The Wraeththu Chronicles (147 page)

I couldn't even bear to be angry with him. I drank some of the water. He knocked the flask out of my hand and it shattered on the floor, water spreading in a dark stain like blood over the pale, wooden boards.

"Thea, you're hurting only yourself. You can't reach me. Not after Roselane. I know now. You can't reach me." The calmness of my voice did not sooth him.

"What do you know, Cal? Tell me! If I know too, maybe it'll help . . ."

"No! I can't Thea. I can't." He looked wild, but he was trembling. I wanted to hold him, tell him everything would be alright. I wanted to strike him senseless so he'd leave me alone. Tel-an-Kaa had told me to watch out for sneaky attacks by Thiede. Was this one of them? I couldn't be sure. "Panthera, please, you must go. I have to think. Tomorrow's a big day." I tried a tentative smile. For a moment, he stared at me, full of rage, then he walked to the door. As he turned the handle, it seemed as if someone came and stabbed him in the gut. He doubled up, slid down the door and crouched on the floor, leaning against the wall. I really thought he'd been attacked. Anything was possible here. "What is it, Thea? Where's it hurt?" I tried to pull him up. "Here!" he shouted, uncurling. "Here!" And he was thumping his chest with one hand, right over the heart. His face was wet with tears. Internal agony then; it had been me who'd thrown the knife.

"Thea?"

"I don't know why I'm doing this to myself," he said. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry . . ." It was all I could say, all I could think of.

"Cal, don't leave me."

We looked at each other in the half-light. He was so beautiful; it seems almost lame to say it. Why? Why, why, why ...

"Don't leave me . . . please!"

My chest ached. My arms ached to hold him, but tomorrow would always be there. I could make no promises.

A long time ago, I'd been chesna with a har named Zackala. That's very, very close by Wraeththu standards. Some might say an insoluble link that exists even after hearts and bodies have waved goodbye to each other. It was simple to reach out with my mind and call him. Easy to intimate everything, by projecting the very least. He came through my door within seconds. I looked up at him helplessly, crouched on the floor by Panthera, who seemed almost senseless with grief. Zack shook his head, but said nothing. Between us, we got Panthera on his feet. He made an enormous effort to appear normal, perhaps embarrassed that Zack was there. He did not guess I'd summoned help, perhaps thinking Zack had passed the door and heard something. Before he left he said, "Goodbye, Cal. I wish you luck." I pulled a wry face. "I mean it," he said.

"Come on, Thea," Zack said, in a horribly cheerful voice. "Help me make a hole in Ashmael's liquor store! Cal can't afford to have a good time tonight!" He put his arm around Panthera's shoulder and dragged him away. When I closed the door, that white, stricken face was still looking back at me.

Alone, I sat on the floor with my back to the door and stared at the dark place where the water had spilled. I'd have trusted Panthera with my life. He'd trusted me with his heart which had been frozen nearly to death in Piristil. Now, in pursuit of my crazy, half-realized dreams, I was casting him aside like a meatless chicken-bone. (And, oh yes, I'd enjoyed consuming the meat.) I even loved him; but not enough. There was still that bewitching phantom waiting for me, that stranger, that immortal memory. Oh God, am I doing the right thing? Am I? Phaonica. . . . Through the window, I could look out and see those glistering spires. Beautiful, but spiky cruel they are. I want to touch them. It's as simple as that. Beyond the glass, as the hours progressed toward that single point in time, the light gradually changed. I sat on the floor, staring, staring, oblivious of anything but the mystery of Phaonica, and remained like that till dawn.

Phaonica

"The agony is past; behold how shape and light are born again;

how emerald and starry gold burn in the midnight; how the pain

of our incredible marriage-fold

and bed of birthless travail wane;

and how our molten limbs divide

and self and self again abide. "

—Aleister Crowley, Asmodel

Zack was up to see me off. There was no sign of Panthera. Was he making it easier for me or for himself? Ashmael made me eat something but the bread tasted like ashes. I was afraid. "Remember, we are with you," Zack said, and I thought of Opalexian. I thought, "No, I am alone," but appreciated his concern.

