Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

He slept for a time, woke again, looked out the window to see the sun rolling upon the mountains, the day not quite half-gone. He stared, walked, huddled, began inventing pictures from the crevices and holes in the walls. There were a line of rounded depressions that looked like fish. He half slept, the fish emerging from the wall to swim about him, slowly, like blight-fish. He woke. The shadows had moved. Now the same depressions were eyes, watching him.

Another day passed before the door opened again to admit two tall Servants of Abricor. Talkers. They had come, they said, to accuse him. They were accompanied by a silent human in a dark robe and half veil. Ilze was angered by this, horrified by them.

“What am I accused of?” he demanded. “Tell me! What do you think I’ve done? I knew nothing about Pamra’s disappearance until after it happened. I know nothing about it now.”

“Tell us about Rivermen,” they demanded. They were taller than other Servants he had seen, cleaner, their feathers gleaming with blue highlights. One of them might have been the one who had been in the Superior’s room. Perhaps not. He could not tell. The fingers at the last joint of their wings were hard and clever. When he didn’t answer quickly, they pinched him. Their beaks were soft, almost like lips, and though the words they spoke were more croaked than enunciated, he learned to understand them very quickly. “Tell of Rivermen,” they repeated.

“I know what the Superior told me. They are a heretical cult who put their dead in the River.”

“Tell us something more.”

“I don’t know anything more.”

“Do you think they infiltrate the Towers? Put their own people in as Awakeners?”

“I have no idea. It seems unlikely.”

“Do you think Pamra was a spy? For the Rivermen?”

“She was only twelve when she came to us. Would a spy be that young?”

“For a person, she was very pretty, wasn’t she? Did you like her a great deal? Did you lust for her?”

“Seniors are not allowed that sort of contact with juniors. Yes, she was remarkable looking. Everyone thought so.”

“Did you lust for her?”

“Not really, no. There are always plenty of women in the town.”

“Did she confide in you?”

“No. She did ask me about sending a message east for her old nursemaid.”

“Did you tell her to do that?”

“I told her it wasn’t particularly in accord with doctrine, but it wasn’t actually heretical. I told her how to do it.”

“When did she tell you her old nursemaid had gone east?”

“She never did,” he said in a fury.

They went on asking these same questions for hours. From behind the veil a grinding sound emanated from time to time, as though the veiled person were chewing stones. That person said nothing. Tomorrow they returned to ask the same questions again. These returned, or others who looked exactly like these. Until his anger got the better of him.

“Where is my Superior? Ask the lady Kesseret!” It was obvious, even to him, that they had already asked the lady much. Where else would they have gotten the information they needed to question him? “She knows I’m telling the truth. What do you want from me?”

When they left him alone at the end of the day, he was too tired to move, too angry to care. He lay on the bed, the blankets drawn carelessly over him, letting the night come. There were bruises all over his body where they had mishandled him. He had stopped eating. The food tasted foul. The water tasted foul, too, but he was always thirsty.

“Why did you choose Pamra to be your junior?”

“It doesn’t work that way. I didn’t choose her. She was assigned to me.”

“Who assigned her?”

“My Superior. But even she didn’t pick Pamra. Pamra was just one of the handful who came in about the same time. As soon as the initiation master was through with them, I was in line to get that clutch. And the next senior got the next clutch. A clutch is five, ft didn’t mean anything. Whichever of us was next senior got the next bunch that came in.”