The Wraeththu Chronicles (73 page)

It took us two more days to cross the Astigi. Each evening we paused at one of the many floating villages where we were welcomed with food and drink, but no more exotic theruna. Occasionally, most often at dawn and dusk, something strange would cross our path and our Froia guides would elaborate signs of protection upon the air with rippling fingers. Once we nearly got caught in a loop of time, going round in circles that made our heads ache, but the Froia divined the weakest spot and we managed to break through into real time.

"What is most depressing," Cal observed, "is that all this messy, Gelaming hoodoo frolicking is going to get much worse beyond the marsh."

"When I last came here, we wouldn't get much further than Astigi," Leef told me. "We got caught in time weirdness. I only hope we can get through this time."

"Sadly, I think we can be assured of that!" Cal said bitterly.

The Froia helped us unload the horses at the brink of the marsh and Leef gave them as much currency as we had left. We felt that it would no longer be of use to us, so they might as well have it all. We rode away from the water into a liana-hung forest of dampness and haunting calls among the treetops.

"I wonder how long this place has been here?" Cal asked no-one inparticular, and neither Leef nor I could think of a suitable answer. We followed the pull of the strangeness to its heart, and it let us pass.

Mystical Convulsion, Tender Caress

Bony frame's loathsome degradation,

Eyes seek the mark of wounds.

Palpitating universe fallen unto me,

Membranous skin expands into wilted flowers.

It was like stepping into a dream. As that enchanted wilderness closed its green arms around us, reality faded and absurdity became the only truth. At first, we rode in silence, our horses pushing breast-deep through lush greenery. There was little sound and what sound there was existed high above us. I was lost in reverie, my skin becoming damp, brushed by a vague stream that rose from the soft ground. If I thought hard enough I could still feel Nepopis's slim, dark arms around me. Now that I had left him, his image began to crowd my head. I did not want to go back, but I wanted him here, now, before me on the saddle, pointing the way, unveiling his witchery of wisdom. Suddenly, I could feel flesh against me, fragrance all around me and Nepopis's low voice was in my ears. "The eyes; they are blind ... as yet!"

I thought I was falling asleep and blinked and sound rushed in; squawking, clamoring cacophony, and there was no-one on the saddle before me.

"Swift, are you alright?" Cal's face swam pale, disembodied at the corner of my vision.

"Yes. Yes," I answered, still blinking, swallowing, gulping.

"Be strong, Swift." Leef's voice was low and cautious behind me. He, more than Cal or I, had an idea of what to expect from the forest.

"I shall be afraid to sleep," I said, with a shaky laugh.

"There will be no difference." Cal clicked his tongue and hastened our pace to a trot. The swifter, jolting motion cleared my head a little; the branches of wide-leaved shrubs hissed around us.

We had no way to measure time and time was stretched and condensed in that place. Was it possible that we were not moving forward at all? The air around us became hotter and more humid, strong aromas of dark earth and rotting vegetation filling our heads, clinging to our clothes and hair. It seemed that we had been riding for at least half a day without stopping; we were tired but too scared to rest. We feared that by resting we would enable the forest to claim us completely and we would wander crazed for the rest of our lives. It was an unspoken fear, but I have no doubt that it was shared by each of us.

Half-seen figures flickered on the edge of my vision, half-heard voices whispered urgently in my ear. Grasping at sanity, I remembered calling, "Cal!" and my voice was deep and slurred, slowed down. Cal was ahead of me (we were riding in single file), and he turned on his horse, raising one hand. He did not speak. "Swift!"

My eyelids jerked open. Where am I? The forest was hidden by jets of green steam, spurting with a putrid stench from the rotted ground. I was on my knees. My knees and hands were wet. I was alone. I could not remember what names to call out. Who were they? Had I always traveled alone?" "Swift!"

Louder this time, yet sibilant, like an echo. I tried to see into the viridian gloom, waving shapes that might only be leaves, shivering away into an impenetrable blackness. "Swift!"

