The Wraeththu Chronicles (20 page)

"It is closing up. The land is taking over. Once more, as it was a long, long time ago. Can't you feel it, Pell? Feel it! Mankind's funeral. You can feel them, can't you? All of them, somewhere around. Empty, but full of them."

"Shut up, Cal!" I shouted. Suddenly the dark was full of eyes. Unseen at that, which was worse

"Spooking you, am I?" He picked up a stick and scratched in the dirt round our little fire. The only sound was the comforting crackle of flames and vague animal rustlings in the distance. "The sky's very high here, isn't it?" he remarked, looking up.

"Cal!"

"It's just changed so much, that's all. And in such a short time. Centuries of civilization wiped out in a couple of years. It's awesome!"

"We knew this is what it would come to!" I retorted, irritably.

"Are you feeling guilty, Cal? Are you thinking of all the pain and suffering and wretchedness of innocents just born in the wrong time and the wrong place?"

"And the wrong body," Cobweb added drily. I looked down at him. He seemed like an untidy bundle of rags thrown down in the grass. A sudden thought prompted me to speak.

"Maybe they have the choice ... all of them. Perhaps every man on this earth could be incepted to Wraeththu—even the women! Does anyone really know? Has anyone ever tried to incept a full-grown man, or a woman?"

Cal looked at me with distaste. "You can be quite grotesque sometimes Pell," he decided.

To my surprise Cobweb agreed with me. "No, Cal," he said. "It is grotesque to think otherwise. That is man's smallmindedness; man's fear of questioning important issues. You know what I mean." Cal also looked surprised that Cobweb had spoken.

"Well, I suppose it has a certain grim fascination. Shall we try it on the next woman we find?" His voice was caustic with sarcasm. Female was just a symbol to him of something that made men hate us. Even if it were possible, I do not think he would want to share our Har-ness with women. Cobweb's comments had astounded me too though. The only way I can describe it, is that it had sounded very un-Varr.

"I thought your tribe had dedicated themselves to speeding up the extinction of Man," I said.

"They have," he answered simply. "But it is different for me. I am not a warrior. The Varrs all have very set roles. I am a progenitor. Killing does not always seem the best way."

"Yet you were there when your tribe sacked Phesbe," Cal commented sardonically.

"Yes, I was there," Cobweb agreed.

"Ah," Cal began, relishing the moment before the next thrust.

I did not want to give Cal the opportunity to exercise his love of quibbling and spoke quickly to dispel the tension. "Cobweb, you say you are a progenitor. Does that mean you have actually, er, you know . . . reproduced?"

He looked at me blankly for a moment. I could still feel irritation behind me in the silence. "Yes," Cobweb said warily, after a while.

"You have Nahir-Nuri among you then?" Cal asked him suddenly, his curiosity overwhelming his desire to argue.

"No, that's not necessary. Given the right circumstances, we've found that Pyralisits or even Acanthalids can inseminate a host."

"God, that's amazing!" Cal exclaimed. "No, wait. That must be something fairly new. It must be. How long have the Varrs been practising it?

Cobweb shrugged. "I don't know exactly. I came from the tribe of Sulh some eight months back. It was a common thing then."

"Events are moving even quicker than I imagined," Cal said softly, with a trace of bitterness. He looked at me. "God, Pell. One year in Saltrock. Time stood still for us, didn't it? But out here . . ." He shook his head. I had gathered that the knowledge Cal had of Wraeththu procreation was nearly as sketchy as mine. At the time when Cal had met me, it had been a shrouded subject, relevant only to the Nahir-Nuri. Yes, he was right. Everything was changing, speeding up. I had a feeling that the farther north we traveled, the more surprises would be revealed. At our backs, the trees. Beyond our fire, the river. All around us a haunted quiet, disturbed only by the water and the flames. Cal spread our rugs on the ground. He had lapsed into a contemplative silence and curled up with his back to me. I sat watching the fire and the darkness over the river. I thought Cobweb had fallen asleep, but I heard him say, "I have a son." The tone of his voice made me feel sad. I poked at the fire with a stick, sending sprays of sparks spiraling upwards. Cobweb was not looking at me. I think he should have been weeping, but all I could see was his thin, well-shaped lips twitching as he chewed the inside of his mouth.

"Terzian's?" I asked, and he nodded, once, just staring at the stars.

"I expect he's alright," I said, wishing I had never opened my mouth.

"Oh, I know that!"

I wanted to ask so many questions but at the same time, did not want to hear the answers.

"I know what you've been thinking," Cobweb continued.

"Oh?" I was not sure which of my thoughts he had in mind.

"I know what's happened to me. I know that.... In a way I don't want to go back, but I have

to . . ."

"What have my thoughts got to do with it?"

"Oh, I can see you thinking," he said with a wistful smile. "When you do my leg. I can hear you say to yourself: there was beauty here once. We both know where that leads to don't we!" He did not want to say it, make it real with words.

"You're still the same person," I told him.

He grimaced. "Pellaz! If all the hara in the world were like you! They're not though, are they? I know it matters. It matters very much. Perhaps less so in a tribe where there is utter equality of status. The Varrs are not like that."

"You'll heal, get better." I did not like any of this. It made the peace of Saltrock seem like a crazed, idealistic dream. This was what was real. It mattered to be beautiful. Spinel had told us the Varrs had whores, and he was right. Where was the proof of the Utopian visions Orien had spoken of? We had seen only the ophidian cruelty of the Kakkahaar, then the sordid apathy of the Irraka, now this. What had really changed since the first Wraeththu had come into the world? One selfish, ignorant race had been exchanged for another, more powerful, selfish, ignorant race. Where was the great tribe of noble and elevated spirits to cleanse the world? Since Saltrock, all I had seen were magicians, villains and killers. Maybe Immanion too was just a hazy fantasy. If it existed at all, it was somewhere far, far away, where none of this sordid mess could touch it. I was overwhelmed by a swelling tide of emotion: anger, indignation and love. Perhaps it would be best to turn back and return to Saltrock. We could take Cobweb with us. Maybe, there, his body and his soul could be healed. The sanity and the care of kindred spirits would make him whole and proud again.

"No!" he said, and I lifted my face from my hands. "Do not think that, Pellaz." He was looking at me now, with a great weariness. "You look surprised. Am I reading your mind? It's there for all to see, isn't it?" I was dumbfounded. Cobweb sighed. "Oh Pell, it wasn't just for my pretty face you see. That's not just what Terzian wanted. I am Brynie and, they tell me, a gifted psychic. Not that it takes much of that kind of talent to work out what you are thinking! You must know you can't go back. You must. It's a wonderful idea, and I'm grateful that you're thinking it, but no. I'm strong enough to take any of the shit Terzian might throw at me, I really am!" He grinned. "You're tiring me out, do you know that? Tell me to shut up; I'm just moaning. Ignore it. I know I'll get better, and if Terzian tells me where to go, that's just too bad. I'll always have Swift; the son I still can't believe actually came out of me. You want to know about that too, don't you ... I might scare him though, like this. How am I going to feel if he doesn't even recognize me? Why don't you tell me to shut up? Swift's not very old. Do you think he'll have forgotten me? I've not been gone that lung, but, well children are strange, aren't they? Their children are strange, what are ours like? I don't know. He won't have to be incepted, will he? I'll have to tell him what men are. Won't it be crazy if he thinks that men and women are a kind of pervy idea? Only Aghama can help me now, if he's really out there; Aghama or God. Is there a difference?"

"Cobweb," I said, "shut up." He laughed, sort of crazily, and I leaned over him to wrap his blanket more firmly around his shoulders. "You shouldn't be in this ..." I told him.

"Oh be quiet, Pell. I know what you think. Why don't you let me go to sleep."

I went back to watching the fire. My people. My race. I felt a hundred years old.

Two more days of traveling and then the spiky outline of a town appeared in the distance.

"This is where we'll find them," Cobweb said. He looked as if he was scraping the barrel of his strength.

Cal trotted Splice up alongside me. "Well," he said. "This is it. A meeting I would have preferred to avoid."

