The Revenants

by Tepper, Sheri S

  Silent as some furred tree-rat, Doh-ti eased down and around the trunk, onto a branch wider than himself, out of the hazing smoke. He peeked around the branch, alert to the sounds from below. In the thicket the animals stamped and squealed. Voices rose, and he strained to hear as the smaller of the two red robes spoke.

  ‘I listen to the air, Lord Protector. Across this world the servants of Gahl move south towards the centre of displeasure, toward Orena. Worms go south from the stone city. Your own creations, Lord, go south in their darkness. Our minions go in their thousands, in their hundreds of thousands.’

  ‘But they found nothing in the place below Gerenhodh.’ The voice was a cold one, full of brooding malevolence.

  ‘No, Lord Protector. It is likely there is nothing there to find. The singer came too late. They had gone.’

  ‘Gone. To Orena. As those others have gone.’

  ‘Yes. Lord.’ There was a long silence. Then the smaller one spoke again. ‘We know the world will fall into our hands, Lord, after Orena. Why, then, do so many of the black robes flee into the pits without our let? Why do the Separated places still give food to those outcast?’

  ‘You speak treachery. Heresy. There is scarcely a place west of the Veil which is not walled off. No standard of creatures in the world withholds a tithe of young to be adapted to our service.’

  The smaller figure seemed to writhe within its robes. There is much telling and listening among places thought sealed. There are black robes vanishing. There are things … that happen. Like Murgin.’

  The other voice answered with icy contempt. ‘You are forbidden to speak of that. Would you be valued by that if it knew you spoke so?’

  Any of the travellers would have recognized the voice. They had heard it from a rooftop in Byssa, as they prepared to flee that city. Any one of the Sisterhood would nave recognized it. They had heard it outside the Hill, speaking to Sybil. Doh-ti had not heard it before, but he would not forget it.

  The other took long to answer, staring for endless moments into the fire. ‘Does not that rely upon us, Lithos, to know what happens in the west? Does not that rely upon us to tell of reality?’

  ‘There is only one reality,’ hissed the cold voice. ‘There is only the reality that speaks of. There is only one goal, the bringing of all creatures to that reality. There is filth in the world. From that filth we salvage some. That is what you were, filth, salvage. The salvaged may become acolytes, or keepers, pursuivants, may even become Protectors, servants of that, as I am. There is only that reality, nothing else.

  ‘By your own words you convict yourself of not being. You are not. You never were.’

  Doh-ti blinked, blinked again. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the place across the fire. Below him, one figure drank deep from a steaming mug. Across the fire another mug lay on the ground. Tracks led to that place. None led away. In the grove of trees two strange beasts hissed and clicked their teeth. From the remaining figure came a whispered chant.

  ‘I am Lithos, true agent of that which is, unmaker of all which is not, which may not be. I am Lithos, destroyer of myth, unmaker of lies.’

  The figure rose and went away, riding on one beast, leading the other. Doh-ti, half frozen, crept down the tree and went to the place where he had seen the second figure. It seemed to him that a rolling mist gathered around the place, thin as gossamer, but he could not be sure. Shivering uncontrollably, he ran through the woods to find Thewson and the others, crying thin tears as he went, without knowing why.

  It says much for a stout heart in a small body that when he found Thewson at last, he did not forget to tell him of the burdened figure moving at the edge of the plain.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE DOG KING

  Days 26-28, Month of Thaw

  She had been gagged while still half asleep, wakened too late to make an outcry, hauled away with her stomach bouncing upon a bony shoulder, uncertain who it was that had her until she heard his voice. That began soon as he told her why he had taken her, and she heard the whispered obscenities with despair. He paeaned a libidinous hymn, wrapped her in licentious garlands of words. It was time, he said, to beget a successor to his rule, a new king for his people. The females among the warty men did not move him. Jasmine did.

