The Wraeththu Chronicles (101 page)

Unbeatable. Weak sunlight picks out the deadly nozzles poking through the makeshift wall before us. Tumbled automobiles, masonry and skeletal woodwork, all clothed by a rotting flesh of torn fabric. They have plundered the body of the town; she will not aid them. I allow myself to laugh. What we are doing is merely as tiresome as having to rub the sleep from our eyes in the morning, and perhaps not even as dangerous. We can smell their fear because they will have heard the tales. Just the presence of their meager defenses speaks of the fact that they have not entirely believed them. If they had, they would have run and run fast, north into the great forests where it is still possible to hide—for the time being. Instead, the fools have chosen to stay and defend their territory. Just ahead of me, the Lion of Oomar reins in his mincing horse and raises his hand. We halt. His generals confer. Half-naked, their skin shining like oiled leather, their hair arranged in savage crests, they are proud beings, the cream of Uigenna. Now the humans will be thinking, "Oh, they are so exposed, hardly shielded, unarmored," and their spirits, their paltry hopes will begin to rise. I can feel it rising, like a weak mist over the town, so soon to be burnt to extinction. The light is getting stronger now. An order is given. We pull ourselves up straight and, around me, I can see a hundred pairs of eyes light up. Nothing can quell the hysteria of potential conquest, not even when it is so easily achieved. We begin to move once more and now I can hear the voices coming from the town, half-heard-shouts, the clank of metal. They will wait until we are closer before they begin to fire. Now our shaman walks before the Lion's horse. He is robed in pale, floating stuff, his hair unbound, his arms raised. I can see, where his sleeves have fallen back, the sunlight glinting off the golden hairs on his arms. He is famed among Uigenna. His powerful voice is famous. We can hear him crooning. There is an order being given behind the barricade. "Fire!" There is a sound, it is true. It is the sound of the earth cracking, the earth stretching, the call of the fire serpents deep in their earthy lairs, but it is not the sound of gunfire. We need no further order. Wolves again, we bay and lope quickly toward the town. As I leap the barricade, I look quickly into a pair of wide and stricken eyes, looking up. My knife obliterates their expression and, for the first time that day, my skin is sprayed with blood. They cannot fight us for our shaman has poisoned them with fear. Like children, they whimper and cower. Like corn, we cut them down. There can be no pity.

The shambles of the town opens up before us. It is another vista of decay and putrefaction. There are lights that will no longer shine, shops with broken windows, whose wares have long since been looted or burned. Cars sag dismally along cracked streets, their insides gutted as if picked at by carrion-eaters, the lamps that were their eyes dimmed for eternity. Of course, humanity had turned upon their own a long time ago.

We pass human corpses dangling from the lamp posts. We pass slogans of despair scrawled across walls. And still we run. "This town must be cleansed," our leader tells us and we know that. We know that so thoroughly, so lovingly. I howl and kill like the rest. Even as I plunge metal into flesh, I think, "A pity; there will be little food here." By evening, it is over. All the surviving young males have been rounded up and now stand shivering in pools of their own piss and vomit, next to the fire we have built. It is a good fire, large and potent. The magic still eats away at the hearts of the remaining man-children. They cannot lift a finger to help themselves, but even so, we look upon this as sport. Wraxilan has already chosen the

best. The boy is dragged forward, weeping, kicking the dirt. I choke on despising, even though I know his mind is not his own. I never blink as his flesh is cut, nor wince as he screams, screaming still as our beloved leader's blood is instilled into the wound. A small libation, but enough. When the transformation is complete, the Lion shall take him, but not before. We are not barbarians. We know the rituals, respect the Changing. We shall tend the Incepted and help them in their passing from humanity. This town is depressing. I shall be glad to leave it. The Changing takes three days. Then the inception is fixed forever by the sanctity of aruna. The newly incepted will have haunted eyes for a while, but then they will Accept and the power shall course through their once feeble bodies. This the ways of things. This is what we have to do to the world; cleanse it. Change it. We are young, yes. Our cultures are young, yes. But the world is ready for us, you see. She wants us.She has waited a long time for our coming. She hates humankind. They have raped her and beaten her nearly to death. We are her angels and we are the voice of vengeance. The lights go out forever all over this blighted country and the Earth shall claim back what is hers and we shall be given what is ours and the temples shall be sanctified with blood. . .

