Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Oh, but she has changed since Thrasne carved her and put her into the River. All the features are the same, and the hard fragwood has not softened, but the little creatures of the depths have been at her, smoothing her all over with their phosphorescent slime so she gleams, shines, beams up from the waves like a beacon of greeny light, smiling, one hand held out as though for Peasimy to take it and welcome her ashore.

And Peasimy reaches down, stronger than he could possibly be, tugging and lifting, pulling like a boatman at the capstan, hauling with an excess of power he has never had and will never have again, until she stands there, dripping on the jetty, peering at the town of Thou-ne. Only then does he go screaming off after the crier and the watch, hallooing for the lantern man, for the people to come see, and such is his fervor and volume of voice it is not long before mere is a crowd gathered, full of muttering as the reed beds, staring at the woman from the River, who smiles back at them, shining, shining, shining in the dark.

“There,” Peasimy cries, over and over, in a voice totally unlike his own. “There in the River. The Truth Bearer. The Light Bearer. She shines, oh, she shines!”

“What’s he saying?”

“Says she’s the Truth Bearer.”

“What’s that?”

“Somebody who brings the truth, I guess. Look at her. Ain’t she lovely.”

“What’d they say?”

“Said the lovely Truth Carrier was come, I think. That’s her. Up there.”

“What’s a Truth Carrier?”

“Oh, that’s religion, that is. Foretold to happen.” This from one of the standabouts, a know-it-all who makes up half of what he says and switches the other half around to suit himself. No one believes a thing he says in daylight, but the dark and mist make him an anonymous voice, speaking with the authority of conviction. “Foretold to happen,” he says again, pleased with the way this is received.

And the circumstances of it all, the mist, the dark, the voice saying things that seem authoritative, Peasimy’s transfigured face, the beauty of the carved woman, all that reaches them so they go away from the place nodding their heads, believing she is whatever Peasimy calls her. Believing they had heard of the Truth Bearer all their lives, pleased and delighted, though mystified, that she has come.

The day after goes on with saying and saying until what is said by one is said by everyone and believed by everyone. Someone-years later the distinction is claimed by half the families in Thou-ne-someone says the glowing image belongs in the Temple. By evening she is there, in the Temple of the Moons, there at the top of the sanctuary steps in front of the carved visages of the gods, looking down at the people in kindness and wonder. By evening the ritual surrounding her has begun. From the balcony high above, a novice ladles water from buckets, an endless line of buckets carried from the River itself, and in this dank sprinkle the image of Suspirra stands, shining wetly and smiling, as though forever. Peasimy kneels at the altar rail, his face glowing like the moon.

Behind him in the sanctuary, Widow Plot stares at his back, not knowing whether she is thankful for this or not. Peasimy hasn’t been up in the daytime for a dozen years or more, and this could mean he will start sleeping at night, like most people. Which means he’ll be underfoot, during the day, most likely.

“Plot-wife,” says a voice behind her in gloomy tones, and she turns to confront Haranjus Pandel.

“Superior,” she says formally in her most discouraging tone. What is he going to make of this, now? Some new thing to bother honest people with?

Instead he asks in gloomy tones, “What is all this? You can tell me, Widow Plot. Haven’t I the right to know? All the responsibility and no one tells me? Did he carve the thing? Did he?”

She stares, laughs, stares again. He doesn’t expect an answer. He doesn’t even believe it himself. He sits there on the hard, uncomfortable bench, head propped on one hand, his long, lugubrious face attentive to the glowing woman behind the rail. Is he thinking, too, that it may really be a miracle? Behind the shining woman are the faces of Potipur, Abricor, and Viranel, so familiar the worshipers do not even see them. Now, for the first time, Widow Plot sees these carved faces of the gods contrasted with a human face, the shining woman’s face, and knows them for what they are.