storm (61 page)

            Cobweb glanced over to Leef, who shrugged.  “Shall I give the order to make camp, Cobweb?”

            “Yes, the fields are ready for us in any case and the water may already be turned on.”  Cobweb glanced back at the closed door.  “I'll give Lisia time to cool off then speak to him again.  He has no option but to co-operate.”

            “Kind of ironic, isn't it?” Leef said as Cobweb remounted his horse.

            Cobweb drew up the reins.  “Nothing is the same,” he said, and urged the animal back toward the entrance to the Gardens.

The occupants of the Gardens could not maintain a distance between themselves and the new arrivals for long.  This was initially because they were hara who were naturally curious: What could have brought such a large group of hara to set up camp just outside the gates?  Once a few of the residents had spoken with the field workers, or had come down to the end of the driveway to see for themselves, they had not been able to keep away, and could not keep from asking questions.  The new arrivals were refugees!  Some of them appeared wounded or grieving.  Several of the facility's students and visitors had come from Galhea themselves and were deeply concerned, desperate for news of their relatives.  Before too long, a group of Lisia's own students were helping the Galheans to make camp.

            Lisia himself kept away, and his immediate staff were also noticeable by their absence.  Cobweb smiled to imagine that Lisia had cornered them in a room somewhere, forbidding them to be too helpful.  Harling Gardens was a world of its own, a place of harmony and peace, its hara somehow innocent and untouched, despite what were for some troubled pasts.  Cobweb appreciated only too well why Lisia feared for them.  Should Ponclast shift his attention to this place, its occupants could not easily defend themselves.  Students were mainly there to be taught specialised aruna techniques, learn the birth arts and study harlingcare.  Many of the residents were hostlings rescued from other breeding facilities in Megalithica that had been closed down after the wars.  The Gardens was also home to other war casualties: orphans and shattered veterans of the old Varrish campaigns.

            Once the camp fires were burning and the evening meal was under preparation, Cobweb left the camp and returned to the main building, where Lisia lived in spacious quarters on the top floor.  Cobweb could picture the former hostling sitting at his bedroom window, staring out over the grounds, brooding and considering ways to expel the evil that had come to his door.

            Cobweb felt exhausted, his temper sour.  He did not want to have to justify himself, explain, cajole.  He just wanted to rest.  Since he and Snake had discovered an unexpected byproduct of aruna, they'd had no time to further their explorations.  There was no doubt Snake's body was healing itself.  Every day he grew stronger, and sometimes he walked beside his wagon for hours at a time, exercising muscles long left idle.  Cobweb was sure that if they could only repeat what they'd done before, the healing would be swifter, but even though they slept together and were intimate, the circumstances just weren't right to take aruna that one step further.

            It was a phenomenon to be studied, and the one har who was most qualified to discuss it with Cobweb was Lisia.  The hostlings at the facility had once been trained to be able to conceive pearls at will.  They understood the workings of the inner organs far more than most hara, even though that knowledge had been abused.  Surely Lisia would be fascinated by what Cobweb had to tell, and perhaps this subject could be the peace offering.  Still, before such discussions could take place, Cobweb would have to soothe Lisia's feelings.  He could understand his friend's reaction.  It was only natural after all the Varrs had once put him through.

            The hallway of the main building was filled with soft light, which emanated from globes upon the floor set amid foliage plants.  The air smelled green and fresh, the only sound that of running water from the ornamental waterfalls half-concealed amid the plants.  A place of learning and meditation.  This was Lisia's doing, Cobweb knew, for the work had all been done since the facility's liberation.  Like the flowers outside, the interior of the building was Lisia's shout to the world about how he had the power to change things, after all.  There were no bloody chambers in this place, no surgeons slipping on the slick floors, as a production line of young hara delivered and surrendered the jewels of their bodies.  But the ghosts were there, because the past would never really go away.  If you stood still for long enough and listened, you would hear them weep.

            Cobweb breathed deep and absorbed the ambience of the hall.  Lisia would know he was there.  The trick was to know the rules of the game.  Was he expected to wait here or seek Lisia out?  He went to the library on the second floor, because he and Lisia had spent many hours in that room, on long evenings, drinking strong coffee and discussing plans for the future.  It had been the director's library then, a hall of unspeakable records, locked up.  The locks had been broken, the doors had hung loose: one night, one of them had fallen to the floor with a crash.  In the darkness where they'd sat, Cobweb had been spooked by the long fingers of light coming in from the hall through the gaping doorway.  Lisia had stared out of the window, redesigning his life.  He had seen what could be and had made it so.

            It seemed a century ago, when Ashmael Aldebaran's Gelaming elite had found this place.  It had been part of Parasiel's territory, so Cobweb had become instrumental in its restoration.  He had been the nurturer then, the safe one, trusted when everyhar looked askance at Gelaming uniforms.  Everything had been so new and raw: Terzian recently dead, Seel lately installed in
Forever,
Swift becoming an adult too quickly, learning how to frown and  worry.  Cobweb had thrown himself into helping Lisia, because it had made the transition easier.  In lonely hours, he'd remembered his first love for Terzian, the way his heart had clenched like a desperate fist whenever he'd looked upon the har who'd claimed him as his own.  Somewhere, in a mouldering file, there might have been information about the sons Terzian had sired in this place, on visits Cobweb had never known about.  He'd never searched, didn't want to know.  There seemed no point.  The harlings were probably long dead.

