The Wraeththu Chronicles (8 page)

The gates stand open, enter into light

The greatest virtue in Man is his undying sense of hope. A hidden reserve of optimism woke with me that day. I would not dishonor myself. My life was caught upon the Wheel of Fate, but I would face my future with dignity and strength. I was apprehensive, yes, but still almost light-hearted by the time Mur and Garis came to bathe me for the last time. Gone was the corroding salt, the rough towels. I was sluiced with hot, smoky perfume and patted dry with purified linen. Aromatic oils were kneaded into my skin, gold powder shaken onto my shoulders and my hair brushed and brushed until even the split ends shone like dull silk. A new robe, of somber black, was wrapped around me; eyes were dabbed with balm to take away the swelling my tears had left behind. Mur and Garis, almost pleasant with the sense of achievement, stood back to inspect their work. I was ready.

When Seel and Orien arrived they were dressed splendidly for the occasion. They seemed taller than I remembered, proud and graceful, and treated me like a bride, which I supposed, in a sense, I was. Seel put white lilies in my hair, avoiding my eyes, and offered me a goblet of blue glass. The liquid inside it looked murky and tasted foul. I downed it as quickly as I could. They would take no chances with me; I would be drugged almost senseless.

The white light outside stung my eyes and I winced, although the taint of soda no longer bothered me. I barely noticed it. Before I could take a single step forward, I wobbled. Seel and Orien swiftly took hold of my arms. They had brought me a chariot, strewn with flowers and ribbons; pale horses fidgeted, festooned with color, plaited with silk and tassels. Wraeththu had already gathered to line the streets we would take to the Nayati. An air of festival vibrated up the sky; they all shone, these supernatural, hypernatural folk, and strange, ululating cries fluted round our heads. Otherworld melodies, and the horses pranced forward, sand skirling in our wake. The hot breezes were intoxicating with the fresh, green smell of cut garlands, petals crushed beneath the capering hooves. I was wedged upright, but nobody could see that. My hair streamed back like a black flag, dappled with fragments of crushed blossoms, palest pink, white and lemon-colored. Exultation fountained through me. I felt like a king.

Shallow white steps led to the main doors of the Nayati, Petals still danced in the hot air like confetti. The moment my feet hit the ground I felt like I was walking upsidedown. Only willpower kept nausea where it belonged, in my imagination. I had never been really drunk, but thought it must have been like that. Nothing mattered and responsibility had been taken from me. We walked into the solemn and sacred gloom of the Nayati. It took some moments for my eyes to adjust to the poor light, but soon the high, narrow hall materialized before me out of the gloom. Tiers of seats reared into the shadows on both sides; from flank entrances the hara of Saltrock filed into their places. All voices were muted, but the whispering quiet could not hide the mounting fever, the heights of expectation implied by half-seen movements above me. I stood between Seel and Orien at the threshold. Light streamed in behind us, dust-moted bars. Gilden metal flashed in the dimness beyond. Seel lifted a long, carven staff from a bracket by the door. He struck the ground three times and the congregation rose, rumbling, to its feet. "Harhune! Harhune!" It began as a soft crooning, and we advanced among them. And then it was a mighty clamor, my skin prickled, voices ringing like clarions as they bayed me forward. I? I was not there really. I was someone else's dream carried forward on the strength of their tuneless cry

We came to a place where patterns had been chalked onto the floor, and they pushed me to my knees. White dust sprayed my robe, and Seel spoke; softly, it seemed, but his voice filled the hall.

"Today we witness the inception of Pellaz Unhar. He is deemed fit by myself, Seel Griselming and my colleague Orien Farnell."

He raised his arms above his head and the soft white cloth of his sleeves slipped back. Henna patterns were painted on his skin; designs similar to those beneath my knees. "Does the Harhune take place?!" he demanded and a mighty, "Aye!" shook the walls. They blessed me with fire, with water, earth and air, ripped my robe to below my shoulders and wrote on my skin. Henna again, aromatic and gritty. Seel's voice was gutteral; I could not understand what he said, but the crowd were mouthing silently along with him, howling the responses, half-rising from their seats in excitement. I hated to think of Cal being one of them, but he kept creeping into my mind. I kept thinking, "They want my blood, they want my blood," but, of course, the opposite was true. They wanted me to have theirs. This was their ceremony. Mine was yet to come.

