Student of Kyme (21 page)

I knew,
because of things I’d learned in Kyme, that humans had been far
frailer than Wraeththu. Their bodies had often been unable to
combat efficiently hostile organisms that had attacked them. This
had resulted in long-standing illness; a thing more or less unknown
to harakind and therefore frightening to those of us born after the
days of humanity had passed. Also, human bodies could turn upon
themselves, in effect creating disease and illness that were merely
symptoms of deeper-seated psychological hurts and ailments. I think
the latter is what assailed Ysobi, for after the night I dreamed of
the Gallatu, he fell ill.

I was
first made aware of this because he missed a meeting. Initially, I
was filled with anger, fear and the certainty he’d decided no
longer to see me. After I’d sat in our meeting place for an hour,
my anxiety increasing with every passing moment, I wondered whether
I should go to the Ivy House to find out why he hadn’t turned up.
But then my pride marched in to complain about that. I mustn’t. I
must resist. So I went through the day in agony, unable to ask
anyhar if they knew anything. I thought that perhaps this was the
path my magic had taken: the only way to cleanse me of Ysobi was
for him to make the decision to end our friendship. I was too weak
to do it myself. But when I went home I discovered the truth.
Huriel was not there.

Rayzie
came to me in the hallway and said, ‘Ysobi is… afflicted. Huriel
has gone to him.’ He looked at me in a knowing kind of way, but
perhaps I imagined that.

‘
Afflicted?’ I said. ‘In what way?’

Rayzie
shrugged. ‘He collapsed. From what I heard it is as if his body
just sort of… shut down. He can’t rise from his bed.’

‘
How strange,’ I said.

‘
It is,’ Rayzie said. ‘Huriel is very worried about it. He
came home briefly about an hour ago. Will you go to the Ivy
House?’

I shook
my head. ‘No. If Huriel wants me, he’ll call for me.’

Rayzie
narrowed his eyes a little; they were full of unspoken remarks.
‘Dinner will be ready shortly. Would you prefer to eat with Ystayne
and I this evening?’

I
hesitated. ‘No… I have some work I want to do. I’ll eat alone, but
thank you for thinking of me.’

Rayzie
inclined his head. ‘As you like, although I believe meal times
should be occasions when we forget about work.’

I didn’t
know whether to feel horrified or elated, although I confess I felt
a little of both. Was I responsible for Ysobi’s condition or was it
merely coincidence? An image of the Gallatu flashed across my inner
eye. I saw them crouched upon the roof of Ysobi’s residence.
Waiting.

Two
candles burned upon the table in the dining room, but otherwise the
lights were turned off. I did not feel like eating. After Rayzie
had brought me a plate of food, I left it to go cold and instead
stared out at the garden. So much had happened to me since I’d come
to Kyme. My life could have gone in any direction, but the
decisions I’d made had driven it along certain courses. If I hadn’t
cared about what others thought of me, if I’d still been with
Malakess, could Ysobi have affected me as strongly? Or would it
have all been the same and just created an even bigger mess of my
life? How could I tell? What if I’d gone to Immanion? How I wished
then that could have been possible. It seemed to me that everything
was ruined in Kyme. Just as I’d started to establish myself, Ysobi
had come back into my life; this ghost, this haunting. I let him
into me to possess me. I let it happen. Why?

I pressed
my hands hard against my eyes, conscious once more of an ache
behind them. An ailing brain. Let me be free… be free…

When I
lowered my hands, I saw an apparition in the garden, through the
glass, beyond the reflection of the candle light. A white shape,
motionless. I knew what it was: my Nagini spirit. I’d not seen him
for so long. Perhaps I had never really seen him and he was just a
conjuration of my mind, a representation of my higher self. Had he
come in judgement or compassion? I stood up and went to stand close
to the window. I could see the pale form, clad in tasselled robes,
the face concealed. He watched me. I felt as if he could see right
into me. Come then! I thought, as loudly as I could. If you have an
opinion to express, then express it. Didn’t you guide my feet upon
the road that night as I walked to my first meeting here with
Ysobi? Didn’t you know all that would happen after?

