The Wraeththu Chronicles (45 page)

"If I am to stay here, I suppose we must be friends," he said grudgingly, and went on to tell me how he would miss the hara he had known back home.

Lessons were over for the day and in the garden it was becoming quite dark. Nearly all the leaves were gone from the trees now and we had to wear coats when we went outside. "This is a beautiful place," Gahrazel said, "there is nowhere like this where I come from."

We had known each other only a week or so, yet already communicated in an unselfconscious manner. This was mainly because of the way Gahrazel was; spirited, confident and, to me, surprisingly mature. He had been sad to find himself in an unwelcome situation, but was prepared to make the best of it.

"Why did your father send you away?" I ventured carefully and he snorted angrily.

"Why?! You know what fathers are like," he answered scathingly.

I did not want to appear ignorant so I said, "I know what mine is like," and we laughed.

"I am near my time," Gahrazel told me. This was obviously something momentous.

"Oh?" I said.

"You know, Feybraiha, the coming of age."

"Oh, yes . . ."

"You don't know, do you!"

I shrugged helplessly.

"There was . . . someone, someone a lot older than me. That was why Ponclast decided to bury me in the country. He disapproved of my choice, and I knew I would disapprove of his! Our tastes have never coincided. There was an argument, so" (he threw up his hands) "here I am!"

Feybraiha: so, another new word for me to ponder. Was this another changing? If so, what? Pride prevented me from revealing my ignorance then, but something about it worried me deeply. A feeling of vibration; a sting. Presentiment perhaps?

For the first few days, Gahrazel was sullen and uncooperative. I tried to imagine how I would feel if Terzian ever sent me away to live with strangers. I strained to be tolerant. Gahrazel disliked his room (one of the best in the house), complained the food tasted strange and was sarcastic to Cobweb. It infuriated him that Cobweb didn't get annoyed. On the third day he joined me in my lessons, and to my delight, contradicted Moswell constantly. "This har knows nothing. He is a fool," Gahrazel whispered to me. From that day forward, the most crucial aspects of my education came from him.

Terzian gave Gahrazel a pony, solid and swift as my own, and we would often ride together, over the wide fields beyond the town and into the edges of the dark forests. My father did not approve of young harlings being out alone in the forest; stray men or hara of different, unfriendly tribes might lurk there, so either Moswell or Swithe would always accompany us. Gahrazel complained bitterly, once even to Terzian himself. "I go away for days by myself at home!" he said.

My father smiled. "It is not my wish, Gahrazel, to deliver you back to your father in pieces, however unlikely that might seem to you."

I had been brought up in Forever without ever feeling threatened by danger. I was not brave like Gahrazel, only ignorant. My father knew what lay beyond the fields of Galhea; I did not. Gahrazel knew too, to a degree, but it did not frighten him. In fact, he wasn't afraid of anything.

One night, Gahrazel came to my room when everyone was asleep, and we climbed out of my window, down the creepers. Outside, everything looked white and ghostly beneath the light of a round, white moon. I was terrified of the dark places, rustling with shadows that might not just be shadows, but it was an exquisite fear. Under the trees, we looked back at the house, standing huge, silent and gray; moonlight made the windows shine. Gahrazel said, "Do you know all of that house?"

I thought about it. "Well, no, I don't suppose I do," I replied, which seemed odd. It

was my home after all.

Gahrazel put his arm around me. "Soon, we'll both know all of the house," he said.

And oh, how Gahrazel came to know the spirit of my father's house, what lurked in the shadows, much sooner than I did.

At mid-winter, there is a festival. Mostly it is to celebrate and welcome in the new year, but Gahrazel said that it was just another thing that Wraeththu had stolen from man. "It was once a religious holiday for them," he said. We were with Swithe in the schoolroom. Swithe always listened patiently to Gahrazel.