The next two weeks passed very quickly for me, while at the same time instilling within me the sense that I had been in Piristil for a long, long time. Its routines became my routines; it no longer smelled strange to me. At night I slept in Lolotea's bed (he was excused "night duty" for the time being with the clientele), and it was from him that I received my initiation into the rites of a kanene. Most of it was absurd. We did it, but then got drunk and laughed about it.

After a week, my room was ready for occupation. Orpah and Wuwa had been responsible for the decoration, so it was with no surprise that Lolotea and I found paint smears on the window and across several of the floorboards around the edge of the room. My bed hid a bald patch in the carpet. On the day that I finally moved into that room, I stared at the bed for quite some time, trying to envisage what I must eventually do in it. I wished I had a different place to sleep in. I did not want my personal nest to be crowded by ghosts. I resolved to try and do most of my business on the carpet. I sat down on the bed and thought, "And how long is this to be my little world?" I couldn't help adding to it though, striving to make it some kind of home, however temporary. Out of my meager wages, I resolved to save at least half. Clothes, food, cosmetics, I would not have to worry about buying myself. Jafit footed the bill for those. Liquor was always available about the house. So all I would have to spend my money on was small comforts for myself. Fallsend has quite a good market, selling merchandise from Jaddayoth and sometimes from Almagabra. I decided that as soon as I could afford it, I would buy some patterned rugs to hang on the walls and to disguise the tired appearance of the carpet. It might also help to keep the room warm. Occasionally, the open fire belched unwelcome clouds of thick smoke back out of the chimney. You see, I was thinking in terms of a certain permanency. Dangerous. I should have kept the discomfort and saved all my money. At first, the place smelled damp.

The Dire Time was drawing near. Sometimes, I would pass customers on the stairs, or come across them in the two sitting-rooms we had on the ground floor. I had quickly adapted to the Piristil tradition of deeply loathing those that came to buy, and was only frostily polite to anyone that spoke to me. Only in the bedroom, Lolotea told me, do we have to put on The Act. "They don't pay for us to like them, after all!" Near the end of my first two weeks, Astarth summoned me to his room again. It was another dreary evening. Astarth looked miserable and uncomfortable. "Now, we shall have to see . . ." he muttered, convulsively wringing his hands. Maybe he was psyching himself up to find out what I'd

learned. Guessing this, I infuriated him by talking about the weather, a subject which holds not the slightest fascination for either of us. "Calanthe, listen!" he cried at last. "You know why you're here. Let's get on with it, OK? I shall take the part of a client. I have to see how you will react."

In the light of the fire, stalking me, he looked feline and dangerous; his tension was power. "I can see the Wraeththu in you now," I said, and I could, for perhaps the first time. Astarth made a noise like the fire crackling. When he put his hand on my shoulder, I could feel thin, hard ropes of muscle trembling up his palm.

"Begin. Speak!" he said.

"Have you already paid for me?"

"Jafit takes the money before anyone comes upstairs."

"How much?"

"Not your concern. Never ask about money." He squatted down before me, where I sat on the carpet. "They will begin by saying something like; 'You don't want me here, do you?' How will you answer?"

I laughed. "Well, that's obvious. I shall say; 'Yes, that's true.' it won't be a lie, after all."

Astarth shook his head. "Somehow, I don't think you'll look frightened saying that, Calanthe."

"I don't think I can be frightened. Alright, I know the game. Don't look like that. I shall say, 'Please Tiahaar, don't hurt me.' Will that do?"

Astarth smiled grimly. "Simpering and lisping do not become you, but they pay for the sex, not a command performance." He put his other hand upon me. "Say it then."

I looked grave and said, "Astarth, I don't want you to hurt me." He looked strange and old in the firelight (had I been wrong about his age?), holding my eyes with a steady, flickerless gaze.

