The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence (2 page)

‘Is that what harlings eat? Won’t he need milk?’

‘No,’ Phade said. He paused. ‘Go to the village. Bring your mother here. A harling is not like a human child, but she is undoubtedly more qualified to deal with this situation than we are.’

Zira did not bother to conceal the relief he felt at this instruction. He left at once.

The human community had been collected by Phade over the years he’d lived in Samway. They had been imported from Megalithica and Alba Sulh, and some even from Almagabra. Phade was a conservationist at heart, and felt that humanity should not become extinct. He had the same feeling towards rare animals, and felt sorry for the bewildered human souls who had lost all that they knew. He settled his collection in the beautiful country of Anakhai, where Thiede had installed him a long time ago to create the relatively small, and certainly private, tribe of Olopade. Samway, and Phade himself, had been used by Thiede for various purposes over the years. He was happy to indulge Phade’s hobby, as he saw it, and had gathered some prime human specimens himself, from all corners of the world. This was easy for Thiede, because at the time he’d been scooping up the cream of harish specimens as well to create the tribe of Gelaming.

It was not Phade’s practice to incept automatically every young human male; he allowed them to make their own choices. In the beginning, hardly anyhar had had a choice about what they became, since inception had been forced on every available body, in order to expand Wraeththu, but as time went on, and humanity waned, there were fewer people to incept anyway. In Phade’s community, few suitable young males resisted the idea of becoming har. Why remain human and die at an early age, when you could become something else, with an expanded lifespan, and dozens of other physical benefits? These boys had grown up with hara; they didn’t fear the transformation to androgyny. Phade knew that eventually this would cause problems with his breeding program. It would ultimately become more difficult to find fertile humans to bring to Samway.

But for now, the human community functioned like an old-fashioned settlement from hundreds of years before. Olivia, Zira’s mother, had borne three children. She was thirty-four years old, a strong-boned creature, who had survived against all odds in a world that no longer nurtured her kind. Whether she was grateful to Phade, who had rescued her from certain slaughter at the age of five and brought her to his domain, was difficult to say. Certainly, she had later submitted without complaint to being paired with Raymer, and even called him her husband.  She worked with the other humans, alongside hara, who treated her well, much in the same way that they were kind to their horses and dogs.  She had surrendered her first-born son to inception without a word, even though she had been forbidden to attend the ceremony or care for Zira during his althaia, the time when the transition from human to har took place. He had gone to visit her two weeks later; no longer her son, yet wearing his face. Now, she came to Phade’s tower in the middle of the night, a shawl cast over her dark green homespun dress, her thick auburn hair coming loose from a bun at her neck. Her wide handsome face was expressionless.

Phade took her to inspect the harling. Olivia peered into the crib, betraying nothing. ‘I’ve appointed Zira as the harling’s guardian,’ Phade said. ‘It will help if you could advise him and so on.’

Olivia had noted at sundown that the blackbirds in her garden had not sung their welcome to the night. She had noted that the smell of wormwood was very strong on the air. ‘The child needs a bath,’ she said. ‘In lavender and thyme. In hawthorn. At once.’

‘Hmm,’ murmured Phade, then: ‘Why?’

‘It will clean him good,’ said Olivia. ‘Then you will all feel better.’

‘Will you do this?’

‘Yes.’

Phade nodded thoughtfully. ‘Olivia,’ he said, ‘I want this harling to be absorbed without trouble into my household. He will be raised here, no different from any other har. Your skills will help in this matter. If things go well, your family will be rewarded.’

Olivia rolled up her sleeves and picked Darquiel up. She did not appear as discomforted by the harling as Zira and Phade had been. ‘I will bathe him,’ she said. ‘Show me where.’

Chapter Two

When Darq was exactly one year old, he decided he was a twin, even though it took him a day longer to discover the actual term. The idea came to him as he walked beneath the shedding oaks and beeches
,
in the woods that skirted the town of Samway. Gold and scarlet leaves filled the air like promises, or messages, or dreams. As he looked up through the branches, towards the pale sky, he felt a tugging in his heart. It was as if he could very easily jump out of his body and fly up as a white spirit towards the aching space above. The feeling made him both happy and sad at the same time. Something was missing. Something as big as the sky.

