The Wraeththu Chronicles (75 page)

The glow of our fire was almost indistinguishable from the light of the sky above the forest behind it. But we could see it, as the tall grass parted before us. We could see it ... and something more. There were voices, muted like echoes. Cal made a hissing sound and pulled me down into the undergrowth. We looked at each other. His breath was sobbing. I tried to struggle. I think I said, "Leef!" I was thinking of him.

Cal shook his head urgently. "No, Swift, no!" His voice was high with panic as I broke away from him. I ran toward the fire and I heard a horse neigh, through the night air, high and shrill. I could see Leef, two figures holding him down, although he thrashed and writhed to escape.

He cried my name when he saw me, his face stricken. "Swift, go back! Go back!" he screamed. Go back? I hesitated. Cal was behind me. I felt his hands land upon my shoulders and curl around them. I could hear

his breath. It was as if we were frozen. We could not go back. Around our fire, maybe a dozen tall figures sifted through our belongings. Behind them, horses gleamed like marble and there was a smell, like jasmin, only stronger. One of them was kneeling by the fire, a hand stretched toward the flames, as if he had never seen fire before. He raised his head slowly and it seemed to take an eternity. I saw a curtain of tawny hair and a face that showed only curiosity. For a second, only curiosity, and then something like pain or fury made him turn away. He stood up and turned his back on us, shouting something incoherent to one of the others, who stepped forward. Cal's fingers spiked into my flesh like steel. I wanted to cry out or move, but I could do neither. The one who had stepped toward us spoke. "Son of Terzian?" His accent was soft and fluid and he was very tall; his clothes were like nothing I'd ever seen before. I can only describe his dress as scanty but complicated. His neck was hung with chains and talismans and black beads, his ears with silver. His hair was also silver, and shaved away from the sides of his scalp, but long over his shoulders. He smiled. I must have nodded or spoken—or twitched. "I am Arahal," he said. "We are Gelaming."

So, they had found us. And so soon. They had been with us in the forest, they had watched us in the water, they had waited by our fire.

"You are wet," Arahal said with a laugh, flicking my hair. I could see his aura, all the colors of strength, yet they spoke like us, smiled like us. "Calanthe, you were expected," he said to Cal, with the slightest of coolness. Cal was still clutching my shoulders as if his life depended on it. I knew he had drawn blood.

"He is different," he blurted. "He ... his hair is different." The Gelaming looked puzzled for a moment. I had no idea what Cal was talking about.

"Oh, you mean ... I wouldn't know," Arahal said. He shook his head and then glanced quickly behind him. "It must have been some time ago, Calanthe."

"It was."

Cal withdrew his nails from my skin with a sigh. I wanted to crumple; I don't know how I managed not to. My fingers strayed to my shoulders, encountering moist warmth. It may have been sweat.

"Just wait here a moment, please," Arahal told us. "We would like you to accompany us back to our headquarters, where members of our Hegemony are anxious to meet you." He made it sound like a request, but it was clear we had little choice. I could see them packing up our belongings, stifling our fire. Leef still stood between two Gelaming, now staring at the ground. He no longer struggled.

"Who was it, Cal?" I asked, in a voice that seemed to come from some distance away. "The one by the fire. Who was it? Was it Pell?"

Cal laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Don't be stupid, Swift! Another ghost, that's all. One that has haunted me for some years, one that I have been waiting for ..."

Something from the past then. I knelt on the grass, my hands on my shoulders, and I could feel it rushing in. The inescapable, the inevitable, a focus of time. It has always been here, I thought. Someone has always

known this would happen, and yet I didn't know. How could I not have guessed, not imagined? Not enough magic within me, not enough hope .. . I looked for him; Cal's ghost. It would have been easier if he'd had no substance. It is hard to look at him directly. I could see that he'd been tempered by fire, by all the elements until the blade of his spirit was made deadly. His hair was smoother than the others.' He was not so tall. He must have felt my scrutiny. I saw him pause, as if in irritation or regret, before he turned to look at me. He had almond-shaped eyes. I could not see the color; I never would. He was something of Cobweb, something of Cal, something, even, of Pellaz. I could tell he did not want to look at me; there was no smile, his brow was furrowed.