"In a way, I suppose it is for us too," he said. "A new year is a magic thing. We are still here and for the future, all things are possible. The rituals bring us together and it is good to have a time when hara can relax in each other's company and look forward to better things."

Gahrazel cast a cynical eye at our tutor. "I would say it is only an excuse for too much drinking and eating. In my father's house I would imagine that the future is seen only as a ringing head in the morning."

"You'll find it's different here," Swithe said gently and I noticed his pity of Gahrazel with amusement. Gahrazel turned his attention to me, his face brightening.

"Once, I heard some hara of the Uigenna tribe actually ate a roasted man at Festival," he said.The weather gradually became colder, the days shorter, and one morning, when I woke up, the ground outside was frosted with snow. Festival was but two weeks away, and the house was warm and vibrant with preparation. Exalted citizens from Galhea had been invited up to Forever to eat with us on Festival day, and the house would be decorated with branches from the evergreens in the garden. Cobweb supervised the stocking-up of the larder with a cool, efficient air. Moswell and Swithe took a holiday to go back to visit their own tribe farther south, accompanied by an escort of Varrish warriors, should hostile tribes or stray humans be abroad, braving the weather. Gahrazel and I now had time to explore the upper regions of Forever, where I had never been before. Gahrazel was puzzled by this, but I explained that I had always preferred to roam outside. Forever was the warm place to run back to when I was hungry or tired; at the top of the house it was neither warm nor welcoming. We found a way into the attics and it seemed we were in a different place; a house that shared the same space as Forever, while at the same time being in another dimension. It was forgotten, crumbling, resentful. One day we took food with us and ventured further into the cobwebbed rooms and corridors than we had ever been before. I took Limba with me because it made me feel safer. Gahrazel was never scared. "A madman must have built this place!" he said excitedly.

"Did men live here, do you think?" I asked in awe.

"Of course," Gahrazel said condescendingly. "This house Forever is just another thing hara have taken from men. been called that. It was a man's town once." (I should have known that, I thought.)

"Imagine," Gahrazel whispered, "imagine if we found men still living up here, if they had been here for years, eating rats and waiting . . ."

I cried out and touched his arm. "They may want to kill us!"

"They may want to eat us!" Gahrazel added with relish.

is old; Wraeththu are not. Galhea too; it hasn't always

We found no men, though. The attics were full of rubbish and treasures; a table whose legs were carved in the shape of hounds, a box of tarnished dress jewelery with half the paste stones missing, hampers of clothes that turned to dust when you touched them, bundles and bundles of papers and heavy, dark furniture with useless mirrors that I could not imagine ever having been downstairs, or even how anyone could have dragged it up there.

We came upon a grimed window that looked out over a flat roof and Gahrazel forced it open. Limba leading excitedly, we climbed out into the frosty air and, sitting with our backs to the sloping eaves, unwrapped our parcels of bread and cheese and apples, staring out above the chimneys.

"Swift, how old are you?" Gahrazel asked.

"Oh, nearly six years old," I answered importantly.

"Feybraiha is some way off for you then," he said. "Have they chosen for you yet?"

"Chosen? What do you mean?" I asked, no longer embarrassed when Gahrazel knew something I didn't.

"Someone for aruna. You know; the first time."

"No, what's that?"

Gahrazel looked at me queerly, then laughed. "You are nearly six. In as little time as a year you may. come of age, and you don't know what aruna is?"

"No," I admitted sheepishly. It seemed, in comparison to Gahrazel, I knew next to nothing.

"Then I'll tell you," he said gleefully.

I could not believe it; I had known nothing about sex. Suddenly, it became all too clear what had occurred between Terzian and Cobweb to occasion my appearance in the world. Gahrazel asked me if I ever touched myself and when I looked blank, went on to explain in what way.

"No!" I exclaimed, horrified. Could our bodies have this strange life, this strange need, of their own; something we had no control over?

"All Wraeththu need aruna," Gahrazel said. "It is part of us; we are part of each other. I was told this long ago."