  When they had come a sufficient distance, he took the gag from her mouth and nuzzled her face while she choked on bile. As soon as she could speak she told him that Thewson would come after them, that Thewson would skewer him on the great spear like a sausage. The dog king only lolloped his tongue from his mouth and looked sideways at her, running his hand paws along her bound arms. ‘You will become accustomed,’ he whined. ‘Oh, yes, you have not so long to live to become bored as we are bored. You will not live long enough to hate it much.’

  Jasmine rolled away from him and retched into the grass. Then there was an endless time of carrying and harrying, of climbing and clambering, and finally a cleft between two rocks to make a hidden place on a stony slope with him ripping at her clothing. Jasmine thrust his importunate figure away with all her strength, hissing at him.

  ‘It will do you no good, I say. I carry Thewson’s child.’

  For the first time since he had taken her, the dog king became quiet. He had not ceased in his lewd talk, but now he panted, scratched at his ear, his groin. ‘Well, well, then I will wait until it comes. One bite, then no more Thewson’s child.’

  Jasmine was silent, full of sick fury. The creature had untied her arms, but one ankle was still leashed. He stood over her even on her personal errands in the bushes. She wept. It did no good, for his obscene, whining talk went on. He would do this and this, she would feel that and that. At last she drew a deep, sobbing breath and began to talk, just to drown out his words. But she found that as long as she spoke, the creature was silent. That was reason enough for speaking.

  She spoke of her father. ‘A lovely, lovely man. He was not large. Not nearly so large as many who lived around Lak Island, but neither was he so small as to have no dignity. He was brown as oiled wood, with a round belly which stuck out of his shirt in the summer sun like a melon, hard and shiny. When we were very small we rubbed his tummy for luck, as we had seen people do with the old stone gods along the swamp road, and he said it was our rubbing made it shiny. I was the youngest, and I went on doing it long after Iacinth and Cissus had given it up and started behaving like young women. That was after mother was gone, of course. I hardly remember her, though my sisters always said they remembered her well.’ She stopped, musing, then began to talk again as the dog king shifted on his stone. ‘I was supposed to look most like her, thinner than either of the others, with smaller bones, more hair. But then, I had been born with hair though both of the others had been bald as eggs – or so everyone said.

  ‘The other thing about my father was that he could read. Not many of the farmers in Lakland could read. It wasn’t something they did, with every summer full from sunup to sundown and the winters fully occupied with mending of tools and tending of animals. Father had learned it somewhere, maybe by teaching himself. Whenever we asked him, he was full of winks and riddles, which makes me believe he learned it all alone. Nothing would do but that he teach all three of us, too, though it wasn’t considered womanly for farmwives in Lakland to read. As it was, I was the only one who paid that much attention, but I made up for the others, sitting in his lap for hours in the winter firelight while he read me stories out of old, raggedy books he traded for in Lak Island. I still have one of those books, a very little one, kept in memory of him. It seems more like him, somehow, than the things he made with his own hands. Those went to Iacinth and Cissus, anyhow, some as dowry, some with the farm. Well, the book is enough for me. It isn’t as though I would forget him, anyhow.’ She fell silent once more, her voice raw in her throat. There was quiet in the stone cleft, the dog king dozing over her leash. She let herself fall into a doze too, waking to speak again when her captor moved.

  ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to thi
nk he mistreated me or wasn’t fair. He was the fairest and kindest of men. It’s just that there were three of us, and girls do not get a husband in Lakland without a dowry. Why should they? If a man wants a woman, he can hire a female servant and keep her so long as he wants her. A wife, though, there’s no ridding of. At least, that’s the way things were thought of there. I’ve learned since that there are other ways of looking at things, but there weren’t any other ways when I was a child. As it was, Father scraped up a dowry for Iacinth and got her safely married off to the big, red-faced elder son of the water farmer in Dolcanal. That took care of Iacinth. He was starting to get the dowry together for Cissus when he fell ill. He didn’t know what it was, poor man, nor did we. It was something slow and wasting, and I remember his eyes in the firelight, lost and hopeless when he first began to realize there would not be enough time to do all he needed to do. Cissus and I did what we could. Yes, even I, only eleven and still not much bigger than a pet cat. It wasn’t enough. When the end came, I told him that I had had a vision of the future, that everything was shining and good in it, that I was well provided for. I don’t know if he believed me or not, but he smiled. That’s what I really wanted, to remember him smiling.’ She wept, wept into silence, looked up into the eyes of the dog king as he watched her.