Cal's voice came to me with bitterness. "Just witchery, Swift, that's all. Don't let it get under your skin. He's so sincere, and his bland sincerity can dry the blood in your veins . . ."

"But who?" I asked, and my toes and fingers were numb. He turned away from us and his hair swung like silk. It was more than beauty. It was waking up and realizing there are things in the world so far from us, yet we yearn for them so, even before we've seen them, and when, if we're lucky, we finally do see them, it is a torment, because they are like smoke or fantasy, it is pain; you resent that they exist, yet they are your life, so far ...

Cal made a choking sound behind me. "Same old magic!"

"His name?"

"His name is Seel," he said.

The Gelaming had given their camp a name: Imbrilirn. It was only an hour's ride from the forest. When we reached it, we found that it was more than just a camp, it was a city of canopies and gauze and soft lights. We heard distant, lilting music and the air was full of the scent of flowers. A fragment of Heaven, here on Earth.

On the way there, Arahal rode beside us, making desultory attempts at conversation, seeking to dispel any uneasiness, while knowing instinctively that he probably couldn't, as yet. However, out of the three of us, only Leef looked truly worried. These people were his enemies, more than they were Cal's or mine. He had sought them once before, with the Vanish army, his head full of anger and a thirst for blood. Now they had found him and he feared their justice. Cal kept a constant stare directed at the back of Seel's head, where he rode some way in front of us. "I want to get my hands on him!" he said out loud, and it was impossible to guess exactly what he meant by that. Seel must have heard him, but he did not look round or even move farther away from us.

"What do you want of me?" I asked Arahal, hoping to divert his somewhat affronted attention from Cal.

"You sound weary," he answered. "After the forest, you must rest. The real answers can wait. Time has little meaning here."

We rode through billowing avenues of silk, shadows gliding at the edgeof our vision. I saw hara who looked like gods and there was primaeval light in their eyes. Encompassed by fragrance, I was happy. It felt like happiness, anyway. A kind of relief. I wanted to laugh or weep or shout. It did not matter that tiredness had crept over me so deeply that I was at the point of hysteria, I had found the Gelaming and I thought that they were all that I'd imagined them to be. Hail, Ofaniel, angel of the moon, here on earth, riding a pale horse just ahead of us.

Arahal touched my arm, his knee touched my own as he brought his horse up against mine. I looked at him and his face was indistinct, but I knew he was smiling.

"Not far," he said. "You are yet young . . ." Gelaming always speak like that when they get the chance. Imbrilim was usually noisy at night. The dark seems to bring the Gelaming to life. I had thought them to be an austere race of people, grave-faced and full of ponderous thoughts. Now all I could hear was music and laughter and hara calling to each other. I had never seen an army camp, but I would never have imagined one to be like this. Even Galhea was never like this. We came to a pavilion of pale, green muslin, a soft glow showing from within. Most of our escort rode on ahead, but about half a dozen hara remained with Arahal to help us from our horses and take away our luggage. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I began to feel faint. I think it was more the effects of the forest aggravating my exhaustion than shock at finding the Gelaming. Arahal murmured an order and two hara supported me as we passed under the muslin canopy into the pavilion. The room within was spacious and furnished graciously. We were led directly into the sleeping chamber beyond.

The next thing I remember was opening my eyes to find myself lying on a soft, low couch. Hands supported my head and offered me something warm to drink from a cup. It tasted of honeyed milk and alcohol. I don't know how long I'd been unconscious, but my clothes had been taken away and I was covered by a thin blanket that was surprisingly warm.

