Sheri Tepper - Jinian 03 - Jinian Stareye

by Jinian Stareye(Lit)

  `A little slow to be toilet-trained. That's all. Otherwise, perfectly fine. See, she's smiling at you.'

  I looked at the child. Its mouth was twisted in a grimace of pain. I started to say something, then stopped. The source of the pain was all too evident. Sores. Sores on its buttocks and between its legs. `It has sores,' I said, carefully neutral. `Do you have medicine or a Healer for those?'

  She shuddered, whispered, `Do not say "Healer." Father would not have a Healer here. As bad as midwives, Healers. There's powder on the shelf. Clean linen on the shelf. Washcloths on the shelf.' She herself was busy with another, even older. It seemed to be a boy - man, really a man, with hair on his face. Lying in his own excrement, on a soaked bed, his face turned upward without expression.

  I went back to my work. I had done worse. Not often, but on occasion. Burying was cleaner. Corpses were cleaner, even those half-decayed. When we were through, the six bodies in the beds were clean, too, and the filthy linens were piled high in a basket by the door. I leaned against a sill and thrust a window wide.

  `What are you doing!'

  `Airing out, Sister Servant. Getting rid of a little of the smell.'

  `It's the smell of service. Nothing to repudiate. Revel in it, Jinny, for it is a holy smell.'

  Holy shit, I thought to myself, wondering what madhouse Ganver had brought me to. Holy pee? - `How old is he?' I asked, pointing at the man she had worked on first.

  `Bobby? Why, Bobby's just a wee baby.'

  `He's large for a baby.'

  `Oh, in years perhaps he is. Thirty or forty, I suppose. But he's just a wee baby nonetheless. Slow. A tiny bit slow.'

  `When will he grow up, this Bobby?'

  `Oh, every day and every day. The therapist says he's growing up all the time.'

  `The therapist says that?'

  `Oh, yes. You'll have to meet Sister Servant Therapist. Well see her over breakfast. Now that the babies are all clean, we'll feed them, then we can have our own breakfast.'

  We could have our breakfast. When we had carried out the dirty linens, rinsed them in a stream, put them in kettles to be boiled over the fire, and spent an endless time spooning gruel into mouths or into gaping tubes that led into stomachs, we could have our breakfast. We assembled in the kitchen, all the Sister Servants and me. The smell of the dirty linens in the kettles was overwhelming. I could not eat. They did. I was introduced. I nodded at them over my teacup, pretending I had eaten earlier. Well, I had, sometime earlier.

  `Sister Servant says you're interested in Bobby.' This Sister was a little older, deep lines graven from nose to the corners of her lips, lips curved in a constant, meaningless smile. Habit held her face in that expression. She did not know how her face looked.

  I nodded, noncommittal. She took it for assent. `He's making such progress.' She made enthusiastic noises. `We're working on toilet training.'

  `Ah,' I said.

  `Teaching him to make a noise when he needs to. I sit by him, and then when he does, I make a noise. Eventually, he will learn to mimic the noise, then he'll associate it with doing it, don't you know, and that will be a help. If we have a little warning, we can get a pan under him.'

  `How long have you been working at this?'

  `On, only about ten years - isn't it about ten, Sister Servant Rejoice? Ten years. Bobby hasn't quite got the hang of it, but he will.'

  `Do you really feel there is sufficient intelligence there? To... ah, get the hang of it?' I had seen only a shell, a body without a mind. I wondered if my eyes had tricked me.

  `He makes progress,' she said stiffly. `Every day. It doesn't matter that he's a little slow. He's a unique, valuable fruit of St. Phallus. Father says it doesn't matter whether it takes one year or a hundred. Every fruit of St. Phallus is sacred.'

  I smiled, nodded. They were all looking at me intently, too intently. Sister Servant Rejoice was holding a bread knife, turning it and turning it in her hands as she looked at me, something deep and violent in her eyes. `Of course,' I said. `That's very true.' Sister Servant Rejoice laid down the knife. I breathed a silent sigh. `I'd love to hear Father talk. He sounds very eloquent.'

