The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure (14 page)

Seel laughed nervously. ‘OK, fine.’

Thiede made a tutting sound. ‘Again, the scepticism. Look inside your own trousers, my dear, and tell me the impossible can’t happen.’

‘You can do this? Raise a person from the dead?’

‘Not exactly. And no, I’m not here to reanimate Orien’s corpse, although even if I could you’ve left little for me to work with.’

‘It’s a disgusting thought. Absolutely wrong.’

‘I agree. What I’m doing with Pellaz is recreating him, his essence, his being, his energy, but with the personality intact.’

‘How? How is that possible?’

‘I’m not about to reveal my working secrets to you,’ Thiede said, grinning.

‘But if you can’t bring Orien back, how can you bring Pell back? His body was burned too.’

‘Well, let’s see,’ Thiede said carefully. ‘I was, shall we say,
prepared
for Pellaz’s death. Orien’s, on the other hand, took me by surprise.’

‘I find it difficult to accept or believe,’ Seel said. ‘You must appreciate that. How do you do it?’

‘I am able to, that is all,’ Thiede said. ‘I am not like you, Seel, nor any other har.’

‘Why? What are you? I wonder whether you are Wraeththu at all.’

‘Let’s just say I am different, more Wraeththu than most. I am what your children will become. And before we get sidetracked into a discussion about procreation, yes, you will have heirs, Seel. But now is not the time to talk about it.’

‘I don’t believe you’ve just come here to tell me you’ve reanimated Pell,’ Seel said, still unable to believe a word of what he’d heard.

‘Indeed not,’ Thiede said. ‘I wish with all my heart that Cal had not come back here and committed such a dreadful atrocity. It makes my job more difficult, because your mind and feelings are clouded by the horror of it. You blame yourself, of course, as do many others. But I want you to try and put it aside for now, to listen to me.’

‘I will listen.’

‘Pell will need hara around him whom he trusts. I want one of those hara to be you.’

Seel drew in his breath slowly. ‘I see.’

‘It
will
happen, Seel. You must accept it.’

‘What are you asking of me really?’

‘I want you to come to Immanion, to see for yourself.’

‘Cal’s dream,’ Seel said bitterly. ‘He always wanted to find Immanion. I thought it was a fantasy.’

‘Far from it. Come with me to Almagabra, Seel, for that is where Immanion lies. It is a dream come true, and you must walk its streets to see for yourself.’

‘You’re asking me to leave Saltrock?’

‘I’m asking you to visit, that is all. You do not yet have to leave here permanently. You will have a few years to make the necessary arrangements.’

‘No,’ said Seel. ‘This is my home. I built it, and I intend to carry on building it. I don’t want any part of your schemes, your glamours. It’s over, Thiede. Forget Saltrock. Do what you have to, but leave us out of it. We played our part for you and look how it ended up. No more, I swear it. No more.’

Thiede laughed quietly, a terrifying sound. ‘I will not accept no for an answer, Seel. What harm will it do for you to visit the city? Have you no curiosity? I think you have plenty. You are merely being difficult for the sake of it.’ He paused. ‘And because you have no liking for me.’

‘True.’

Thiede leaned back in his chair. ‘Then I see we need more valuable currency to persuade you. Name it. Name your price.’

Seel gazed at Thiede’s face and realised, with incredulity, Thiede meant it. He would pay anything.
Am I that valuable?
Seel thought.
Why? What does he really want of me
? ‘Well, there is one thing,’ he said.

‘Name it.’

‘This is the cost for me to come and visit, nothing more. I will not be your plaything, Thiede. You have far too many of those already.’

Thiede inclined his head. ‘What is the price?’

‘Find Cal, punish him.’

‘That might not be easy.’

‘If you are so powerful, you can do it.’

‘Very well.’ Thiede held out his hand. ‘Do we have a deal?’

Seel stared at the hand, so much bigger than his own, yet elegant and attenuated. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Thiede withdrew his hand. ‘Then let’s eat whatever smells so tempting and afterwards return to Immanion. Are you prepared to see your vision of reality come crashing down about your ears? Believe me, after travelling the otherlanes and seeing Immanion, you will never be the same again.’

