Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Two days later, after Medoor Babji had walked upon the Island of the Dead until she had seen what they had seen, they set sail for home.

No matter what I start out thinking about, I end up remembering what the strangeys said, and what they said seemed to me to be about sadness. The sadness of men— mankind, I guess you’d say. It’s that we never have time to be what we know we should be, or could be. And it’s not because of the time itself, the gods know we waste enough of it not doing anything at all, but because of what we are. And we don’t have time, no matter how old we get, to be anything else. So they’ve brought this gift, so they called it, to let us be something else for a while. Something that knows, but doesn’t care so much. It’s caring so much that keeps us from being what we could be. Caring so much. About the wrong things, maybe. But still, if we didn’t what would we be?

From Thrasne’s book

Word was sent to Sliffisunda that Pamra Don would be delivered up to the Thraish. In the Red Talons, Ilze danced his victory, a wild, frantic prancing upon the rocky height, then sat down upon a shelf of stone to wait, his eyes like polished pebbles, scanning the horizon for the first glimpse of those who would come from the Chancery. Though the message had said clearly that Gendra Mitiar would accompany the girl, Ilze cared nothing for that. It was Pamra Don he would see shortly; Pamra Don he would get into his own hands at last. He thought of her as he had used to think of her: tied to the stake, his whip falling across her shoulders as his caress, her voice rising up in screaming prayers to the empty sky. His body shook, twitched, spasmed with this thought, and the fliers on the rocks around him cast looks at one another, wondering what ailed him.

Sliffisunda was content to wait. There was no hurry about this business. His fliers told him the crusade went on, more massively than before, with great clots of people moving west and north. Wherever they moved, the pits were full, so he cared not whether they moved or not. In a hidden valley of the steppes known only to fliers, the herdbeasts were growing with each day that passed. Already the expedition to steal other young bulls had been planned. More than an expedition, almost an invasion, with enough surprise and numbers to succeed no matter what the humans did. It might prove expedient to stop this crusade; or again, it might not. It was a thing worthy of much screamed discussion, many loud sessions on the Stones of Disputation. Sliffisunda wiped his beak on the post of his feeding trough and was content.

And on the plains, moving southward and a little east, Pamra Don was content as well. “A journey of a week or two,” she had been told. “To the Red Talons. To meet the Talkers.” There were Jondarites and Chancery people escorting her. Once she felt a fleeting sadness that Tharius Don was not among them. There was scarcely room even for that emotion. She rode the weehar ox the general had given her, refusing to ride in the wagon pulled by Noor slaves. She abjured Gendra Mitiar with great passion to free these men as Lees Obol would require of her. Gendra listened, raked her face, ground her teeth, and said she would consider the matter. In truth, she found Pamra Don amusing in the same way Jhilt had been amusing during the early days of her captivity. So naive. So childishly convinced that her feelings mattered to anyone besides herself. So interestingly ripe to be disabused of that notion.

One day the escort paused on a low hill to let a procession of crusaders pass in the valley, banners, a wagon, a gorgeously robed figure in the wagon. Pamra looked down at it in wonder, not recognizing Peasimy Plot. Peasimy had decided to join Pamra Don at Split River, but he did not even see her riding in her bright armor in company with the Jondarites.