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 of 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.
6
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.
“Hze.”
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 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 in her 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.