Patternmaster

by Octavia E. Butler

  Slowly he began to take an interest in the mutes. He had made no friends among the outsiders or the women of the House. And he had taken no woman to replace Iray, though he had noticed a few of the women looking at him with interest. A couple of them had even spoken to him, openly offering, but he had turned them down as gently as he could. It might be easier if he did not see Iray around the House nearly every day. It might be easier if he had more to do. His mutes still seemed too efficient. Except for an occasional healing, they did not need him. Or so he thought until a small red-haired mute woman named Suliana collapsed at his door one night.

  Teray turned his attention from the history stone that he had been absorbing to the noise outside his door. Instantly he was overwhelmed by a wave of agony.

  He gave a choked cry, screened himself from the pain, and hurried to the door. Suliana lay on the floor, half propped up by the door. Teray opened his mind a little more, still screening out the woman’s pain. He became aware of the exact position of her body, then he opened the door carefully, catching her so that she would not fall and hit her head on the floor. She whimpered at his touch and he realized that most of her body was cut and bruised. And she had internal injuries. He lifted her gently, centering his total awareness on her body. She had two broken ribs, and if he handled her carelessly one of them would puncture her left lung. He put her on his bed and took away her pain. Then, knowing that he was out of his depth, he called the healer.

  The healer’s name was Amber. She was a golden-brown woman with hair that was a round cap of small, tight black curls. And she had a temper.

  She took one look at Suliana lying silent on Teray’s bed and attacked Teray.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, letting this sort of thing go on! I thought you were a little better than Jackman—or at least stronger. I thought I’d repaired this poor girl for the last time when you took over.”

  “Hold on,” said Teray, stepping away from her in surprise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you take care of Suliana, then tell me?”

  “You don’t know!” It was an accusation.

  “No, I don’t. Now let’s wait until you’ve finished before we argue about whether or not I should. Take care of the mute.”

  She glared at him, radiating resentment, and he found himself recalling what he had learned at school—that even Housemasters were careful how they antagonized healers. A good healer was also a terrifyingly efficient killer. A good healer could destroy the vital parts of a person’s body quickly enough and thoroughly enough to kill even a strong Patternist before he could repair himself. But Teray stood his ground. He had already angered her, apparently. He was not going to back down out of fear of her.

  After a moment she turned from him with a sound of disgust and began working on Suliana. She gave the mute woman sleep, then silently worked over her for nearly an hour. Meanwhile, Teray reached down to the kitchen and ordered a large meal for Suliana. The healed usually needed food as soon as possible after their healing, since healers drew on the energy and nutrients of their patients’ bodies to heal them. The food came as Amber was finishing, and the mute who brought it looked at Suliana sadly and murmured, “Again?”

  As he left the room, Teray delved into his thoughts. It was time he found out what everyone else apparently already knew.

  Suliana, he learned, was kept as the private property of an outsider named Jason. Two years before, Coransee had forced Jason into his House when Jason left the school with his wife. Later, Coransee had traded the wife to another House. Unfortunately for Suliana, she looked very much like Jason’s wife. Thus, he had taken possession of her. Even more unfortunately for Suliana, she was not Jason’s wife. Thus, periodically, in perverted anger and frustration, Jason beat the mute woman almost to death.

  “Did you get it all?” asked Amber.

  Teray realized that she had finished and was looking at him. “I got what that kitchen mute knew, anyway.”

  “And you didn’t know anything about it?”

  “Not consciously. I see now that I have knowledge of it from Jackman, though. And I see that it’s been going on because Jackman was too frightened of Jason to go to Coransee about it.”

  “Your name is Teray, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Teray, what the goddamn hell have you been doing for the past few weeks?”

  Somehow, Teray held on to his temper. “You’ve made your point,” he said quietly. “Now drop it.”

  “Why?” Her voice was dryly mocking. “Are you ashamed? Good. If you can feel ashamed, I guess there’s some hope for you. What are you going to do?”

  He took a deep breath. No doubt he deserved her sarcasm. Or someone’s. “I’ll see that Jason never gets his hands on her again—or on any other mute. And I’ll warn Coransee in case Jason finds a Patternist woman weak enough for him to abuse.”

  “All right. What else?”

  Teray sat down and looked up at her. “I’m going to listen while you tell me about the other cases of this sort of thing that you’ve had to treat. Then when I’ve heard them all, I’m going to take a chance and pass the word that anyone who abuses my mutes will have me to deal with.”

  Amber frowned. “That’s not taking a chance. That’s your job. The only reason Jackman didn’t do it was because he didn’t have the strength to enforce it—or, as you said, the courage to go to Coransee.”

  “For me, it’s taking a chance. You’ll have to take my word for that.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “In trouble with Coransee already, eh? I see. Well, I can’t help there, but if you find that you need help with any of the others, you can call on me. I know you’re strong, but you take away their fun, and they might not come at you one at a time.”

