Sheri Tepper - Awakeners 1 - Northshore

by Northshore(Lit)

"They're people, Joy. You wouldn't sit here drinking tea with them unless they were." She said this as she would have done to Delia, mistaking Joy. For Delia, perhaps, without realizing it.

  "In that sense, yes, they're people and my dearest friends, but you know what I meant." She turned away toward her wash basin, holding out the empty pail. "They aren't human people."

  Pamra forced her feelings off her face. She was living in the old woman's house, a good old woman, not unlike-not unlike another good old woman whom she had failed in a time of trouble. Let her not trouble this one more. As a guest, she had no right.

  But she felt a sympathetic rebellion for the lonely Treeci, even as she admitted to herself the loneliness might be more in her than in Neff. The rebellion in her was the same it had been when she was eleven or twelve, the same that had led her to say, "I can be an Awakener." She did not think of this, but only of the sad Treeci. His separation spoke to her.

  Among the Treeci, it seemed, hospitality must be returned. Two days later Joy dressed herself with unaccustomed attention digging through dusty boxes in search of old finery. She found a glittery scarf for Pamra, a shiny bit of ribbon for Lila's blanket, and they set out along the shore.

  "I suppose eventually you'll tell me where we're going?"

  "Well, Werf and Binna will expect us. Among the Treeci it's considered nice to drop by in a couple days so's they can show hospitality. They call it returning the opportunity. Very set on it, they are."

  "Why all this sparkle?"

  "Do them honor. You wouldn't have noticed, not being island reared, but they were got up fine for us the other day. Talons painted; feathers around the eyes dyed. They were making an opportunity to honor us-so they call it. Curious, I expect. About you and the baby. Not been a human baby on Strinder's for thirty years."

  Pamra found herself lost in wonder at this, not so much at the fact of it-another race of creatures upon the world with its own habits and customs, speaking not only its own language but a human language as well, curious about human babies-no, not so much at the fact as at her ignorance of it. How could she have grown to be adult without having heard of them? Why had no one spoken of them? And if no one had spoken of the Treeci, how may other wonders in the world might there be, unspoken of?

  Joy had something to say upon that subject. "My brother used to say all the Northshore people were so stuffed full of Awakener shit they hadn't room for anything else. Is it true they forbid books there?"

  It was true. Or true enough. There had been books in the Tower. Homiletics. Hermeneutics. Scripture. Difficult books breathing an atmosphere of dusty mystery, unenlightening. There had been no others. Without books, without travel, Pamra could explain her own ignorance. She could not really forgive it.

  The Treeci lived in houses, better kept and better made than those of the human occupants of the island, and there was a teahouse set in a grove where water burbled tranquil music into a stone basin. Young Treeci, half the size of the adults, gathered on the meadow in murmuring groups. Tea was served in ceremonial fashion. Pamra watched the others to see what was proper, getting through the formal bits with some degree of grace. When everyone had a cup, when every cup had been tasted and approved, when the nuts and cakes had been passed around and those had been complimented, then the group could sit back and indulge themselves in conversation. Joy had been right. It was curiosity. All the questions they had been too polite to ask on Strinder territory they felt empowered to ask on their own.

  "Is the child yours?"

  "Is it a customary child?"

  "We thought it was not a customary child. We believe she is t'lick tlassca." After some discussion, this term was translated as "wonder."

  "Yes," Pamra agreed with a rare smile. "She is a wonder."

  "Would Pamra stay long?"

  By this time Lila lay on Werf's lap, patting her feathery bosom with long, stretched gestures, murmuring her own legato music. Werf dripped tea into her mouth, and the baby smiled, an endless smile, like dawn.

  "Why had she come?"

  Without thinking to censor what she said, Pamra told them why she had come. Not all, merely some. Awakeners were part of the reason, and the Servants of Abricor. There was a sad murmuring, a shaking of feathered heads.

  "They were kin to us one time, those fliers of the Northshore. Those you call Servants of Abricor. We remember that time in our histories. There was a time when honor could have been retained. Our tribe, the Treed, chose the way of honor. They, those who remained, chose otherwise. There are certain words in our language which go back to that time which those on the Northshore no longer know. Words like 'decency.' And 'dignity.' It makes us sad what they have become." Werf shook her feathered head in sadness, widening the plumy circles around her eyes.

  Binna changed the subject, and Pamra kept quiet, abashed at the sadness she had caused.

  "We thought you might like to see some of our dancing," said Binna, nodding at a young Treeci, who went racing away with this message. In moments there were sounds of a drum and a rhythmic tinkling.

  From the teahouse the Treeci watched indulgently, even proudly. On the lawn the young Treeci sat, whispering, a few going so far as to point with wingtips, as though accidentally. Looking at these youths, Pamra could not tell whether they were male or female; they had no distinguishing colors, they were merely young. Perhaps there was a stage in development in which it did not matter, for all the young ones murmured together, moved about in giggling groups, walked with entwined fingers and heads tilted toward one another.