  This was the right thing to have said. They told me about Father, about the several Fathers. A few of whom were present in the priory. The rest of whom were out in the world, seeking out special fruits of St. Phallus to bring them to the Sanctuary. `And more Sister Servants,' sighed Rejoice. `We need more of us.'

  `Don't presume,' said Sister Therapist. `Father says don't presume. We don't need any more of us than there are, Father says. "Sufficient unto the duty are the Sisters thereof." That's what Father says.'

  `I suppose the Fathers could always help,' I said innocently.

  `That would not be fitting,' said Sister Therapist. `They have higher duties than ours.'

  I went again with Sister Rejoice, from room to room, place to place. I talked with Sister Therapist.

  `It is my duty to structure the children's day,' she said, her voice wavering between pride and exhaustion. `Each of the holy fruits of St. Phallus has his own program. The children in this building are being toilet-trained.'

  `Can any of them walk? Crawl?'

  She shook her head, making a sour mouth at me. `Each thing in its time. After they learn one thing, then we will teach another. Those in the next building are learning to crawl.'

  `Ah. And when they have learned to crawl, what then?'

  She seemed doubtful. `We have one or two in the building by the stream. They learned to crawl long ago and now are learning to feed themselves with their hands. It would be easier if they were not so frail.'

  `Frail?'

  `Well...' She looked around herself, whispering, `There are only two. And one of them is over eighty years old. She has forgotten her toilet training now, but

  I have refused to bring her back here.' One evidently did not discuss the age of their charges; to do so required a whisper.

  I said nothing. I could say nothing. Back in Stoneflight Demesne I had had a neutered fustigar named Grompozzle. Grommy for short. It had taken me exactly six days to house-train him. He had known how to feed himself from birth. I looked at the beds around me, stinking again, the odor permeating the very stones of the place. I thought I very much wished to meet Father.

  The day went on. It went on in the same way. Sister Therapist sat by Bobby, grunting whenever she smelled him. Sister Rejoice cleaned shit and pee out of endless bedsheets. Sister Someone Else spooned gruel into mouths that would not open or would not shut, down throats that would not swallow. I watched as long as I could, then went out into the forest to hit trees. I waited for Ganver, but Ganver didn't come.

  Nighttime did. Along toward dusk, a bell rang, and the Sisters left the buildings in procession, single file, winding through the woods toward a tall lamplit building with an arrangement of bell tower and chapel to one side. I followed them and filed in behind them, me being invisible as taught by the seven. To no avail, for one of the hawk-eyed men who sat in the tall chair at the front of the place saw me in the instant. His face was lean, very handsome, very stern. His eyes gleamed like a were-owl's sighting prey when he sighted me.

  The Sisters sang, not very tunefully. I couldn't blame them. They were tired, dispirited, and they smelled. No matter how clean they tried to be, the poor things couldn't help it. They did smell.

  The tallest Father preached. He stood before us in robes of gleaming white, surrounded by the smoke of sweet incense, fondling his groin from time to time as he talked of St. Phallus. St. Phallus loomed behind the altar, erect, massive, as though ready to rape the world.

  It was not the first such monument I had seen. Wherever men were ignorant and hungry for power, I had seen these things, though never one as large as this. Father fondled his groin and preached.

  `Holy fruit of St. Phallus,' he said.

  `Clean seed planted in filthy ground,' he said.

  `Corrupted by dirty woman-wombs,' he said.

  `Sisters aton
e for being women by being Servants,' he said. The Sisters nodded, a few of them weeping. I wondered how old they had been when they were brought here. After the service, I asked Sister Servant Rejoice. She thought she had been around eight years old.

  `Why did you decide to come to the Sanctuary?' I asked, wondering why anyone would.

