the eggs in the ears of the boatmen and losing them again down the backs of their trousers. On this occasion, Porabji brought out a great crock he had had fulminating in the owner-house and poured them all mugs of something that was almost wine and almost something else, cheering as Glizzee, though in a different way. Thrasne himself had taken a generous amount of the gift Glizzee from the locker and given it to the cook for inclusion in whatever seemed best. They played silly games and sang children’s songs and ended by pouring wine on the new boat and naming it the Cheevle, which, said Eenzie, was the name of the delicious little fish that thronged the streams of the steppe. She mimed taking bites out of the new boat, making them all laugh. They took the canvas cover off the boat and sat in the hull, wrapped in blankets against the night chill, singing River chanteys and old heart-side songs. By the middle of the night they were all weary but wonderfully pleased, and most of them wandered off to their hammocks or bunks.
Thrasne came to himself atop the owner-house, staring at the stars, humming tunelessly, almost without thought. Medoor Babji found him there, came to stand beside him at the railing, leaning so close her bare arm was against his own and the warmth of them both made a shell around them.
‘Babji,’ he sang, more than half-drunk. ‘Ayee, aroo, Babji, Babji.’ He smiled at her, putting an arm around her.
She did not answer, only pressed closer to him, knowing what would happen and willing that it happen. When he put his lips on hers, it was exactly as her body had anticipated. His mouth was sweet, wine smelling, his lips softly insistent. He cupped her bottom in his hands, pressing her close to the surging hardness of him. When he moved toward the Cheevle, toward the blankets piled in the bottom of it, she did not resist him. When he laid her down, himself above her, and found a way through their clothing, she did not say no. She cried out, once, at a pain that quickly passed, then all thought ceased.
It was a long time later she opened her eyes to see stars again. She was cradled on Thrasne’s shoulder, his right arm under her and around her, blankets piled atop them like leaves over fallen fruit. No sound on the ship except the water sounds, the creak of timbers, the footsteps of the watch on the forward deck, the rattle of ropes against wood.
‘Babji,’ he said again, not singing, in a voice totally sober and a little disconsolate.
‘What?’ she said, knowing he had been awake while she slept. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I was thinking about what you said the other day, Medoor Babji. About the two kinds of people in the world. Those like you and me, who see puncon jam on our bread, and those others who see other things. I have been thinking about that. Those of us who see jam are the most numerous, I know. But does that mean the jam is really there?’
She stared at the silhouette of his face against the night sky. ‘Does it not, then?’
‘I don’t know. After a great, long time thinking of it, I could tell myself only that. I don’t know.’
He brought her closer to him, reached down to arrange the blankets against the night’s chill. The wind was cold, his voice was colder yet. ‘It was Pamra’s madness made me think of it. She does not see the world as we do. As you and I see it. As the boatmen see it. As your people see it. And so we call her mad. She will not come into the world I wanted for her, so I call her mad. She will not love me and bear my children, so she’s mad. She talks with dreams and consorts with visions, so she’
She did not reply, halfway between sobbing and anger, not knowing which way to fall. After what had just passed between them, and it was Pamra in his mind still! She took refuge in silence.
He went on, ‘The Jarb Mendicants could come with their blue smoke to sit beside me and tell me, “Yes, she’s mad.” But what would it mean, Medoor Babji? It would mean only that they see the same dream I see, not that the dream is real. So – so, if I were to share her dream, couldn’t that be as real as my own?’
‘How?’ she asked him, moving from sadness to anger. ‘Your good, sensible head wouldn’t let you do that, Thrasne.’
‘If the Jarb root gives one vision of reality, perhaps other things give other visions. Glizzee, perhaps.’
‘Glizzee is a happy-making thing, truly, Thrasne, but I have never heard that visions come of it.’
‘Then other things,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Other things.’ He looked down at his free hand, and she saw that he held a jug of the brew old Porabji had made. ‘Other things.’
She moved away from him, less angry now, though he did not seem to care that she went, for he began to lace up the canvas cover of the little boat. In the owner-house she undressed and braided the long crinkles of her hair into larger braids to keep them from tangling while she slept. Perhaps tomorrow she would cry. There was a bleak hollow inside her full of cold wind. Perhaps she would not get up at all.
Eenzie stirred. ‘Doorie? Where’ve you been? Up to naughty with the owner, neh?’
‘Talking,’ she said tonelessly, giving nothing away.
‘About his madwoman, I’ll wager,’ Eenzie said with a yawn, turning back into sleep. ‘He has nothing else to talk about.’
The morning found many less joyous than on the night before, with Obors-rom leaning over the rail to lose all he had eaten for a day or more.
‘It’s that brew of old Zynie’s,’ he gasped. ‘I should have had better sense than to drink it.’