Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“How long do we carry the word before we follow the Bearer?” one of the followers asks Peasimy. He is one of the dozen or so who have accumulated the status of leaders in the crusade, those to whom Peasimy habitually talks, those who know what is going on.

“Pretty soon now,” Peasimy answers him, though somewhat doubtfully. “Pretty soon now I’ll take some and go after the Bearer, and you must take some and go on.” He has dreamed this. The Bearer had gone a way, then turned north. Now Peasimy must go a way and then turn north. And so on, and on, like a chain. As he says it, he begins to like the idea. “A chain,” he repeats. “Like a chain. One, then another one, then another one.”

The follower to whom Peasimy speaks is an excellent speaker who has often itched to take Peasimy’s place upon the Temple stairs. He has a loud, mellifluous voice, and, since he finds both women and sex utterly repugnant, he has wholly adopted Peasimy’s doctrine. He will have sense enough not to speak of his repugnance directly to the multitudes, as he knows he must include women among his followers if he is to acquire the kind of power—and service—he desires. In his satisfaction at considering this not-so-distant future, he forgets to answer Peasimy’s suggestion.

“You will do it if I tell you,” Peasimy asserts, interpreting the man’s silence as unwillingness. “Yes, you will.”

“If the Bearer of Light commands,” the man says, silently exulting. “When you leave us, how will you know which way to go?”

“North, until we see the mountains. Great tall mountains,” Peasimy replies proudly. The Jondarites had told him that, when they had taken Pamra Eton away. Now he quotes them in a singsong voice, certain of the way he will go. “Keep the mountains on the right.” He pats the arm on which he wears his glove. That is his right arm, Widow Plot had told him. “The arm with the glove is your right arm, Peasimy. You eat with your right hand.” So he pats it now, quite sure. “Keep the mountains on the right. Until we come to a big river with some high places with flat tops. That’s Split River Pass, where we go through, to the Chancery.”

Joal makes note of it. He has no plans to lead the crusade anywhere but where he wants it to go, and at the moment that does not include going anywhere near to the Chancery.

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing when I write these things down. I read what I wrote about what happened, and then I try to remember what happened, and sometimes I can’t remember whether I’m remembering what really happened or only what I wrote about it. The words have a way of doing things on their own. They sneak around and say things I’m not sure are real.

I wrote something the other day about an order of food that came in from the east, and later I heard Taj Noteen talking with Medoor Babji about it as though it had been some other thing entirely. I always figured me and the men saw things pretty much the same way, but now there’s others here who seem to look at this world as though they had eyes different from mine. If I hadn’t written it down, I wouldn’t have thought again about it, figuring I’d just missed something about it at the time. But I did write it down, and what I wrote wasn’t what the Noor were saying at all.

Of course, I’m only an ignorant boatman. Maybe priests and Awakeners are taught to do it better, but words written down seem to me could be very dangerous things.

From Thrasne’s book

While the Gift and the Noor waited for stores, Thrasne passed the time by doing things to the Gift. A new railing on the steering deck. A small cabin below for himself since the Melancholies would be using his house. Reinforcement between the ribs in the fore and aft holds. And, though it cost him much thought and argument with himself, a tall mast mounted on the main deck, just behind the owner-house. This was decided soon after Obers-rom hired three new men who knew about sail.