Then I
was looking only at the darkness. Perhaps a trick of the light.
There had been nothing there.

Huriel
returned to the house just after eleven. He found me in the
parlour, where I sat staring into the flames of the fire. It felt
like the eve of battle. Outside, in the wind, the sound of hooves,
the reek of hot breath, the stink of vengeance. I was
numb.

I looked
up as Huriel came into the room. I felt that I saw him properly for
the first time in ages. He looked tired, worn out. I’d seen
pictures of humans; perhaps it was true to say he looked older. He
nodded his head abruptly to me in greeting and sat down in the
chair opposite mine. ‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked
him.

‘
Yes please.’

I went to
the cupboard where he kept his liquors: all Rayzie’s neatly
labelled bottles, some with pictures of flowers and birds in his
own spidery hand. I took a bottle Rayzie had called ‘Forbidden
Potion’. A name like this usually meant the alcohol content was
potentially lethal. When I removed the stopper, at first a bad
smell came out, and then a scent of summer time. I poured Huriel a
glass, poured one for myself.

After I’d
sat down again, Huriel did not speak for several minutes. I let the
time tick by. I wouldn’t ask him anything. If I turned to look out
through the window, perhaps I’d see my Nagini spirit out there, or
perhaps just a reflection of the fire. A log cracked. It was a
catalyst.

‘
Ysobi has fallen into some kind of coma,’ Huriel said. ‘The
phylarch’s physicians can’t pinpoint the cause, although they
presume it’s connected with something way back. Some speak of the
legacies of inception – perhaps death for us is this way, natural
death.’ He leaned back in his chair, let his head flop back so that
he stared at the ceiling. ‘For some moments, about two hours ago,
he came out of his strange sleep. He raved, as if in great fear or
pain. Eventually, the physicians had to drug him back to the state
he was in before.’

I said
nothing, although my heart had begun to beat faster. I felt
nervous.

‘
Before he succumbed to unconsciousness,’ Huriel said, as if
each word was a thorn he had to expel from his throat, ‘he did
speak.’ Huriel raised his head again, stared me in the eye. ‘He
said your name, Gesaril.’

I felt
guilty about that, there was no mistaking it, but also gratified.
Wasn’t this what I’d worked for?

Huriel’s
gaze kept me skewered. I could not look away without appearing
furtive.

‘
He reached out his hand as if you stood before him,’ Huriel
said. ‘I believe he did see you there. He said, “you must love me.
You must always love me. Because that is the only way I can
experience my love for you. Forgive me for what I did to you.”’
Huriel rubbed his face, swallowed. ‘A smile came to him, then. It
was like a light inside him. Perhaps you did go to him, part of you
did.’

I stood
up. ‘No! I would never go to him. How dare he fantasise that I did.
He doesn’t deserve that respite!’

‘
Gesaril…?’ Huriel appeared confused. He’d expected me to melt
and weep, beg to be taken to see Ysobi; of this I am
sure.

‘
Don’t ask me, Huriel. Whatever is in your mind, don’t you ask
me!’

Huriel
frowned. ‘But… isn’t this what you want? You were right all along.
He lied to me. He lied to everyone, even himself, and let you take
the blame. But the truth is out, as it will always come out. You
should forgive him now. Perhaps that is the only thing that will
save him – and yourself, for that matter.’

‘
And even in this worst of conditions, he still manipulates
me,’ I cried. ‘If I don’t go to him now, and he should die, hara
will say it was because I was cruel and cold. How
ironic.’

‘
Sit down!’ Huriel commanded. ‘Sit down, Gesaril. Listen to
me.’

I
hesitated then obeyed him, my hands plunged between my thighs. I
felt cornered, threatened, in the wrong. How could I be? I’d
revealed the truth.

‘
You’ve seen Ysobi every day virtually since the day he came
here.’ Huriel said. ‘Why can’t you go to him now?’

‘
Because this is the time it ends,’ I said. ‘All I ever wanted
was for him to speak the truth. Now he has. And I am
free.’