Hours later, moments later, two young hara, sparkling in white and gold, came out of the smoky dark at the back of the hall. Soft cloth falling to their feet made them glide like ghosts. One carried a shallow metal dish, his companion holding out the instruments of my hair's death. Seel was before me. He raised my head with a firm hand. "The Shicawm, Pellaz. Be still." I could not shudder but my teeth ached, I had clenched them so. Cold metal touched my brow and I shut my eyes. The sound was terrible, sickening. I could feel it all falling away and hear the silvery swish as it landed on the shallow dish. So quick. It was gone. "Open your eyes," Seel told me, barely audible. It was like looking at an execution. Under my nose, long black locks spilled over the plate, still adorned with waxen, wilted lilies. I half expected to see blood and a thread of hysteria cracked the numbness. It was an effort not to reach up and touch my head. I started to shiver then.

Hands were upon my shoulders and I shook beneath their warmth. Light flared up ahead of me and the dark rafters of the Nayati loomed above, suddenly visible, encrusted with gargoyles who laughed and screamed forever in silence. Tall metal stands made an avenue, topped by filigreed bowls of incense; smoke so heavy it drifted downwards in matted shrouds. At the end a white table gleamed like marble; and beyond that?

A slim reed of light opening out like a flower. Tall, A halo of fiery red-gold hair. An angel. A demon. The hienama. (I heard Seel gasp: "Him? Him?!," urgent with surprise, and Orien's sober answer: "I know.") The congregation crooned once more, upon their knees, and the hienama moved; arms peeling out from his sides, one stretched straight, the other slightly curved, his body half turned toward me. I should have known then who he was. But it took years and years, and even then somebody had to tell me. He never tried to deceive anyone, they were just blind, I think. Looking back, it was obvious. He was more than all of them, and he knew about me. He put his mark on me that day, made me his pawn, but, like I said, it took years for him to put me into play.

I was lifted to my feet. Led forward. No, carried. My legs would not work and my feet dragged as if my ankles were broken. As we went toward him, he grew. Not in actual height, but in magnificence. Slanting, gold-flecked violet eyes lasered straight to my soul. Fire seemed to burn in his hair and flicker over his skin. Nahir-nuri. He had the compassion of a vivisectionist.

They lifted me onto the stone table and all I could do was look at him. (Cold bit into me; the caress of a sepulcher.) His voice is almost impossible to describe. It was full of music but with darker tones, like the sound of gunfire or shatterable things that were breaking. "Welcome, Pellaz. I am Thiede." Like night falling, black draperies softly descended. There was a sound like falling snow, hardly a sound at all, more a feeling, and the crowd could no longer see us. Only Orien and Seel remained. He signaled to them, tying his own arm above the elbow with a knotted cord, always looking at me, inspecting me carefully. I had seen that expression before, a life-time before, on my father's face as he chose a mule for himself. The dealer had been untrustworthy and he had not been sure if the mule was sound

I doubted that Thiede often made mistakes, though. His assessment of me was realized in one short glance.

"Don't be afraid," he said indifferently. "Seel, prepare him. Hurry up."

The veins on my arms stood out like cords. They took away my robe and Thiede looked me up and down with the same indifference, and then he smiled at Seel.

"Yes. Very good."

Seel moved half of his mouth in response. He did not look comfortable.

Thiede's glance whipped back to my face, the movement of a snake. "You know what we're going to do?"

I blinked in reply.

"Are you here of your own free will?"

I think an insignificant "yes" escaped the constriction of my throat.

Thiede nodded, stroking his arm. "Give him the dope," he said, which I found incongruous. He turned away.

Something sharp slid into my arm, an unexpected medical shard in this .mane setting, and the cold poured into me. I had not expected that and was grateful. I thought the last thing I heard was "Open his veins and drink from his heart," but common-sense tells me it was something else. There was no pain.

By late afternoon of the third day, my fever had abated. I was still weak, my eyes hurt most at first, but I was alive. Mur and Garis, in attendance once again, sat me in a chair by the window while they stripped and changed my bedding. I mulled over what I could remember of the last three days.

It had been early evening of my Harhune day when I regained consciousness, not knowing who, where or what I was. I had stared at the ceiling, breathing carefully, aware of pinpricks of pain, like flashes of light, darting round inside me. Red light streamed into the room and a dark shadow hovered at my side.

