The Wraeththu Chronicles (44 page)

"He had the evil eye?" I enquired knowledgeably.

Cobweb wrinkled his nose. "Not exactly. He is just Trouble, standing up and walking about in a body!" We were in the drawing room. Cobweb walked over to the long windows and threw them open. Air rushed in smelling of smoke and ripeness, birds flapped

noisily off the terrace in alarm. "Sometimes I am so afraid," Cobweb said, in a soft, sad voice.

"Of what?" I asked, running toward him. He bent down and put his hands on my shoulders.

"You're growing up," he said. "I suppose I still think of human children when I look at you. You are five years old, yet you look twice that age."

I sighed. "Afraid of what, Cobweb?"

"Let's sit down," he suggested and we curled up on the couch together.

"They brought me back home when I was hurt, those strangers," he began.

"How did you get hurt?" I demanded. "Where was Terzian?"

Cobweb pulled a face; his expression comprised bitterness, wry humor and disgust.

"Where indeed! Let's just say I was alone and they rescued me."

"Pellaz was nice. He talked to me," I said.

"I know he was ... it was the other one." He began to scowl and his eyes shone with the kind of hatred that can quite easily destroy someone. I kept quiet, waiting for him to go on.

"I hate to say this, Swift, but I shall. Your father fell in love with him."

I did not think this was terrible, only understandable, because my simple grasp of "love" was then concerned wholly with what was pleasing to behold and what was not. The feelings were beyond my understanding. The yellow-haired har had been beautiful, in a cruel, lazy sort of way. This was clearly why my father had loved him.

"Was that bad?" I asked timidly.

"Bad?!" Cobweb screwed up his eyes and snarled. "It might have gone very badly for both of us if he had stayed here."

"Why?"

Cobweb looked down at me. "You love your father very much," he said, "as you should. But you are too young to understand him."

"It seems I am too young for anything at the moment!" I retorted hotly, mightily sick of hearing that particular phrase.

"Alright," Cobweb said, "Alright. If he had stayed here and given Terzian sons, there might have been no room in his life for us. He worshiped C—he worshiped him!"

"You're wrong!" I cried, pulling away, facing a Cobweb I felt I no longer knew. My hostling was too wise, too tranquil to come out with things like this.

"Oh, Swift, you know so little. One day, you'll understand." He stood up and walked back to the window. "Terzian needed me when they left here; his heart was broken. I suppose he's become fond of me over the yours, but I am not deceived. That is why I am afraid."

"Why?" I pleaded, feeling tears building up inside me. Cobweb had never talked like this to me before; he had always protected me from things he feared might be upsetting.

"He... might... he might come back!" Cobweb pressed one slim, white hand against his eyebrows and leaned against the window. I could see his shoulders trembling, oh so slightly. I ran to him, sniveling and afraid, and we sat on the floor and hugged each other.

"Never speak his name, never!" Cobweb warned. "Never whistle in the dark for it summons evil and he will hear it. In the treetops, the feathered ones will know. Watch them, Swift, watch the birds!"

That night I had a terrible dream. In the dream, the yellow-haired har was standing in a wreath of shadowy flames and his beauty was ugliness. He saw me and snared me in horror. "Call me," he whispered and held out his hands, which were dripping red and shaking. I tried to turn away, run away, but I could not move. His eyes transfixed me. "Call me!" A terrible whine started in my throat, a sound I could not control. When I woke up I was shrieking, "Cal! Cal!" and lights were being turned on hurriedly in the hall outside my room; voices, and footsteps, running.

Next morning, I went alone to the long gallery on the second floor of the house, miserable and haunted. Cobweb had been very upset by what had happened in the night and Terzian very angry. They both blamed each other. I had heard my father shout when they had left me once more in darkness. The sound had come right through the walls. He had shouted, "What possessed you to tell him that? What possessed you?"

And my hostling's answering cry, "Are you ashamed that he should know?"