  The dancers, however, were all male. Pamra could feel it. They twirled and postured, stamped, wings wide with each feather displayed, chest feathers fluffed, those around the eyes widened into flashing circles. Their flat beaks had been rouged, their talons painted. Beside her Werf sat smiling, wing fingers tapping in time to the drums, eyes moist. Pamra followed the direction of her eyes. Werf's son, Neff, among the dancers, magnificent in his grace and strength, the dance itself stimulating, breathtaking. Without thinking, Pamra started to say something about this, some small, complimentary remark, only to feel Joy's fingers biting into her arm. Confused, she confronted the old woman's forbidding eyes with wide, excited eyes of her own. This, too, was not to be spoken of. Pamra pulled her arm away. She wanted to say something, do something. Her face was flushed, red; she could feel the heat in it, in her arms trembling with the music.

  Binna had been watching her. Now she said something loudly, a cutting metal sound, and the dance ended in a ragged cacophony of drum and bell. There was conversation then", apologies, a rapid murmur of polite talk covering the sudden end of the entertainment. Pamra did not understand it.

  Then they were on their way home. "Binna apologized," said Joy. There was sorrow in her voice, as though she had been given news of a grave illness or death.

  "For what? I don't understand."

  "For the dancing. They had not realized you would be--moved by it."

  "It was exciting! That's wrong?" Pamra wanted to laugh. "Isn't that the object of it all?"

  "No. Never. That would be unseemly." This, too, was forbidden ground. Joy would not talk of it further.

  Her reticence broke the fragile confidence that had been building between them. Now Pamra could not feel comfortable. Each remark had to be weighed for acceptability. There were too many areas of taboo. She began to take long walks, carrying the slow baby in her shawl, far down the shore toward the west, far into the forest toward the south, roaming the rolling island woods to pass the time and leave the old woman alone. Joy did not object. She seemed to have withdrawn from Pamra as though Pamra had been culpable of some social error that only time would dilute. Her feelings did not seem to convey disapproval so much as sorrow. It was easier for them both when they were apart.

  Once or twice she encountered Binna or Werf on her solitary walks. She transgressed politeness to ask them a few things about old times and the Servants of Abricor. They were not reluctant to talk, merely distres
sed by it, their pain so palpable that she gave it up. What she had learned from them was already a lumpish knot in her throat, confirming her knowledge that in the Tower she had been used and lied to.

  Pamra found a favorite place along the shore, high among a cluster of lichened stones. It was almost a little room, sheltered from the sky, with a tiny moss yard and minuscule pool of rainwater. Here Lila could lie for long hours on the moss, singing her drawn-out notes of gladness. Pamra merely sat, hypnotized by the sound and the River flow.

  It was there that Neff came.

  She arrived at her sitting place one afternoon to find a spray of flowers laid upon the moss, a delicate crimson bouquet tied with a knot of violet grass, the whole displayed as in a picture. Someone.

  From the top of the rock she searched the area. He was sitting on the River shore, face turned from her as though to make it easy for her not to see him. She did see him, and the frustration that had simmered in her for days brought a flush to her cheeks. She would not take part in this silly custom of silence when he had been so thoughtful. She waved, beckoned, called, "Come up!"

  He came leaping up the rocks in one flowing motion of power, posed upon the ridge in a posture so unconsciously graceful that she drew breath, belly clenching and loosing like a knot untied. "Artist's blood," they might have called such a feeling on the Northshore. "Artist's eyes," Thrasne would have said. She was not thinking of Thrasne; she was breathing deeply, almost unaware of her own body.

  She motioned to the rock across from her, a flat place with a convenient arm and back for leaning, her own favorite seat. He sat there, looking at her from enormous eyes. "You're Neff," she said. "Aren't you." He would not speak, she thought, unless she spoke to him first. "Yes," he said in his bell voice. "Neff!" "Your mother has been very kind to me. Won't you tell me something about that dance you did the other day? It was very beautiful."

  "Just the dance." He turned away in shyness, looking at her from one eye only. "The dance we do."

  "I see." She was at a loss. "We have no dances like that on the Northshore. At least none I have seen."

  "Tell me of the Northshore," he begged, the words tumbling over one another in their eagerness. "Tell me of the Northshore. There! Over there!"

  Poor thing, she thought with immediate sympathy. He's an explorer at heart. She told him about the Northshore. Wary of those subjects that caused discomfort, she did not speak of the Awakeners or the Servants of Abricor, but of more usual things. Festivals. The Candy Tree. Planting pamet and gathering the ripe pods. Fruit harvest in the puncon groves. As she spoke, she realized how little she actually knew of the life of the people. All her memories were of childhood, before entering the Tower. She could not share with him any memories after that.

  "The one who brought you, will he come back for you?"

  "Yes. He'll be back. When the boat is fixed."

  "Would you-would he let me see the boat?"

  "Haven't you seen boats before? Haven't you seen them when they come to pick up the dye shells?"

  "I mean, would he let me go on it? See it? See the inside of it?"

  "I'm sure he would." If those biddies will let you, she thought. "Would that be all right with the... others?"

