Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“You’re so sure.” She shook her head at him, smiling wanly. He had always been sure, very sure. Perhaps it had been that quality in him that she had loved. So nice to be sure, without doubts.

“They’ve seen us, Kessie. We don’t fly. And yet we have a civilization better than the one the Thraish have. They borrow our craftsmen, they borrow our writing. They take from us constantly. They can’t be unaware of the difference. It’s only custom that keeps them to the treaty. A hard custom, and one tightly held, but when it comes right down to it, I think they’ll be relieved. By all accounts, humans and the Treeci live very well together.”

“So you’ve said, Tharius. I wish I were as sure as you are.” She choked, oppressed by this act of leaving him. In a moment her voice came back and she went on, “Sometimes I lie awake in Baris Tower at night. Everything is very quiet. Far off in the town the crier sings out, and his voice comes gently. There is wind, perhaps. I lie there, almost at peace, my mind drifting quietly.

“Oh, Tharius, there is a peaceful place inside the head where one may wander. Like fields, new mown, green and moist and fragrant. One wanders inside oneself, at peace, unconscious of being oneself. Then, suddenly, out of nothing, a hard, hurtful thing intrudes and one cries out.”

“I know.” He smoothed her hair from her forehead. “I forget, too, sometimes. I drift, dream. But I always remember again.”

“There is such peace in that forgetting! But yes, one remembers again, and the future looms up like a rocky cliff, creased with bruising edges and sharp corners, a thing which cannot be drifted over but must be climbed, hard stone by hard stone.” She fell silent for a time, lines starring from her eyes and lips, her face for that moment incredibly ancient.

“When I remember, I start to think of the morning of the rebellion, of the day itself. Our people will have been to the pits in the night and every worker pit will be empty. All the bodies will be in the River. Weighted down. We will have killed every patch of Tears we have been able to find. The fliers will have nothing to eat … “

Tharius Don took up the account. “In every town the crier will call watch against fliers who may come seeking living meat. There will be Tears in the Towers, and these must be sought out and destroyed by fire, by our friends within the Towers. By those outside the Towers, if necessary.”

“I think of Towers burning,” she said.

“But not Bans Tower,” he said. “In Bans Tower the Superior will tell her Awakeners of a new revelation.”

“Yes,” she agreed sadly. “A new revelation, to be preached by the Awakeners to the fliers. A revelation from Potipur which demands that they give up their wings … When I look at someone like Sliffisunda, though, I’m not sure he will ever accept it. There’s a kind of hatred in him. For us. For all our kind.”

“Tradition. Custom. That’s all. The attitude they’ve adopted. It doesn’t mean that’s the only attitude they can adopt.”

“Does the Ambassador to the Thraish agree with you on that point?”

“I don’t discuss anything with Jorn. He returned from his journey some time ago, but all I’ve said to him thus far is ‘Good evening.’ Ezasper cares for nothing except that the stove be well alight and he not expected to go out on cold days. Don’t seek confirmation from those like Jorn, Kessie. Don’t doubt our cause. Have faith. When the time comes to

choose between wings or life, the Thraish will choose life and life with us as … well, if not as brothers, at least as kin.”

“And we, Tharius? When will the day come?”

“Soon. There are only a few more pieces to be set into place. A few more patches of Tears to kill. A few more Towers to recruit. A few more groups to get organized for the night of the strike. Not many. Have patience.”

She, who had had patience for some hundred years, snorted at this, and he joined her in wry laughter.