The Wraeththu Chronicles (50 page)

Must we do this? I thought. Can we never be alone?

After Gahrazel and Ithiel had gone upstairs, accompanied by ribald cheering and shouting (which disgusted me), everyone forgot about them and the music seemed to get louder, the lights brighter. Cal sauntered over to where Cobweb and I were sitting, looking this way and that like a cat. I wondered if he would sit down and begin washing himself without looking at us, but he said, "Cobweb, I would like to make you dance."

"Over my dead body!" was the predictable response.

Cal looked thoughtful. "To dance on your dead body, hmmm ... An attractive prospect perhaps, but impractical; too lumpy. Maybe you are too drunk to stand?"

"I have changed since we last met," Cobweb hissed icily. "In those days, I would have told you to go fuck yourself; now I am contained and civilized and merely shake my head with a condescending smile. Now I visualize your extinction, now I dismiss you from my attention."

He rested his chin on his hand and gazed glassily at the dancers. Cal smiled as he always smiles, relishing any contact with my hostling. After he had gone I said, "Why do you hate him so, Cobweb?" and my hostling answered.

"Outside the trees are alive. I can see them moving, although the garden in dark. All trees have spirits . . ." It is a wonder I was ever born sane.

Enigma of the Beast

Incarnate war, captives clamoring, Pangs of Trojan endurance. Never suffering the distant humility Of the human incarcarates.

Our house, throughout the ages, may always have been a place of secrets. Among the curtains, whispering, all the long corridors rustling with the confidences of unseen lips. We that lived there eventually got to hear everything. We were close-knit, and at that time, Forever was our only world.

Ponclast and my father spent several days after Gahrazel's Feybraiha locked in Terzian's study, deep in conversation. (Not just for his son's coming of age, then, had the mighty Ponclast left his northern realms.) I had often wondered what it was like in the north; what it would be like to have to live there. My imagination supplied dark visions of Hell; smoke, livid flame, shattered buildings, creeping forms, faraway howling. I could not imagine daylight in such a place. (Later, I learned that my visions were not that inaccurate.) Gahrazel had always been reluctant to describe in detail his old home, yet I could tell he had never been really unhappy there. I knew the names of his friends, that he had two rooms of his own in his father's palace, that his relationship with Ponclast was not as bad as he sometimes made out and that he did not know the har who had been his hostling. I knew all this, but very little else.

Through Ithiel, via the house staff and finally from Cobweb, I learned most of what my father and Ponclast had discussed. Because of my ignorance or because of the security I felt surrounded me, I was neither shocked nor worried by what I heard. It was unreal to me, only words, and the meaning of them could not touch us. I felt we were distanced from everything, that Galhea existed only in its own universe. To a degree, I suppose this proved uncannily true, for my home was never marked by true conflict, but I was wrong if I supposed what lay beyond our fields could not summon me out to meet it. Our country, which the Gelaming (and finally all Wraeththu) called Megalithica, was controlled for the most part by the Varrs and the Uigenna. In the south, other tribes held sway and northern Wraeththu had little congress with them for they were sorcerers and, while uninterested in accruing more lands, people to be wary of, for it was said that their currency was souls. Swithe said that the southerners did not seek conquests in this world and that even the Gelaming might avoid confrontation with them. I knew that Cobweb's tribe had traveled south all those years ago, when Cobweb had turned his back on them and remained in Galhea. I asked him if he knew about the currency of souls, but he only laughed and ruffled my hair. "And how many souls would it take to buy meat to fill the belly of my child?" he said, but I could tell that he knew. Cobweb knew many things and some of them he would never speak of. He said, "Swift, the rumors are true." He had known that for a long time.

For nearly a year, snippets of news had been filtering through to Galhea about the Gelaming. Terzian had no doubt that one day, they really would descend on Megalithica. "They are too powerful not to," he said. Now it was true; they were here, a long way to the south, just north of the desert, but too close for comfort. Some said that they had come across the sea in long, pointed ships that sailed against the wind, powered by silence, and others said that they had traveled through the air by means of magic.

