Sheri S. Tepper - Awakeners 2 - Southshore

VIP免费

2024-11-30 0 0 489.15KB 214 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners 2

Sheri S Tepper

[23 feb 2002—scanned for #bookz]

[29 mar 2002—proofed by cress]

When Pamra left Thou-ne, moving westward along the River road, some

thousand of the residents of Thou-ne went after her. Most of them were

provisioned to some extent, though there were some who went with no thought

for food or blankets, trusting in a providence that Pamra had not promised and

had evidently not even considered, Peasimy Plot, for all his seeming inanity, was

well provided for. He had a little cart with things in it, things he had been putting

by for some time. The widow Plot would have been surprised to find in it items

that had disappeared from her home over the last fifteen years or so. There were

others in Thou-ne who would have been equally surprised to find their long-lost

belongings assisting Peasimy in his journey.

The procession came to Atter, and though some of the Thou-neites dropped out of

the procession, many of Atter joined it. Pamra preached in the Temple there, to

general acclaim. Then came Bylme and Twarn-the-little, then Twarn-the-

big—where the townspeople made Pamra a gift of a light wagon in which she

might ride, pulled by her followers—then a dozen more towns, and in each of

them the following grew more numerous, the welcome more tumultuous. Peasimy

himself began to appoint "messengers" to send ahead with word of their coming.

It was something that came to him, all at once. "Light comes," he told them. "That

is what you must say." As time went on, the messages grew more detailed and

ramified, but it was always Peasimy who sent them.

It was on a morning of threatening cloud that they left Byce-barrens for the town

of Chirubel.

The storm did not precisely take them by surprise; the day had brought increasing

wind and spatters of rain from very near dawn until midafternoon. Still, when in

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...per%20-%20Awakeners%202%20-%20Southshore.htm (1 of 214) [10/31/2004 11:18:19 PM]

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners 2

late afternoon the full fury of the wind broke over them and the skies opened, the

multitude were in nowise prepared for it. Some stopped where they were,

crawling under their carts or pitching their tents as best they might, to cower

under them out of the worst of the downpour. Others fled into the woods, where

they sought large trees or overhanging ridges. Pamra, high on her wagon, simply

pointed ahead with one imperious ringer, and the men who dragged the wagon,

half-drowned by the water flowing over their faces, staggered on into the deluge.

It was not until they stumbled into the outer wall of the Jarb House that they

realized she had pointed toward it all along. Pamra came down from the wagon,

and the dozen or so of them, including Peasimy Plot, struggled around the

perimeter of the place looking for a door.

It opened when they pounded, warmth drifting out into the chill together with a

puff of warm, dry air laden with strange smells and a haze of smoke. Peasimy

coughed. Pamra pressed forward against the warding arm of the doorkeeper, the

others following, gasping, wetter than fish.

They passed down a lengthy corridor into the main hall to stand there stunned at

the scale of the place. It was like standing in a chimney. At one side stairs curved

up to a balcony that spiraled around the open area, twisted up, and up, kept on

going around and around, smaller and smaller, to the seeming limit of their eyes,

where it ended in a dark glassy blot, a tented skylight black with rain. It was,

Pamra thought, like being inside the trunk of a hollow tree with an opening at the

top and all the tree's denizens peering down at you. Heads lined the balconies,

went away to be replaced by others, and throughout the whole great stack of

living creatures came a constant rustle and mumble of talk, a bubbling pulse of

communication that seemed to be one seamless fabric of uninterrupted sound.

From some of the balconies nets hung, littered with a flotsam of clothing and

blankets. From other balconies long, polished poles plunged to lower levels. A

brazier was alight at the center of the floor, its wraiths rising in dim veils in this

towering, smokestack space.

"Come in," said the Mendicant ironically. "So nice to have you."

"It is raining out there," announced Pamra evenly, no whit aware of the sarcasm.

She drew back the cloak that had covered Lila to disclose the child, not at all

discomfited by the soaking she had received.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...per%20-%20Awakeners%202%20-%20Southshore.htm (2 of 214) [10/31/2004 11:18:19 PM]

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners 2

"Wet," affirmed Peasimy. "Dreadful wet. A great flood out of the skies. Mustn't

let her drown. Too important."

"Ah," assented the Mendicant. "And you are?"

"The crusade," said Peasimy. "We are the crusade. Light comes! She is the Bearer

of Truth, the very Mother of Truth."

"Ah," said the Mendicant again, frowning slightly. He had heard of this. All this

segment of Northshore had heard of this, one way or the other. As one of the

Order's more trusted messengers, he had more interest in it than most. A message

had come through Chiles Medman, Governor General of the Order, from Tharius

Don asking the Order to assist in procuring information.

"Trale," he introduced himself. "Mendicant brother of the Jarb. What can I offer

you by way of assistance?"

"Towels," said Pamra simply. "And a fire to dry ourselves. Something hot to

drink if you have it conveniently by." She stared around her, up at the endless

balconies where people came and went, staring down at her, leaving the railings

to others who stared in their turn. Pale blots. Mouths open. Hands moving in

beckoning gestures. Something distressed her, but she could not identify it.

Something was wrong, missing, as though she had forgotten to put on her skirt or

her tunic. She looked down at herself, puzzled. She was damp but fully dressed.

Why, then, this feeling of nakedness?

