Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“Rebellion,” he whispered to himself. “Since you were only a child, Tharius Don, you have dreamed of rebellion.” And yet, what else could he have been?

He could have been nothing else, born into the family Don with its strong tendencies toward both repression and ambition. There had been many old people in the household. His mother’s parents, the Stifes. His father’s parents, the Dons. His own parents. An aunt. Seven of them, all artist caste. And against the seven of them, only Tharius and an adored, biddable younger sister who was happy to do whatever anyone said, at any time.

And they did say. Continually; contradictorily; adamantly. The Stifes were at knife’s point with the Dons. The Stifes were clawing away at one another. The Dons elder were at the throats of the Dons junior, and the alliances among the seven swung and shifted, day to day. There was only one thing that could be depended upon, and that was that young Tharius would be both the weapon they used on one another and the battleground over which they fought. He was petted, praised, whipped, abused, slapped, ignored, only to be petted once more. He was of their nature, if not of their convictions, and at about age nine or ten—he could not remember the exact year, or even the incident that had provoked it—he had repudiated them all. He remembered that well, himself rigid against the door of the cubby in the attic which was his own, his face contorted as he stared into his own eyes in the mirror across the room, his utter acceptance of his own words as he said, “I renounce you all. All of you. From now on, you can fight each other, but you will not use me.” Or perhaps those words had only come later, after he had had time to think about it. The renunciation, though, that had happened, just as he remembered it.

And from that time he was gone. An occasional presence. A bland, uninteresting person, hearing nothing, repeating nothing, unusable as a weapon because he did or said nothing anyone could use or repeat to stir up enmity or support. Useless as a battleground because he did not seem to care. Not about anything at all.

As for Tharius, he did not care about them anymore. He had discovered books.

There had always been books, of course. There always were books, in the shops. Holy books. Accepted books. Bland histories in which there was never any violence or deviation of opinion. Devotional books in which mere were never any doubts. Even storybooks, for children, in which obedient boys and girls obeyed their elders, learned their lessons, and became good, obedient citizens of their towns.

Life wasn’t like that. Looking around him, Tharius saw hatred and violence, pain and dying. He saw workers. Awakeners. Grim, stinking fliers in the bone pits. Men and women vanishing, as though swallowed by evil spirits. None of that was in the books. Not the accepted books.

But there were other books.

A few days before Tharius’s repudiation of his kin, the poultry-monger’s shop across the alley was raided by the Tower. A great clatter of Awakeners and priests of Potipur came raging into the place, all blue in the face with their mirrors jagging light into corners. Tharius Don was on the roof above the alley when it happened, hiding from his grandmother Stife. There was noise, doors slamming, some shouting, some screaming, people moving around in the attics opposite him, barely seen through the filthy glass. Then the Awakeners burst through the back door and began throwing books into a pile. They were screaming threats at the poultry-monger and his wife, both of whom were protesting that they had only bought the house a year ago, that they’d never looked into the attic, that they didn’t know the books were there. It was likely enough true. Tharius had never seen lights in the windows opposite his own.

“It’s only that saves your life for you now, poulterer,” snarled an Awakener. “That and the dust on these volumes. Don’t touch them. There’ll be a wagon here in an hour or so to haul them away for burning.”