Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“In their violence, they didn’t care whom they killed. In or out of season, they raped and mutilated. They killed infants. They killed females. Because the Thraish can lay large clutches of eggs, they managed to hang on for a long time, but in the end so many females died that those tribes could no longer survive.

“I have visions of them sometimes, the last few of those prehistoric Thraish, fighting one another in the skies of Northshore, already dead.”

“But the Thraish are not extinct,” she objected. “What you are telling me is only a story.”

“No. It’s the truth. Among all those wild, violent tribes there were some few, even then, in which the death hormone functioned. The males mated and died. There were no wars. Among these tribes was no rape, no slavery, no abuse of the young. And those groups survived. Such is their history. It is what we call a survival characteristic.”

After a time of silence, she asked, “Treemi? What of her?”

“She will recover. She has blessedly forgotten what happened. She will even have young this season. There will be no blood price. Arbsen is dead. There can be no retribution.”

Medoor Babji nodded, overcome by sadness. Everything he had said was a heavy weight in her head, on her heart. She did not think she could bear the burden of it. There were lessons here she had not been taught by Queen Fibji, words she needed, instruction, comfort. And there was something more, fleeting like a silver minnow in her mind, something she herself could tell the Queen.

“Burg, you told me Southshore lies a month over the River. Do you swear it?”

He was startled. “Why, I will swear it if you ask, Medoor Babji. Why do you ask?”

“Because I do not want to spend more time away from my own kin. Because we were sent to find if Southshore is there, and if you will swear to me that you have seen it, with your own eyes, then I can go back and say so to the Queen.”

“I swear it, Medoor Babji. It is a great land. Empty, so far as we know, of any people, human or Thraish or Treeci. There are beasts there and familiar trees. I swear it. I have seen it with my own eyes.”

She surprised him by kissing him, then. It surprised her, as well. She was afire to reach Thrasne and the others. They would turn back now, racing home, home to the Noor. Something within her told her that only speed could prevent some hideous thing from happening. She remembered things Queen Fibji had said concerning the survival of the Noor, the lusty young warriors, the difficulty of holding them in check. She thought of the strutting Jondarites, their plumes nodding on their helms, as the plumes had nodded on Taneff’s head when he’d plunged into the spears. She thought of the mud graves of the warriors, and she longed to be home with every fiber of herself.

It was thirty days after the great storm, according to the journal of Fez Dooraz, that those on the Gift of Potipur saw the new island.

Though they could see no end to the land, yet they assumed it was an island, for it loomed up west of them like the prow of a great ship with the water flowing on either side. Behind that mighty rock prow the land fell away west into lowlands and forests, with hills and mountains behind, seemingly limited to north and south but with no end to it they could see to the west, a long, narrow land where they had expected no land at all. Far off to the east a cloud hung over the water, and the sailors said this meant there was land there, as well. “An island chain,” they said. “It has been rumored there are island chains in mid-River.’’

“Do we go ashore?” Obers-rom asked Thrasne. “Is it possible this is Southshore?”

“Southshore or not, it is certainly a great land. And we have no choice if we are to get water.” Thrasne felt a bit doubtful, but with their need for water and with all the crew and the Noor hanging over the side, looking at the place, how could they go on by? They needed something to divert themselves from the thought of Medoor Babji. Even Eenzie the Clown was depressed, and Thrasne could not explain the feelings he had had since the storm. Now that she was gone, he realized who she had been. Not merely a queen’s daughter—”merely,” he mocked himself. More than that. To him, at least.