Northshore (11 page)

Ilze snorted. Why was it they all thought reproaches gained anything? He fingered in his purse for the smallest coin possible, summoning a servitor. ‘Give this to the singer.’ He smiled. ‘Tell him his song is pretty, but boring.’

He stayed to see the message delivered, delighting in the
bonelike pallor that suffused the boy’s face and the tears swimming in his eyes. Stupid. He would end as a living worker, a felonious boy-lover brought to justice. Ilze considered turning him in. No. Not yet. Perhaps later, when he needed amusement.

The boy picked at his instrument, sang again, sadly:

After lunch there was pretty little Seesa, the fish merchant’s wife. The fish merchant had been one of those who moved away in a tavern while making some ostentatious statement about the odor in the place. He and his wife had since learned how dangerous such an impudence could be. Now they took no license with Ilze whatsoever, though the lesson had taken them some time to learn – an interesting time for Ilze. Seesa’s submissiveness bored him now. Soon he would find another woman or another boy. What he needed he could not find among colleagues in the Tower – that is, not yet. When Pamra came to senior status, perhaps then. With her naivete she would not know she was allowed to refuse him. Until she learned that, perhaps he could enjoy her. In anticipation of that day, he had never whipped her, though the thought of her body tied to the stake made him grunt explosively at odd times, his penis twitching in spasms almost like orgasm.

He returned to the Tower very late. There were no juniors at the trough, none who had been with the workers enough to need the cold ritual bath, and it was not required of seniors. He passed it by, humming, not dissatisfied with the day, a little puzzled at the unusual buzz of conversation in the junior dining hall, the air of mystery. The puzzlement gave way to amazement and then to baffled anger as he learned that Pamra seemed to be involved in some strange occurrence. Pamra! Obedient as any dog from the first day, with only that dazzling beauty to make him hold his hand! Never even whipped, and now this?

No one seemed to know what had happened. She had not returned from the forest, and the worker pit was empty. No one had known about the workers until late in the day. Each Awakener had assumed that other juniors, rising earlier, had taken what workers there were. There were shortages from time to time when the people of Wilforn obstinately refused to die. Or, as Pamra would have said, ‘when most of those who died were good ones who were Sorted Out.’ Ilze snorted, remembering, a slow, hot anger beginning to build in him. It was very late, unexplainably late, and she had not returned. No one had seen her.

By morning it was assumed Pamra and the missing workers were connected. There were only half a dozen new workers in the pit, scarcely enough to keep one Awakener busy. The work at the Tower would be disrupted for weeks. There was a feeling of unease in the place, a whispered buzz of conjecture and secretive hissing of words like heresy and conspiracy. The day wore slowly on, and the Superior did not put in an appearance.

Ilze received the message at the evening meal. It was delivered by the Superior’s own servant, veiled, silent Threnot, she who spoke no word except what she was told to say by the Superior. ‘Now?’ asked Ilze. Threnot gestured toward the stairs. He laid his napkin down and followed her, feeling a twitch of fear, an uncustomary emotion, one he did not like.

They stood outside the heavy door at the head of the stairs, waiting for a response to Threnot’s tapping. Though he had spoken often with the Superior in her office on the ground floor of the Tower, Ilze had been summoned to the Superior’s personal rooms only three times before. Once to receive senior status from her hands. Once to be commended for zeal in recruitment. Once to be assigned the supervision of a clutch of juniors, Pamra among them. He knew this summoning had to do with Pamra. It had to be. He wet dry lips and entered behind Threnot, eyes downcast in appropriate humility before the throne. The Superior
wasn’t alone, but he would not risk looking up to see who else was there.

‘Ilze.’

He bowed deeply, waiting.

‘One of your juniors has disappeared.’

‘So I heard this evening, Your Patience.’

‘The one in which you found such amusement.’

‘Amusement, Superior? I’m sorry, I—’

‘At her naiveté. So I am told. You were most amused at Pamra, a true believer. Such is the gossip among the seniors. Never mind, I have been amused at naivete in my time. I am told the old woman who reared her went east.’