  She was abrupt and confusing. Teray couldn’t decide whether to like her, tolerate her, or hate her. He was startled to realize that it was still possible for him to like her. He shook his head and smiled briefly. “Amber, why the hell haven’t you gone out and started your own House?”

  “I will, sooner or later,” she said. “I just let Coransee sidetrack me for a while.”

  He hadn’t asked the question seriously, hadn’t expected an answer. But the answer she had given intrigued him.

  “Are you an apprentice?”

  “No.”

  “But you sounded serious—as though you intend to just walk away from Coransee’s House someday.”

  “I walked in.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  “Yes. He didn’t have a healer and I didn’t have a place to stay while I healed myself of some serious wounds the Clayarks had given me. I had just come down from Karston Sector. Then Coransee and I realized how well we got along, and I’ve been here ever since. But I’m not one of his wives, Teray, I’m an independent.”

  He had heard of such people—Houseless wanderers, usually possessing some valued skill that made them welcome at the various sectors. And possessing strength enough to make holding on to them not worth Housemasters’ trouble.

  “I didn’t know there were any more independents. As bad as the Clayarks are now …”

  “We’re still around. We just stay in one place longer than we used to. We’re still free people, though.”

  “I hope I’m around the day you try to leave Coransee.”

  “You probably will be. That time’s coming fast. You know, we’re supposed to be talking about mutes.”

  Teray let himself be shifted back. “All right. Tell what you know about mute abuse here in the House.”

  She turned and looked at Suliana. The mute woman seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Apparently Amber felt it more important that she rest than that she eat at once.

  “Open,” said Amber. “I’ll give it to you all at once.”

  He was not completely comfortable opening to her. After all, if she had chosen to stay with Coransee, she must have felt some loyalty to him. But then, what could she pick up from Teray that Coransee did not alrea
dy know? What difference did it make? He opened.

  What she handed him made him feel as though he had suddenly been dropped into a cesspool. He digested the list of atrocities weakly, revising his thinking. He had thought Jason an animal for what he had done to Suliana. Now he knew that alongside some others, Jason could qualify as the House humanitarian. No one actually killed mutes, but certain of the outsiders and women made a grotesque game of coming as close to killing them as they could. Having two mutes fight each other, for instance, until one of them was so mutilated and broken that he could no longer control his body enough to fight on. Privileges and possessions were wagered on these fights. And there was a certain Patternist woman who had made an art form of controlling and changing the development of unborn mute children. Already she had created several misshapen monstrosities that had to be destroyed. She got away with what she did because infants and even older children, Patternist or mute, were considered expendable. Those who were defective in some irreparable way were routinely destroyed.

  There was an outsider who had researched ancient methods of torture and made a hobby of trying them on mutes. Another outsider took sexual pleasure in stabbing a mute with a kitchen knife several times. And there was a woman who …

  Teray shielded wearily and shook his head. “Amber, has this been going on while I’ve been here?”

  “Not much of it. People know you’re strong, and they’re cautious. And too, most people repair the damage after they’ve done it—or they call me. But Jason had apparently decided that you’re not going to be any more of a problem than Jackman was.”

  “How can Coransee let all this go on? He must know about some of it at least.”

  Amber looked away. “He knows. I’ve told him often enough myself. He won’t let me do anything about it unless I give up my independence and settle here. I don’t think he’ll stop me, though, if all I do is help his muteherd avoid getting killed.”

  “But doesn’t he care that his mutes are being tortured?”

  “There’s only one thing he cares about right now. And even though I understand his problem, it’s driving me away from him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You ought to know better than I do.” She looked at him curiously. “You’re his brother. Jackman told everybody that. Full brother. I wouldn’t be surprised to find you just like him—sitting around waiting for Rayal to die so you can try to win the Pattern.”

  Startled and suspicious, Teray spoke carefully. “I’m not after the Pattern,” he said. “As I told Coransee, I want my freedom and a chance to establish a House of my own. That’s all.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, one eyebrow lifted. “I think you’re telling the truth. Which is surprising. Coransee wants the Pattern the way you and I want to go on breathing. It’s just about that basic. If somebody stopped me from healing, I might be the way he is now—climbing the walls.”

  “He didn’t seem that way to me.”

  “He can’t afford to seem that way. But if you were a healer, you’d know. Or just if you’d known him longer. He does things to people now, or lets things be done, that he would never have tolerated two years ago when I met him.”

  “All because he wants the Pattern so badly.”

  “More than wants—needs. Holding the Pattern is what he was born to do, and it needs doing. He was all right when Rayal was doing an adequate job of holding it. Now … Rayal has all he can do to keep himself alive, and it might be better for the people if he didn’t even do that. The people need a new Patternmaster, and believe me, it’s a need Coransee can feel. But he doesn’t dare do anything about it until Rayal lets go.”

  “You think you know a lot about it.”

  “I’m a good healer. I can’t help knowing.”

  “If you’re right, it seems to me there’s not much more wrong with Coransee than there is with Jason and probably a lot of other people in this House. They’re confined here together with people they’re far from in the Pattern, and denied the right to do work that would have meaning to them—and denied a few other important things.”

