Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

But she, remembering Ilze in the Accusatory, was disinclined to pay him attention.

“I must speak with the Talker,” she said. “I don’t know what he was thinking of, sending you.” She sniffed, raking her face, staring at him as though he had been some kind of bug. Her teeth ground, and he tensed in every nerve, expecting pain.

That sound had accompanied pain before, and he wanted to scream at her.

“Sliffisunda wants to see her,” he grated.

“Fine,” Gendra said. “Let him come to see her. Talk with her. Question her, if he likes. I need to talk with him, too, and I’ll not be hauled up there like some sack of laundry.”

Taking a quick look at the alert Jondarites, Ilze retreated, quelled for this time. He had not laid eyes on Pamra Don. For all he knew, she was not even with the group. She, however, spying through a slit in the tent side, had seen him very well; seen him and disregarded him as an irrelevancy. He would hurt her if he could, but he would not be allowed. The Chancery folk would not allow it. Her great-great-grandfather, Tharius Don, would not allow it. She explained this to Neff and her mother and Delia as all of them nodded and smiled.

Back at the Talons Ilze’s failure was reported to Sliffisunda, who cawed laughter. “I did not think he would do any good!” The Fourth Degree Talker who had reported on Ilze kept his beak shut, wisely. Sliffisunda shuffled back and forth on his perch, darting his head from side to side. “Well, I will go talk to this old human. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or next day.”

He let two days pass before going to the camp. Gendra, who had studied the fliers for some time, was not concerned about the delay. The lassitude that had bothered her on the journey had not yet abated, and she remained in her tent, ministered to by Jhilt. Pamra, meantime, preached to the Jondarites. They, remembering how their general had responded to her, varied in their response from polite to enthusiastic.

And at last Sliffisunda arrived. The Talkers had lately taken to regalia, a tendency borrowed from humans, and Sliffisunda wore a badge of degree slung about his neck as well as various sparkling ornaments on his legs, feet, and wing fingers. Warned of his coming, Gendra had Pamra brought out of her tent, fully accoutred in her Jondarite armor, and set in a chair beside the fire with Jondarites at either side. If the old rooster wanted this one, Gendra thought, he would have to give something significant in return, though nothing of this appeared in her face or voice as she first greeted the Talker.

“I am honored,” she said. “We grant the request of Sliffisunda to talk with—even question—the woman, Pamra Don.”

“She was to have been sent to us,” the Talker cawed, depositing shit on Gendra’s words.

Gendra’s fingers twitched toward her face, then stilled, knotted. So, it was to be a battle of insults. “One pays little attention to what Talkers demand,” she replied in a bored voice. “Unless one is given reason to listen.”

Sliffisunda almost crouched in surprise. So, the humans could engage in Talkerly disputation! Almost always the humans were like spoiled eggs, stinking soft. This one was not. He turned away from her, showing his side—not quite a fatal insult, though close. “What reason would humans understand?” he cawed.

“More subtle reasons than a Talker could ascertain, perhaps,” she replied, turning her shoulder toward him to signal the Jondarites. “The Thraish have not been noted for good sense.”

He stretched his wings wide and threatened her. She gestured again at the Jondarites. He looked up to see a dozen crossbows centered on his chest. He laughed and subsided. “So. So, Gendra Mitiar. What have you to say?”

“I have to say your interest and mine are the same, Sliffisunda. Do you speak for the Talkers?”

“I speak to Talkers,” he boasted. “And they listen.”

“Ah,” she murmured. So, he could not commit the Talkers to anything, but he could argue a case. If she succeeded in acquiring an alliance with him, she would buy an advocate, not a potentiary. Still, what matter? Those in the assembly would accept a Talker’s interest as representative of the Thraish. They would not know the difference.