‘I was not told so, Superior.’ The other figure in the room shifted impatiently from foot to foot. Ilze wished he could look up. There was a strong musty smell in the room, like a wet pillow. And something in the Superior’s voice that rubbed upon his ears, knifelike.

‘I was told so. Pamra had been unlike herself recently. She was seen making frequent trips to the house where the old woman had lived. I sent Threnot to find out why. Threnot found a sister living there. Prender, her name was. She told my servant that the old woman had gone east. Pamra, it seems, was deeply grieved.’

‘I didn’t know.’ Ilze was puzzled. It would not have been his job to follow Pamra or inquire about her, unless the girl’s work had suffered. Why this note of accusation in the Superior’s voice?

‘Since Pamra was naive enough to cause you amusement, Ilze, would it not have been prudent to watch her? Just in the event the old woman showed up in the pits?’ There was a tone in the Superior’s voice he did not recognize, one he had never heard before.

‘It would have been, certainly, Superior. Had I known the old woman was gone …’

‘Perhaps if you had paid less attention to Pamra’s body and more to her emotions, you would have known?’ The Superior sighed, and Ilze dared look up, just for a moment. The other figure was a flier. A Servant of Abricor. He
dropped his eyes, gulping. Here. In the Superior’s own rooms. A Servant. Nausea roiled in him. He had not known this was possible.

‘Have you heard of Rivermen, Ilze?’

For a moment he could not hear her voice, could not understand her words. Rivermen. What was she talking about? ‘Yes, of course, Superior. Those who bring cargoes on the boats … ‘ Suddenly he knew what it was in her voice that so cut at him. Fear. Nothing but fear.

‘No. Rivermen have nothing to do with boats. Rivermen are members of an heretical sect who place their dead in the River. They do not trust in the Holy Sorters. A cult of apostates, Ilze. Had you heard that Pamra’s mother was a Riverman?’

‘I knew she was a madwoman, Your Patience. A sick woman. A heretic, if you like. I had never heard she was a member of any cult.’ He gulped, heard only the silence, went on. ‘The initiation master told me Pamra was deeply shamed by her mother’s behavior. It was probably her mother’s heresy which brought Pamra to the Tower in the first place. Her dedication had some redemptive quality to it. So he said.’

‘So I thought. So you thought… perhaps. But now she is gone, with a pitful of workers. And the… Talkers have sent for you, Ilze. And me. They have questions about our orthodoxy.’

Talkers? In this context the word didn’t make sense. He opened his mouth to ask – to ask anything that would help him out of this confusion …

‘I think you had best let me speak with him for a moment alone,’ she said to the Servant of Abricor, her voice wheedling and groveling. ‘He is totally ignorant of your existence. As naive, in his way, as Pamra was in hers.’

‘And did you find this amusing?’ croaked a strange voice, not a human voice, though using human words. ‘Was he amusing to you?’

‘No. He knew as much as any senior. Seniors are not privy to the decisions of the Chancery, Uplifted One. May I appeal in the name of the Protector?’

‘The Talons do not recognize the Protector.’

‘Surely you jest, Winged One.’ There was a note of desperation in her voice. ‘Your treaty is with the Protector, and through him with the Chancery and with the Towers. How can you have a treaty with an office you do not recognize?’

Ilze had heard the Superior’s voice for years, leading the observances, reciting the litany, directing, assigning. He had never heard it as it sounded now, tight as a harp string, aching with strain, almost with panic.

‘We do not recognize the Protector in this instance, human. Still, we do not desire further disruption of your duties. I will give you not long,’ the inhuman voice croaked again. ‘Other Talkers await you on the aerie. You will not attempt escape.’ There were sounds, wings, clacking of beak, a harsh scrape of talons upon the floor.

‘Ilze?’

He breathed deeply, trying not to vomit. ‘Superior.’

‘You must help me in this, Ilze. I am depending upon your strong sense of self-preservation.’

‘What was it?’ he grated, furious at himself for this loss of control.

‘A Talker. A leader among the Servants of Abricor. One of their Superiors, I suppose you could say. Though this one seems rather higher in rank among its people than I consider myself among mine.’

‘Talking?’