  ‘So short a life,’ he said. ‘To care so much about things, little things. To fill life so full of caring – I cannot. I live too long. You will see … you will see….’ and he was off again.

  Jasmine interrupted firmly. ‘When he was gone, there had to be some man about the place. It was only fair that Cissus have the farm as her dowry – there was little enough there – and find a man to help work it. We made it up between us I would go into Lak Island and find some work. Girls my age did it all the time. I had the farm to come to on holidays or when things became too hard. It took only a short while of asking and I had a job as wash girl in a tavern near the canals. Wash girl isn’t a bad job at all. It pays little, but it’s clean work and not heavy. I did well, too, knowing how to read and do numbers. It wasn’t but a short time until Cissus found a husband, too, another of the stout, red-faced men Lakland is full of, one named Hahd who loved her dearly. Cissus is a kind, good person who deserves to be loved dearly.

  ‘I worked in the tavern for nigh on three years. What happened then couldn’t be prevented, I began to fill out. I filled out in the places most girls fill out in, though rather more and less in my case than in some. Also, I had learned to wash my hair and rub my hands with fat into which herbs were steeped. Living on a herb farm teaches you that, cleanly smells and good ones. It was rather my shape than my smell that got me into trouble, though, for the tavern-keeper (a kindly enough fellow, I’d always thought) began to make certain suggestions. I was interested not at all, but his wife didn’t care about that. She suggested that I find other work, and she wasn’t overly nice about it. Still, when I had cried a little, she patted me and said it wasn’t my fault. I think she was truly sorry. She took me to theatre street herself and introduced me to a dozen people, telling them I could do most anything that needed doing.

  ‘And that was the start of that. I learned to sew and set stage and do makeup. I learned to dance, at first a little, then more and more. I learned to act in little roles – nothing with singing in it, I cannot sing better than a crow, perhaps not quite so well. I did nothing indecent, for that would have disgraced my father’s memory. As it was, Cissus and Hahd came to the theatre once in a while and were not disgraced but were well amused.’

  She stood and moved about as much as her short leash would let her, swinging her arms to restore the circulation. They had been in the rocky cleft for hours, hours, with the stars wheeling slowly overhead. She thought it must be near morning and that she should sleep. The dog king dozed again. Her story had taken her, however, and she would tell it out, even if none heard it but the wind and the distant stars.

  ‘The theatre people were good people. There was much temper and loud talk and declaiming about nothing much, but the people were kind and hard-working. And it was hard work, harder than I could have guessed. It is not easy, learning plays and doing them over and over. I began to think about saving a dowry for myself, about going to another town and opening a store to sell books. Father would have liked that. I didn’t do it, though, and the reason was Hu’ao.

  ‘If I were saying it as the books do, I would say I lost my virginity when I was sixteen. However, I didn’t lose it at all. As I remember, I was eager enough to give it away, and the young actor who took it was eager enough to have it. Oh, I was full of tears when he went with his group on tour. It was only to be throughout Lakland, the smaller places, but in Estlak they decided to go a little further east to a city toward the Concealment. Well, no one in Lakland saw any of them again. I, well, I was lonelier than I’d ever been before. He was truly a heart’s love, though we had been together only a few weeks. I think that is why, that winter, I took up with the young soldier who came with a troop of Tachob for some kind of visit or other to the High Administrators. They were in Lak Island all winter, and I was with him most of that winter. When he left in the spring, saying he would return in the fall, I was pregnant with Hu’ao. An end to the dancing for a while that was, and a surprise. Somehow I had never thought of it.

