Sheri Tepper - Awakeners 1 - Northshore

by Northshore(Lit)

  She could not bear the thought. The safest one to ask seemed to be old Stodder. "Is it true the male Treeci can't talk?" "Oh, they can talk. They just don't much." "What do you mean, they don't much?" "They just lose interest, that's all. I suppose they figure why talk if you don't have to?" This seemed to her to be Stodder's own philosophy. She seldom heard him speak unless asked a direct question.

  Upon examination, his comment made some sense. During visits to the Treeci village, Pamra noticed how cosseted the males really were. Why would they talk when every need was met before they had a chance to utter it? Each one had a circle of children seeing to his grooming, his food, his drink. Every male had a mother, sisters.

  Though she went to the watching place each evening, there were still no signal fires. Stodder counted the days until Conjunction and remarked that the Gift of Potipur would likely not come until after the flood tides. "Thrasne's a good boatman. He won't risk the Gift."

  "Do you really think he won't come until after the flood tides, Stodder?"

  "Ah, girl, he could still get here. Don't leave off looking for the fires. Just don't be disappointed."

  Was she disappointed? Did she care if Thrasne came soon or late? What were they to one another, after all? She frowned at this new consideration. It was an uncomfortable thought because she should have been able to answer it and could not. She didn't know. "Does he love me?" She whispered the question, looking for the answer in Lila's eyes, which lightened almost imperceptibly into a smile. "Does Thrasne love me?" Suddenly she thought of things he had done, gifts he had given. Was that why?

  What did the question mean? If he did or not, what difference did it make?

  She wrapped herself warmly in a heavy shawl and went to the rocks with Bethne, seeing nothing on the Northshore, hearing nothing but the usual shush of wind and River sounds. They turned to walk back along the ridge in the dusk, the light of Potipur casting a ruddy glow along the slopes, making black pits of shadow. In a clearing at the foot of the hill, there were two Treeci dancing, male and female. "Beautiful," whispered Pamra. "Look, Bethne. Look how beautiful."

  The male Treeci called plaintively into the dusk; the female responded, the two voices like a duet, sweeter than one could bear.

  "What are they saying?" Pamra stopped, straining to hear, until Bethne tugged her along.

  "Come along. It isn't polite to listen in. What he's singing is 'Tell me of my children... ' It's a song the young males sing. So she sings to him of his children, how strong and graceful they will be."

  "Tell me of my children," Pamra mused. Sentimental, that. Unlike Neff. He was all "tell me," but about a hundred other things.

  "Tell me about the South shore."

  "Neff, no one knows anything about the South shore. Maybe people went there once, but no one does now. Thrasne says the World River is twenty-four hundred miles wide, and no one goes farther out than Strinder's Isle. All the measurements are in the old chart-of-towns. That amazes me, but it's true."

  "Are there Treeci there?" "For all I know there could be." "I could get there, in a boat. With a sail." "Why would you want to do that?" "I just thought of it, that's all." He rose, jittering, unable to keep still, pulled her up to dance with him. This was new, their dancing together. When they were exhausted by it, they lay curled in the moss bed side-by-side, she stroking his feathered chest, dreamy and quiet.

  "You are my sister," he said. "Aren't you. It's all right for me to be here. You really are my sister."

  "Of course," she choked. "Of course I am."

  The next evening Pamra and Joy found the approach to her lookout place ankle deep in water. "Conjunction," said Joy, measuring the water with her eyes. "Moons are pulling that water right up here, aren't they. Well, if Thrasne doesn't get back for you in the next few days, he won't come until low-water-after-the-moons. There's no place to tie up for long at the west end. He'll have better sense than to try."

  Pamra tried to feel disappointment. The feeling would not come. She was not concerned. Not upset. All it meant was she would have more time with Neff. More time to dance, to sing, to lie together in the dusk watching the moons move among the stars. He had become so beautiful in recent days. Because of their friendship, she told herself. Because he had someone to talk to.