‘They talk, yes. Though not to us. Never to us. This is the first time I have heard one talk. I have been told that only a few of the Servants can talk. The ordinary fliers do not. Only these, these others. Or perhaps only these are allowed to talk. That also is possible.’

‘What does it want?’

‘It expects to take us to one of the Talons. The closest one is east of here in a tall mountain range near the Straits of Shfor. The Talons are where their leaders live, as the Chancery is where our leaders live. They want to take us for questioning.’ Where I cannot go, she thought. Where I
must not be taken. For they will certainly learn what I know, in time, and I know too much. ‘They want to take you, Ilze. And me, me as well. This is not the way it should happen, Ilze. Listen now. In the northlands, the Protector of Man dwells with his people, his retinue, the officers of the Chancery. You know of the Protector. You have seen him.’

‘During the Progressions. Of course. I saw the golden ship. Everyone does. The last Progression was years ago.’

‘So long ago that the next Progression is almost due. Once each eighteen years the Protector makes the trip, taking six or seven years to visit Northshore, allowing himself to be seen at every township. You have seen him!’

‘I’ve seen him.’ He was sharply attentive. Why was she telling him this? ‘All citizens are required to observe the Progression.’

‘I remind you of that so you will remember it. The Protector exists. He lives in the northland. He heads the Chancery. He is my Superior, as I am yours. I work at his command.’ She reached for the man before her, reached into him. By all the gods, this unworthy tool must bend to her purpose – for all their sakes.

‘I understand.’ He did not understand, though his hard, clever mind was beginning to chill, beginning to listen attentively. He had accepted that his life might depend upon that. She smiled at him approvingly.

‘There is a treaty between the Protector and the Servants of Abricor. It is the treaty which prohibits the Servants from … from troubling us. It prohibits our troubling them as well. If the Servants are troubled by men, the treaty requires them to report to the Chancery. This Rivermen business, this heresy … if there is something like that going on,
if they think we have something to do with it, we should be summoned by the Chancery, not by the Servants themselves. Do you understand that?’
She was begging him, and for the first time he came out of his own bewilderment to hear her. He thought she was frightened for herself, and this focused his attention.

‘I… yes. Yes. If this Servant is disturbed by something
we’ve done, something it thinks we’ve done, it should have gone to the Chancery about it. And they would have questioned us.’

‘Yes. Exactly. And our one chance of coming out of this alive is to get to the Chancery. Not go with this one to the Talons. We go to the Talons and we’re dead.’

He did not ask her how she knew. It did not seem to matter. His heart was drumming, and he felt the blood rush to his fingers, making them tingle. ‘Can we escape from the Tower?’

‘They will see us. They see well at night, and there are dozens of them.’

There were dozens, of course. All around the Tower top, the bone pits, here and there in the forests. Ilze himself had counted up to twenty of them in the air over Baris at one time, as many over the neighboring towns. ‘Stay inside where they can’t get at us? Send a messenger? Ask for help?’

‘We could not live locked inside the Tower that long. The Chancery is half a year away, through the Teeth of the North by way of the Split River Pass. It is how the Protector comes down to make the Progression. By the Split River. We could walk there in a year or two if we stopped for nothing.’

‘And the Talons?’

‘Not so far. East instead of north.’

‘How do they plan to get us there?’

‘In a basket, the leader said. In a basket, carried by two or three of them. Through the air. For four or five days. He spoke of flying without stopping. He spoke of a “tailwind.” I can guess what that is.’

He had looked at the Talker only briefly, but it had not looked unlike the usual Servants. The long, almost human-looking legs with their feathered, two-taloned feet. The folded wings, tips almost dragging the floor, three-fingered hands of the wrist joined. The face, not long-beaked like the small fliers but flat-beaked, so that in profile it did not look unlike his own except for the absence of a nose. Ear tufts. Wide-set, round-orbed eyes surrounded by plumed
circles. The chest, protruding at the center like the keel of a boat. And the neck. Not really long, but it would be stretched out in flight. He thought on that, anger moving him now, a well-known kind of anger. So, they would misuse and mock him, would they? They would break the rules of respect. Well then.