I hated the thought of it. I had spent so much time alone in my short life that I was perhaps too modest. But this concept of aruna seemed so sordid; something messy, without order. Two hara coming together, with utter lack of privacy, invading each other's bodies in their most secret places. It reminded me, strangely, of cutting. I kept seeing huge hunks of raw meat slapping down on the kitchen table and the great, sharp knife that the cook would plunge into it.

"It is supposed to be a wonderful thing," Gahrazel said earnestly, having grown up with the idea, but I was not convinced. I tried to imagine myself naked with Ithiel or Swithe and just the thought of it made me blush and I had to make a noise, like a growl in my throat, to make the thought go away.

"How do you know when you come of age?" I asked, and Gahrazel wrinkled his nose.

"I'm not exactly sure, but it's a kind of change, I think," he said.

"I might have known; a change!" I cried.

"Your father or your hostling will choose someone for you," Gahrazel said. "Someone has to teach you these things. It is usually one of their friends."

"Ithiel?" I squeaked, appalled. It would have to be him; there was no one closer to my father.

"Maybe. Would you mind? He's very slim, I like his arms, and he has hair the color of fur," Gahrazel said wistfully.

I shuddered, not sharing this sentiment. "I most certainly would mind!" I said.

We went back through the attics, Gahrazel happily oblivious of my confusion. I was anxious to return to my room, to curl up on my bed and think about what Gahrazel had told me. I would have to familiarize myself with this knowledge; maybe then its sting would lessen. When the time came, would Cobweb and Terzian really force such a thing on me?

We scrambled, sneezing, out of the attics into a disused room that had no carpet on the floor and no curtains at the window.

"We haven't been here before," Gahrazel said. He was nosing around the walls, looking as if he knew what he was doing.

"What are you looking for?" I asked irritably, hovering at the door, holding onto Limba's collar, looking out at the carpeted corridor.

"You never know," Gahrazel answered mysteriously. He squatted down on the floor. "Ah, your father's room is below here."

"I'm not allowed in there," I said, unnecessarily.

"Look at this!"

I joined him. Limba whined and put his wet nose between us. There was a small, splintery hole in the floorboards. Gahrazel bent lower, his ringers splayed out on the floor.

"Don't!" I cried and tried to pull him back.

"Why not?" he asked reasonably, and I could not think of a suitable answer. "You can see his things; there is his wolfskin coat with the tails on. You can see quite a lot; look." He tried to drag me forward.

"I don't want to!" I hissed, thinking, he will know! He will know! Gahrazel's eyes narrowed. He would think I was afraid of Terzian.

"One day," he said, "coming here, looking down here, you may learn quite a lot." And then he laughed and I smiled back nervously, thinking, Never!

Of course, I had bad dreams again that night, of imagined violations, my body breaking. I woke up sweating, tangled in the sheets, too hot and yet my breath misted on the cold air in my room. We had heating in the house, but it was never turned on at night. I needed to talk with Cobweb badly. I wanted to ask him why he had never told me about aruna. He had taught me so much, things I could never have learned anywhere else, and yet, this most private, crucial information he had kept to himself. Did he ever look at me and wonder? Had he and Terzian discussed whom they would choose for me when the time came? It is because he thinks I am too young to be told! I thought angrily, yet I was sure he would have a reasonable explanation when I confronted him. ("Oh, that, Swift! I didn't want to bother you with that" or something similar.)

I went to Cobweb's room, but it was cold and in darkness, the bed smooth, and the curtains had not been drawn. I stood there for a moment thinking and then crept stealthily back down the corridor and hovered outside my father's door. An impish

voice in my head whispered, "Upstairs ..." but I visualized a gigantic NO! and denied the forbidden thought before it could form properly. Pressing my face against the door, I could hear nothing; then it opened silently beneath the pressure of my hand flat against the wood and I jumped back in alarm.