Trale led them across the hall, through an arch beneath the balcony and into a

wide, low room that curved away just inside the outer wall. A refectory. Pamra

shivered. It was not unlike the refectory at the Tower of Baris. The smells were

not unlike those smells. Cereals and soap, steam and grease, cleanliness at war

with succulence. Trale beckoned to them from an angled corner, a smaller room

opening off the large one, where a fire blazed brightly upon the hearth.

"I'll return in a moment," he murmured, leaving them there.

Those who had drawn the cart stood back, waiting for Pamra to approach the fire.

She gestured them forward. The room was warm enough without baking herself.

She took off her outer clothing and spread it on a table. Her knee-length

undertunic was only damp, clinging to her body like a second skin. The men

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...per%20-%20Awakeners%202%20-%20Southshore.htm (3 of 214) [10/31/2004 11:18:19 PM]

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners 2

turned their eyes away under Peasimy's peremptory gaze, one of them flushing.

Trale was back in a moment with towels and a pile of loosely woven robes over

one arm. He did not seem to notice Pamra's body under the clinging fabric but

merely handed her one of the robes, as impersonally as a servant. Behind him

came a man and a woman, one bearing a tea service, the other a covered platter at

which Peasimy looked with suspicion. "Jarb," said Trale. "It is our custom."

"We won't—" Pamra began.

"No. It is our custom. With any visitor. Call it—oh, a method of diagnosis."

"We are not ill."

"The diagnosis is not always of illness. Do take tea. This is a very comforting brew. It has no

medicinal qualities aside from that."

They sat steaming before the fire, moisture rising from them and from their

discarded clothing in clouds. Rain fell down the chimney, making small spitting

noises in the fire. The wall at their side reverberated to the thunder outside,

hummed to the bow-stroke of the wind. In the great hall the voice murmur went

on and on. Beside the fire Trale knelt to scrape coals into a tiny brazier. Beside

the brazier lay three oval roots, warty and blue, each the size of a fist. Jarb roots,

Pamra thought. Trale peeled the roots carefully, dropping the peels into a shallow

pan. When all three were peeled, he laid the roots into the ashes and began to dry

the peels over the brazier, stirring them with a slender metal spoon. The woman

who had brought in the tea buried the peeled roots in the ashes and turned to smile

at Pamra.

"It is only the peel which has the power of visions. Jarb root itself is delicious.

The Noor eat it all the time. Have you ever tasted it?"

Pamra shook her head, oppressed once more by the sense of something missing.

"No." She ate less and less as the crusade wore on. Hunger seemed scarcely to

touch her. Now, for some reason, however, she felt ravenous. Perhaps it was the

smoke. Perhaps the smell of food. "I am hungry, though."

"They only take a few moments to steam. Some scrape the ashes off, but I like the

taste." She drew a pipe from her pocket and handed it to Trale, who filled it with

the powdery scraps from the pan. All three had pipes, and in a moment all three

were alight, seated before the fire, the smoke from the pipes floating out into the

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...per%20-%20Awakeners%202%20-%20Southshore.htm (4 of 214) [10/31/2004 11:18:19 PM]

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners 2

room, into the refectory, away into the chimney of the great hall. The fragrance

was the same one that already permeated everything. Sweet, spicy. Pamra folded

her arms on the table and laid her head upon them, suddenly both hungry and

tired. She had not felt this hungry, this tired, in months. Why was she here? She

thought briefly of the Gift of Potipur, wishing she were aboard, translating the

murmur of Tower talk into the murmur of tidal current, the thunder outside into

the creak of boat timbers. She could be there. With Thrasne. Instead of here.

Beside her Lila chortled and said, clearly, "Over the River. Thrasne went over the

River."

Peasimy turned, his little ruby mouth open, cheeks fiery red with the drying he

had given them. "She talked!"

Pamra nodded sleepily. "She does, sometimes."

"I hadn't heard her before."

"She talks about the River a lot. Mostly that." She rubbed her forehead fretfully.

The sweet smell of the Jarb had soaked into the top of her nose and was filling it,

like syrup. She turned to find the three smokers knocking the dottle from their

pipes onto the hearth. The immediacy of the smell was dissipating.

The woman raked the baked Jarb root from the fire, brushing it off and placing it

upon a little plate. This she placed before Pamra with a spoon. "Try a little."

Pamra spooned off a bite, blowing on it to cool it. The root was sweet, too, but

delicious. The slightly ashy taste only complemented it. She took another

spoonful, then hesitated.

"Go ahead, eat it all," the woman said. "There are people bringing plenty of food

for you and for the others."

By the fire, Trale sat, rocking back and forth.

"Did you have a vision?" asked Peasimy curiously, studying the man's face.

"Oh, yes."

"What was it of?"

"Of you, Peasimy Plot. And of Pamra Don. And of what is to come."

"Oh!" Peasimy clapped his hands, delighted. "Tell us!"

Trale shook his head. "I'm afraid it can't be told. There are only colors and

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Sh...per%20-%20Awakeners%202%20-%20Southshore.htm (5 of 214) [10/31/2004 11:18:19 PM]

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners2SOUTHSHORE-Awakeners2SheriSTepper[23feb2002—scannedfor#bookz][29mar2002—proofedbycress]1WhenPamraleftThou-ne,movingwestwardalongtheRiverroad,somethousandoftheresidentsofThou-newentafterher.Mostofthemwereprovisionedtosomeextent,thoughthereweresomewhowentwithnothoughtforfoodorbla...

展开>> 收起<<

Sheri S. Tepper - Awakeners 2 - Southshore.pdf

共214页,预览5页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Sheri S. Tepper - Awakeners 2 - Southshore

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: