Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

He fell silent then, thinking he had heard cries from the camp. Well. Whether or not, it was time to be getting back.

“I take my leave, Father. I will visit you when we next come by this way.” He bowed again and turned back toward the camp, not trotting now but running, for he did hear cries, screams.

Before reaching the crest of the hill, he dropped to his belly and writhed upward to peer over it.

Glittering figures moved among the tents of the Noor. Jondarites! Shiny fish skin helms plumed with flame-bird feathers sparkled over the huddled people of Mumros’s tribe. He wriggled forward, serpent like in the sparse grass, down the hill into a slanting gully. Over the cries of his people he heard the voice of the Jondarite captain.

“Women and children here. Men over there. All boys over ten with the men. Boys under ten with the women, Speed it up there, move! Move!”

Mumros risked raising his head. The men were herded together at one side of the camp. The women were all in the center, near the fires, surrounded by the Jondarite soldiers. Suddenly, without a word of command, the soldiers began slaughtering the women and children. All at once. Quickly. Like fishermen clubbing fish, they struck them down. Like stilt-lizard beaks, swords dipped in and out, emerged dripping, plunged in again.

The men of the tribe tried to break loose, but they had been tied. Over his own howling blood, Mumros heard their voices, crying names: “Onji, beloved!” “Creedi, Bowro, children-ah!” “Girir, oh, Girir!”

Then the voice of the captain once more.

“You men are to be taken as slaves to the mines. You will be roped together and marched there. Before we go, you are to look at the bodies, closely. Make sure all are dead. We have had men try to escape in the past to get back to their families. We want you to be very sure you have no families to come back to.”

Mumros dropped his head into the grass. He could not move. There was bile in his mouth, an agony in his head. He wanted to kill but had nothing to kill with. He was one and they were many. He could go to them, but what good would it do? They would only take him with the others.

So he lay, not moving, while the chain of roped captives was led away into the distance. When they had gone, he went into the camp. The captain had been right. None of those who had been taken away had anyone left to return to.

He lit three fires, spread them with damp bog-bottom, tended them while the smoke rose in pillars in the still air. By noon the first helper arrived. By nightfall there were several more. After several days there were many, and where the camp had been now stood the mud graves of the women, those of the children clustered at their knees.

“Come,” said one of the helpers to Mumros. “There is nothing more you can do here. Join us.”

“I know I can do nothing here,” said Mumros. “But I will not come with you. I must go and tell of this thing to Queen Fibji.” And he turned his face from the cluster of graves to begin the long march.

19

In Thou-ne, Haranjus Pandel had been expecting a visitor for over two years, since the day he had sent a signal to the Chancery announcing the finding of an image in the River and the elevation of that image in the Temple. As a matter of policy, the existence of the signal towers-or, rather, of their purpose, since the existence could not be concealed-was kept from the general populace. No one except Haranjus Pandel knew of the message he had sent or that it was possible to send a message at all. Thus, no one knew the eventual visitor had come in response to that message. The whole township saw the boat, of course, and the Chancery man getting off it, but it was all very casual.

Bostle Kerf was his full name, a Section Chief in the Bureau of Towers, sent south in all haste through the pass, thence quickly west, and then south again to arrive after a year’s travel in Thou-ne after a short detour to Zendigt, two towns east. His arrival from the east would evoke less concern, he had been told, than if he had appeared suddenly, coming down from the north like a migrating Noor. It was necessary to come to Thou-ne, It was not necessary to cause more talk than had already occurred. Gendra Mitiar had been clear about that. Once safely ensconced in the Tower, Kerf had a long, troubled conversation with Haranjus Pandel.