Ashmael and I went out into the brightness of a fair and dreaming morning, walking because we didn't have far to go. Tall trees with glossy, dark leaves hid the palace from general view at first. We passed beneath them and I looked up. Imagine then the tremendous bulk of that fair edifice Phaonica. Effulgence upon shine upon brilliant haze. Darkness without shadow; the crown. And me. Shambling behind Ashmael; a mote of dark within the sphere of light. Dread had made me feel black; from the core out. Oh, I had worked hard to pay for my sins, but that could not erase the fact they'd been committed. Had my shadows any place within this splendor? My heart was aching because it was beating so hard, so fast. I followed Ashmael through the quieter courtyards, where he knew it was unlikely anyone would be about. And then it was deep, deep into the heart of the palace of light; to the inner sanctum of the Aghama. We saw no-one. The spacious corridors meditated in silence, columns and spiraling stairs, galleries and vaulted halls. A place of hushed magnificence. The Tigron lived here. Who was he really? Could he sense my presence? The rooms felt bewitched, enchanted into sleep so I could pass through them unnoticed. I felt Phaonica sigh around me, but there was no sign of Pellaz. We went down a flight of white steps and the light became blue. Thiede's sanctum; the temple in the heart of Phaonica. Ashmael left me at the gateway, and I stepped inside.

It was like being surrounded by floating veils; everything was indistinct. I could smell cinnamon, strong and earthy. Where did the light come from? How big was this place? A single room, a labyrinth? I was stopped, limping toward the center, shivering like a rat crossing an alley. In Phaonica, I could no longer be beautiful. Ahead of me, an eternity away, I could see a pulsing core of light, solid brightness at its center. Power radiated out toward me, a slumbering power. It was Thiede, wreathed in

blue flame, suspended in the webs of his own thought, contemplating beyond this world. As I approached him (oh, so slowly) the brightness changed color. Threads of red light streaked its purity. Thiede could sense me. He felt me drawing nearer, a smoking, black-rot presence. At first there was only a dim outrage that something unclean had entered his sacred space, then I caught it; fear! One pure beam of naked fear. He knew. Then I was right up close to him and it was like looking through glass and his burning eyes were upon me, spitting flame. He could not believe it. How could such a worthless beast as I breach his privacy without detection? What power did that mean I owned, or was lent? His face contorted with revulsion. My clothes had become rags.

I stretched a shaking hand toward him and it was caked with grime, so thin, almost mummified. "I know," I said, and my voice was the voice of the last doomed prophet. "I have seen." He raised his hand to banish me but I spoke first. "Is the one who would be Aghama afraid to hear what this foul creature might say?" And now it was Opalexian's voice that I spoke with. "Didn't you always want me to come here, Thiede? Didn't you once ask me to?"

He considered for a moment before saying, "Speak then," and there was a certain curiosity in his tone. Thiede still thought he had the ability to get rid of me when he wished.

"It began with a bullet," I said, "when the soul of a single har rose high, transfixed by your radiance, but unable to reach it. Prevented from reaching it. That suited you didn't it? Even the Aghama can know fear. Pellaz could not reach you because he had no complement. Now I know you wanted it to stay that way; always! 'Come to Immanion, Cal,' you said. 'Be the Tigron's plaything.' Clever of you I suppose. You knew I'd say no to that. You only had to twist the truth a little to keep us apart. Pellaz and I are Wraeththu, Thiede. Fate brought us together, but a very calculating Fate. Pell is Light and I am Dark, but without each other we cannot understand the real Light. Together, we can combine and reach for it. We become you, Thiede. We become the ultimate. You knew that, didn't you? That is why it was so necessary to keep me away from here. Oh, I thought you were being so understanding, so reasonable about it all, didn't I? It was Pell who was the villain of the piece, the spoilt child who wanted something, and stamped and screamed until he got it. I know better now. Thiede, youare holding Wraeththu back, stunting their development. There had to be a Tigron, but it wasn't your idea. No, your part of it was to keep the Tigron to being just one person. That way you could keep all your power. Phaonica is but an illusion, Immanion built of dreams. Your dreams. It shines, it is safe, but it is unbalanced. Pellaz lives in glass; you have made him so pure. But there is still the sleeping seed within him that reaches toward me; the seed that shuts the Tigrina from his heart, that keeps his belief in Us strong. You can cage it, Thiede, but you cannot destroy it." "No, but I can destroy you," Thiede answered, and he was calm and unsurprised. One day, all this would have had to come to light. Thiede was not that blind.