"Yes," I agreed miserably. We had started out from Phesbe regarding Cobweb as protection against a possibility. It had been clear for some days, however, that we had to actually seek out the Varrs. Cobweb was deteriorating. If we did not get him back to his people, the only alternative was to leave him to die. Cal often appeared hard-hearted, but I knew the limits of his coldness. It was a tough, thin shell around an extremely mushy center. Cobweb could no longer guide us; he lived in a solitary nightmare of delirium. So, without even discussing it, we had begun to look for signs that would lead us to the Varrs rather than away from them. After their ransacking expedition in Stoor, it appeared they had headed back to their home. It was not a difficult task to follow their trail of destruction.

About a mile from the town, a squad of mounted warriors cantered Inward us. The horses were lean, breedy and polished; the riders fit, clean and lithe. Like the Irraka they wore mostly black leather, but it gleamed with the luster of matte silk. We halted our horses and waited for them. Their leader spoke to one of his troupe, who walked his magnificent, mincing mount to within a couple of feet of Red and Splice's straining, quivering noses.

"We would like to speak with the one called Terzian," Cal explained in his clear, careful voice.

"Why?" There was no hint of either hostility or cordiality.

"The one on the pack-horse back there," Cal indicated with his thumb, "he's one of yours. We got him out of a rather distressing situation and he's none too well. I understand Terzian would welcome news of his whereabouts."

The Varr warrior looked round us toward Tenka and the rigor dropped from his face. "Oh my God," he said, almost in a whisper. Cal and I exchanged a comforting glance. "Follow me!" The Varr trotted his horse back to the others and spoke urgently with the leader. They all looked at us with interest and suspicion. When we caught up with them the leader said, "We shall take you to Terzian. I am Ithiel." He held out his hand in a strange, old-fashioned gesture of welcome

Cal took it and said, "Thanks," looking at Ithiel's hand with surprise. "We had thought Cobweb was dead," the Varr remarked as we rode toward the town. "It is indeed fortunate that you . . . came across him." I had the feeling that he was finding all this very embarrassing. I did not know what Terzian was like, but I did not envy Ithiel the task of breaking this piece of news to him.

The town had been renamed Galhea, and was the largest I had ever seen. It was clean and boasted electric power. In fact, little appeared to have changed since Man had lived there. Shops were still trading, only the variety of their merchandise had changed. Music from inns and cafes gave the place an almost festive air. It was nothing like Cal and I had imagined. At home, the Varrs seemed relaxed and unexpectedly cheerful Nowhere could we see the grim and deadly ranks of Wraeththu armies that we had anticipated. We rode through the town toward a residential area, bordered by tall, clipped trees and hedges of late-flowering orangeblossom. The perfumed air made me want to laugh with relief. It was a fragrance, a memory, of Saltrock.

Terzian's house was white and grand, approached by a winding uphill drive flanked by towering bushes of rhodedendron, rooted in turf as smooth as velvet. Order and cleanliness were everywhere. I did not catch sight of one stray leaf. We could see the house growing out of the top of the hill. It had once been a man's house, and he had evidently been rich. Slim, sparkling pillars framed the back of the building, leading to sloping, terraced lawns. The air held the faintest tang of autumn and the house stood out like a white tooth against the darker clouds of the sky. Inside, of course, it might have shared the same fate as Phesbe's civic hall, but I doubted it. Behind me, Cobweb began to cough. Only yesterday, the poison had reached his lungs. He said the Varrs had powerful healers and I prayed it was not too late.

Ithiel led us round the side of the house to an impressively neat stable-yard. As we dismounted, he said, "Your things will be safe here." Hara came to lead our horses away and we followed Ithiel and two of his troupe into the house. One of them carried Cobweb in his arms. He looked barely alive, the damaged leg dangling uselessly. I knew how little he weighed. Cobweb; his name was sadly apt.

Dark, wood-paneled corridors wound through the kitchens and domestic quarters. We could see many hara working there.

"It smells nice," Cal said.

"Better than Phesbe," I agreed and we laughed.

Ithiel turned at the sound. "Phesbe. Is that where you found Cobweb?"