            For just a moment, as he walked between the looming dark shelves, Cobweb smelled familiar perfumes of the time when Harling Gardens first began to change: the scent of turned earth, of sappy wood, the musty aroma of cracked brick.  A time of building, without salt to scour the ground.  It was a beautiful spot.  Made sense not to raze it.

            Lisia came in soft-footed behind him.  “So,” he said.

            Cobweb turned, saw Lisia as a silhouette against the light from the hall, a slight and feminine creature.  The doors were of polished oak, repaired now and always open, pinned to the walls with brass hooks.  Lisia did not like locked doors.  “Well, we need to talk,” Cobweb said.

            Lisia walked past him and sat down on a window seat that was upholstered in green velvet.  It had once been bare wood, with splinters.  “Why here?”

            “It's safe.”

            “Is it?  Will it remain that way?”

            “I think so, yes.”  Cobweb sat down beside Lisia, his feet firmly against the floor.

            Lisia was curled up, feet on the cushions, his chin on his knees.  “I thought it was all over.”  He sighed.  “Am I so wrong?”

            “We have to rely on the Gelaming.  We have to believe the future of Wraeththu is not Ponclast, and was never meant to be.  We have to believe in the greater good.”

            “Tell me everything.”

            Near the end of Cobweb's narrative, a har came into the room, carrying a tray of hot food and drink.  Cobweb was grateful.  His throat was sore from talking, his stomach growled.  The har placed his burden on the window seat, between Lisia and Cobweb, then departed.

            “So much has happened,” Lisia said, pouring coffee from a slender pot into tall cups.  “It's another world to me.  I'm so sorry about Azriel and Aleeme.”  He handed a drink to Cobweb.

            “I trust Cal,” Cobweb said.  “If anyhar can release them, he can.  He vanquished Thiede, after all.”

            “Yes,” Lisia said.  He paused.  “I've missed you, Cobweb.  We were close once.  What happened to that?  It seemed for a while, as if we would...”

            “Life intervened,” Cobweb interrupted.  He could not mention how eventually Harling Gardens and all who lived there only reminded him of sad memories.  He'd kept away and discouraged contact, living in the moment.  He could not forget his first impressions of this place, what he'd seen and heard.  At the time, for the first few days, he'd walked around with the taste of blood continually in the back of his throat.  He'd made himself inspect the birthing rooms; sepia stains between the floor tiles, a metal drain in the middle of them.  His heart had almost broken to hear Lisia's history.  He'd wanted to restore Lisia's belief in Wraeththu, in aruna, in life.  They had become close, yes, but only for a time.

            “It grieves me to see you lonely,” Lisia said, and reached out to touch Cobweb's shoulder.  Old memories.

            “I'm not,” Cobweb said, too sharply.  He took a breath.  “There is something else I'd like to tell you about.”

            Lisia stared at him, eyes round.

            “It's about Snake,” Cobweb said.  He paused.  He could see from Lisia's expression that Lisia had always hoped Cobweb would return here one day.  He had fantasised about it, but those fantasies had never included a har like Snake.

            “You are chesna with him?” Lisia asked, in a clipped tone.

            “It seems to be going that way,” Cobweb said.  “We have discovered something.”

            “Then tell me.”

            The story was painful to Lisia, Cobweb could tell.  For that reason, Cobweb left out some of the details, made it sound like an accident, casual aruna that had somehow slipped into being something else.

            “It makes sense,” Lisia said, once the story was out.

            “Why do you say that?” Cobweb asked.  “Have you ever encountered anything like that before?”

            “Not exactly, but you must remember that I was as familiar with opening the cauldron of creation as I was with using my own voice.  I could sense things.  It was like...”  He screwed up his nose.  “How can I put it?  It was like opening the door to a great house, of many floors and passageways and rooms.  Conception of pearls took place in the main hall, and you could reach it quite easily by following the widest corridors.  But there were other rooms.  I had no time to investigate them because for me aruna had only one purpose.  And since then, well...”  He shrugged.  “I have never entered that house again.”

            “Have you never wondered about it?  Surely, this should be researched.”

            “Cobweb, I delivered twenty-four pearls,” Lisia said, “and as you might imagine, since then I have avoided getting anywhere close to conception.”  He refilled their coffee cups.  “We do teach aruna arts here, to hara who for whatever reason need help, especially with conceiving, but to be honest, it never occurred to me that healing might be a part of aruna; well, not that kind of intense physical healing.  We have other methods we can use, after all, and they are strong enough for most ailments and hurts.”  His lips thinned.  “But this is interesting, very interesting.  There are hara who could benefit from this, if it can be replicated.  As you said, you don't really know if it was accidental, a fluke, or what.”  He smiled.  “I have Varrish veterans here who have lost limbs and eyes.  Now there would be a challenge!”

            “I think maybe too much of one,” Cobweb said.  “But other things – burns, and such like.  Injuries like Snake's.  You could use your knowledge, Lis, and that of the other hostlings who remain here.”