The Visitor by Sheri S. Tepper Page B

gold, wet leaves, and campfire smoke. She followed her nose to the riding field, where tents had sprouted overnight like so many mushrooms, where horses stood in a roped off paddock, knee deep in tufty grass, and men gathered around breakfast fires as they hailed one another in hearty, vulgar voices.
    Ayward had already left for the city when Dismé came in for breakfast. Rashel, about to leave, directed her to stay indoors, out of the way of the workmen who had arrived to clean up the grounds. Though Dismé felt Roarer raise its head and growl in its throat, she merely nodded, fully intending to return to the ferment outside. All day she delighted in the bustle of men stumping about in muttering bunches, in or on or behind barrows of brush going out, wagons of stones coming in; sledges of rotted bridge timbers out, whole bridge timbers in; broken roof tiles out, bright new roof tiles in. Her earliest impressions of Faience were of clamor and transformation: the chink of chisel on stone as one day’s gap in a tumbled wall became the next day’s barrier; the slither of spilling gravel as a morning’s wandering, weedy path turned into a neatly edged and surfaced one by evening; the bark of axes and the sibilant, cracking rustle of falling trees as fountaining copses frilled all over with mouse-ear leaves vanished overnight, leaving not even the stumps to mark where they had been. The continuing metamorphosis seemed natural, part of the place itself, exhilarating as being in a balloon, with everything changing moment by moment, and nothing to hang onto but the sky.
    Which was how she thought sorcery must have been, changeful and marvelous. Oh, how the Regime longed for the restoration of that Art! Even though magic had destroyed their former world, they wanted it.
    â€œOh, yes, they want it,” Arnole had commented. “But since they are deathly afraid of it, and terrified that the wrong person may find it first, they insist upon controlling the search so minutely that they will never find it.”
    This had been a new thought. “Why, Arnole?”
    â€œAh, Dismé. Well.” He had looked at the sky for inspiration, as he often did. “I’ve heard you drumming on pots and pans and boxes and what not.”
    â€œFather said I inherited twiddling from him.”
    â€œWell then, let us suppose you want to discover drumming. Sit here and twiddle me something.”
    Dismé sat down at the table and began to tap out a rhythm with both hands.
    â€œStop,” said Arnole. “Have you filled out a Regime application to explore the rhythm you are using?”
    Her mouth dropped open.
    He cocked his head to the left. “Have you researchedthrough all the documents at the College of Sorcery to establish that that particular rhythm is, so far as we know, harmless?” He glared at her straight on. “Do you have an appointment to discuss this exploration with the appropriate committee of the Ephemeral Arts Department?” He cocked his head to the right. “When you have received permission from them, you will need to explain why you wish to tap out this particular rhythm rather than some other rhythm.”
    â€œOh, for the love of Plip, Arnole! It’s just drumming!”
    â€œExactly,” he said, wide-eyed and with a dramatic shiver. “But I am afraid of drumming. Drumming may incite people’s emotions. Drumming could stir people into pathological behavior or overt sexuality. Someone might be attacked. I am afraid of drumming.”
    She frowned. “And the Regime is afraid of magic?”
    â€œThe Regime is very, very much afraid of magic. It has reason to be afraid.”
    â€œAnd what reason is that?” she had asked in a whisper.
    He had looked around, being sure they were alone, and his voice dropped to match her own. “They fear it first because it could be used against them. They fear it more because they believe some of their fellows