I could remember that things had changed when Pellaz and Cal had left Galhea. Of course, at the time I had not understood why. At first the house had held its breath, everyone speaking in hushed voices and looking over their shoulders. Ithiel had skulked about looking very embarrassed, but on hand in case my father needed him. He had wanted to go after them, I suppose. He had wanted blood; Cobweb too. He and Ithiel had had low, heated conversations together when they thought no-one was listening. My father had stayed alone in his room for three days, refusing food, accepting only wine and hot, potent sheh. After that, he had appeared once more downstairs, gray as with the aftermath of illness. That part I remember well. Cobweb and I had been eating breakfast together and my father had come into the room. He had stood in the doorway and no-one had spoken and then Cobweb had risen from his chair and Terzian had walked toward him; they had embraced.

Since that time, I had sensed them drawing closer to each other as the memory of the blighted Cal faded. We had built for ourselves an emotional haven within the walls of Forever; father, hostling, son. Now Terzian had come home from his fighting, sick and tired, and he had had too much time to think of the past, lying around the house all day. Now I had dreamed and called Cal's name. Now I feared I had opened the door to let him back into Forever. We had not thought of him for five years.

Swithe came to find me. "They guessed you'd be here," he said and squatted down beside me. I thought to myself, He is my only friend. I can tell him anything, and told him about the dream and then, after a split second's consideration, about the dreadful episode of Cal and how he had spurned my father. I suppose I should have been prepared for the warm light of respect that came into Swithe's eyes when I explained how Cal had refused to share Terzian's life, but I was still quietly outraged. "He would have made Cobweb and me leave the house!" I added venomously, forgetting that only yesterday I had denied that was possible.

"Come downstairs," Swithe said. "Moswell is fretting."

Later, I tried to apologize to my hostling for the dreadful thing that I had done, speaking the forbidden name, but he had only waved my apologies away with one quick movement. "I should never have spoken as I did," he said. "No wonder it gave you nightmares."

"But are we safe?" I begged.

"Yes, of course," Cobweb answered shortly.

Coming of Age

Radiant angel; magnificent black hair

Prostration at his feet

Overwhelmed by the loveliest Har

Under the concave firmament.

Some weeks passed and then news arrived for my father from the north. There were cities there, Varr cities that had been seized from men. Varrs of high caste ruled in those places (of castes higher than my father's anyway), and sometimes their eyes wandered in the direction of Galhea and they would send emissaries down to see how things went with us. Terzian was never pleased about this.

One morning, three polished black horses trotted out of the mist, past the follies, the fountains of Forever's gardens, up the drive to the great, white steps where my father's dogs leaped up and howled and bounded round the horses' legs. They had been riding through the night. The riders' garments of thick black leather and metal were glistening with dew. Cobweb said that northern Varrs were hardy to the point of masochism. I was in the hall when Ithiel strode into the house, when he went straight into Terzian's study without knocking. They left the door open and I could hear my father's abrupt noise of irritation when Ithiel said, "There are three of them. Ponclast has sent them." Ponclast was Nahir-Nuri, the most elevated of hara. Normally, his name was heard only in oaths; my father resented Ponclast's interest in his affairs.

They were received in the red room that overlooked the lawns at the back of the house. It was the most uncomfortable room in Forever. I hung about by the door and one of them patted me on the head as he passed. Food was ordered, ale and sheh. I went into the kitchen where everyone was hurrying around looking harried. Limba was with me and he nearly made Yarrow trip over by getting under his feet. Yarrow boxed my ears and yelled at me to get the hell out of his kitchen. That was when Moswell put his nose around the door. I had hoped lessons would be forgotten for the day, but he dragged me off to the schoolroom and I did not see our visitors again until the end of the afternoon.