He walked back along the path, his gaze upon the ground. Beechnut cases crunched beneath his boots. He was very young, but because he was har he looked far older than a human child of his age would look, not an infant but an independent creature who could walk and talk and think for himself. If you’d seen him, and imagined him to be human, you’d have found it difficult to guess his age. He could have been anything between four and seven years old. Physically, he was still small, but he was more like a miniature teenager than a child.

Darq’s thick black hair hung just past his chin. In certain lights, it had threads of gold in it. His skin was a honey, olive shade, his eyebrows straight and dark. He was beautiful, as all harlings are beautiful, but he was also different.

At such a tender age, Darq felt like an outsider, unable to connect with the hara and humans around him. But this did not particularly bother him. He did not crave affection or reassurance. He was quite happy in his own company, and already loved passionately the landscape he inhabited.

He knew that Phade didn’t approve of him wandering about in it on his own, but it was easy for Darq to slip away from Olivia’s supervision. Often, she was too busy to notice when he’d crept away from her garden, crouched down like a robber, out of the picket gate and onto the road that led to the forest. It was more of a problem to escape Zira’s attention, but he was only in charge for three days a week, when he gave Darq lessons. The rest of the time Darq considered his own.  He always returned to Olivia’s garden before he had to go back to the tower for dinner, and although she stared at him through narrowed eyes, her lips pursed disapprovingly, she would rarely upbraid him.  ‘You be careful among the trees, now,’ was all she’d say.

‘Yes,’ he’d answer. ‘I know how to take care.’

Darq had met other children, albeit human ones, because Phade encouraged it. There were no other harlings in Samway, so Phade decided Darq should mix with the humans. It would be the nearest he could get to friends his own age, and Phade was anxious for Darq to be normal: Darq could feel that desire steaming off his guardian like hot sweat. Unfortunately, Darq didn’t understand the other children at all. They seemed to him like leaves on the wind, blowing this way and that, one minute laughing out loud, the next screaming in distress like maniacs for what he considered to be very little reason. They were curious about him and sometimes wanted to include him in their games. They ran around him in circles, the bigger boys repressing with the greatest difficulty the urge to poke fun or bully. They were afraid of him, attracted and sometimes bewitched, but always wary.

On this day of revelation, Darq returned to Olivia’s garden to find her taking down her washing, great billowing sails of white that made his eyes ache. Her daughter, Amelza, eight years old, stood holding the laundry basket, from which the swathes of fabric lolled like sleeping ghosts. Amelza stuck to her mother’s side like a witch’s familiar.

Olivia eyed Darq shrewdly. She had wrapped up her hair in a head scarf, which had tassels. Darq liked the way it made her seem somehow mysterious. He knew a lot of the villagers called her a witch, and for that reason they came to her for aid very often. ‘You could help,’ she said. ‘Help Ammie fold the sheets.’ She placed the last one in the basket.

‘OK,’ Darq said. He didn’t mind helping. Amelza was considered to be an odd girl by her peers, but not by Darq, who had no opinion. She often talked to herself and, when other children came by, put her apron over her face.

She laid down the basket and lifted out the first sheet. Darq took up one end of it. ‘Olivia,’ he said, folding carefully, ‘why don’t you try to stop me going into the forest?’

‘Why waste my breath?’ Olivia replied, dropping washing pegs into a bag.

‘Because Phade would be angry with you if he knew.’

‘He doesn’t know,’ Olivia said. ‘Be quick. There might be time for hazelnut cake before you go home.’

‘Why is he afraid for me and you’re not?’

Olivia smiled, an expression that rarely crossed her face. ‘Because you can ask a question like that at one year old, that’s why! You’re safer than I am. If something tried to get you, you’d sense it from a mile off and run away.’

‘No I wouldn’t,’ Darq said.

‘You would. You’re special.’

‘I mean, I wouldn’t run away. I’d just kill whatever was after me. That’s safer. Then they wouldn’t try it again.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘Who have you been talking to?’

‘Nohar. I watch Phade’s guards. It’s what their minds are like.’