Terzian scoffed at these ideas. "However they damn well got there, one thing is sure," he said, "they mean to take Megalithica away from Varr control. Mission of peace? Bah! That is rot, and the first to believe it will be the first to die. If they take control, the pestilence of their beliefs will infect us like a plague; masculinity

repressed, all this talk of peace and harmony.... They will leave us half dead, like a race of women, twittering helplessly, seeking maleness, until the next tribe crosses the sea from the east and makes slaves of us! Can we allow that? It will happen if we don't fight and I shall fight until my last breath!"

It was in the town that he said that, and it is now quite a famous speech. All the people cheered him as he stood there so tall, so handsome, with the fires of courage and action burning in his eyes. Cobweb stood at his side like a queen, dressed in a robe of green. Afterwards, hara came to kneel before him and kiss the jewelled serpent's eye he wore set into a ring on his left hand. It was lucky. They gave him flowers. Cobweb the witch; they entreated him to pray for victory. Inside every Varr, it seemed, the seed of religion still waited to be nurtured. Terzian's sarcasm might turn them away from the light, but the light was patient. It could wait.

The Gelaming were giving no sign of what they intended to do next. They had installed themselves in the south and had so far, made no move toward the north or even tried to communicate with anyone. The Varr leaders refused to be discomforted by this, treating it as a rather obvious ploy to engender panic. I asked Cobweb why the Varrs and their allies didn't move first and drive the intruders back across the sea.

"Why?" he replied mysteriously. "Why indeed! It is because of Fear, little pearl, no other reason. Now Terzian and his friends may come to regret turning away from the path."

"The path?" I queried.

Cobweb smiled. He lifted one hand and twisted the fingers. Out of the air three colors merged and danced for a full half-minute before fading away.

"Imagine such a thing as that, Swift, but more powerful by a thousand times. Enough to take off your head! Now do you see why they are afraid?"

For a while, I too was scared by this, but then, as the days passed and nothing changed in the house, my apprehension faded. Terzian was all-powerful. The Varrs could repel any threat; we were safe.

Once Ponclast returned to the north, Forever closed its doors and again turned its back on events occurring beyond its walls. As before, we, its little occupants, became more interested in the convolutions of our daily lives. Terzian was absent much of the time, but I never thought to ask why. I was more interested in the blossoming of Gahrazel and asked him endless questions about the practices of aruna. He infuriated me by refusing to answer, saying, "To tell you would spoil it for you." He enjoyed annoying me, smug beast, and would only laugh when I lost my temper with him. Sometimes, Ithiel would stay with Gahrazel in his room and because I was excluded, I would get angry and bored. I bullied Swithe and Cobweb to take me into Galhea with them and occasionally they would relent and we would go into the town, perhaps to eat at the best inn, where they treated us like royalty, or to walk in the market where traders would respectfully entreat us to inspect their wares. I would see other harlings watching me curiously, whispering among themselves. I had learned to be haughty and kept my nose in the air.

Predictably, Swithe became friendly with Cal and they had long conversations about our race, most of it meaningless to me, all of it dull. Cal enjoyed arguing and I noticed that he often completely changed his opinions from day to day. This confused Swithe, who sometimes found himself defending a point that previously he had argued against fiercely. Cal would catch my eye and wink at me while Swithe spluttered for words. I was glad Cal had someone else to talk to, for it worried me that he spent so much time alone.

He seemed to have recovered from his illness, but I could sense that not all was well with him and that he put a lot of energy into appearing healthy. The mask may have been convincing, but it was brittle. Once, it nearly broke completely. Once, we nearly saw him as he really was. I have found that in our house, a lot of important things

were revealed during mealtimes. An idle remark, a seemingly innocent occurrence. This time was no exception.