Arahal came and looked at me. "It is important that you rest now, Swift," he said. The effects of the drink I'd been given were gently making their way through my blood; I could barely keep my eyes open. Thiede's people. I thought that angels stroked my face. I could hear prayers whispered in a language I had never heard before, but that I could still understand. Drifting on the edge of sleep, I sensed several hara come in from outside, bringing night coolness with them. One of them said, "Is the Tigron coming here now?"

"I don't think so," another answered. "I've heard he will send the Tigrina."

"Ah, such a neat sidestep. Our Tigron delays the inevitable, I feel!" I recognized that voice. It had spoken to me always, in my dreams, in my soul.

"Perhaps, Seel, perhaps . . . though a more charitable mind than yours might think that the Tigron only wishes to consider other people's feelings. These hara have been through a lot. You are too harsh."

"Too harsh! I know him. I know Cal too. They are both too strong for that!"

"Be quiet, both of you!" another voice warned. "The pure-born is yet awake."

I could not open my eyes, I was drugged by fragrance, yet I felt him lean over me, almost feeling his hair brush my face. The angel with almond-shaped eyes, force beating out, that was stifled anger; stifled because he was a stranger to anger. He did not speak, I wished I was Cobweb, mystical, lovely and deadly; a creature to inspire, but I was just Swift, bedraggled, unkempt and unremarkable. When he stood up, it was like warmth and light moving away. A voice said, "You are prepared to fight, I can tell."

"Arahal, I was born fighting!"

I could hear them still talking as they left us. Someone extinguished a lump and there was only darkness behind my eyes. I slept. When I woke, I would remember every word of that conversation, and remember it for the rest of my life.

Nor shall ye have faith . . .

Bewilderment envelope the observer,

The patriarch vanishes Like fodder into aqueous entrails.

Is it mapped out for us from the start, our destiny? Does the supernatural agent who charts our life create us equal to our discoveries? Leef had once said to me that troubles were always relative. I had come to view inner strength in the same way. There is always something stronger than ourselves, no matter how brightly burns the flame of confidence and power. There is always something stronger, something waiting to damn us for our weakness. Around every corner of the forest another monster lurks in wait for us; sometimes we can laugh at its feebleness. It appears horrible, but its substance is tissue-thin. It can be torn. The worst monsters we encounter have the faces of angels and the grace of devils flirting among the cold flames of hell. They can destroy us, merely because they scorch our souls unintentionally. Face such a creature and reason trickles out like blood from a cut vein. Is it decided before we are born whom we must love?Filtered light falling through the floating gauze woke me with the softest of caresses. Beyond a curtain, lifted by fragrant morning breeze, I could see Cal and Leef curled up together on a low couch, childlike in the temporary innocence of sleep. Clothes had been laid out for us, new ones, essentially Gelaming in design. There was scented water and a bowl for washing; a mirror condemned me with brutal honesty. I had known myself once. Now I seemed physically a stranger. My hair and my eyes lacked luster; my skin no longer seemed to fit me properly. Facing myself caused me pain. I threw a cloth over the mirror and walked out, through the gauze, under the canopy, into the light.

They had come as strangers, as invaders; strange to our land, unmistakably foreign in their height, their dignity, their dress and their supple grace. Gelaming: God's children.

To this end men had struggled in agony across the face of the earth for millennia, sterile millennia. This was the goal toward which all threads of survival had strained. No-one had known it. Those that had guessed were madmen;
 
unheeded, derided.
 
For that mistake,
 
mankind had
 
been swamped. To an outsider, such as myself during those first few days, Gelaming perfection seems almost an obscenity, something

that cannot be, yet something that I felt the need to stare at until I was sure I could only go

blind. To me, it seemed that all their blemishes of character and spirit had been polished away. I found myself wondering how they could possibly exist comfortably when they had nothing left to strive toward, no inner struggle, no contest. I should have looked deeper, but that did not come until later. As I walked among them that first day, I felt no fear, for the inspiration of terror holds no pleasure for Gelaming. It is merely another weapon, to be used only when the occasion truly merits it. They barely looked at me. To them, I was just another refugee, wandering wide-eyed among the angels.