Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Gendra subsided, her teeth grinding. Shavian looked from one to the other of them, awaiting further comment. Koma Nepor assented, Ezasper Jorn nodded. The general merely pivoted, keeping his eye on his men. “No objection to that?” Shavian asked. “Then let it be done.”

Now, Tharius thought to himself, let us send them off yet again in some other direction. “Has any word come from the herdsmen? When last I spoke with you, Jorn, you said it was thought that fliers had made off with young weehar and thrassil. Is it still assumed that fliers have stolen a breeding stock? And did I hear there were herdsmen missing as well?”

Shavian reddened with chagrin. He could not fault the question, but it reflected upon his own purview. As Maintainer of the Household, the household herds were his responsibility. “Yes,” he grated. “There are herdsmen missing as well. Three of them, and among them the best men we had for understanding of the beasts.”

Tharius mused over this, looked up to catch Chiles’s eye upon him through a haze of smoke. “What do you see, Mendicant?” he asked.

“Herds,” the Jarbman replied. “Stretching over the steppes of the Noor, in their millions.”

Koma Nepor snorted. “From ten beasts? Hardly likely, Governor. The Talkers may guard a small herd. They will not be able to keep the fliers from depredations upon a large one. Eh, Jom? Am I right?”

Ezasper Jorn nodded from his cocoon. “Likely. They are voracious beasts, the fliers. Not sensible, of much, according to the Talkers. I have been told that before the time of Thoulia they were warned to curtail their breeding and yet ignored the warnings until all the beasts were gone. What sensible beast would outbreed its own foodstock?”

“And yet,” brooded the Mendicant, “I see herds.”

“And Noor?” asked the general, suddenly interested. “If there will be herds, where are the Noor?”

The Mendicant put out his pipe, shaking his head. “I see no Noor, General Jondrigar. None move upon the steppes in my vision. But then, who is to say when my vision will come true? In a thousand years, perhaps? Or ten times that.”

Tharius Don cleared his throat. “It would be wise, General, to ask your balloon scouts to keep their eyes open for weehar and thrassil. If they are found upon the steppes, they should be slaughtered, at once. And I suppose a guard has been set upon the herds here behind the Teeth?”

Shavian gnawed his cheek, asserting to this without answering. Did the man think him a complete fool? Of course a guard had been set. Not only upon the household herds, but upon every herd in the northlands. All were being driven here, close by, where they could be watched.

“Have we anything more?” he asked, hoping fervently that what had already been discussed was enough.

“Hearing none,” he said, tapping the gavel perfunctorily once more, “we are adjourned.”

“Somebody,” came a plaintive voice from behind the curtain. “Bring me my tea.” The Jondarite across the room picked up the pot he had placed there and brought it forward. Ceremoniously, he entered upon service to Lees Obol.

They left the audience hall to go their various ways. Gendra Mitiar took herself off to the archives to harass old Glamdrul Feynt. The master of the files had not been diligent. When the time came, soon, she wanted proof or something that looked like proof, some reason for doing away with Tharius Don. Self-righteous prig! Staring at her as though she were less than nothing! She would show him who was nothing. Him, and his pretty cousin Kesseret, and his descendent, too, that Pamra Don. …

Shavian Bossit went to his own suite and sent a messenger to Koma Nepor. It was time to talk seriously about what could be done to keep Talkers alive, but passive, while the elixir was made from their blood—not in these piddling quantities, but by the gallon! His spies told him Koma had been experimenting with the blight. Perhaps … He grinned in anticipation, a wicked mouse grin, then sat himself down to wait. . . .

And Tharius Don took himself to the tower above his own quarters in the palace and brooded. He felt caught in a wrinkle in time, a place in which time was both too long and too short. Too short to do all his raging imagination told him he should have done long since; too long to wait, too long a time in which too many obstacles might be thrust up before the cause to inhibit the last great rebellion. …