  `I didn't decide,' she said, astonished. `Oh, no, I was only a filthy woman-child. Father decided. He took me from my people; he brought me here. He saved me. Oh, I fought him, too. Threatened to run away. Father had to tie me up for a long, long time. He had to whip me before I would settle to my duty. Bless Father.'

  `Oh, yes,' I agreed. `Bless Father indeed.'

  From behind us in the clean, sweet-smelling place. Father watched me walk away, his intention clear in his face. I went in the front door of the other building, down to the kitchen to get my pack, and out the back door. Jinian was young and strong. Jinian could be tied up and whipped until she, too, settled to her duty. Jinian had no intention of allowing that to happen.

  In the woods, from a high ridge of stone behind some bushes, I watched the place. Sure enough, it was not long before Father and two or three of his ilk came along, one of them carrying what looked very much like shackles. What was it Ganver had said, `Watch and learn'?

  Learn what? What question had I asked? Ah, yes. I had asked what the star-eye means.

  So I settled there upon the ridge, listening with some curiosity to the shouting going on below, the running

  about, the muffled scream of some Sister as she was slapped for letting me get away. I sat staring at the star pendant Tess Tinder-my-hand had given me. A star. With an eye in the center.

  An eye. Looking out.

  A star shape. With an eye, looking out.

  Looking away.

  Away from its own shape.

  Toward... ?

  For a moment I thought I had it, but then it eluded me. I knew it was there, in the shape, in the lesson, but I couldn't quite reach it. I struggled for a long time, chasing the thought as I might a fish in shallows, but each time it slipped through my fingers.

  Then, because I felt great sorrow for the Sister Servants and pity for the flesh they tended, which mercy would not have kept alive, I did Inward Is Quiet upon all the mindless creatures that lay in the beds in those buildings below. Inward Is Quiet in the imperative mode. Forever. They would not need to be cleaned or fed again. I wondered how the Fathers would react to that. Almost I wanted to stay to find out, but Ganver returned about that time. I looked up from my work to find the Eesty watching me.

  `Have you seen?' asked Ganver.

  `I've seen what's down there, yes. I'm afraid it doesn't explain the star-eye to me, Ganver. And I can tell you, I hate this memory.'

  `Oh,' said Ganver. `This place is not part of the Maze. This place is real. It has been thus for a thousand years. These genital worshipers live well, and they are not encumbered by too much work. They have their Servants.'

  `It need not be thus much longer,' I told the Eesty, `I can set a few spells upon it to try the philosophy of those who enslave these women.'

  Ganver looked at me very keenly. `You may punish these men, surely, for what it is they do, but they will not profit from it. Think what you do!'

  Without answering, I opened my pack, took out certain things I needed. I was not truly listening to Ganver. The evil of the place was too much with me. I could not bear it.

  I made a little image with a little phallus, dressed it in a bit of white fabric from my shirt, incensed it with sweet gum and resin. I named it. `Father,' I called it, bathing it in the sweet smoke. Then I melted its little phallus away in the fire. I did Dream Chains to Bind It to include all the Fathers, no matter where they were. `You must find another saint to worship, Fathers. You no longer have the symbol of St. Phallus to comfort you.' I wondered how they would handle that.

  I put things away in my pack, suddenly uncomfortably aware that Ganver still stood there, staring at me, saying nothing. It made me self-conscious, embarrassed, and for the first time I began to consider what I had done, casting about for an explanation.

  `Think, Jinian," Ganver murmured at me. The voice was hypnotic, compelling. `Think what you do, how you feel, what you have just done. You have been angry. You sought something which was not there. Because it was not there, you punished certain creatures for its lack. Why, Jinian? Will you punish a gnat because it cannot sing? You will not have the power of the star-eye until you understand these things.'