  He shook his head, the edges of his beak flushing as though rouged. "Mother wouldn't let me."

  "We'll have to arrange it without her knowing, then." There it was, out in the open. Rebellion.

  He seemed frightened by this; frightened and stimulated at the same time. He stood, posing, stamped, extended his wings, looked at her flirtatiously out of one eye. Then she blushed, and he turned away, as suddenly shy. "That would be wonderful. Please. Do that." He jittered from foot to foot, finally murmuring, "I have to go now." He sped away down the rocks.

  "Neff," she called, unable to let him go. "Thank you for the flowers."

  "We give them like that," he called. "We Treeci. To our sisters."

  So then, she thought, half in amusement. I'm one of his family. So much for the old woman's distinctions. If he thought of Pamra as a sister, then it would be all right to talk to him. They did talk to their sisters.

  That night she got out the puncon jam. Jam seemed to loosen Joy's old tongue. Forbidden subject or not, Pamra wanted to learn about the Treeci.

  "The young ones," she said casually, "all appear to be about the same age. I didn't see any babies."

  "No, there won't be any babies for almost a year. They only breed one year in ten. My brother used to say it had something to do with keeping the population in balance. They don't have any more than the island can keep. Sensible of them, he used to say."

  "I didn't see any males among the children."

  "You probably did. Far as the Treeci are concerned, children are just children. Can't tell male from female till they get to be about fifteen."

  "So the one that came here, with his mother, he was over fifteen?"

  "Nineteen," said Joy, burrowing into the jam pot. "Nineteen last Conjunction."

  "You know that? So exactly?"

  "Well, of course. I know all Werf's children, have for years. She used to bring Neff and his sisters here from the time they were just hatchlings. I used to feed them nut cookies and play hide and go find with them in the woods."

  "But now you don't talk to Neff? After being his friend when he was a child?" She could not keep the outrage from her voice.

  The old woman pushed her chair back from the table, stood to confront her accusing look. "Girl, you're my guest and I'll give you guest rights, but don't lay your voice on me for things you don't understand. I never said I couldn't talk to Neff, being almost his mother and him as dear to me as my own ever were, I said you couldn't. I said to you before, they're not people. Not human people. You've got to give them their own way!"

  There were tears in the old woman's eyes, and it was that which softened Pamra. If she was already grieved over whatever it was, there was no point in adding to her grief. So. Pamra bowed her head in submission, making her apologies, promising not to bring up the matter again. It did not change her mind. Cruelty was cruelty. If Neff got pleasure out of making her an honorary sister, why, then she would be his honorary sister.

  At the end of thirty days, she began to make regular trips at dusk each day, looking for Thrasne's signal fires. More and more often during these excursions, Neff appeared, though he never did when one of the old people accompanied her. At other times during the day she would find flowers strewn in her path, a necklace of bright petals strung on grass, bouquets of herbs smelling of damp woods or sunny meadows. She began to look forward to the evening walks, began to slip away early without inviting Joy or Bethne or Stodder to come along.

  "Your man, he'll be back for you," said Joy.

  "I know he will. He said it might take a long time."

  "Thought you might be worried. You're spending so much time alone." This with a sidelong, questioning look.

  For several nights thereafter she invited the oldsters to come with her, paying particular attention to being chatty with them. Thereafter she included one or more of them every few days, merely to allay their concern, she told herself. No point in distressing them.

  "Tell me about the baby," said Neff. He would hold Lila for hours, fascinated by her leisurely, graceful movements. Pamra saw him trying to mimic them in dance, long, stretched extensions of wing and leg as though he would reach himself through into Lila's timeless world and make himself a place there. Often he danced for Pamra, without music, humming to himself in a strangely moving, unmelodic way.

  "What is that music?" she asked at last.

  "Just... just music. The music," he said, flushing. He had done that more in recent days, the red moving in from the edges of his beak toward the center. The feathers on his chest were turning crimson as well, and the wide, plumy ones around his eyes. When he looked at her like that, she wanted to hold him, tell him everything was fine. It made her ache for him.

  "Tell me of this man who hunts you!" he ask
ed.

  "How did you know about that?"

  "I heard Mother talking. They think the Awakeners are very cruel to raise up the dead, who should lie asleep. Also our kin, the Servants. They think them stupid, vicious, and cruel, also."

  Not more cruel than they, she thought, stroking the line of his jaw, the feathers of his chest. She could tell he liked having her do that, liked having her near him.

  "I suppose every group of people has its own cruelties," she said, wondering if he would say anything about his own treatment at the hands of his people. Remembering her own rebellion as a child, she could not accept his passivity. Perhaps it lay in the fact that all males were treated much alike; perhaps that made it seem less cruel. "Don't your friends miss you when you're off here with me?"

  "They are mostly alone. Besides"-he flushed-"I am a Talker. They aren't Talkers. Males aren't much. Only one in each thousand males is a Talker, they say." "You mean other males don't talk? Never did?" "They talk like everyone when they are children. When they grow up, though, talking goes. Except once in a while, one like me. It makes it harder."