The Wraeththu Chronicles (118 page)

I had once known him, intimately, as Zackala; now I had no idea what or who he was.

He examined my thoughts. "I am not an illusion," he said, "don't ever think that. You must not deceive yourself, not even in daylight, my Cal. Admire my restraint. I could have made myself known to you a long time ago."

He was the hound on my trail. I should have known this. Perhaps, deep inside, I had. Perhaps that was why I'd been nervous of leaving Piristil, coming out into the open. My finer senses have become as dulled as those whom I had mocked in the musenda. It was my own fault; Arahal had been right, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

"Pellaz brought you back, didn't he," I said.

Zack laughed in my face. "Brought me back? From where? For God's sake, Cal! Did you really think I was dead? Did you see me die? No, as I recall, you didn't hang around long enough to see what happened. No, my dear, Pellaz didn't bring me back; I found him." An expression convulsed his face, which I suppose was disgust. He pushed me away from him.

"What do you want with me?" I asked, still not convinced he was really there.

"Don't you know? Oh Cal!" He laughed and pulled the scarf away from his neck. "See my scars?

Thankfully not fatal; but nearly, very nearly." He is naturally dark-skinned; the scars glowed very white. "Someone dumped me on a good healer. Lucky, eh? It took a long, long time to get well though. The world's changed, hasn't it."

"Are you with them?'" I asked.

"I'm with you, Cal," he answered silkily. There was an eerie glitter in his eyes; red fire. He reached for me. I backed away. "Oh come on, my dear; share breath with me, if just for old times' sake. Come on, let's remember . . ."

I put my arms up in defense, but too late. His breath was a roar, his lips peeled back, pouring himself into my silently screaming mouth. There was an immediate darkness in my head, a pounding, the slice of a knife, a silverscream. I was lost, losing ground, in a hurricane of feeling; hatred, bitterness, frustration, pain. I could feel his hands on my back, claws scoring flesh, his teeth grinding against mine, but such physical things were not reality. What was real was the poison of betrayal, the yellow, sweet perfume of the guilty. We were clashing, not like swords, but like oily liquids; colors blending and repelling. I could feel myself sinking, too weak, vitality atrophied, strengths withered. He was ink in my soul; I was drowning in it. Slipping, sinking, I fell. . . . And awoke with a start next to Kruin, a cry in my mouth and a taste of sourness. Kruin was alert in an instant, frightened to wakefulness, leaning over me, pushing me back, saying in a scared, quick voice. "What, Cal, what?" I wanted to scream. I needed that release, but could make no sound. My body was cold.

We have been in Lemarath for over a week now, because the south road is blocked. Cora is confident that it will be cleared soon, but everyone is very busy at the moment coping with other emergencies caused by the weather. The amount of snow falling is frightening, too fast for it to be cleared away. I can feel myself slipping into a comfortable decline. Lethargy caused by the cold, I tell myself, but I have been writing almost non-stop for two days now. I'm alone quite a lot of the time. Kruin and Panthera are helping the Gimrah. The kitchen is very quiet. Because of the thickly clouded sky, it seems to be dusk all day. I quite like this place; the people are cheerful and strong. Cora shares her house with three others; her daughter, Jasca, her six-year-old son, Natty, and a young woman named Elveny. They all work together every day, shoulder to shoulder, shoveling snow, humping bales of straw and hay, mixing feeds; never a cross word between them.

Last night, after dinner, Elveny read my palm and told me seriously,] that I must let the woman in me bleed.

"And just what do you mean by that?" I asked her sweetly.

She had dropped my hand and was gazing into my eyes. "Beauty alone| is not enough," she said.

Perhaps she thought I understood her, which of course I did, but I pretended not to. I picked up a kitchen knife. "See this?" I said, waving it. | "This is the moon." I cut my wrist (on the back naturally).

Elveny pulled a face. "Oh don't!" she said. I let the blood run down my arm, but the scratch congealed before it could drip on the table. There is probably a moral in that.

