N. Jemisin - The Fifth Season

“Gave it away? In winter?”

He speaks mildly, but Mother looks abruptly uncomfortable. “She’s got a cousin who needed it. We don’t all have wardrobes full of fancy clothes to spare. And—” Here Mother hesitates, glancing at Damaya. Damaya just looks away. She doesn’t want to see if Mother looks sorry for giving away the coat. She especially doesn’t want to see if Mother’s not sorry.

“And you’ve heard that orogenes don’t feel cold the way others do,” says the man, with a weary sigh. “That’s a myth. I assume you’ve seen your daughter take cold before.”

“Oh, I.” Mother looks flustered. “Yes. But I thought…”

That Damaya might have been faking it. That was what she’d said to Damaya that first day, after she got home from creche and while they were setting her up in the barn. Mother had raged, her face streaked with tears, while Father just sat there, silent and white-lipped. Damaya had hidden it from them, Mother said, hidden everything, pretended to be a child when she was really a monster, that was what monsters did, she had always known there was something wrong with Damaya, she’d always been such a little liar —

The man shakes his head. “Nevertheless, she will need some protection against the cold. It will grow warmer as we approach the Equatorials, but we’ll be weeks on the road getting there.”

Mother’s jaw flexes. “So you’re really taking her to Yumenes, then.”

“Of course I—” The man stares at her. “Ah.” He glances at Damaya. They both look at Damaya, their gazes like an itch. She squirms. “So even thinking I was coming to kill your daughter, you had the comm headman summon me.”

Mother tenses. “Don’t. It wasn’t, I didn’t—” At her sides, her hands flex. Then she bows her head, as if she is ashamed, which Damaya knows is a lie. Mother isn’t ashamed of anything she’s done. If she was, why would she do it?

“Ordinary people can’t take care of… of children like her,” says Mother, very softly. Her eyes dart to Damaya’s, once, and away, fast. “She almost killed a boy at school. We’ve got another child, and neighbors, and…” Abruptly she squares her shoulders, lifting her chin. “And it’s any citizen’s duty, isn’t it?”

“True, true, all of it. Your sacrifice will make the world better for all.” The words are a stock phrase, praise. The tone is uniquely not. Damaya looks at the man again, confused now because child-buyers don’t kill children. That would defeat the point. And what’s this about the Equatorials? Those lands are far, far to the south.

The child-buyer glances at Damaya and somehow understands that she does not understand. His face softens, which should be impossible with those frightening eyes of his.

“To Yumenes,” the man says to Mother, to Damaya. “Yes. She’s young enough, so I’m taking her to the Fulcrum. There she will be trained to use her curse. Her sacrifice, too, will make the world better.”

Damaya stares back at him, realizing just how wrong she’s been. Mother has not sold Damaya. She and Father have given Damaya away. And Mother does not hate her; actually, she fears Damaya. Is there a difference? Maybe. Damaya doesn’t know how to feel in response to these revelations.

And the man, the man is not a child-buyer at all. He is—

“You’re a Guardian?” she asks, even though by now, she knows. He smiles again. She did not think Guardians were like this. In her head they are tall, cold-faced, bristling with weapons and secret knowledge. He’s tall, at least.

“I am,” he says, and takes her hand. He likes to touch people a lot, she thinks. “I’m your Guardian.”

Mother sighs. “I can give you a blanket for her.”

“That will do, thank you.” And then the man falls silent, waiting. After a few breaths of this, Mother realizes he’s waiting for her to go fetch it. She nods jerkily, then leaves, her back stiff the whole way out of the barn. So then the man and Damaya are alone.

“Here,” he says, reaching up to his shoulders. He’s wearing something that must be a uniform: blocky shoulders and long, stiff lines of sleeve and pant leg, burgundy cloth that looks sturdy but scratchy. Like Muh’s quilt. It has a short cape, more decorative than useful, but he pulls it off and wraps it around Damaya. It’s long enough to be a dress on her, and warm from his body.

“Thank you,” she says. “Who are you?”

“My name is Schaffa Guardian Warrant.”

She’s never heard of a place called Warrant, but it must exist, because what good is a comm name otherwise? “‘Guardian’ is a use name?”

“It is for Guardians.” He drawls this, and her cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. “We aren’t much use to any comm, after all, in the ordinary course of things.”

Damaya frowns in confusion. “What, so they’ll kick you out when a Season comes? But…” Guardians are many things, she knows from the stories: great warriors and hunters and sometimes — often — assassins. Comms need such people when hard times come.

Schaffa shrugs, moving away to sit on a bale of old hay. There’s another bale behind Damaya, but she keeps standing, because she likes being on the same level with him. Even sitting he’s taller, but at least not by so much.

“The orogenes of the Fulcrum serve the world,” he says. “You will have no use name from here forth, because your usefulness lies in what you are, not merely some familial aptitude. From birth, an orogene child can stop a shake; even without training, you are orogene. Within a comm or without one, you are orogene . With training, however, and with the guidance of other skilled orogenes at the Fulcrum, you can be useful not merely to a single comm, but all the Stillness.” He spreads his hands. “As a Guardian, via the orogenes in my care, I have taken on a similar purpose, with a similar breadth. Therefore it’s fitting that I share my charges’ possible fate.”

Damaya is so curious, so full of questions, that she doesn’t know which to ask first. “Do you have—” She stumbles over the concept, the words, the acceptance of herself. “Others, l-like me, I,” and she runs out of words.

Schaffa laughs, as if he senses her eagerness and it pleases him. “I am Guardian to six right now,” he says, inclining his head to let Damaya know that this is the right way to say it, to think it. “Including you.”

“And you brought them all to Yumenes? You found them like this, like me—”

“Not exactly. Some were given into my care, born within the Fulcrum or inherited from other Guardians. Some I have found since being assigned to ride circuit in this part of the Nomidlats.” He spreads his hands. “When your parents reported their orogenic child to Palela’s headman, he telegraphed word to Brevard, which sent it to Geddo, which sent it to Yumenes — and they in turn telegraphed word to me.” He sighs. “It’s only luck that I checked in at the node station near Brevard the day after the message arrived. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it for another two weeks.”

Damaya knows Brevard, though Yumenes is only legend to her, and the rest of the places Schaffa has mentioned are just words in a creche textbook. Brevard is the town closest to Palela, and it’s much bigger. It’s where Father and Chaga go to sell farmshares at the beginning of every growing season. Then she registers his words. Two more weeks in this barn, freezing and pooping in a corner. She’s glad he got the message in Brevard, too.

“You’re very lucky,” he says, perhaps reading her expression. His own has grown sober. “Not all parents do the right thing. Sometimes they don’t keep their child isolated, as the Fulcrum and we Guardians recommend. Sometimes they do, but we get the message too late, and by the time a Guardian arrives a mob has carried the child off and beaten her to death. Don’t think unkindly of your parents, Dama. You’re alive and well, and that is no small thing.”