storm (29 page)

            “I would rather speak to him face to face,” said the dark har.  “This is most important.”

            “You're really not Gelaming?”

            The pale-haired har grinned.  “My father was a Varr, my hostling Uigenna.  Is that pedigree enough for you?”

            It should be, but Moon remembered what Snake had told him about Gelaming torture victims.  He was still torn as to what to do.

            “Ask him if he will see us,” said the dark har.  “We will wait here for a word from you.”

            “Is that wise?” asked the pale-haired har.

            “Let it be a mark of trust.”

Leaving Ember with the strangers, Moon ran all the way home.  It was nearly dark by the time he stumbled up the Reliquary steps.  He felt light-headed, his mind filled with the image of the two strangers.  They had affected him deeply.  He wanted to return to them with pleasing news.

            Snake met Moon on the stairs outside his rooms.  Moon was taken by surprise, because Snake so rarely left his private warren.  It was look coming upon a ghost in the darkness.  Moon knew at once he didn't have to explain too much.  Snake's fierce and wide-eyed expression revealed he already knew somehar had been asking about him.

            “They are not Gelaming,” Moon said hurriedly.  “They want to meet with you.  One is named Terez.  He is looking for a har named Dorado.”

            Snake's expression was now unreadable, although Moon was sure an utter storm of feeling was thrashing about beneath the calm surface.  “It is time,” he said.  “Bring him to me.”  With these words, he moved back towards his rooms.

            “Wait!” Moon said.  “Is this Terez connected to the Tigron?  Do you know him?  Was I wrong to speak to him?  Tell me!”

            “He is the Tigron's brother,” said Snake.  “And this I did not foresee, but I will be very surprised if he has come of his own volition.”

            “Who is Dorado?”

            Snake inhaled long and slow through his nose.  “I am,” he said.  He went into his rooms and slammed the door.

Moon could tell from very early acquaintance with his hura, his father's brother, that Terez was not a har prone to displays of emotion.  Normally, he could conceal his feelings beneath an impenetrable exterior.  But when he first laid eyes on Snake, the defensive mask was ripped away and what Moon saw was naked shock.  Moon hadn't thought to mention it on the way to the Reliquary, but of course Terez had no idea what had happened to Snake.  He didn't know about the injuries.

            “You think I'd be better off dead,” Snake said dryly.  “Kindly contain your thoughts. They are insulting.  Pellaz has sent you.  Say what he intends you to say.”

            “He needs you.”

            Snake laughed coldly.  “Thank you for being honest, for not pretending you are here for any other reason.  My answer, for what it's worth, is that I do not care.  Now you may leave, although I know you won't.”

            “Dorado, you should hear the story.  I can imagine what you think, but you know so little.”

            “I am Snake Jaguar.  There is no Dorado.  I left him, and the rest of you, behind.  This is what I am now.  Pellaz took the hand that was offered to him and it has served him well.  He has won much.  Now he must deal with the consequences himself.”

            “We are still brothers,” Terez said.  “I have learned enough not to deny my blood.  Speak to me alone.  I ask only this.”

            “I knew you went to him,” Snake said, “but that was all.  I never thought he would send you, although that was perhaps the obvious plan.  You do deny your blood, Terez, because you have denied your Wraeththu heritage.  You are Gelaming now, whatever you've said to my son.  And you bring a Gelaming sorcerer with you.”  He glanced coldly at the pale-haired har.  “I know that face, although I can tell he is second generation.  That is Cal's spawn, if I'm not mistaken.”

            The pale-haired har uttered a choked laugh.  “I am not a Gelaming sorcerer!  I am Varrish.  Cal is my hostling, Terzian was my father.  You know of him, of course.”

            Snake raised his eyebrows.  “That is an interesting heritage.  Now you are one of the Tigron's cats-paws.  Your father's spirit must be proud.  You have no right to call yourself Varrish.  It is an insult to his memory.”

            “You speak in ignorance,” said the pale-haired har.  “Many Parsic hara still revere Terzian's memory.  We are a conquered people, as are you.  We are not that different.”

            “I think we are,” Snake said, his voice full of implications.  He drew in his breath.  “Moon, take this turncoat somewhere and keep his busy.  I will talk to Terez for a few minutes.  Keep away from Raven.  He must not know we have visitors.”

Moon could think of nothing to do with the stranger except show him round the Reliquary.  He had to carry a flaming torch because night had come.

            “I'm Tyson,” said the har.  “In a way we are related too.  The Aralis dynasty has close connections to the House of Parasiel and my hostling is a consort of the Tigron.”

            This sounded like gibberish to Moon, who still couldn't think straight.  He thrust the torch towards a shattered a cabinet full of old bones.