Jubilee Hafener was here yesterday. The Hafeners are the Gimrah family who own Lemarath, who run it and sustain it. Jubilee is the son of Gasteau and Lanareeve who rule the roost. Natty told me the Hafener's house is called Heartstone, but we can't see it from here because of the snow. I was sitting at the kitchen table as usual, paper and pens before me, wine to the left, scrounged cigarettes to the right, when I heard a commotion in the yard. I went to take a look. The Hafener rode a tall and stocky horse which was clothed in fleeces. He was accompanied by two armed women and a young har who appeared to me to be newly incepted. Cora came hurrying out of the barn, pulling the scarf off her hair, which is thick and attractively streaked with gray over the left ear. Jubilee Hafener wore a heavy coat; his straight black hair was plaited to his waist. His skin was very white. I took a good look and went back indoors. More snow talk. The Hafener's women and the young har came into the kitchen. I thought I'd better be polite and said hello.

"How about a hot drink?" one of the females asked. She looked as if she could skin an adult lion with her teeth. Smiling, I went to the range and poured the coffee.

"Travelers, Cora says," the woman said.

I presumed she meant my companions and myself. "Yes," I answered. "Dreadful weather isn't it."

She sat down with a grunt, in my seat, and took one of my cigarettes, offering the packet to her companions. This is, of course, normal behavior in Gimrah where everyone shares everything. They have no petty rules of etiquette. I sat down with the others and we ended up talking about Fallsend. Ghoulish curiosity on their part, but they were neither censurious nor shocked. I like these people. After a while, Cora brought the Hafener in. I half expected his people to stand up, but they didn't. He's not tall, but appears to be; the mark of true nobility.

"Are you ill?" he asked me. "You're not working with the others."

Because of that, I found myself offering to help with the feeds that evening, but my heart wasn't in it. I'm working on half-power, half of my brain is trying to sleep because it's too afraid to be awake. On the morning after my dream about Zack (I won't admit it was anything but a dream), I looked out of the bedroom window and found the yard utterly cleared of snow. I was the first up too. Explain that. Kruin is worried about me, as if he's afraid I'll damage myself. Panthera is aloof. I think he's decided I must be some kind of criminal, and a drunken one at that. I know I do drink too much, but who cares! Anyway, I need it and I deserve it. Yes, I know I'm letting myself go. This is a defiance. Perhaps Pell will leave me alone if I'm no longer desirable. As Elveny said, beauty alone is not enough. If that's all I've got, let's see what happens without it. It's frightening that I'm thinking like this. I always used to be so strong, so impermeable. Have they done something to me? I can't help thinking of Terzian again. Am I suffering the same fate? Time for another drink. Cora has been feeding me all kinds of concoctions in a desperate attempt to improve my

health. She thinks I picked up some kind of infection on the road. She has also started watering the wine, I notice. If I look out of the window now, I can see Panthera playing with Cora's children in the snow. He has been created to torment me, I'm sure. He is dressed in furs and his mane of dark hair is laced with snow. Now I am aching to hold him close, because he reminds me of Pell, the real Pell. When these thoughts come to me, I mustwrite them down, because it is cleansing. Today 1 am confused. How much longer can I continue in this way? What is going to happen next? Oh dear, stop it, Cal, you're becoming a dreadful bore!

Out of curiosity, I think, the Hafeners invited us up to Heartstone. Wo all went, Cora's family as well. The women treated it like a real occasion, dressing up in long, soft woolen skirts and painting their faces.

Panthera borrowed some of Elveny's clothes and brushed his hair for half an hour. I watched them get ready with cynicism for a while, until my vanity got the better of me and I joined in. I dressed in white, washed my hair and painted my lips bright red. "That bloody enough for you?" I asked Elveny, grimacing at her.

She smiled weakly. "Made to kiss, I think," she said. "There's little power in that."

"You're wrong," I answered. "Continents can rise and fall on the strength of a kiss."

"Kiss me then," she said. Elveny is truly lovely. I've never kissed a woman in my whole life, not even when I was human. "Aren't I poisonous to you?" I asked.