  "Only ten days or so to Conjunction," said Joy, saddened by some recollection, some nostalgic connection that Pamra could not follow. "Think I'll go over to the village tomorrow to visit... Werf. Few days she'll be too busy."

  "I'll go with you."

  "No. No, just a friendly visit between Werf and me, I think. Two old friends. You can visit later. After Conjunction. There'll be plenty of time. Thrasne's not going to get here before."

  The drums began to sound nightly, throbbing like hearts, like bruises, like the pulse in wounds, painfully immediate. Joy stood at the window, listening, tears standing in her eyes. "Memories," she said abashedly, wiping the tears away. "So many memories."

  Of her childhood, Pamra thought. Of her young womanhood, of her children. Sad to be old and almost alone with only these other-people for company; sad to think of their children as one's own because one has none of one's own.

  Still the drums. Pamra put Lila in a shawl and started to go visiting.

  "No," said Joy. "You wouldn't be welcome."

  "I thought I'd just watch the dancing."

  Joy didn't speak.

  "It's their religious time," said Bethne. "Their farewell time."

  "The old year?" Pamra asked, unwillingly taking off her shawl, remembering the celebrations of her childhood when they said farewell to the old year and welcome to the new.

  "Something like that," said Bethne.

  Neff came earlier each day. He was thinner, fined down to pure muscle and bone, light as reeds in the wind. "All the dancing," he explained. "I haven't been hungry."

  She tested this, bringing cakes, bringing tea in a bottle. He drank the tea thirstily but gagged at the cakes. "Too much dancing."

  She worried about him as he lay in her arms, eyes shut in sleep. And yet he didn't look at all unhealthy but vital and alive, his beak bright red along the edges, the feathers on his neck and chest turning a brilliant crimson. He had never asked so many questions, had so many things he wanted her to tell him. He seemed to want to be with her so much it was an agony to leave him and return to the house.

  "We must have festival," exclaimed Joy. "We must have a celebration of our own! I haven't made a festival dinner for twenty years. With Pamra and Lila here, we must! With wine! We'll open up the big front room we used to use!"

  Pamra found herself drawn in, involved, sent scurrying here and there for everything imaginable, pulled in to help with long, detailed recipes. There was something a little frantic in the way Joy set herself to this task, as though she wanted terribly to remember, or to forget. Or perhaps it was only to make a festival for Lila. Festivals were for children, after all. The Candy Tree. That was for children.

  On conjugation evening, Pamra went to the lookout rocks, watching for Neff, seeing no sign of him. Well, she told herself, he couldn't come. Not until after Conjunction. With the water this high, it was sure that Thrasne wasn't going to be signaling, either. Still, she climbed the rocks one more time.

  There were flowers on the stone. She went on to the mossy place, holding her breath, to find him there, already there, moving like a windblown cloud in a tiny circle. "Pamra," he sang to her in a voice unlike his own. His eyes were so bright she thought he might be drugged. "Pamra, tell me about the River."

  He wouldn't wait for her to tell him anything, wouldn't let her sit down. "Tell me about the Towers. Tell me about fishing." He wanted to know everything, couldn't sit still to listen to anything. "I have to go back."

  "Come again tomorrow, Neff. I'll wait for you tomorrow."

  "Come again tomorrow," he cried. "Oh, Pamra, tell me of my children... "

  Her mouth fell open in surprise, but he did not wait to be told. He fled, leaving the
smell of himself behind, a rich fragrance that made her breathe as though she had been running. When she returned to the house, her trousers were wet between her legs. She washed herself at the spring, hanging the clothes out to dry, drying herself in the wind. Her nipples were hard, like little stones. She had never felt them like that, so painful. She put her hands over them, trying to soften them, but it only made them worse. She should have been cold in the wintery wind, but she was warm, fiery, alive with the dance. It was the drums, she knew, the hectic batter of the drums, like her own heartbeat gone mad.

