Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
The Revenants (6 page)
And then, too, there were the strange happenings. Once in a great while Jaer could tell what it was the old men were thinking. They called this ‘being psychic,’ and they explained that it was an unreliable talent which people had had, more or less, always. Starting a fire without using his hands was something Jaer could do now and then, when he felt like it, when no one else was around. He never mentioned this to either Nathan or Ephraim, somehow knowing it would upset them.
One thing he did mention to Nathan from time to time was the strange dreams he had, she had, often – though not always – at the time the body changed. She saw herself in a place of towering stone which seemed to breathe with ominous life. Beside her strode a man, black, his hair flowing behind him in wild tails, carrying a shaft of silver fire. There was a woman with them, dancing. Jaer dreamed, sometimes, of another woman, one who walked among huge beasts with her hands on their heads, calm with contained fury and crowned with gemmed light. Jaer dreamed of an old woman, too, who in some strange fashion was dreatning of Jaer. When told all this, Nathan laughed and told Jaer to forget the dreams, that they were only sleep visions, the endlessly active mind sorting through the day’s memories to store them away.
Jaer did not believe this, knowing that nothing in the visions could be found in his day’s doings or readings, but in time he did forget it. Nathan forgot it, too, or did not know he had not. The images Jaer had spoken of, though haltingly, were compelling and could not have been altogether forgotten.
So life went on, and sometimes he/she was happy, bubbling with the joy of being healthy and alive in a world full of wonders. Always, however, something hovered just at the edge of that world, staining it, threatening it. Ephraim did not name it. Neither did Nathan. Only once in a great while, one of them would say, ‘I think it stems from …
that,’
with the word ‘that’ said in a whispering spit as though it meant something unutterably foul. Jaer puzzled over this. ‘We dare not go,’ Ephraim said. ‘Because of
that!’
His tone was such that Jaer could not ask about
that
. It was something which included the Keepers and the Separation and the Temples, the far off fields, no longer tended, going back to thistle and thorn. It was a shadow beyond the things one could see or define, something to the east, he thought, beyond the Concealment, beyond the ruins of Tchent. The Thiene were in it somehow, and the ancient times, and the name Taniel.’ Jaer learned not to think
that
as he had learned not to cry in that certain way, for to think it seemed to invite the shadow’s attention.
So, Jaer grew, and learned, and waited, and pondered, and was not more impatient for life than was bearable. The years passed, and Jaer was ten.
Year 1163
Deep within the sullen moors of Anisfale lay the lands and leaseholds of the family Fathra, and deep within that family lay the fate and future of lean-limbed Leona, third daughter of a third daughter, fifth child of a fifth child on the father’s side, doubly unlucky, therefore utterly without honorable position. The family was so disgusted at her birth that they did not even have new-made the traditional birth-gift of maidens, the circlet with which her hair would be bound until marriage. Instead they found one in some ancient storage room of the fastness and dusted it off, out of fashion though it had surely been for generations. Though the error had been her father’s (he might, after all, have restricted his attentions to one of his other wives, getting his unlucky fifth upon Oroneen, fourth daughter, for whom it would have been only a second birth, or upon Panaba, who had already born nine and was, herself, twelfth daughter) it was Leona who would suffer for it. She was consigned at birth to a long spinsterhood, a withering away in the caring for other children and other households than her own. She would never need to give her maiden circlet to a husband, therefore she did not need one suitable for giving.
Leona could not recall when she first became aware of being a child unwanted who had arrived untimely. It was simply something that was known by everyone, herself no less than they. She was not mocked for it, nor taunted. It was as though she had some kind of deformity which disqualified her for life but did not, unfortunately, seem likely to kill her. Slender she was, as lovely as a sapling in spring, lithe as a reed and as graceful as blown grass. Still, she would never marry, never bear children. Out of politeness no one mentioned it, but no one would have been fool enough to say that it didn’t matter.