That evening, my father, looking much relieved and uncommonly cheerful because of it, made an announcement at dinner. We were eating off the best silver because the northerners were there. "Swift," my father said, and I turned red because I was uneasy with strangers then. "Swift," he said, "I know you'll be pleased; Tiahaar Ponclast's son Gahrazel is coming here to Galhea to stay in the house, to study with you." He addressed his guests. "My son has often wanted company of his own age." (I mentioned it once, I thought angrily, just once!) If the northerners hadn't been there I would have asked, "But why?" However, paralyzed by everyone's attention upon me, I was too shy to speak. It had nothing to do with manners.

Cobweb had a flinty look about him, caressing the smooth silver handle of his fork (maybe thinking it was a knife). He said in a clear, cool voice, "But why?"

One of them, who had sleek black hair and the face of a hawk (his name, I think, was Mawn), said, "Compared to how you live here, it is no place for harlings in the north. Ponclast feels the situation up there might adversely affect Gahrazel's development. He has always admired Forever, and is aware of Terzian's excellent choice of tutors." If Mawn was aware of the veiled hostility in Cobweb's manner, he forgave him. Cobweb, because of his charm and his beauty, could get away with murder. Mawn smiled toothily at him, helplessly enthralled.

"Swift's tutors are the best," my father said, rather unexpectedly. Cobweb looked at me and I could tell we were sharing the same thought. Ponclast's eyes in Galhea, in Forever, looking out from the face of his son. Cobweb smiled, partly because he saw in my recognition of that fact a developing maturity.

Later, I heard them talking, Cobweb and my father. I lay in my bed and their voices reached me through my open door. Since the nightmare, I was too afraid to sleep with it closed. Cobweb spoke with sarcasm. "You seemed almost grateful and so pleasant!"

My father answered irritably, "I have to be pleasant; we all have to be, damn them!"

"He's had trouble with this Gahrazel, I feel," Cobweb said.

"Who, Ponclast? Hmm, perhaps."

"Why else send him away from home? You don't believe that fawning rubbish about Forever being so admirable, do you?"

"He will be company for Swift. The child spends too much time alone."

I lay there, listening, in two minds about whether I was pleased or not. New people meant changes; I would have to talk to Cobweb about it.

The next day, all my hostling would say was, "It'll do you good, having someone else here your own age. Terzian is right, you live inside your own head too much!"

Feeling betrayed, I went to look for Swithe and he said, "Cobweb is right. Anyway, it'll make lessons more interesting, won't it?"

"Hrrmph," I consented glumly. "Anyway, what did they mean by it not being 'right' for harlings in the north?"

Swithe looked perplexed. I sensed him carefully preparing an answer for me. "This country ... it is not ... a peaceful place, Swift."

I must have looked completely blank. Galhea, after all, was very peaceful.

"There are two kinds of darkness," Swithe continued, still struggling. "Remember them now, even if you don't really understand what I'm saying. One darkness is the natural kind, like when the sun goes down, what you find inside a locked cupboard or the deepest glade of a forest. The other, well, it is a darkness inside a person and it can eat them whole! It can eat entire cities away, until only dust and shadows are left. It is what men called evil and the darkness in the north can be like that."

How could I understand his words? I couldn't; not then. But the feelings behind them struck deep. I never forgot them, nor how the room had seemed to chill as Swithe spoke, the sun beyond the windows to grow briefly shadowed.

Gahrazel was about a year and a half older than me, but he could not write as neatly and was always horribly restless. He was deposited one morning, without ceremony, at the gates of Forever, and Cobweb and I watched his hunched figure, carrying a single, bulging bag, trudge wearily up the wide, graveled road to the house. "It seems they are glad to be rid of him," Cobweb remarked drily. I thought so too. Gahrazel had seen lighting, real fighting. He had seen hara die and had actually touched the dead body of a man. "I cut some of his hair off," he said confidentially. I showed him all the secret places in the garden, including

the corner of the lake where the spirit lived, which Gahrazel appeared eager to invoke.