Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“If you will let me find Pamra,” he said at last, believing he had thought of it himself, “I will find what it is you need to know. Just let me find her.”

“Well,” mused the Ascertainer who twisted the iron, “it would serve her right. To have repaid your concern in this fashion was an abomination. To have treated you so when you had been so kind to her. This accusation came about through her, Ilze. Your pain is due to her, Ilze. If it weren’t for Pamra … “ Against the wall the veiled watcher made the sound of grinding.

“Let me find her,” he begged.

After that there was a long quiet time when the pain passed and was more or less forgotten. “Your heresy came about through her,” they told him, both the human Ascertainers and the Talkers who watched. “We’re sorry for your suffering, but it was all her doing.” It was a revelation that he knew to be absolutely true. He had almost compromised his own future. Because of her. Because of Pamra. If they had not been so understanding, he would have been condemned, because of Pamra.

“Are you feeling well, Ilze?” It was the lady Kesseret once more, rather gaunt and wan looking, as though she had been many nights without sleep. She wore a robe he had never seen before, one that covered her hands and feet. When she moved, she winced. “Are you recovered?”

“Quite recovered, thank you.” It was early spring. He had recovered. Obviously, the lady Kesseret had not.

“The Ascertainers met this morning. I was in attendance. They have ascertained that you were not entirely guiltless, but misled. Tricked. You have been offered an opportunity to atone through special duty. As a Laugher, I understand, for Gendra Mitiar, Dame Marshal of the Towers.”

“I know,” he said, his anger hot at her tone. It would be more than atonement.

“I am told they plan a reward for you when your mission is done. A Tower of your own. An initial offer of the Payment.” Her voice was without emotion or encouragement, uninvolved in this, as though it had happened quite separate from her life and without any connection to it.

He bowed, silent. Hatred moved him, not ambition. When he felt his wounds, hatred moved him.

“The Payment comes from the Talkers, and they must approve its recipients. That they have done so speaks well of your future expectations, Ilze.”

Hot curiosity still burned in him. “Tell me again about the Talkers. Who are they?”

“They are the leaders of those who lived here before we came.”

“What was it they ate before we came?”

“Beasts, so they say. I’ve told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“They ate hoovar and thrassil and weehar, animals with hot juicy bodies. They ate them all. All but a very few who survived here behind the Teeth of the North. The Protector has small herds of thrassil and weehar here in the Chancery lands. A few hundred animals. The hoovar are extinct.” She rose, moved about the room, stiffly, uncomfortably. Again, Ilze wondered what they had done to her. “When all the beasts were gone, they had no choice but to eat us-us or fish.”

“Why not fish, then?”

“Because, so they say, fish eaters lose the power of flight and thereby blaspheme the will of Potipur, who made them fliers. Some essential ingredient is missing in fish. Eating fish changes them in other ways, too-makes their females more intelligent, for example. The female fliers are as you have seen them. Dirty, quarrelsome. I am told they, too, can talk but do so very little. Eating fish makes them less aggressive, as well. There is a tribe of fish eaters somewhere, so they say, a tribe called the Treeci. In their language, ‘treeci’ means ‘offal.’ Talkers speak of fish eaters as we do of heretics.” She winced, sat down, cradled her hands as though they pained her.

“No, given a choice of eating fish or dying, they might well eat fish. However, they prefer to eat us. And the Talkers eat us alive, Ilze. Not dead. There are not many Talkers. Two or three living humans taken from each town each month are enough to feed them. You will learn how to do it when you are Superior of a Tower. It will be your task to recruit citizens for this purpose. The Talkers do not eat the dead. The fliers would not eat the dead if they had anything to eat.”