Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
The Revenants (33 page)
‘Likely.’ Gaffer poured himself a cup of steaming tea. The other small people watched and waited. Jasmine could not tell what they were thinking. In the loom the fabric grew inch by inch, a fine, natural wool with a shifting pattern of pale green.
‘Could I learn to do that?’ she asked. ‘I would like to do that.’
‘I don’t know why not,’ said Gaffer. ‘We will teach you on the way.’
So the decision was made. When they left the clearing in the morning hours, the loom parts were wrapped in carpet on the back of Thewson’s horse, and one of the little people rode before each of the others. For the first time, Tin-tan trotted along behind them on his own four feet beside his foster mother, the goat.
They passed by the village of Lau-Bom, crossed an expanse of grassland throughout the afternoon to come by evening to one of the forested mounds which were scattered across the Rochagam, the trees ending at its edges as though trimmed with a knife. Here they made camp beside a bubbling spring, Daingol and Dhariat preparing a meal while the others busied themselves. Po-Bee and Doh-ti played at dice with Gaffer, one very bad throw bringing remonstration from Po-Bee.
‘Pray to Peroval to forgive you,’ he said sententiously to Doh-ti. ‘It is not stiffness from riding but lack of practice which makes you fumble the dice.’
‘Peroval?’ asked Jasmine who had not heard the name before.
‘The small god of cheats and tricksters,’ said Po-Bee. ‘A small god for the small business of small people. Yet no god is more friendly or joyous than Peroval when he is pleased.’
‘What Power does he work for?’ asked Jasmine.
The two considered this. ‘It would have to be Firelord,’ Po-Bee ventured. ‘Firelord is the only one with a sense of humour. Peroval wouldn’t work for anyone without a sense of humour.’
‘Our Lady has a sense of humour,’ objected Jasmine. ‘It is written in many of the songs that she laughs at the things we do.’
‘That is only mockery, not humour. Humour isn’t “at.” Can you imagine telling a bawdy joke to the Lady?’
‘Yes,’ rumbled Thewson. ‘She is well pleased with those.’
‘Thewson,’ Jasmine admonished. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Because I so remember.’ He sat for a long time trying to rerrjember how he knew such a thing, but except for a far-off whirring, like distant laughter, nothing came to him.
Nonetheless, the thought distracted him enough that he did not set a watch during the night. Dhariat thought Thewson was watching; Thewson thought Daingol… well. There was no watch.
They woke in the morning to find Jasmine gone.
Day 25, Month of Thaw
There was a time of stupefied confusion, which Thewson remembered later with fury, during which they were not sure she was really gone. She might have been in the bushes attending to a human need, but the wild disorder of her bedding said much against that notion. She had not lain at Thewson’s side for they had only a narrow space between the fire and the trees. Then, when Dhariat and Doh-ti found footprints, they were sure she had been taken. Thewson breathed phrase, white hot with anger. ‘Dog king.’
They sought to follow the trail but came upon rocky outcroppings where no footprints could be found. Finally Sowsie took command of their frenzied efforts.
‘This is doing no good. If she is gone but a little time, her captor may be seen crossing the grasslands. Let me take the little ones to the top of the mound to climb tall trees there from which they may see further than all this ground sniffing.’ She sent the others off to circle the mound, taking Doh-ti and Po-Bee up onto her horse and riding swiftly to the top of the mound. There she found one great tree and set Doh-ti upon a limb before spurring away to seek another. She was out of sight in moments.
Doh-ti went up the trunk like a squirrel, climbing quickly above the surrounding forest to a high, twiggy fork which gave him a virtually unobstructed view in all directions except directly north. The tree he was in was a white oak, still clad with rattling bunches of winter leaves over the swelling pink buds of spring. Thrusting them from before fiirn, he stared out over the smooth-floored plain, alert to movement of any kind. Far at the southern edge of the plain moved an awkward shape, strangely top heavy. Doh-ti nodded with satisfaction and began the long climb down only to stop and try to vanish among the rattling leaves.
Two … somethings were coming up the slope from the west, two somethings ridden by red-robed ones, hooded and gloved, one thrusting slightly ahead of the other. The animals were not horses, not anything Doh-ti had seen before. The riders were as mysterious, totally wrapped by their robes, both faces and bodies hidden as they slid clumsily from their mounts in a screening grove of trees. One came to the base of the big tree and knelt to kindle a fire. The smoke rose around Doh-ti’s head, and he fought sneezes, hiding his face in his hands. Soon steam rose with the smoke from a kettle set above the flame.
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.
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 think 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.