Terzian had just come home and Ithiel had joined us for dinner. Outside it was dusk although the days were lengthening. Everyone was talking when suddenly Cobweb said, "Cal, you never told us, but what did happen to Pellaz? Did you fall out?" Nobody else even stopped their conversations; it was perhaps only me that heard it. I looked at Cal. His fists were clenched on the table. He was staring at Cobweb, who stared back, a gentle smile misting the challenge. It happened so quickly. Cobweb said, "I see death in your eyes."

My father stopped talking to Ithiel, mid-sentence, and looked at them. Cal made a noise. Cobweb said, "Well?"

Cal cried, "Don't! You are ... you are ... !" He had lost the words; he couldn't speak. Terzian, reacting quickly, anticipating trouble, reached for Cal's taut hand. Cal barely winced; his face seemed to ripple, like wind over water. He picked up the nearest object, the nearest weapon, fumbling as if he was blind: a silver fork. His face was blank. Suddenly it was in his hand, my father was speaking his name, and suddenly Cal had plunged the pointed tines into Terzian's hand where it lay over his own on the white tablecloth. Ithiel stood up, pointing, making a sound. My hostling laughed and Cal ran from the room, knocking over his chair as we went. My father stared in amazement at the sharp fork still half-hanging from the back of his hand.

It was all so quick. Of course, Ithiel wanted to go after Cal. One does not attack the person of the ruler of Galhea and get away with it, but my father shook his head. "It is not as bad as it looks," he said and carefully removed the sharp points from his flesh. It did not bleed at first. Terzian looked sharply at Cobweb, who blithely offered his napkin, which Terzian wrapped around his hand.

None of us felt much like eating after that. At the end of the meal, my father said to Cobweb, "Don't ever say anything like that to Cal again. We can't guess what he's suffered to be the way he is!" But Cobweb only smiled. He was as aware as I was that Terzian had not gone after Cal to comfort his distress.

Naturally, I was the one that finally went to look for him. He had only gone to his room and was reading through some of his notes at the desk that my father had brought into the house for him. When I asked him if he was alright, he laughed and said, "Of course!"

It occurred to me that he might have forgotten the whole incident, but I said. "You stabbed my father's hand with a fork!"

"Yes," he agreed.

I was exasperated. It was like trying to communicate through a mist. "Why? Why?!" I shouted. "What was it that happened to you? Where is Pellaz?"

Cal turned his back on me, adjusted his lamp and went on reading.

"You are mad!" I cried.

"Very possibly," he said quietly. "Get out, Swift; I'm working."

But I had more to say. "Cobweb knows everything. He knows, Cal. He will have seen it in your mind and he will use it to destroy you. Can't you see that?" That thought must have been in the back of my mind for quite some time; now it seemed blindingly obvious.

"I don't want to talk about this," Cal replied. "Cobweb knows nothing about me."

I rushed forward, tried to take his shoulders in my hands, turn him toward me. His body felt rigid. His eyes were inches from my own and cold as death. I couldn't speak. He smiled.

"Do you see it too, Swift?" he said.

After this, I said to Gahrazel, "How does Cal sleep, do you think? Is he troubled by dreams?"

Gahrazel and I spent a lot of time discussing Cal. "I should imagine he sleeps very well," Gahrazel replied. "I don't think he remembers his dreams."

I watched Cobweb warily. His acceptance of Cal into our household had been too easy, too quick. What was he plotting? I had no doubt he knew a lot about what had happened to Cal and would use it, but carefully. It would have to be in a way that Terzian could not notice or even suspect.

One day in the late spring, one of the ever-vigilant patrols cornered a group of humans south of Galhea, some miles away from the town. No-one knew why they had been there, where they had been going, or why they had forsaken their cover. My father had been summoned to the town after Ithiel's troup had rounded them up. Inevitably, several humans had been killed. Now Terzian would decide the fate of the survivors and supervise their interrogation. Gahrazel and I were delighted. Men! At last, and in Galhea. Gahrazel had seen humans before, of course, but only as flitting shapes in the dark or dead bodies. We were both eager to see living humans. They were some kind of strange animal to us. I knew that, years ago, there had been human slaves in Galhea, but they were no longer around. I could only guess at what had happened to them.