‘You might be bright, Darq,’ Olivia said, ‘but you’re still a harling, and you’re not strong. Don’t ever consider trying to kill something, especially something hostile. You don’t know everything.’

‘You don’t need strength to kill something,’ Darq said, taking up the end of another sheet that Amelza offered him. ‘I could use a bow or throw a knife. I could dig a hole and make them run into it.’

‘Now you sound like one of the bully boys,’ Olivia said.

Darq could see the thought forming in her mind that she would suggest to Phade that his ward be kept away from the boys. ‘What’s so bad about it?’ Darq asked.

‘It’s just not the way you’re supposed to be,’ she said. ‘At least, I don’t think so.’ She sighed. ‘Why should I care?’

‘I don’t know. Why do you?’

‘Just finish folding those sheets,’ Olivia said. She went into her kitchen.

Darq felt confused. He wished Olivia could answer his questions.

Amelza pulled on the sheet to get his attention. ‘I’d kill them too,’ she whispered.

From this simple remark, Amelza became Darq’s friend. When he heard those words, it was as if he’d seen her for the first time: a thin girl with a curtain of reddish brown hair and a long serious face. He realised that in some ways she was like him. Therefore, it was to Amelza that he confided his belief that somehow part of him was missing. The very next day, in Olivia’s garden, as Amelza weeded round the raspberry canes, Darq told her his heart.

Amelza patted down the soil, digging her fingers into the rich earth. Darq could hear her breathing and smell the scent of her skin and hair, which was sweet like honey. ‘Maybe you were a twin,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

‘There should be two of you, a brother. Rufus and Simeon are twins. They look the same.’

‘Then where is my twin?’

Amelza shrugged. ‘Maybe he died.’

Darq frowned as he thought about it. ‘It doesn’t feel that way,’ he said.

That evening, Darq was compelled to confront Phade over dinner. Phade treated Darq like an unpredictable animal. He was fair and often generous, but rarely initiated conversation.  Darq knew that Phade would rather he took his dinner with Zira and the other staff, but something wouldn’t let him order it. They always ate in a room on the first floor; its long windows welcomed the morning sun, but in the evenings it could be rather gloomy.

As unobtrusive hara glided around the table to clear away the soup bowls, Darq asked: ‘Was I a twin?’

‘What? No,’ Phade said. He was reading some reports on his equine breeding stock, occasionally making notes on the papers. Now he glanced up, apparently irritated at being interrupted. In a lot of ways, he reminded Darq of a bird of prey. Although his hair was very dark, his eyes were almost amber and his features were hawklike. His hands were strong. He could control the wildest of his horses. But in the evening, in lamplight, he appeared softer, beautiful rather than handsome. Darq knew the difference because he had discussed Phade earlier in the day with Amelza, who was fascinated by all hara.

‘How do you know I’m not a twin?’ Darq persisted.

Phade put down his pencil. ‘Because you came from a pearl and I watched you hatch. If you’d been a twin, there would have been two of you.’

‘Maybe there were two pearls and you only got one.’

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ Phade said, although he didn’t sound that confident about it. ‘Ask Zira to tell you things. He can teach you some biology.’

‘OK.’

Unfortunately, approaching Zira about the subject inadvertently led Darq to spill the secret of his lone excursions into the forest. He didn’t say anything about his strange feelings until Zira had been teaching him basic biology for a couple of weeks. Darq hadn’t meant to confide in Zira; he’d just mentioned how he’d felt when he’d looked up at the sky through the trees, and how the idea of being part of something had come to him then. He intended to broach the subject of twins and so on, but was unprepared for Zira’s reaction.

Zira’s eyes had widened. He raised a hand to silence Darq. ‘Shut up. You mean you were out on your own?’

‘Well… yes.’ Darq realised he’d revealed too much. The expression on Zira’s face – a mixture of anger and smug satisfaction – stemmed the fountain of questions that had been ready to break from Darq’s mouth.

‘You stupid harling,’ Zira said. ‘Phade will be furious.’

Darq knew it was pointless to suggest the information be kept from his guardian. Zira took Darq to Phade at once. Phade was out in the fields with his animals as usual. As Darq and Zira approached him, Darq became aware of an unfamiliar feeling within him. It was apprehension. He didn’t like it at all.