Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“Lila?” breathed Tharius Don. “Lila?”

The general did not seem to have seen. He leaned from the rimrock to shout in a stentorian voice, “The fliers have burned Pamra Don.”

From far off came a treble shout. “The Mother of Truth has been killed. War against the fliers. Night comes, night comes, night comes!”

Tharius looked across the plain to the place Martien waited. He made a chopping gesture, made it again, and again and again. Four times. The far green speck that was his banner dropped and then rose, four times. So. Let it begin. Let it all begin. Let it all come to a bloody end. Let the damn Thraish die as they deserved. He began to weep.

Below he could see Jondarites fighting against a party of crusaders. “Why?” he demanded of the general.

“Someone has said it was Jondarites who killed Pamra Don,” he growled. “Perhaps the devil with the crown has set his people against the Jondarites. I go to lead my armies. See, he flees!”

The cart that Peasimy Plot had traveled in was moving away, pulled by a dozen running men. Voices were calling out, wanting to know who it was who had killed Pamra Don. “Jondarites,” said some, attacking the nearest ones and falling in their blood. “Fliers,” said others, marching off toward the Red Talons, clubs and bows in their hands. And still others said, “Chancery. Those of the Chancery.”

“The Noor,” cried some, looking around for dark faces. “The blackfaces.” Tharius stared out over the valley. The Noor were moving rapidly south, visible now only as a trail of dust upon the horizon, too far away to become victims of this general holocaust. Below him a thousand battles were being waged, generalized slaughter was going on, and Jondrigar moved ponderously down the ladder to get his troops around him.

Tharius sat down where he was, staring at the blackened corpse of Pamra Don. The pyre still smoked. . The Jarb Mendicants left their encampment and began to move onto the battlefield, their pipes smoking, the haze around them thickening. Slowly, slowly, as the Mendicants covered the field, the fighting stopped. Shouting stopped. Cries of fury stopped. Sobbing and cries of pain and grief came after. Beside Tharius Don the ladder quivered, and Chiles Medroan climbed onto the stone to regard him with calm, awful eyes.

“She was mad,” Tharius said, his eyes red-lined with weeping. “Mad, and I did not see it.”

“Was she?” asked Chiles Medman, glancing at the blackened corpse, shuddering, turning his eyes away.

“Of course! Look at the slaughter down there. All madness. Madness.”

“Oh, that is probably true, Tharius Don.”

“Letit end.”

“I do not think it will end, no. Peering through the smoke, I see what is to be.” He stood at Tharius’s side, taking the oracular stance: hands held out, facing the weeping multitude, head thrown back, the pipe between his teeth so the smoke rose before his eyes. He called in a trumpet voice, “Millions will die in her name. The steppes will be soaked in blood. I see a future in which women are herded into one set of cities, men into another. I see endless processions, mindlessly stamping puddles of light. I see age, coming inexorably, with no youth to soften it, no children to bless it. I see Peasimy Prime immolating himself at last when death draws near, in order to assure for himself the immortality promised by Pamra Don.”

“Millions?” Tharius faltered. “What would be left?”

“I see a dozen, a hundred interventions, heresies, rebellions, all of which might succeed, any of which might fail. Still, the Jarb Houses will try, and try. And in the end die or flee, as all else dies or flees. Then there will be remnants, scratching in the ashes, ready to begin again.” He lowered his hands, took the pipe from his mouth, put his hand on Tharius’s shoulder as though in comfort.

“Madness!”

“Not to Peasimy Plot,” he said calmly. “Not to the fanatics who follow him. They do not see this world at all, but only their hope of the next. He has crossbowmen, did you know that? Men he has hired. They have instructions to shoot any Jarb Mendicant who comes anywhere near. He has named us the ultimate heretics. Us, and the Noor, and the Jondarites, for he has heard that General Jondrigar has been named the Protector of Man. Peasimy says no, the general is not Protector. He, Peasimy, is the Protector.”