Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

And then he stood to take Medoor Babji’s hand and nod acceptance. “To Southshore.”

As they sailed on into the south, Thrasne rigged a chair over the bow and laboriously chiseled away two of the three words that had been carved into the prow of the ship. The Gift of Potipur became simply the Gift. The winged figure that had leaned into the wavelets of the River for decades was replaced with another carving, one that Medoor Babji called, only to herself, “Suspirra in ecstasy,” taking comfort in the fact that Thrasne had carved it, for it was not a face or figure any living man would lust for. It was Pamra’s face, but a face beatified, glorious, and inhuman, the face of a departing spirit. Before her in her wooden hands she held the gift, a strangely shaped being that might have had either wings or flippers and was carved as though eternally poised to drop into the waters below. Tharius Don, before his death, had told Thrasne about Lila as he had seen her, Lila transformed, the child of the strangeys.

On a calm and starry night when there were no moons, the child was born. When it had been cleaned and wrapped and laid in a blanket, Thrasne stood by the basket and the baby grasped his hand, curling infant fingers around one of his own in a gesture as old as time and demanding as life itself. “Mine,” said Thrasne wonderingly. “This is mine.”

“Ours,” said Medoor Babji firmly. “He belongs to us, and to the Noor.”

“And to the Gift,” said Thrasne stubbornly. “And to Southshore.”

“That, too. I pray we find good fortune there, for our ancestors alone know what is happening behind us.” She reached for Thrasne’s other hand. The birth had been more than she had expected; more in the way of pain, of effort, and of fulfillment when it was done. It was time to say. Time for words. “And what of the baby’s mother, Thrasne? Do you claim her, too, or only the child?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, suddenly surprised that it should need saying. “Oh, yes! She, too, is mine if she will be.”

“And Suspirra?”

He shrugged, rather more elaborately than the question warranted at this stage, but he needed to be sure that both of them understood what he meant. “At the prow of the Gift, Doorie. Where dreams are put. That was a different thing from this.”

She was content, and Queen Fibji, hearing this exchange from outside the door, sighed a great sigh of relief.

They had come to the baby’s tribal day, that day on which he was to be given a name, when the hail came from the steering deck. They thought it might be only another island and sent someone scurrying up the mast to spy out the cloudy land. He came back down to say there was no end to the land he could see, not south nor east nor west, but ahead of them were white beaches and a great, towering smoke. They gave up any thought of ceremony then, preferring to crowd the rails for the earliest glimpse of the new land.

By the time dusk came they had anchored in a shallow bay rimmed with pale dunes. On the beach were three boats that Thrasne recognized, and scattered across the dunes were the tents of many earlier arrivals. High above them to the west was a towering scaffold bearing a clay firefox, and in this a great beacon burned, smoke roiling above it as from a chimney.

Some of those aboard the Gift splashed into the water and swam ashore while others plied to and fro on hastily rigged rafts. The Cheevle bore Queen Fibji, Medoor Babji, Thrasne, and the child, with Strenge plying the rudder as they ran the little boat up on the sand. The Noor crowded around, not too closely, making obeisance, pointing at the child, who regarded them with wide, wondering looks from his not altogether Noorish eyes.

“Let me see this land,” the Queen called, waving them aside as she staggered toward the tops of the dunes to peer inland, seeing there a vast prairie of grass and scattered copses in the light of the moons.