            Tyson obligingly peered into it.  “The family likeness between the Cevarros is astounding,” he said.  “Terez and Dorado have a sister too, called Mima.  She is Kamagrian, which is a kind of Wraeththu off-shoot.  She lives in Shilalama.”

            “Don't tell me all this,” Moon blurted out.

            “Why not?  Aren't you curious?  Or is it that your father has forbidden you to know the truth about the past?”

            “I don't want to know it,” Moon said.  “There's too much of it.  It makes me head reel.  You are the enemy of all Wraeththu.”

            Tyson laughed.  “That's right.  I've been told that before, but perhaps you are mixing me up with Cal.  He's far more deadly than I'll ever be.”

            Moon realised he was being mocked.  “The Gelaming are the enemy.  I don't go with you, and neither will my father.”

            “Your father will not be able to resist Terez's powers of persuasion, I assure you.  Why deny your heritage?  It seems senseless to be living here in a shanty town when you could have so much.  Aren't you the slightest bit curious?”

            Moon paused for a moment.  “Do you know the Tigron?”

            “Yes, sort of.  You probably look just like he did when Cal stole him away from his home and made him Wraeththu.  Full circle.  It seems no coincidence that here I am now, Cal's son, ready to steal you away too.”

            Moon was unsure how to interpret these remarks and thought it best to ignore them.  “Snake knows the Tigron will put us in danger.  He knows these things.  He is never wrong.”

            “Perhaps we are all in danger,” Tyson said.  “Is your father afraid of what he knows?”

            Moon knew he shouldn't answer that.  He shrugged awkwardly.

            “If you are in danger, little friend,” Tyson said softly, “part of it is because you are unaware of your own power, or the potential for it.  Pellaz seeks to gather the Cevarros together and he has been very successful so far.  Dorado, your father, was the last one, but now there is you as well.”

            “What does the Tigron want Snake to do?”

            “I don't know all his plans and if Terez knows, he would never betray a confidence.  If you heard the whole story, of how Pellaz became Tigron, and what happened after, it might help you understand.  I could tell it to you.”

            “In a few minutes?”

            Again, Tyson laughed.  “Terez will be busy for quite some time. Trust me on that.”

            There were few comfortable places to sit in the Reliquary, so Moon took Tyson to his own room.  For the first time in his life, he was aware of how musty and dingy it was.  Tyson glowed like a clean flame within it.  He was sleek and fit and had lived a privileged life.  Perhaps he had seen the buildings that other hara had made.  Perhaps he had built one himself.  As Moon made coffee, which was always a lengthy process, owing to the primitive facilities, he filled the awkward silence with his questions.  “Where you come from, have hara made new buildings?”

            Tyson grinned, although he looked a little bemused.  “Yes, although my family live in a very old house.”

            “Have you worked on buildings?”

            “I've had a hand in building stuff around the estate, yes.  Why?”

            “Nohar builds here.  It's all ruins.”

            “Do you have a dream of being an architect or something?”

            “An archi-what?”

            “Somehar who designs buildings.”

            “Oh, no, not really.  I'm just interested.  I thought about it once, what it must be like to live in something you'd thought up and made yourself.”

            “You could learn a lot about that in Immanion, I expect.  It has hundreds of new buildings.”  Tyson shook his head.  “This is the more bizarre conversation I've ever had.  What a weird obsession you have.”

            “It's just something to talk about.”

            “Oh, I see.  I'll tell you the story I promised, then.  It's very romantic.  A story of doomed lovers, who were of course Pellaz, and Cal, who fell in love with him.”

            Moon wasn't sure how much of what Tyson told him was true.  It sounded extremely unlikely, not least that Pellaz was supposed to have risen from the dead.  But the tragedy of Pellaz and Cal, and the pain they had suffered in order to find each other again, seemed very real.  Moon had sometimes wondered whether such intensity of feeling could exist.  He could imagine it and remembered how he'd tried to weave fantasies around Raven, which had never worked.  There was no great power behind his relationship with Ember: it was far too comfortable.  There was no yearning, no excitement, no tension.  Moon's entire being was consumed with the idea of the ultimate love spanning space and time, so much he didn't really take in much of the end of the story.

            “Thiede has left us now,” Tyson was saying, “and Pell needs help.  That is why we're here.”

            “They've been taken from each other again,” Moon said, still lost in a dream state.  “Pellaz must be in agony.”

            “Hardly,” Tyson said dryly.  “He's made of diamond.  You can't even scratch his surface.  He wasn't always that way, but his position means he's had to learn to become it.”

            “You are a sorcerer,” Moon said.  “My father was right.”