  She nodded. “And you see what it’s doing to them, what it’s driving them to do. Think of the damage Coransee could do if he really gave way to his frustration.”

  “Don’t think he isn’t giving way to it just because you see him.”

  “You’re still alive.”

  He jumped, and stared at her, wondering how much she knew. “All right. But if he can neglect his House the way he obviously has and allow the kind of perversion that goes on here, I’m afraid to even think of what he’ll do if he takes on the larger responsibility of holding the Pattern.”

  “No need to be. Once he has the Pattern, once desire for it isn’t eating him alive, then he’ll be able to settle down and attend to the details of protecting and leading the people. The way he protected and led his House before Rayal’s health got so bad.”

  “You’re biased,” he said. “You care about him. You can make excuses for him.”

  She shrugged. “Anything else I can tell you to help with your mutes?” She was getting up to go.

  “No. I guess I’ll get this one back to her room.” He looked at Suliana, then at the meal he had ordered. “Shouldn’t she eat?”

  “When she wakes up. Why don’t you keep her here? She’s well enough.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  She laughed, then sobered. “Just keep her away from Jason. That will be plenty for me.” She went out the door, leaving Teray staring after her, frowning. She was next to him in the Pattern. So close that he could have had a free, effortless, almost-involuntary communication with her. In fact, Teray had had to make a conscious effort to avoid such communication once he had accepted information from her mentally. Best to keep away from her. If he did manage to learn something that would help him against Coransee, he didn’t want to inadvertently give it to her just because they communicated so easily.

  He glanced once more at Suliana, then cast around the House for Jason. The man was in his room, sleeping peacefully. Teray headed toward his room.

  Three minutes later, Jason was wide awake and protesting indignantly from the floor where Teray had thrown him after he’d dragged him out of bed. Jason was not hurt, not afraid. He was angry. Angry enough to lash out hard at Teray without first noticing what the Pattern could have told him about Teray’s strength. He was strong himself, according to the Pattern; nevertheless, it would have been prudent for him to find out what he could about his opponent before he attacked.

  But Teray had not wanted him to be prudent.

  Teray absorbed the first wild blow and instantly traced it back to its source, through Jason’s shield. Jason was strong all right, but he had no speed. Now Teray held him, left him no more control over what happened to him than he had left Suliana. Teray extended his own screening and enveloped Jason in it so that he could not call for help. Then, quietly, methodically, Teray held the man conscious and beat him. Beat him until he begged Teray to stop, and on until he no longer had the strength to beg.

  Finally, Teray gave him a parting thought and let him lose consciousness. Touch another of my mutes, he sent, and you’ll find out just how gentle I’ve been with you.

  Jason passed out without replying. There was nothing permanently wrong with him, no physical injury at all. But Teray had made certain that he suffered at least as much as he had caused Suliana to suffer.

  Back in Teray’s room, Suliana was awake and eating ravenously. She looked up, frightened, as he came in, and he smiled to reassure her.

  “I thought I was going to have to carry you back to your room,” he told her.

  “I don’t have to go back to Jason?” Her voice was soft, tentative.

  “You don’t have to go back to Jason. Ever.”

  “I don’t belong to him anymore?”

  “That’s right.”

  She sighed. “Jackman said that once.”

  “I’m not Jackman
. And after the … discussion I just had with Jason, I don’t think he’ll bother you again.”

  She looked at him uncertainly, as though she still did not know whether to believe him. He could have set her mind at ease immediately, simply by directing her to believe, directing her even to forget Jason. That was the way mutes were usually handled. Teray preferred to let her find out for herself. He found himself unwilling to tamper with the mutes’ minds any more than he absolutely had to. They were intelligent. They could think for themselves if anyone ever gave them the chance.

  “If I don’t have to go back to Jason,” said Suliana, “why can’t I stay here?”

  Teray looked at her in surprise, then took a good look at her. She was small and thin—too thin, really. But she had an appealing, almost childlike kind of prettiness. And there had still been no one since Iray.

  “You can stay if you want to,” he said.

  She stayed.

  He worried at first that he might forget himself and hurt her, but he programmed himself by his Jackman memories, made the restrictions of his self-programming automatic. Suliana enjoyed the small amount of mental stimulation that she could tolerate, and Teray enjoyed her pleasure as well as his own. He had not made love to a mute since before his transition. He found now that mentally and physically he had been missing a great deal.

  The next day Suliana moved her few belongings to his room. Amber wandered up to check on her, saw that she was comfortably situated with Teray, and grinned broadly.

  “Just what you need,” she told Teray. “I thought you might take my advice.”

  “I wish you’d take mine and mind your own business,” said Teray.

  “I am. I’m a healer, remember?”

  “I don’t need healing.”

  She folded her hands tightly together and held them before her. “I hardly know you,” she said. “But as you damned well know, we’re like this in the Pattern”—she gave her folded hands a shake—“so when you lie to me, don’t expect me to believe you.”