‘I am prepared to endure whatever you show me.’

Thiede laughed again. ‘I like you, Seel. I have great admiration for you. Perhaps in time you will come to view me as less of a monster.’

Seel glanced up at Stringer, who said, ‘I’ll serve dinner then, shall I?’

Seel reached for Stringer’s hand, squeezed it. ‘Please.’

Colt, who had said nothing the entire time, sat down opposite Seel. Without looking at Thiede, he said, ‘Tell him I will come with you. It’s not right you should go alone.’

Stringer set down a tureen on the table with force. ‘Colt, no!’

‘It’s not right,’ Colt said stubbornly. ‘Seel’s Saltrock’s heart. He shouldn’t be placed in danger.’

‘It’s all right,’ Seel said, but Thiede interjected.

‘Your friend is right. It would be a symbol of trust if more than one representative of Saltrock came to Immanion.’ He smiled up at Stringer. ‘Please don’t worry. He will be quite safe.’

‘I want to see it,’ Colt said. ‘If it’s real.’

‘You would be aghast at what is real nowadays,’ Thiede said and tasted his meal. ‘Mmm, I miss simple cooking.’

During the meal, Thiede informed Seel that two of his Gelaming guard would have to stay behind in Saltrock so that Seel and Colt could ride their
sedim
. The country of Almagabra lay on the other side of a great ocean, and it was necessary for Seel to use Gelaming transport to get there quickly. Seel was not entirely happy about Gelaming strangers remaining in Saltrock while he was gone. He wondered if, as Thiede’s agents, they would set about making changes and indoctrinating hara the minute his back was turned. Grudgingly, he offered them accommodation in his home, sure they would be poking into everything.

Seel returned to his house to gather a few things for the journey, and found the Gelaming sprawled on the porch, laughing together and sharing a drink. They seemed more like ordinary hara now. But what specimens they were. These were the kind of hara Thiede had instructed Orien to find for him: the best. The cream of Wraeththu.

Seel took his unexpected guests around the house, pointing out where things were kept. He wasn’t completely sure he was awake, for these were creatures from a dream. They were so much taller than him, and somehow so much bigger in more than a physical way. One of them went unbidden into the room Seel had shunned since the night of Orien’s death, Cal’s old room. The Gelaming looked round it without speaking, then came out again, closing the door behind him. ‘We could clean that for you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Seel said. ‘Yes. Whatever.’ The room was clean of blood already, but he knew what the har meant.

The other Gelaming said he’d be happy to care for Seel’s animals, so a tour of the stables and yard was also necessary. As Seel indicated where the feed was kept, the Gelaming said, ‘You mustn’t fear. Immanion exists at the end of your journey. It will be worth it.’

‘Mmm,’ Seel murmured in a non-committal tone.

‘You won’t wake up and find this is a dream,’ said the Gelaming, smiling. ‘Believe it.’

Outside the house, Colt was already mounted on a Gelaming
sedu
, which was prancing around, tossing its head. Colt, however, looked perfectly at home. ‘It’s like sitting on a time bomb,’ he said to Seel, grinning. Colt was an excellent rider.

Thiede handed the reins of another
sedu
to Seel. ‘Mount,’ he said.

Seel paused. ‘How do we do this?’

‘Just mount.’

The minute he was on the horse’s back and had gathered up the reins, Seel was aware this was no ordinary beast. It felt, if anything, like a machine that was designed to obey his commands. There was a sense of quivering power, and of alien intelligence that he could almost feel pushing against the boundaries of his perception.

‘The
sedu
will follow the others,’ Thiede said. ‘He’s well trained, so you don’t have to worry. Our intention will be strong enough to carry all five of us.’

‘Intention….’ Seel said.

‘Intention and will are the aids these horses obey,’ Thiede said, swinging up into his own saddle.