  It came back to me then, all in a flash, standing there in that dark forest with the scent of the resins still in my nostrils. I remembered where I had heard the star-eye mentioned recently before. By the Oracle. In the cave of the giants. The Seer had looked at the star-eye on my chest and had suggested the Oracle take it from me. The Oracle had refused, saying it was only a symbol, that it had no real power. I mumbled something about this, trying to put that notion together with what had just happened. Ganver, hearing me, gave a high, keening sound, like weeping - or terrible laughter.

  I tried to comfort it. `Ganver, Ganver, do not grieve so. The Oracle is only a foolish thing...." Which seemed only to make the matter worse. I could not tell what it was that grieved Ganver so. It was all part of that star-eye puzzle which it kept trying to teach me without telling me anything helpful at all.

  After a long time, we left the place and went elsewhere.

  Six

  Peter's Story: The Bright Demesne

  I used the flying shape - which had worked quite well previously - to get as far as the mountainous scarps south of Bannerwell, stopping for the night when dark, weariness, and the chill air of evening made it imperative. There were farms along the shelving mesa lands, and I bought my dinner at one of them with civil words and appropriate coin. The shape I took was a nothing-much minor functionary type; harmless, as I thought that would do best and be least threatening in this isolated place. They fed me middling well and offered me a bed, but the pawnish farmer had a glint to his eye that boded ill for a sleeper's safety, so I smiled and made conversation and got myself off into the forest. I had been gone but a half league and was well hidden in the brush when he came sneaking along after with a bludgeon on his shoulder. I spent a little effort to Shift and gave him a pombi scare to last him some years. He may have stopped running in Bannerwell.

  Next day took me a little south of southeast down the range to the cliffs above Long Valley and a dinner hunted by me in fustigar shape and eaten raw. From there it was a mere skip of the wings over the hills to Lake Yost. A high scarp lay at the northwestern end of the lake, and from it I could see the Bright Demesne across the waters. It was a good vantage point, but not good enough to make out details. Also, I did not wish to make any decisions until full day, considering what Mertyn had said about shadows.

  When time came for the last lap, I flew slow and low and careful, among trees or down canyons, glad I had done so when I came out at last on the eastern edge of the hills. I thought at first a thunderstorm had gathered over the lake, so gray and dismal it was, then understood what I saw with some dismay. Before spying it out, I spent some time arranging myself to be unobserved: finding a rock nest set behind foliage and with a good overhang and camouflaging myself to discourage detection. Not that they were looking for me, but one could not be too careful. That was a Jinian thought. Three years ago I might not have considered it.

  The Bright Demesne lies on the shore of Lake Yost. Middle River flows into the lake slightly to the north of the Demesne, and there is a bridge there. East are forests and the meetings of the roads to Vestertown and Xammer. South are farmlands reaching away for leagues until the forests begin again, and other ranges of mountains.

  The Demesne is surrounded by hot springs. Even the hills behind me showed the remnants of old cones. This place had once been alive with fire pots and volcanoes, many thousand thousand years ago, so had said Windlow, the old Seer and teacher. Now only the hot springs remained, they and an occ
asional wisp of smoke or steam rising from a cone to the south of the High Demesne, where King Prionde and the Ogress had reigned.

  So, one expected the Bright Demesne to be surrounded by clouds of waving mist; it is one of the charms of the place. In the cold seasons it is more than charming, for then the great house and the dormitories are pleasantly warm while otherwhere people go shivering about their business. The steam is white, however, and the cloud that now seemed to cover the Demesne was gray as ash.

  Until recent years the Demesne had had no walls. It was Barish who had convinced Himaggery they wero needed, and the Tragamors of the Demesne-who had built them - together with a hundred or so skilled pawnish craftsmen recruited from the countryside around and well paid for their work. Now the walls stretched in a loop from the lake eastward, southward, and then west to the lake again, including all the hot springs except one small one that steamed away to itself in isolation quite far to the north east. I had always called that one the `Porridge Pot,' for it plopped and mumbled away to itself as the morning grain did over the kitchen fire. (Forgive me for going on and on about the setting, but you will not understand the siege unless I tell you.)