  The oldsters made their festival dinner, scattered the seeds of the Candy Tree upon Lila's cot, sang festival songs in quavering old voices, unsure of the words. There was wine, more of it than was good for any of them, Pamra felt, repeatedly emptying her own glass out the window, only to have it refilled solicitously by Joy. Then it was over. They had exhausted themselves as if purposely, worn themselves fine and dry so they could only fall into their beds.

  "You'll sleep, won't you?" asked Joy, nodding with weariness, half-drunk. "You will sleep."

  Pamra yawned. Of course. Even without the wine, she would sleep.

  In the deep dark she woke, sitting straight up in the bed, hearing Lila stir beside her, where she, too, had heard the sound. Pamra had not heard it before but knew in the instant what it was. Neff's voice calling in the night, bell-like, insistent, reverberating with an inexpressible vitality. "Come. Come. I'm waiting for you." Farther off were other such sounds, other such calls. Come, come. She heard only Neff, disregarding the others as so much noise.

  She threw a cape over her nightdress, sandals on her feet, went out into the night, three moons from the top of the sky casting diffused shadows under every tree. "Come," he called. "Come." The voice came from the woods, from the meadows deep in the woods. She began to run, wondering what wonderful thing he had found to be calling so, her breath eager in her throat and her skin burning. She had never run so before, never so long and tirelessly, never run before without pain or effort.

  Trunks of trees going by, dark and light, masses of moon and shade, splashing of stream shallows, silver fountains beneath her feet, meadow grass dotted with pale faces of winter-blooming flowers. "Come." A hillside of moss velvet. "Come."

  Far to her left another voice called, and across the valley before her a figure ran toward that voice, wings extended as though to fly, feet seeming scarcely to move as they skimmed the grass. Two met; two danced. There were angels alive in the night. Treeci.

  "Come!" He danced upon the hilltop, posed in glory, silver and black in the light of the moons, head back, caroling, bell sound on the hill, voice of joy. "Come!"

  She ran toward him, panting now a little, wondering what marvelous festival this was, what occasion called the Treeci out into the night, remembering only then that it was Conjunction. Of course. A second celebration.

  He turned, seeing her, eyes wide in their circles of feathers, wider yet as he realized who it was ascending the hill. "No," he cried, a wounded sound. "No. No."

  What did he mean? She paused, puzzled at this denial, stopping short when he threatened her with widespread wings. She could see him clearly now, feathers on his abdomen spread wide to disclose a pulsing, swollen organ on the bare skin, black in the night, oozing silver. "No," he begged.

  She went toward him, her thighs sliding slickly, wetly on one another. "Neff? It's Pamra. Neff?"

  An agonized cry from him as he clasped her, his body beating against her, one thrust, two and three, breaking away only to close again, then away, this time really away to flee down the hillside faster than she could pursue him, no longer calling, now only crying, more like a child than an adult. She stared after him stupidly, brushing at the front of her cape, where the copious jet of sticky fluid clung, slowly, very slowly flushing as she realized what had happened, what she had been too preoccupied with her own feelings to see.

  "Mating," she whispered to herself, aghast. "It's their mating time. Oh, by Potipur, but I've shamed him and myself." Sudden tears burned hotter than her skin, and all at once she felt the cold.

  She trudged homeward, a longer way than she could have imagined, trying various apologies in her head, how she would say it, how she would rectify the situation. Her cape stank of his juices, a smell as wild as the woods themselves. She would have to wash it. When she returned to the house, however, she could only fall into bed, leaving the cape where she dropped it beside the door.

  She was wakened by Joy shaking her, shaking her, screaming at her. "What have you done, damn you, Pamra, what have you done?"

  She sat up stupidly, drawing the blanket over her breasts as though against attack. "What... what do you mean?"

  "Did you go out? Last night? You didn't go out. Not with all the wine 1 gave you. You couldn't have. No. You couldn't have done that to him. He was my son, like my own son."

