Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

So he quivered once in a while, shaking with a memory of passion, knowing he had cared once and unable to think of any reason he should not care now, but too frail to hold the notion for long. So he moved on the strong arms of his guards in the pale sun of polar summer, stopping to sniff at the brilliant northern blooms in the carefully tended gardens, easing through the muslin veils that clouded the doors, flung open now to the sweet airs and the sound of water, when it could be heard over the sound of chopping.

Still, at this noon hour the axes had fallen silent and the fountains could be enjoyed by the Protector of Man, held aloft and protected from harm, like a little doll, by the strong arms of his keepers. So he was held up during the last Progression; so he would be held during the next one if the Payment proved efficacious and he lived still longer. Though, said those who performed the functions of the Chancery, there was little enough left now to work with. An occasional spark was all, like the last glow of a fire banked against the morning and left too long without fuel. A fugitive gleam, without heat, consuming itself in die instant.

He stood on the gently curved span that crossed Split River, his old eyes seeking a gleam of golden fishes in the complaining flow. There was no peace in Split River. From the cold white heights it ran north into the Chancery lands, and from those same heights it ran south across the steppes of the Moor, and from there through Ovil-po township to the World River. Once each eighteen years a caravan carried the Protector through the pass and down the other side as far as Ovil-po, where the Progression ship was docked, its gold and gems wrapped against the harsh winds of early first summer. Six or seven years later, the Progression done, he returned to be met by the caravan and taken home to the Chancery, home to the warm familiarity of near five hundred years.

“Looky,” said the Protector, staring up at the distant mountains in senescent surprise. “The pass is all melted black.”

The uniformed Jondarites shared a conspiratorial glance and suggested it was time for his tea. His acquiescence was no less charming and inconsequential than his participation in the walk. One item of ritual more or less gracefully done. Let us move on, he seemed to say, to the next and then the next. The next being tea before the soft warmth of a porcelain stove. Cuddled deep in his curtained bed, Lees Obol nodded over his cup. His alcove was just off the main audience hall, its thick, squat walls dwarfed by the lofty barrel vaults above, its rock floor warmed and softened by carpets. Though it was too early for fires, the Protector of Man had a fire. The Jondarites were careful for his comfort, solicitous for his welfare. They would die for him without a moment’s question, just as they cared for him day by day, hands busy in his service, knives ready at their belts, eyes watchful. Two of them stood guard outside the alcove now. Two more stoked die tiny stove and closed the curtains. The stove burned only a few pieces of charcoal at a time, but with the alcove curtains closed, it developed a cozy warmth. Stretching in the heat like an old, pained cat, Lees Obol puffed a little sigh and sipped, remembering a sense of sharp discomfort without being able to identify the memory at all. Outside the alcove the Jondarites heard the sigh and remembered it. General Jondrigar would demand an accounting of them. Each sigh, each word, each breath, had to be remembered.

High on a parapet of the household wing, Maintainer of the Household Shavian Bossit peered through a glass into the southern sky. Sun glow filled the wedge of sky that marked Split River Pass, and a flying speck showed black against this fruity shine; a Servant, maybe even a Talker, here inside the Teeth, where no flier of any kind had any business being. Shavian frowned, his mouth making a point-up triangle of concentration. Not merely a flier. More than one of them, he told himself as the speck wobbled toward the Chancery lands. Several. Two or three at least. Trouble of some kind coming, and Lees Obol vacant as ever while his people plotted, some against one another, some against the Protector himself. Bossit did not pretend to himself that he was not one of them, even while breathing a quick prayer that Gendra Mitiar and Tharius Don could set their growing enmity aside for a few hours or days, if real danger portended.