The Revenants (29 page)
Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
‘Oh, tashas,’ snarled Jaer. Terascouros looked shocked while Medlo barked quick laughter.
‘Where did you learn that language?’
‘From a drover. Now a man of the Hill. Why? Is it unlike me?’
‘Unlike the Jaer we knew, yes. Like a drover, yes. I suppose you are both, or think you are.’
Jaer regarded him with a measure of anger. Medlo had been behaving since her awakening as though nothing had happened, that Jaer was as before, i am a drover, yes. And a midwife, pulling at reluctant twins in some hamlet near Enterling. And a man at arms of some place far to the south in Dantland, aching from long marches. And a woman of Owbel Bay, one dedicated to the Stones who was rescued from that horror to come into the Hill, instead. Oh, Lord of Fire, Medlo. I am a thousand, Jaer of the Thousand Lives. Why pretend it is not so? Now those foul mists move again. Where? I do not believe they will follow us!’
Kelner opined that the mists came no nearer. ‘But the Gahlians have come to the Hill. They are within it. Like ants.’ His beak stabbed down to come up with a wriggling tininess. ‘Like black ants.’
Terascouros nodded. That is why the mist has moved again. Deep in the Hill, the Choir must sing its own invisibility, must create a curtain of concealment between them and the hordes. To do that, they would need to stop the song which quieted the mists. So now the mists move once again.’
‘South,’ said Kelner. ‘That is the way they go. South.’
‘Will Sybil find them, Teras? Does she know enough?’
‘My daughter has never trusted her, remembering her treatment of Mawen. Teraspelion has kept the deep ways her own. I do not know what Teraspelion knows, but we may all pray that she knows enough to keep them safe.’
They rested in the tall grass, too weary to eat or drink. Terascouros spoke somewhat of the rule of Taniel, connecting that to Sybil, and the talk started some small searcher scurrying endlessly through Jaer’s head, a seeker for clues to mysteries. In Jaer’s weariness, the lives within her began to grow and swirl, to discourse among themselves, build relationships anew, discover common knowledge. Jaer fought them down. Out of the wallet at her side she took the quest book to read it with ostentatious concentration. ‘I will be Jaer,’ she said to herself. ‘For a time, only Jaer. I will not be some mythic thing for them to follow like a beacon.’ In her fatigue, she believed these thoughts were hers alone. She did not follow the image of the beacon into the mind of the mariner who had given it; instead, she read the book which she already knew from memory.
Meanwhile, Terascouros crouched across her bent knees, eyes shielded beneath her arms, trying to send her mind up and out to search the area behind them. There was a pressure, a great and hideous weight which bore her down. She struggled against it, straining, rose at last to bob upon the surface of whatever it was which oppressed her. On this surface she could move away toward Gerenhodh, could come close enough to see the outer halls.
There was only cold emptiness filled with automatons, black-robed ciphers moving endlessly through the abandoned corridors, faceless processions without beginnings, bodies pressing into every crevasse of stone. Each face was a blank circle of flesh, as alike to the next as though stamped out by a machine, teratoid and horrible. The weight found her once more, crushing her soul from her. An intention had found her, a someone, a
something
. She gasped, felt arms around her as Medlo and Jaer drew her out of the trance and into the grassland once more. She clung to them.
‘Oh, they are there,’ she gasped. ‘The halls are full of them, but I cannot see clearly. Something prevents me.’ Exhausted, she sank into sudden sleep. They wrapped her in a blanket and pulled her near the fire they had built. Even in her sleep she could sense the presence which searched for her, heavy and indomitable. In her sleep she vowed against it. ‘You do not want me to see,’ she dreamed. ‘But I
will
see, in spite of you.’ Dreams went into the void, and she only slept, mouth open, breath rasping in the quiet air.
Far behind them in the deep caverns of the Hill, others sent their minds roving into the dusk behind a screen of song. Old Aunt and her Council joined together to thrust through the weight above them, to see those who stood on the slope of the Hill, lit by torchlight, red robes in red light, red like blood, the colour of new wounds. With them was a woman, fury boiling from her like steam.
She was being questioned by a red-robed creature of Gahl, one with a voice like acid. ‘There is no place of a Sisterhood here,’ it said. ‘Nothing here but stony ways. No persons, no maps, no books, no secrets of the ancient times. We have come as we said. Your part of the bargain must be kept.’