I saw him. He was holding broad leaves about him, half concealed. He did not want me to see him. Was he naked? Was that it? I tried to reach for him. Where am I? I tried to speak his name; then I remembered he was dead. He smiled, threw back his head and laughed. "Beloved friend! Do you remember our last meeting? Was I that good?" "Gahrazel."

I lurched to my feet and he backed two paces into the trees. "Back!" he hissed. "I don't want you near me!" His hair was long and curling. He was eight years old. My father's training had not marked him.

"You betrayed me!" His voice was a thin scream, whose anguish and emptiness, both apparent, raised the hair on my head. "No! I said nothing!"

"He told you to! Cal the devil, Cal the devil. . ." His voice, sing-song, trailed away to nothing. His jaw hung slack, his eyes were two black stones. "I didn't say anything!" My voice too had become high, the screech of a black crow, most deceitful of birds.

"You spoke of something, though." Gahrazel's voice had become sly. "To your father. I know about that. I know what you said. Every word. Did you wish that it was true?"

"I wish you had been different. I could not help you." "Not without endangering yourself perhaps ..." "I could not help you."The Gahrazel that was not Gahrazel raised one pale hand to his face. He was weeping; his tears streamed like acid on flesh. "I died . . . they killed me."

"Gahrazel ..." I reached toward him.

"No! No!" The foliage around him was shaking. He pointed at me with quivering fingers. "You! You must hear it!" His words came quickly, their speed increasing all the time.

"Someone must hear it, that it died with me, dear God, that someone should know the truth. You! You! Terzian's brat, his blood, his seed, his damn eyes. His eyes! Steel they are, no laughter, no pity. When he killed me, when he killed me, my God, I saw his eyes, his eyes!" Gahrazel's sobs overtook his ability to speak. He pressed his trembling hands into his eyes.

"My father killed you?" Such a whisper, such a fateful phrase. Gahrazel stopped sniveling to look at me. His ghost tears were dry already.

"Yesssss!" Leaves scratching along the terrace in autumn; that was how he sounded. So dead. "Didn't you know that, Swift? Didn't he brag of that to you?" He laughed cruelly. "Ah, of course, you know nothing, do you? The babes of Forever, wrapped in all that glorious stone. Stolen stone!" He flapped his hands at me. "Now I'll tell you! Now I'll tell you! Your father, Terzian, he is the beast! He ate flesh, drank blood; mine! Ponclast poured the poison into an iron cup. It had to be iron; only iron can hold it. He handed it to Terzian and kissed him and told him to give me the cup. I took it. There was nothing I could do. Only pride left. They would not see me beg for life; I knew it was useless. So I drank it. In one draft. It tasted ... peppery, but not too bad. Only when it hit my stomach, then, you see, it began to work and the moisture in my throat, that helped it too. A cupful of poison and it began to burn. Burn me from inside out. I fell to my knees. The floor was cold. We were way underneath the ground. I was not afraid of death, but I hoped it would be quick. So strange it was, knowing I was dying. So inevitable, there is no fear. I was kneeling there on the floor, waiting to die, not moving much, for the burning was not pain exactly, only I knew that it was killing me, numbness spreading all through me, when my father said, 'Now, Terzian.' Behind me, he clicked his fingers, and hands were upon me, pulling me back. I lay there, my legs melting, and your father, Swift, he took a knife and slit my clothing, pulled it away from me, not smiling, but grave, looking at my eyes. . . . All the excitement of the world was condensed in his body. He opened his trousers, just that, not even naked, and took my melting flesh; he was covered in unguent to protect himself. How lucky I could no longer feel it! Even as he shrieked in orgasm and put his hand through my rotting chest, even as he tore my purple, gasping heart from my chest, I could not feel it. Of course my mind had gone completely, you can understand that. As I died I watched your father eat half of my heart and hand my own father the other. When my spirit left that place, what was left of my body was unrecognizable . . ."

I was lying in the leaf-mold; I had vomited. My body was shaking. "Weep now, Swift," Gahrazel said.

He watched me weep. I thought, No, this cannot be true. This is illusion. This side of Terzian cannot exist. I would have known. Cobweb would have known. No! But even as I thought it, some deep, instinctive part of me knew it was senseless to doubt what I'd heard. Senseless.