  ‘Well, there was nothing to do but bear it, and I did. I went home to do it, for the comfort of a place well known and for being with Cissus. And she, having had three of her own by then, knew what to do and helped me. I stayed there until Hu’ao was weaned and then went back to town. I could not lie back upon Cissus and Hahd forever, kind though they were, and I was quite able to work again.’ Her voice went on, low, almost a monotone. High above, the sky lightened toward dawn.

  ‘So, Hu’ao went to the Temple to stay with the nuns there, except for times during the week, and holidays, and an evening now and then. They charged plenty for it, too, but it wasn’t begrudged by me for they kept her clean and well fed and happy. She grew to be such a love. It was strange, you know, that a year or two later I found myself always thinking of the young actor as her father and hardly remembering the soldier at all. And, even stranger, I could not remember the name of either of them but only the pet name I had had for my love and he for me. I still often wonder what happened to him on the road away from Estlak, whether he lives still, somewhere, or whether he was taken by the filthy Gahlians and turned into something I would rather not think of….

  ‘So, I went back to work, dancing again, and acting again, and going here and there meeting this one and that one. Hu’ao and I had three good years together, and then I fell sick. It was a disease all of Lak Island had that winter with chills and aching and bowels like water. When I went to pay what I owed for Hu’ao, months later, the old nun told me I might not have her again. Well. Why make a long tale of it? The cowardly magistrate who had pretended to be my friend let the Eldest Sister get away with her story – and it was a story, be sure of that. No more than a pat on the head and a pitying glance he gave me. What was there to do but go? Could I stay without hope of seeing my sweet girl child again? So I went. And now I think it was perhaps a good thing.

  ‘I got all the way to Hynath Port in one long, lonely year, and it was there Jaer bought me.’

  The dog king shifted uneasily, whined under his breath, cocked his ears toward the opening among the stones. Hastily, before he could speak, she went on.

  ‘When I saw her first, Jaer, she was only a girl, a nice wide-faced girl with brown eyes, much like Cissus. Then Jaer became a boy, and the feel of him next to me in the night was a little like my love again. Only when morning came there was a funny expression in his eyes, like Hu’ao when she got her hand caught in the honey-pot, not knowing what to do about it except that she wanted some. Medlo was eyeing the boy. He had the grace to blush. At that moment, Jaer only reminded me of Hu’ao.

  ‘Hu’ao, my own child, fleeing into the north with the nuns from Lakland. Where is she now? Does she rememb
er me? Oh, I would give much to hold her again….

  ‘And I am so tired, so tired while you sit there watching me with your red eyes, your ugly tongue hanging out of your mouth. Dog king, you will regret this stealing of me. Much will you regret….’

  The dog king flicked his ears in her direction, waited for her to go on, but she could not. She was slumped on the stones, too weary to say another word. He began his litany of lechery once more, his whining tale of what he would do, and do. It ended abruptly, the dog king thrust against a stone, breath driven from his body, his eyes rolling madly toward the huge shadow which loomed over him and thundered in Thewson’s voice.

  ‘What is it you will do, dog? What is it you will desire, dog? What is it you will say before you die, dog?’

  Then Jasmine was swept up in Thewson’s arms, the thongs stripped from her legs, to weep luxuriously on his shoulder. Daingol was there, tying the dog king with the same fetters which had bound her. Barstable Gumsuch was there, standing aloof in the shifting firelight to which he had led the bigger people with eyes sharpened by decades of tracking peddler’s animals. His eyes had been close enough to the ground to see tracks long after Thewson and Daingol had given up in the darkness. Dhariat was there with Jasmine’s boots in her hand and Jasmine’s cloak draped over one shoulder. Doh-ti and Mum-lil were there.

  And of all of them, it was Mum-lil, in the high, treble voice of a child, who called Thewson out of his anger.