‘They are here, Lithos,’ Sybil snarled. ‘I can feel them on my skin like dried candle grease. When I move, I feel them crack and splinter. They are here.’
‘Where then? Show us how, where, into what crevasse our creatures must go, into which hallway we do infiltrate our own. Tell us, Singer, and the bargain is kept.’
‘I can’t tell you. I don’t know! They have moved things, changed things. Get the hordes out of here and let me look. Let me search. Your mindless minions can only press and press; they cannot use their eyes.’
‘But you can? You can find those who destroyed Murgin? Those our Master has bid us find? That
one
we seek?’
‘I can if you will leave me alone. I can use my vision. I will use it to bring ruin on those who would dare set
me
to the silence. They have dealt always with sycophants and fools, with grovelling witlings. They have held Power in their hands only for the holding, never for the using. They have not done, planned as I will do. Yes! This vision is something I will use.’
‘Ahhh. Then the hordes may move south, to that place they must go, soon, in time. And you will use your vision, in time. When we know that you are truly one of us, Singer, woman, in that you are woman no more …’
Those below caught only a glimpse of Sybil’s face, obdurate, so full of pent fury it did not show fear even now. Then the weight came down upon them, a weight which bore their minds into the deep caverns, no more knowing of their presence than an elephant might be aware as it crushed ants. The Sisters sang, softly, softly, raising the pressure away from themselves, making a safe place beneath that crushing force, a safe, silent, secret place, warm and lamplit beneath the cold horror in the Hill.
Only then did they separate their minds to stare at one another in disgust and sickness.
‘Sybil,’ said Old Aunt. ‘The silence we set her to was as nothing to the silence they will bring upon her.’
Days 1-14, Month of Thaw
Thewson and Jasmine rode south into a chill morning accompanied by two men and two women from the Hill. The sun rose late through low cloud, and the weight of depression which they had felt while in the Hill rose with it until, when they had come half a day’s journey away, it was as though something tangible had been lifted from them. One of the women, a Sister named Dhariat, pulled up her horse to take a deep breath of relief. ‘Outside the song some great evil waits,’ she said. ‘I hope they took refuge in time.’
Their way led along the eastern slope of Gerenhodh, high above the plain of Gomilbata, and around the northeastern flank of the mountain in the Sasavinian Pass – which is to say, ‘South South Pass,’ for the Savus Mountains were the ‘Southern’ mountains of the old realm of Sud-Akwith, and the pass lay at the extreme southern end of the range. The pass was famed in ancient legend as the site of many battles and heroic exploits of the Akwithian kings, for it linked the rolling, grassy lands of Sorgen to the marshes of Lakland by a direct route. It had been said that he who controlled the Sasavinian controlled the wealth of two provinces, and in ancient times that had been true.
The other woman, whose name was Seuskeigrhe – called Sowsie – rode scout for them. She ranged far ahead, watching in all directions, only to come pounding back to them at a place where a rocky ledge broke the forest to allow a long view to the east. On the far bank of the Gomilbata they could see a black shadow flowing, myriad black robes moving toward the Hill in an amorphous horde. ‘We have been gone such a little time,’ Sowsie said. ‘They were very near already. They will reach the Hill while it is yet light.’
They moved behind a screeen of trees, not wanting to be seen by that distant horde, and rode on to the north. Thewson rode at Jasmine’s side, and she leaned to poke at his iron-hard thigh. ‘What do you have to say, warrior. You are silent, as usual.’
He leaned down to stroke her shoulders with a huge hand. ‘As Sowsie says, there may be eyes in that shadow yonder. Let us go quiet in trees, like deer. I will think of tender grass, or grazing upon flowers.’ He rode slowly ahead along the slope, leaving Jasmine smiling secretly behind him. He had been laughing at her, or with her, though it scarcely seemed a good time for it. Grazing upon flowers! She flushed to catch a knowing look from Dhariat.
‘That one,’ the woman said, ‘is quite fond of you.’
‘Perhaps,’ Jasmine responded. ‘A little.’
‘Perhaps,’ the woman agreed mockingly. ‘And not a bad thing in a dangerous time. I have seen weaker men.’
‘The ones who came with us are strong. What Leona would call woodswise.’
‘Indeed. They are half brothers. Daingol and Lain-achor. They were born and reared in the north, along the Akwidon above Tanner.’