After a while, I struggled to rise. Gahrazel was still a pale, insubstantial shape among the wide leaves. "I died . . . they killed me . . ."

"Gahrazel, can I come to you?"

"No!" He retreated further into the trees. I could barely see him; his face, a white oval, that was all. "You must not come to me," he said. "That must not be. Swift?"

"Yes . . . Gahrazel?" My eyes ached with searching for him, my chest, my throat, with grief.

"Did you love me?"

"Once ... I think."

He sighed, a faint breeze that shivered the leaves. "You did not come. 1 asked for you, many times. I died alone ... quite, quite alone." His voice was the sound of a

bell, tolling over bare and shadowy hills, summoning nothing to a devotion that had lost its purpose.

"I'm sorry . . ." How could I have said that? It means nothing. I could imagine him smiling, sadly. "No-one is without sin," I said. "Not one of us. My sins are selfishness, fear and weakness. I was afraid, Gahrazel, not just of blame, but for my home, my people. Yes, I betrayed you; we both know that. I cannot apologize, because the consequences were so ... so ... beyond apology."

"I'll forgive you, forgive you, only say it, say it now, the one thing I can lake with me. Forever. Do you know what to say?"

I knew what to say. I closed my eyes. I summoned it up within me, a maelstrom of feeling, and let it spill from my mouth. "I love you, Gahrazel."

"Do you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"Do you?"

"Yes, yes; I forgive you . . ."

All around me the greenness whispered and writhed. Darkness all around. I sank to my

knees.

"Swift!" Hands upon my shoulders, shaking, shaking. I opened my eyes. Tulga beneath

me, half-seen sky above. Cal's anxious face. I shook my head.

"It was nothing. I dreamed."

We came upon a clearing in the forest. Cal said, "I have been here before," and his voice was full of grief. All the ugly, dripping trees had become straight pines. Birds called. We found the damp remains of an old lire in the center of the clearing.

"We are safe here," Leef told us, but he did not sound sure. We dismounted and our horses began to crop the sward, unaffected by the atmosphere. Leef built a fire. I sat beside him, too shaken to move. Cal squatted some distance away from us, his face in his hands. Once timid flames began to leap from the damp tinder, we relaxed a little. The fire was comforting, normal. Leef unpacked food. "Look, we have wine!" he said and held out a green bottle.

Cal sat down next to me and I took him in my arms. He was weeping silently into my hair. My eyes were dry, but my chest felt as if it was stuffed with sawdust. After some time, Cal sniffed noisily and said, "What happened to you?"

I wiped his face with my hand, for a moment or two, unable to tell him. "I saw Gahrazel. I spoke to him."

"You too?"

"Gahrazel?"

"No ... not him!"

I held him to me tightly, afraid to let go, afraid of the contact. I told him what I'd seen, what I'd heard. Cal said nothing. Perhaps he had known already, but I didn't want to find out. I had once asked questions about my father, now some of them had been answered. Of course it was something I had to know. I wish I didn't. "Gahrazel asked for me," I said, "and I turned my back on him. If I'd known what fate was awaiting him, would it have changed the way I felt? I hope so. Today, I said to him the things he should have heard before he died. His death was lonely, people there, I know, but it was true loneliness. Alone, unloved, unforgiven. Now I have said it. Was it real, Cal?"

"A spirit," he whispered, "or a conjuration of your own mind, or a conjuration of theirs; does it matter? If you have not appeased the shade of Gahrazel, you have appeased yourself."

"Was it just within me? Was it guilt?"

"Pray that it was not guilt!"

If it was, perhaps we were all doomed. I whispered Cal's name and held him and shared his fear. This place was not just a place of the dead, no, never that.

We ate the food that Leef gave us. Leef was a tower of strength; the forest seemed to have the least effect upon him. His mind was ordered; he denied what was not real. "There is no-one here," he said, when I told him about my experience, omitting the details about my father. I did not want to discuss that with Leef. "It was hallucination," he insisted, "that was all."