Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“Where?” Sliffisunda asked. “Where will you do this?”

“Here. In the Talons. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”

“Before those from the Chancery?” Sliffisunda was watching him closely. If, as Sliffisunda thought likely, all those in the crusade had been contaminated by Pamra Don’s ideas, then some mere private vengeance against the woman would not suffice. Her followers would have to be convinced that Pamra Don was wrong. “Would you punish her before those from the Chancery and all her followers?”

Ilze shivered. He wanted to say yes, but his soul shrank from it. He had orders not to touch her. If he punished her in public, they would kill him. He knew that. They would kill him at once. Those from the Chancery would do it. Her followers would do it. And no one would care enough to save him from them. “If you would protect me,” he whined, hearing the whine and hating it.

“Ah. Well, suppose you don’t do it. Suppose we do it, the Thraish. How should it be done?”

Ilze had only thought of whips, of stakes. “Tie her to a stake,” he said, then stopped. The Talkers didn’t use whips. “Eat her?” he offered.

Sliffisunda cawed his displeasure, pecking Ilze sharply on one side of his head so the blood flowed. “Take into our bodies the foul flesh of a heretic? Stupid human!”

“Well, do whatever you do, then,” Ilze sulked, trying to stanch the blood.

“We have a ceremony,” Sliffisunda said. “A ceremony.”

Night came. Sliffisunda came again. Pamra Don came again, to the fireside.

“Do your followers believe as you do?” the Talker asked her, already certain of the answer.

“Yes. Most of them. All of them, in time. All mankind, in time.” It was not the question she had expected, not one of the questions she was ready for, but the Talker asked nothing else. He turned and left her, going to Gendra Mitiar to carry on a lengthy, soft-voiced conversation which Pamra could not hear.

Jhilt could hear it.

“You wish to be Protector of Man?”

Gendra Mitiar nodded. Her voice was very husky tonight, and it tired her to talk.

“What can Thraish do to guarantee this?” he purred.

“Wait until Lees Obol dies. I will let you know. Then send a messenger. Tell the assembly the elixir will be decreased unless I am elected. In which event it will be increased.”

“And when you are Protector, you will increase the quota of humans? You will eradicate the Noor for this?”

“ You have myword.”

“And in return for this agreement, you will give me the person of this woman, this Pamra Don?”

“As you like Uplifted One. She is nothing to me. What do you want her for?”

“To prove she is a false prophet, Dame Marshal. In ceremony before all her followers at Split River Pass. To show them Potipur will not be mocked.”

Gendra laughed, thinking of Tharius Don. “How may I assist you, Uplifted One?”

Jhilt heard all this, her ear tight to the tent flap.

When Sliffisunda had gone, when Gendra Mitiar was asleep, an uneasy sleep in which her heart faltered and her lungs seemed inclined to stop working, Jhilt walked out to the cage of seeker birds that every Jondarite troop carried with it. The message bone was already in her hands.

“A message for Tharius Don,” she said, keeping her voice bored and level. “From the Dame Marshal.”

The Jondarite keeper made a cursory examination of the seal. It looked like the Dame Marshal’s seal, and who else’s would it be? The bird came into his hands willingly, accepted the light burden as trained to do, and launched itself upward to turn toward the north without hesitation, strong wings beating across Potipur’s scowling face.

Jhilt shivered, thinking of what was in that message.

“You cold?” leered the soldier, opening his cloak in invitation.

She shook her head. “The Dame Marshal needs me,” she said, turning back toward the tent. Though, indeed, if the Dame Marshal needed her at all, it would not be for much longer. Queen Fibji should be told of this conspiracy against the Noor. Jhilt had no seeker birds for the Queen; therefore she must find some Noor signal post that would have them. Gendra would not spend time looking for a slave, not now, not as weak as she was and with so much going on. Jhilt fumbled among her chains for the other key, the one that unlocked her jingling manacles. Moments later she moved off across the steppes, silent as the moons.