‘The old city? What was it named before? Gombator?’
‘Yes. In the time of the D’Zunalor. Daingol says he has travelled to the first fork of the Akwidon. No one in the Hill has been north of that.’
‘How did they – I mean, I understand how the women came to the Sisterhood, but how do the men …?
Dhariat laughed softly. ‘Oh, some of us bring some of them. And some of them come with trade caravans and choose to stay. And some are born to us, of course.’
‘There seem to be enough of them.’
‘If there were not, we would capture some.’
‘Truly?’ Jasmine’s wonderment was on her face until she saw the laughter in Dhariat’s. ‘Oh, you.’ They rode on in companionable silence.
It was not long until the trees came between them and any view to the east as they wound along the mountain’s side toward a gap in the ridge which was full of northern sky. Once over that, Dhariat rode ahead to take a turn at scouting while Sowsie rode with the others, pointing out landmarks, speaking of the growth of trees and shrubs. She had brown, clever hands and a far-seeing look in her grey eyes which were separated by squint lines from looking long sunward across the lands. Daingol answered her. He was full of inconsequential chatter which dropped into the pool of his brother’s silence. Both were rusty-haired and freckle-mottled, easy together and with Sowsie, riding their shaggy horses as though they and the beasts were one. As they rode, however, their ease began to depart. They shifted in their saddles, rubbing their heads, their eyes. Sowsie reined up abruptly, said in response to Thewson’s murmur, ‘Something there, westward. Hurt. Wounded. I can feel crying, not human. Something grieving, going on and on.’
She shook her head, dismounting in one swift movement. The others followed her lead, staggering on numb legs. The sun had fallen behind the peak of Gerenhodh, and they shivered in the shadow of a great bulk of lichened stone.
‘Let us wait for Dhariat,’ Sowsie said. ‘Something is wrong there, westward. We can risk a fire if we build it in the chimney of the rock. Use only very dry wood, and we will bury it as soon as our food is hot.’ Then she stood staring westward while Daingol busied himself with foodstuffs, while Lain-achor examined the hooves of the horses, and while Thewson moved restlessly in the clearing, working at his thighs with his hands.
‘I have some salve that will help him,’ Sowsie said to Jasmine. ‘It will deaden the pain as well as toughening the skin. These southern men are not horsemen.’
‘These Lakland women are not horsepeople, either,’ Jasmine answered. ‘Or this one has forgotten what she once knew. I hurt too.’
‘A few days will heal it. Use the salve on both of you.’
They stewed grain over the fire, mixing it with chunks of dried fruit and that shredded, dried meat which had been called ‘badumma’ since the time of the Axe King. The word meant both ‘stone’ and ‘meat.’ Privately, Jasmine thought it looked like something which should be fed to chickens, but it was tasty enough and there was little left for Dhariat when she returned to them. Her face bore a wary, listening expression, but she shook her head at them to indicate she had seen nothing.
‘If we ride until dark,’ she said, ‘we can come around the spur of mountain into the Sasavinian. There is a post house there, with water, if you can ride that far.’
Thewson nodded grimly. Jasmine asked, ‘Did the salve help you?’
‘It helps skin. It is bones that break. This horse is very wide.’
Jasmine grimaced in reply. ‘Put one leg in front of you, across the saddle. Switch from side to side as we ride. It will help a little.’
They rode on into the dusk, Jasmine and Thewson growing more unhappy with each step as skin chafed and muscles turned into knots of pain. When the stars were burning they came into the upland which sloped west in a wide meadow crossed by meandering streams almost hidden between grass-furred banks. At the edge of the forest they could see the post house, shuttered and dark, Lain-achor, who had scouted the evening hours, rode up to them and conferred with the Sisters in a low voice. Finally, Sowsie said, ‘We will go back into the woods to a place I know. There is water there. We will not risk the house.’
Jasmine groaned. ‘I was dreaming of a real bed. My bones are broken.’
‘No.’ Sowsie was definite. ‘Something comes from the west. The post house is too well known. We will not be trapped within walls.’
They built a little fire in a hastily dug pit, burying it immediately after they had eaten and made mugs of sweet, musty tea. There had been little smoke, and in moments all evidence of it was gone, borne away on the little wind which rushed at them up from the west, smelling of the sea.