  "I woke up." Pamra cowered, trying to explain, still half-asleep. "I intruded. But I didn't hurt him. I'm sorry. How in hell did you find out, anyhow?"

  "I smelled it. Smelled it. On your cape. That smell. Oh, stupid, stupid, selfish, unhearing, unheeding stupid girl." She was weeping too hard to talk, weeping herself away, out of the room, leaving Pamra to stare foolishly at the door. In the cot beside the bed, Lila made a sound of pain, a creaking agony. Pamra pressed her hands over her ears, willing not to hear it.

  It was Bethne who came to her about noon. "Joy asked me, to have you pack up your things. Food in the cart. Stodder'll help you take it down shore to the west end. Joy'd rather you weren't here. Makes it too hard for her."

  "Bethne, I told her I was sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. Where is Joy? Why doesn't she tell me herself?"

  "Look, girl, I'd have just thrown you out. I might have killed you. Didn't she tell you not to talk to that Neff? I know she did. I heard her say so."

  "He thought of me as his sister. He said so. They can talk to their sisters."

  "Sure they talk to their sisters. That's so their sisters recognize their voices and have the common decency to stay away from them on the night. You didn't have the decency to listen to Joy, and you didn't have the decency to stay away from him, either. Now he's gone, wasted, all for nothing."

  "Gone? Away?"

  "Gone. Dead. Lying on the funeral woodpile down there in the village, all dressed in his pretty feathers, all spent. All the pretty males. Dancing, dancing, all danced out, mated out. I've thought about it sometimes, how it would be. Knowing it would all go so fast, all in a few years, a few days. Losing friends, losing words, becoming what they are at the end. No wonder they comfort themselves by asking their sisters to tell them of their children. Remember! I told you about that. 'Tell me of my children!' Did Neff ever say that to you? Probably not. He was a Talker, poor little tyke. Talkers shouldn't have to go through it. They want to know so bad. He wanted to know so much...

  "No one to tell him of his children, now no children. Him gone. His seed gone. His line gone."

  The old woman was crying. "He was like a son to Joy. Like her own son."

  "I'll go there. I'll explain."

  "Oh, stupid girl, stay away from them. They're singing now. They'll sing each name, and some young Treeci girl will stand up and sing that she carries the children of that one. They'll sing Neff s name, and there'll be no one, no one at all, but that's better than having it be you, you stupid human, trying to explain!"

  Bethne cried herself away. Pamra crouched on the floor, unable to move, to think. Dead. Unable to move. Dead. The smell of him was still in her nostrils, the sight of him dancing.

  Tell him of his children.

  12

  Apprentice Melancholic Medoor Babji accepted a fat copper coin from her weeping victim, gave the paunchy snop a dozen halfhearted strokes of her fish skin whip, then put a glass Sorter coin into the sweating merchant's palm.

  "May the Sorters accept the pain you have already borne as payment for your sins," she singsonged in formula, slipping the merchant's
warm metal into her own jingling purse. Medoor's purse was almost as stout as the merchant, full of the coin paid for whipping Northshoremen across a hundred towns this season before ending here in Chantry.

  "Amen," said the merchant, wiping his eyes. Though why he should weep, Medoor could not say. Medoor had not struck him hard enough to get through the lard to anything essential, a fact brought forcibly to Medoor's attention by her Leader, Taj Noteen, who came up behind her and cuffed her across the back of her head.

  "The man paid you, Babji! Put some muscle into it! What's all this patty-pat, as if you were playing with a baby?"

  "He was such an old fart," Medoor responded, knowing it was the wrong thing to say.

  "So much more in need of Sorter compassion!" The leader leered at her, daring her to say anything more, an invitation Medoor sensibly refused. She knew as well as Noteen did that Sorters, Sorter compassion, and Sorter coin were all equally mythological, but it was Melancholic policy to appear to believe in the myth, at least when moving among the shore-fish-so-called because the townees schooled at the edge of the River, waiting to be caught, just as song-fish did in the waters along the shore.