"I won't," he said, and dropped his eyes. He stood up, walked backwards two paces, turned his back, flinched and wheeled around. Before I knew what had hit me, I was half-way across the room, stars in front of my eyes. Astarth was only a stooped, carnivorous shadow against the window. I crouched into a position of defense, quite instinctively. I could see him moving. "My God, I think he means this," I thought. Had Astarth been waiting for the right moment to attack me ever since the aftermath of our first training session?

"Don't move!" he said. I didn't answer. He came at me quickly, like some monstrous spider, kicking out sideways so that my shoulder slammed against the wall. He'd been well-trained at some point, but it must have been a long time ago. Already I could see his weaknesses. I waited, then thought clearly, "Right! Now!" and retaliated. He was unguarded. Surely no client would leave his neck exposed like that? I don't know. We're not supposed to fight back in this role, are we? My fingers clamped around Astarth's windpipe, forcing his head back. He clawed at me, but sensibly gave that up when my other hand punched him in the stomach. Now we are both snarling, rolling like frenzied wildcats across the floor. It was exhilarating. Astarth gasped, "What in hell are you doing, Calanthe?" but in the dim light, I could see him grinning.

"It's no good," I said, pinning him carefully to the floor. "I just can't let anyone kick the shit out of me and not fight back. Perhaps, when I'm provoked, I can give pain, but I can't lie back happily and receive it."

"You're a fool!" he said. I could feel the bones grinding in his wrists.

"Enjoying it, aren't you!" I replied. That set him off snarling and spitting and twisting and flailing. I let go of his arms, let him rave for a while before slicing him under the ribs with the edge of my hand. That shut him up. I carried him to the bed and dropped him on it. He lay silent, breathing heavily, one hand across his stomach. His eyes were glass, staring out of the open curtains at a sky where there was no moon. I sat down on the edge of the bed to catch my breath. Clearly, I was far from fit myself.

"I don't think I'm going to be of any use here," I said.

"You must!" he answered vehemently and then coughed for quite some time.

I politely allowed him to finish before saying, "And what is it to you, Astarth?"

"Nothing. But Jafit will be displeased if you don't work out, that's all. He wants you here, Calanthe, not me."

"And yet it was you who was stupid enough to let me in." He ignored that. "It's not that difficult to learn," he said. "We all had to. It doesn't come naturally, I know, but you do need the money."

"Yes." I sighed and rubbed at my face. "The problem is, I've always believed in aruna, Astarth. I know its magic. This pelcia and chaitra business is an obscenity. It turns my stomach."

"I know. Just don't look on it as aruna. There are other things we have to do with those parts of our bodies. Look on it as that."

"Succinctly put," I said, impressed. "And yet, I get the feeling, Astarth, that... how can I put this? It seems to me you perhaps don't feel the same about it as I do."

"You mean I enjoy it?" he asked in a clipped voice without any hint of shame. "Perhaps I do. It lets the anger out, doesn't it? Sometimes I feel like I want to be beaten to death. Sometimes I want to kill. You have your dreams to sustain you, don't you? I can't dream like that anymore." He turned his head away from me.

I put my hand on his shoulder and felt the flesh tense beneath it. "You want me to finish what I started?" I asked. There was a silence. "Come on!" I chided and poked him in the ribs. "Come on, Astarth!" I tickled him under the arms and he couldn't help laughing. Astarth likes it rough, it's true, but I look upon him as a kind of highly strung horse. Treat him the right way, gain his trust and you can mount him, no problem. Crude comparison, I know, but that's what living in a whorehouse does to people. Later, we drank a bottle of wine and Astarth advised me how to behave with Jafit.

"Just get drunk," he said. "Rave like a banshee. Think female; it helps!"

"I'll try."

"Sure you will. You'll starve out there in the winter if you don't. Anyway, Jafit likes you. He won't kick you out."

I had been careful in my buttering up of the patron of this establishment. I had only met him properly twice since my first interview and that was when everyone else was there, when we all ate together. Not oblivious to the extent of my acting ability in respect of the boudoir, I realized it was important to seem indispensible to Jafit, if only for my looks. He always complimented me and I always sparkled with wit and charm in return; I squirm with shame to think about it. As Astarth and I sat by his fire, staring into the flames, sipping our drinks, Astarth said, "Don't forget the royal house of Maudrah now, will you!" I appreciated all that he meant by that.