"No, of course not. Your semen is deadly of course, but I'm only talking about a kiss."

We were not alone, but no-one else was listening. I took her in my arms and kissed her. Her female body was naturally softer than a har's. It was interesting. I've never felt like that about a woman before, but then, the women here are virtually har anyway. Inside, they are just as male as we should be. Male and female. Kissing Elveny made me think about what it used to be like being a half creature. As soon as I'd recovered from my inception I realized what a dull, unexplored existence it had been. Gimrah humans seem to have overcome that. "I've always hated women," I said to Elveny.

She smiled. "Of course. When you were male you used to love men, didn't you?"

That floored me. I'd got too used to Wraeththu superiority. "You've found the Way here, haven't you," I said.

"We surely have," she answered.

"I'm glad that men have gone."

"Me too." She poured us wine and we drank to it. I was in a comfortable daze by the time we got to Heartstone.

The house was not as big as I imagined. Two-storied, roofed with tile, its windows quite small because of the bad winters they have in Gimrah. Gasteau Hafener is Tirtha of Lemarath; a tribe leader. A servant met us at the door to Heartstone and took away our wet furs and boots. Soft felt slippers were provided for the comfort of the Tirtha's guests. The house was warm, the ceilings low and beamed. We were shown into a dark, fire-lit salon, where the Hafeners were gathered together, drinking mulled wine and conversing politely with their other guests. We were introduced. One of the Hara was a Natawni; he and Kruin began to gossip. I sat down with

Panthera and Elveny and glasses of warm liquor were thrust into our hands. Panthera had been eyeing me very suspiciously since he had seen me embracing the woman. That he thought me rather strange already was a foregone conclusion, but now I felt he considered my strangeness to be a sort of madness; best not to be discussed. I didn't really care. Whatever motives my companions might want to read into it, both Elveny and myself understood the reasons for our brief contact and were not deluding our-

selves in any way. Panthera lacked confidence in my judgment. As I said; I did not care. I drank my wine and looked around.

"Oh look!" Elveny hissed. "Here is Jubilee."

I would have known without looking across the room; first because I became aware of being watched, and second because Cora, standing near to us suddenly straightened up and became alert, like a hound desperate to show us how capable, trustworthy and handsome it is. I glanced at Elveny, raised a brow.

"Mmm," she said meaningfully. "Jubilee Hafener is as yet unbonded to another. As far as I know Lanareeve has more or less promised Cora that Natty shall be taken as Jubilee's consort once he has been incepted."

"Is that politics or choice?"

Elveny pulled a wry face. "A little of both, I think. Cora is a pillar of the human community; her words carry great weight. She is also a good friend of Gasteau and Lanareeve and it is no secret that she is very fond of Jubilee."

"Ah, I see; she will live out her desires through her son."

"You are cruel, Cal," Elveny scolded, shaking her head, although her smile did not waver. "And too critical. In actual fact, she has known Jubilee since he was a harling; don't misinterpret her feelings."

I laughed, unconvinced.

We were shown into another room to dine. The Hafeners are a handsome family. Both Gasteau and Lanareeve are tall, both pale-skinned and dark-haired, a trait that has been passed onto their sons. As well as Jubilee, there was Danyelle, his consort Onaly Doontree and an older har, who though unrelated in blood, had taken the Hafener name; this was Wilder. As we sat down to eat, Jubilee Hafener asked if he could sit beside me. This was not unexpected. "How long are you staying in Lemarth?" he asked me.

"Oh, as soon as the south road's clear, we'll leave," I answered.

"Where are you heading?"

"Jael, in Ferike."

He smiled. "Well, I doubt if you'll be here much longer then. This snow fall will have stopped by the end of the week. The road can be cleared after then. What a shame. I had hoped to spend the rest of this bitter season wooing you into a wild affair."

"How direct of you!"

"Brief affairs are always the most poignant, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "If you say so. I've had more pressing matters on my mind recently.""Are you chesna with the Natawni?"

"No. Don't flirt with me, Jubilee Hafener; you are distressing the mother of your future consort."