"Pell, can you hear me?" Flick's voice.

It was all over. I was back at Seel's house in my own room.

"Pell?"

I could not move, my throat felt sewn up and I could not rip the threads. Mick pressed a beaker against my lips. It tasted like sugared water, warm, and my shriveled mouth turned to slime.

"How long?" I croaked.

Flick dabbed at my face with a wet cloth smelling of lemons. "About six hours or so. Do you feel any pain?"

"1 don't know." My body was still numbed by drugs. I might have imagined the pricklings. "I can't feel anything."

Flick sat down on the bed and examined my face carefully, pulling down my eyelids. I did not like the expression on his face. It was worse than I felt.

"I've seen quite a few through althaia," he told me. "Don't worry."

I had not, till then. "Althaia . . .?

Flick sponged my face again. "The changing. It will take about three days. The thing is, Pell, when the drugs wear off, you're going to feel quite ill.”

"And I may die."

Flick started to clean between my fingers, concentrating hard and not looking at me. "A small risk, but you're a fighter. I told you, don't worry."

My eyes felt hot. I closed them and tried to swallow. Flick offered me a drink. "Where's Cal?" A sudden, irrational terror shot through me that he had left Saltrock without me. I tried to sit up and my limbs shrieked with pain and displeasure.

Flick pressed me back into the pillows. "Stop it! Don't move!"

I struggled, oblivious of the discomfort. "He's gone!" I half moaned, half screamed, threshing against Flick's restraining arms.

"No! No. It's alright. He's here. In the house. Downstairs. He's here. But you can't see him yet."

Still fringed by hysteria I stopped moving, slumped beneath Flick's hands, which were hot and trembling. It was almost as painful to be still, but the struggle had tired me out. I had to close my eyes, and when I did, the darkness was shot with vague, pulsing colors.

"There, that's better. Lie still, Pell and rest. I'll be back later."

I heard Flick leave the room, slowly. I heard him close the door, oh, so quietly. He would have run down the stairs.

Inside me, irreversible processes had begun to work, yet I could not feel it. No churnings, no bubblings, no strange movements. A sigh escaped me, high and lisping, and childhood tunes scampered from my memory. Now I skipped naked in the red dirt of the cable fields, Mima at my side, both of us laughing. Now the pink sky arced over us, a symbol of innocence; the dark was beneath the horizon.

The first assault, when it came, hurtled rudely through my half-sleep. It felt like a knife turning in my stomach, wrenching, pulling, tearing. My entrails were being torn from me. I shot upright in the bed, the room filled with a high, unearthly sound. My own scream. Half-blind with pain, I squinted at my stomach, terrified of what I might see. Nothing. No blood, no spilling, shining ropes. With sobbing breath I lowered myself back under the blankets. Tears ran down my face. The room was so quiet, not even an echo of my cry. Only quick, shallow breaths hissing in my head. As soon as I shut my eyes the invisible weapon plunged into me again. My body threw itself to the ground, arching in agony. Lights zig-zagged across my vision. I clawed the floor, the edge of the bed, myself, anything. (Stop this. Stop this!) A hard surface, cool and smooth, slapped against the back of my hand. I heaved myself forward and rested my cheek against it. (Somebody come. Somebody please come!) Eyes open, movement on the edge of my vision. I turned my head quickly, and looked. Looked into the hideous face of. ... Something. Oh, that something! A fiend. A creature; ghastly. Screeching, I backed away, flailing my arms, falling, helpless. Oh God! The gray-faced demon did the same. Mimicking, mocking. And then I realized. No demon, no creature. Hallucination? No. Just this: a mirror. That is all. As the pain ebbed from me once more, sick fascination made me look again. This . . .? This! Whimpering, I crawled closer to the glass my half-naked scalp gleamed damp and white, a long matted plume of hair fell over my face. My face! Bloated, gray, the eyes rimmed with red, the mouth wet, purpled and slack. My body was bruised and discolored, the left arm nearly twice its normal size. I could look no more. Crumpling onto the floor as a new spasm of incisive pain ripped through me, upwards, from my vitals to my throat. Mucus and blood and frenzied sound sprayed from me. My eyes were blinded by black, marching shapes and ziggurats of light.