"Of course you can, and you must," I answered. His face flickered with brief, unspecified shadows.

"Have you come here then just to tell me what you know and let me dispose of you neatly?" He smiled. "I think not, Calanthe. You're a survivor. You won't give in that easily. Are you trying to fool me?"

"Perhaps I'm just playing with words. The Aghama can't kill, can he? If he could, he would have got rid of me years ago. No, in destroying me, you destroy yourself. Life is precious isn't it?"

"What do you want?" His patience was ebbing. He was in no mood for games, which showed he was worried.

"What do I want? Oh, that's easy. I want you to kill me, as you killed Pellaz. You're going to have to do it, Thiede. You must."

He smiled wanly. "And create something more powerful than this world has ever known? Destroy myself?"

"Only in death can you truly become Aghama, Thiede. Why are you afraid?"

"You do not know what I feel. It is not fear as you can grasp it. I have always understood that I am mortal, as we all are. Because of this my weakness is my love of flesh, my love of this world; its people, its earth, its feel. I know that is weakness, but it is also my strength because I can admit it. I also know that I have been fighting against the inevitable. I knew you'd show up here one day, to claim what you think is yours. I didn't believe, for a moment, that I'd managed to get rid of you forever. Don't, in your arrogance, think that I'm unaware of that. If I want to, I can know every thought in every Harish head. I began this race, Cal."

"Yes, you did, and you must let it go on, Thiede. Wraeththu must progress. The next stage must be initiated. Now."

"And if I don't? What then?"

"Then Opalexian will make you do it, I'm sure."

"Opalexian." The name obviously disturbed him. Perhaps he'd heard it in dreams, banished it from his visions.

"Kamagrian," I said.

"And what is that?"

I could not believe he did not already know. "I can show you. It is all inside me. All of it."

For a moment longer, in those final moments, he stared at me deeply. What did he see? A Uigenna wastrel? A used-up kanene? A murderer? Or did he see Opalexian's initiate? He was afraid.

"Show me then," he said, and I opened up my mind to let him look within me and learn what I knew. She that taught it lived there. If he'd been ignorant of her existence, as, at last, I felt he must, he did not let me see it. He extended his hand.

"Let me look at you again," he said, and drew me toward him. He smiled sadly. "One of my children. Every har is one of my children. Have I been a harsh father, a useless one?"

"Neither, but you have not been a mother either." He shook his head. His last moments. He looked around the temple, loving it, smelling it, absorbing it, afraid he would lose it for eternity. Until the moment of extinction, there is no real proof for any of us that life extends beyond it. "Pell is waiting to love you," he said. "That, in itself, has been an act of worship for him. I envy you. I envy you everything."

"You shouldn't."

He smiled more widely, a sparkle coming into his eyes. "A last fling at carnality, my dear. That's all. I must go back to the beginning, look at it again. Then we will speak some more."

"In this place, we will speak many times."

"Conceive your sons here. Bring your love here ..." He sighed and took both of my hands in his own. "I am not a wicked creature, Cal."

"I know that."

"Then let us do what must be done," he said. There was no way he could fight it, for the only way to fight it was to destroy me, which is what had to happen anyway.

As a column of shadow, I rose toward a vacillating brightness that in the moment of contact exploded into me as a countless number of sparks. At that moment, throughout the world, every Wraeththu har would shudder, raising his head to the sky, feeling fear, wonder, power. Those that slept would dream my dream, those that were awake would live it. Me, as a mote of the whole, in that instant became each of those individuals. And they felt me. And recognized me. But in Phaonica, the Cal that had been was consumed in the fire, spiraling helplessly, at one with the elemental force that held the world together. The walls of that temple trembled. I heard a piercing, agonised shriek that was Pellaz wrenched from the glass, pulled gasping through a crack of infinite sharpness, that cut and tore and ruined. I was high above the city and Immanion shuddered and groaned, black tongues licking its streets, sweeping oily smoke behind it.