Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

At the plaza each representative went off to his own booth, there to spend the day in earnest conversation with the casteless youths who were not yet fastened into any way of life. For her there would be the usual curiosity seekers and those who came on a dare. And among them might be the one or two she would recruit, though they had often not intended it when they came. It was true that Pamra could recruit better than any of the senior grade. Perhaps because she was not much older than the young people she talked to. Perhaps because she cared more about it. Though Ilze was a stickler for duty, sometimes he seemed almost to mock the Tower and the law. Almost as though it were no better than law mongering, or body fixing, or garbage shifting, some low-caste activity that no one would bother with if they could do something better. Occasionally Pamra wondered if any of the high-grade Awakeners took it seriously, though of course they must! The religious glory, the ecstasy, would only come if one were serious. How could they remain in the work otherwise?

And it was the ecstasy she talked about with the recruits. By midmorning she had collected a small group of two gigglers and one swaggering boy with a perpetual sneer. There was also a narrow cheated, fire-eyed youth who glared at her as though she guarded the gate to a treasure he sought. She could almost feel the spear of his glance skewering her, as though he feared she might oppose him rather than help him!

“Do you remember when you were children,” she began, “at the time of Conjunction, at festival time, when the Candy Tree grew in your bedrooms at night?” She smiled at them, and they back, unable not lo smile, even the gigglers and the swaggering one, though he covered the smile with a sneer pretending mockery. “When you awakened in the morning, the evidence of the tree was there, on your bedcovers, sweet and marvelous.

“Later, of course, you learned that it was your kin who put the candy there, and you believed the story of the Candy Tree must be false, a simple myth for little children. You did not realize that there was a greater truth that the Candy Tree did indeed grow on the night of festival, sot in your bedroom alone, but over all the land of Bans, to drop its festival spirit into the hearts of everyone. If you looked into their faces, your mothers and fathers, you would have seen that festival spirit blooming.” Her voice began to sing, she herself began to sway. Her exhilaration in what she said began to catch them, and herself. She felt the blood rising into her face and knew she was beautiful to them.

“There is indeed a Candy Tree., though it is a more complicated concept than children know. And just as the sweetness spread upon your bedcovers is the physical evidence of the spiritual tree, so the existence of the Awakeners is the Northshorely evidence of a greater mystery, the love of Potipur. It is true that we Awakeners raise up those who come to us from the east to provide a service they failed to provide in life. It is equally true that we carry the dead of Baristown to the place of Sorting, west of here. There the good and righteous, their faces shining with the radiance of a life well spent, are Sorted Out by the Holy Sorters to be dressed in silk and placed in the arms of Potipur. We know this. We can testify to it. We are the evidence of it, the evidence of the love of Potipur, and Abricor, and Viranel.

“Because we know this wonderful thing of our own experience, we believe we are more likely to live in accordance with Potipur’s will, more likely to be Sorted Out at the end.” Pamra swept over this point quickly. She was sure. She wouldn’t lie, not to recruits. It wouldn’t be fair. But she didn’t really know whether all Awakeners had the radiance in their faces. All Baris’s dead were collected at the Tower for transport to the place of Sorting, and though Pamra had been on duty in the death room several times, there had never been the body of an Awakener there.