I don’t
know what I expected Huriel to say next but I certainly did not
expect him to droop forward and put his head in his hands. I could
not hear him weeping, but his shoulders shook. Why was I so
hardhearted? I couldn’t even go to him. He wept for that har. Who
had wept for me?

After a
minute or so, he spoke. ‘I know what he did to you, Gesaril. I know
how he made you into a creature of stone. And maybe it is too late
for him, but don’t do this to yourself.’

‘
It’s too late. It’s done.’

Huriel
shook his head. He did not bother to wipe away the tears that fell
freely. ‘You do not understand us,’ he said hoarsely. ‘And we do
not understand you… I’m speaking of the generations. We are still
so… so… infected with what we were before. No matter how
enlightened we strive to be, or tell ourselves we are, inside
ourselves lies a human child. It is not the same for you. And what
concerns me most is that we might unwittingly pass this infection
on to our sons – through our actions, our beliefs. What has
happened with Ysobi and you is a prime example. I was not
blameless. I looked at the situation through human eyes. A
relationship between two hara is such a small thing in the scheme
of things, and yet it is a reflection of the greatest thing. If we
cannot manage our hearts, how can we manage our reality? For this
reason, I say to you, Gesaril, do not be consumed by your own hurt
and desire for vengeance. Be har, be aware of how, in many ways,
you are superior in kind to those who came before you. Go to Ysobi,
and release him, as you desire release. Give him your forgiveness.
Do not be concerned this will simply give him satisfaction, or let
him off the hook. You should see him for what he is: damaged - more
so than you ever were, despite the horrors of your childhood.’ He
sighed. ‘I can say no more. I know that I haven’t helped you as I
could have done. I know that I’ve regarded this situation as
nothing more than the hot desires of a young har getting to know
the realms of emotion and aruna. I’ve thought, oh, he’ll grow out
of it. That was unfair, and I’m sorry.’

I did not
answer for some moments, but then said. ‘He must go, Huriel. If I
do this for you, and for him, he must return to Jesith.’

Huriel
nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more, but… this isn’t just for him and
me, Gesaril. It’s for you too.’

I laughed
and could hear the hollow ring of my bitterness in the sound. ‘Oh,
make no mistake, Huriel. None of this has been for me. None of
it.’

It was
the smell of sickness that struck me first; something that we
rarely smell. Humans must have lived with this constantly. It isn’t
so much a physical smell, although I’m sure that in some cases of
illness, when the body in some way decayed, then that would have
been present, but this… this was a psychic stench. It was the aroma
of shattered hope and dreams.

The room
was not oppressive; the windows had been thrown open and the fresh
scent of the landscape at night sought to fill the air. Candles
burned upon nearly every available surface. A hienama with two
acolytes had clearly been performing some kind of healing ritual.
As I entered the room, he was packing away his paraphernalia into a
black cloth, tied with a cord. This har, who I did not know, eyed
me stonily. He said nothing to me, but left the room, his two
apprentices trailing behind. No doubt he had felt the presence of
the Gallatu around this house, heard the scratch of their claws
upon the roof shingles and the leathery creak of their wings in the
night breeze.

Huriel
had mentioned, awkwardly, that Jassenah had been contacted by the
most powerful of Kyme’s Listeners, those strange hara who seem more
at home in the ethers than in reality, and whose task it is to
relay psychic information. I took Huriel’s remark to mean that the
incomparable Jassenah would soon be on his way to Kyme, if he
wasn’t already. And yet it had my name Ysobi had spoken in his
fevered state, not Jassenah’s.

Now I was
alone with the one who had dismantled my being. I stared at him,
wondering if I had ever truly known him. The blankets were pulled
up to his chest. He was unclothed, his collarbones stark, like
handles. He did not look different, particularly. It wasn’t as if
he’d been devoured by a wasting sickness. He just looked exhausted.
I couldn’t find any feeling inside me. I didn’t feel angry, sad,
shocked, or in love. It was like stepping outside of
time.

‘
Are you awake, Ysobi?’ I asked.

He opened
his eyes; they looked black in the candle light.