Whether she sensed this early or not, she never looked at any boy or man with favour, preferring instead the lonely muted swell of the moors, or her own company, or the love and companionship of certain of the women of the family. She loved first a sister, then a young aunt, and finally a cousin whose lineaments were much like her own, Fabla. When with Fabla, Leona could forget or simply not think of her maimed life, which she carried day to day as she might have carried a twisted spine or a withered limb. With Fabla, or sometimes when alone on the moors, she could feel as though she had been born anew, translated into another life, another body, a being not her own. Once in a while, alone on the moors with the sun riding low in the west to look under the edge of the cloud blanket and the green of every herb and tree shattering, jewel-like, in that light, with the high call of a hawk creasing the last light with a knife edge of sound—why, then she would feel suddenly born into that new life with every thump of her heart pumping light into her veins until she glowed.
Or, with Fabla, at planting and harvest, lamb-fall or shearing, carding and weaving, in all things done by the women of Anisfale in which they two were together, when they sat alone by the fire with their spinning wheels echoing the fire voice and all the other voices of the world silent, with amber light falling on the stones of the floor and moving in dusty corners to make shy, mysterious shapes, then sometimes she would fill with comfort as a glass is filled with wine, the clear gleaming substance of it shading with ruby and rose and amber, until it stands too full to hold more. Or, in the bed with Fabla, curled like a leaf against her, with the sound of Fabla’s heart brushing her ear and the feather comforter soft at the side of her face, she might feel the quiet and the warm filling her and flooding her until the pain of being herself washed away on a tide of sleep.
In a way, she knew without ever thinking about it that there was another world of light and warmth and joy to which she might have been born. It never occurred to her that the world of light was one to which she might aspire; her daily sorrow was the reality and her joy was the dream. She never thought that it might be the other way around.
When the family talked of marriage and children and families, it was understood that Leona was not a part of that. When they spoke of wife barter and courting feasts, it was with the shared knowledge that Leona could be interested only as an inconspicuous observer. She was that one born to double numbers for whom no provision could be made.
There were proofs of this attitude more subtle than the general disregard. In Anisfale there were certain rituals which were provided for the people of the moors at various stages in their lives. There were naming ceremonies and dedication ceremonies, to say nothing of those ceremonies of invocation and protection which should have been conducted for her when she became a woman. Perhaps they thought, if they thought, that she was
not
a woman, for women marry and bear children, things Leona could never do, a number squared on both sides of the bed and therefore impossibly unlucky. The ceremonies invested the family with the life of each member, each member with the needs of the family. But Leona was unlucky; she could require nothing, contribute nothing.
They might have done better to remember why the ceremonies had originated. They were not only pleasant customs, gifts to be given as the people chose and thought proper, but were great and potent weapons with which the families had long defended themselves against an un-remembered danger. Who, hearing the Act of Protection chanted, ‘Forfend the beast and the demon from our humanity’ would have suspected that the words were anything but metaphorical?
The ceremonies were done for each member of the family, each of the people of Anisfale at the proper time, except for Leona. Those who administered the ceremonies did not think of it, did not notice the exclusion. Leona herself did not think of it. She went on bearing her daily life and rejoicing in Fabla’s company.
There came an end to their joy. Fabla was a third daughter, fifth child, and she had a family-brother, Deek-moth. The time came when Deekmoth, as the custom was, chose a wife from another clan and offered Fabla in exchange to Linnos, first child, first son – no double numbers there. Fabla cried that she was not willing, but she was strong and bright-haired, fair of feature and soft of voice. Willing or no, she was suitable to exchange for the sister of Linnos and become Linnos’s wife. Willing or no she was exchanged and sent away, across the muted moors and into the twilight of the north. Thereafter, she and Leona might meet at festivals or funerals.
Since it was not considered important that wives enjoy their husbands’ attentions, it was not remarked that Fabla detested the attentions of Linnos. She conceived in good time and bore a son which was, of course, a first of a first on the father’s side and therefore counted a throwaway if it did not survive. Fabla should have recovered in a few months and conceived promptly again.