The other two Gelaming positioned their mounts behind and to the left side of Seel and Colt, Thiede in the lead. Seel cast a glance at Colt. ‘We’re not doing this, are we? I mean…’

Colt shrugged. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’

Thiede raised his hand and the
sedim
began to walk down the main road. Once Thiede’s horse started to trot, the others followed, their pace increasing all the time.

This is like taking off in a plane,
Seel thought.
They will take off any minute
.

He couldn’t help laughing out loud, because the sense of power beneath him was so strong and so awesome. The horse felt as if it was revving up, the muscles roaring with energy.

But the
sedim
didn’t gallop up into the night sky. Suddenly, there came a crack of thunder once more and the air splintered around them. Seel’s breath was knocked from his lungs. He lurched forward and had to grip the horse’s mane. Its neck reared up and hit him sharply in the face. There was no reality. It was beyond dreaming, unimaginable. No harish mind could conceive of this even in dreams. He was aware of other presences around him, but knew he had no body, no substance. In this no place, he was pure essence, clinging like a leech to a presence more at home in this environment. It would be so easy to lose his grip, to float off into the void, be lost forever. Cosmic winds he could not feel buffeted his being, trying to rip him from the
sedu
-essence. There were entities in this wind, but he could not perceive them properly, just sense they were near. These presences were malevolent, eager to claw him away from his companions.

Just when he thought he was lost, hard air splintered around him and the
sedu
was plunging, as if having taken a high jump, down onto a road in daylight. Seel was freezing cold. His hair was full of ice. The horse’s reins dangled free. His hands were knotted in its mane, frozen into place. He feared his fingers would break like glass if he tried to move them. His vision was obscured, so he could barely take in the landscape around him, but was aware of the smell of the sea and the vague shapes of tall poplars that lined the road.

Thiede pulled his horse to a halt and both Seel’s and Colt’s mounts slid to a stop behind it. Tears of ice streaked Colt’s face. He gathered up the horse’s reins, shaking frost from his long braids. ‘No words,’ he said. ‘None.’

Thiede had turned his horse and now came to Seel’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

Seel managed to nod. ‘So cold.’

‘It can be,’ Thiede said. ‘Now you must admit that has to be the finest of my illusions, eh?’

‘It was… awakening,’ Seel said.

‘Forgive me if I sound smug, then,’ Thiede said, and gestured down the road, which sloped towards the white towers of a city that hugged the coast beyond. ‘Behold Immanion.

It was both an old city and a new one. A crystal blue sea sparkled beneath it, and in the quay, long prowed boats pranced upon the incoming tide. The boats looked both ancient and alien, as if they’d been plucked from the oceans of far worlds. The city itself was like a mixture of Classical and Far Eastern design: pagodas and pillars, domed roofs of gold and flat tiled roofs of red. It was surrounded by high white walls and constructed upon a series of hills. Nowhere did there seem to be any scruffy corners. Long banners flew from towering minarets, emblazoned with the recently designed arms of the high-ranking families. Upon one hill, Thiede pointed out, were the villas of the city’s governors, while along the coast a short way, lay the sprawling barracks complex and training grounds of the Gelaming army. In the centre of the city was the High Nayati, the greatest of temples, and one day, in this place, Thiede intended to crown Pellaz Cevarro as Wraeththu’s king.

Seel could see all this as they rode down to the gates. He had never beheld or imagined a city so beautiful. It was all that Cal could have dreamed it could be. But even from this distance Seel could tell there was no place for hara like Cal in Immanion.

Thiede said he would take them to his villa on the outskirts of the city. Once upon its streets, it was clear a lot of building work was still in progress. Old buildings were being torn down and others put up in their place. Humans were working alongside hara, perhaps slaves. Almagabra was a beautiful country, but once humans had densely inhabited it. Clearly, the Gelaming had applied themselves to removing evidence of recent human construction, which must not have been as aesthetically pleasing to the eye, or the soul, as Immanion was. From the city, the coastline appeared mainly empty of buildings and towns: a sweeping vista of open land, where sheep grazed in the sunlight. Questions began piling up in Seel’s mind. He must remember them all.