Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

When she raised the hood, Delia’s eyelids lifted to give her one look of terrible intelligence before they closed once more. Pamra told herself it had been the final look, the last awareness.

“It’s over,” she whispered. “Over. Done. Soon the dark. Soon the silence. The forgiving silence. Soon the true peace, Delia. Delia. Forgive me.”

Then dark surrounded them, the sound of night fliers, the rustle of small living things, the dim ghost light of Abricor, the silver radiance of Viranel, the red looming power of Potipur, gathered together to stare down at her as she stared up, daring them to strike at her. In their light she raised the hoods, leaving them up to see whether any still looked at her or whether they were only dead. She could not tell, for the moonlight shifted and threw strange shadows on the faces. From the top of the chasm wall she levered the loose rim rock until it tumbled in a thundering avalanche across them, a growl of stone that piled above the pathetic bodies and shook the silent fabric of the wilderness.

It ended in a shivering cascade of gravel, a roil of dust that hung for long moments in the still evening, moving as though it were sentient. She dropped onto the rim rock, choking on the dirty air.

Where had the stubborn naivet come from that had kept her enthralled with myth long after those around her knew the truth? Where had her blindness come from? Had it been willful? A way of getting even with them all?

Slowly, so slowly that she did not know if she truly saw it or only imagined it, a line of fliers moved across the face of Potipur toward her, bent and moved as though a lip had moved upon that face, mouthing a word. Was it “Go”? Or perhaps “Good”? Or “God”? Fliers. Investigating the sound of the failing stone.

“A He,” she said defiantly. It made no difference what the Servants of Abricor said. It was all a lie.

She broke her mirrored staff and threw the shattered pieces into the pit. Her hands went to her hair to remove the identifying braids. When it hung loose as any market woman’s locks, she remembered she had never seen an Awakener die. Had never seen one dead. Perhaps there had been many come beneath her hands, their hair unbraided, hidden behind the canvas hoods.

After a time she climbed down from the high rim wall and began to walk through the dark trees into the west. She would pass through the workers’ pit on the westward boundary and come to Shabber.

What would she do then? Tend garden, as Delia had done? Go westward farther still?

Or stay in one careful place, close to the River, so that in good time she could seek her own end in deep water as gentle, fearful Mother had done. Seek the long pier’s end deep in the lonely night as Mother had done. As Mother had done, so that no amount of fishing could bring her forth again. No amount of dragging bring her to answer to Potipur for her sin in not trusting to the Holy Sorters to Son it all out.

Wise in her weakness; better able to face the truth than Pamra herself.

Behind her the dust settled. Hands moved feebly beneath the rocks. Through chinks in the stones, eyes stared upward at the red light of Potipur.

Out of the night the black wings settled upon the stones. Great fliers walked here and there, thrusting the rocks aside with monstrous beaks and talons.

“Rejoice,” a croaking voice chuckled softly, almost inaudibly. “The Sorters are here.”

Ilze had spent the day inspecting the plowing of pamet fields northwest of Baristown, a vast stretch of fertile soil that lay between two slightly raised banks, as though at some time a side channel of the World River had run there, depositing its sediment over centuries. The inspection was perfunctory, more a matter of ritual than actuality. Pamet did very well when scattered on unplowed ground. The uneven scoring of the soil by a crew of stumbling workers neither helped nor hindered the crop. Nonetheless, the workers had to be kept moving if the Tears were to permeate all the flesh, growing throughout it, reducing it in volume by at least half and making it suitable for the Servants of Abricor to eat. Worker flesh was all that they ate. Presumably Abricor had destined the fliers for the purpose of eating workers, or workers for the purpose of feeding fliers-though Ilze regarded this idea cynically. In his opinion, fliers were outrageously ugly, and they stank.