But she did not. She did not recover from the weakness of birthing but lingered, weakening gradually, between half life and half death, unwilling either to live or to die, unwilling to hold the child or see it gone, unwilling to cry or cease from crying. The women who assisted at birthings did not know what to do. The doctor who was sent for confessed himself at a loss. At last, Linnos sought to return Fabla to her brother, but since this would have necessitated the return of Linnos’s sister, Deekmoth was unwilling. Linnos blustered and threatened. He could not take another wife for several years; he could not return Fabla; he could get no good of her while she lay half dead. Finally he sent to the oracle at Stonycroft and was gifted with the words of that old man.
‘She may hang as she is between life and death for many years,’ said the oracle, ‘until someone finds and brings the Vessel of Healing of the Founding Doctor, which would certainly bring her back to living. The oracle did not know where the Vessel might be found.
Linnos said he might go inquire about it after shearing, if he found time. Meanwhile, he found a plump companion at the tavern in Ne’rdale and left Fabla to the care of an ancient crone. And all this time Leona suffered as though it had been she who bore and was ill and could not recover. Her face grew gaunt and lined and her eyes deep-set, and there was not an hour of any day in which she did not long for Fabla. She begged that she might be let go to Fabla, but they would not let her. At last she simply went, without their permission.
So it was that she wandered the high moor one day in her sixteenth year as the sun dropped westerly and the clouds lifted into a high roof above a world washed clean by rain. The sun fell upon her from the west beneath the cloud as the moon rose in the east behind a copse of dark trees, and her human form dropped from her as though she had shed a loose garment. No one was there to see, except Leona, what shape came upon her. Leona saw, in the reflection of a quiet ppol. No one was there to hear what sound she cried, except Leona, and she heard in the echoes that came back from the distant peaks, brazen and plangent. No one knew what had happened, except for a sheep which had lain in the heather near her and which was now a riven corpse which stared blindly at the wild green under the westering sun. Talons had pierced it through, and it had died without a sound. No one knew except Leona. She saw what she had become and understood it without words to name it or words to reason it in.
She waited until the sun sank and the moon rose high to ride in a wrack of cloud. She washed herself in the cold water, returned to human form, and went on to the north.
She went to Fabla’s side and wept there until Linnos came and drove her away, saying that he would not feed two women of her kindred to lie about his sted, and moan. Leona went away dry-eyed. Fabla had not known her.
She did not return to her family. She told one of the children that she would go seek the Vessel for Fabla’s sake, but the people scarce remarked at this for a greater news held them to their gossip. Fabla’s husband, Linnos, was gone – disappeared. He had gone out in the night to see what thing caused a racket among the sheep, and he had never returned. They found his body on the moor, much later, riven as though by beasts or the great birds of the cliffs. They wondered much at that.
But at the fact Leona was gone? That all trace of her had been removed from the house she had tenanted? That her lace by the cooking fire was empty, her bed space vacant, er voice missing? Did anyone wonder at that?
Years 1163-1165
East of the Sea Desert lie the broad plains of the cattle herders, rolling grasslands which stretch from horizon to horizon, under calm skies or lowering, the blown grass a sea of green or tan, depending upon the season. In the long summer it is a dry land, and the cities of the plain are full of dust and the heat which beats from high enclave walls and the rasping cry of cicadas from the ragged grey trees. Dry and weary are such cities as Jassus, or Dierno, or Das.
In a dismal orbansa inn in the city of Das, Medlo, the scion of Rhees, woke one morning the worse for drink and dream. He had been given some unidentified substance to chew, or smell, he forgot which, in a spirit either of camaraderie or malice, he had not known which. Inches from his face on the dirty mattress was another face, and Medlo recoiled from it as from any unexpected presence which intruded upon half sleep. The dream had been more present than the reality. The face did not connect to a name – or perhaps it did. A hostler, as Medlo was. Hired here in Das to accompany the wagon train west into the desert lands. Young. What was his name?
Alan
something or other. From somewhere. Medlo rose, gagging, and staggered away down the twisting corridor to the convenience office which jutted out over die midden.
