The Wraeththu Chronicles (12 page)

Seel called me forward. "Pell, this is Kate. I usually stay with her family when I come here."

She began to smile, then looked alarmed. "We haven't got room for all of you!"

"I know, I know," Seel teased her. "We'll put up at Feeny's place. Anyway, your father would see us off with a shotgun. He can only handle Wraeththu when they're in a minority."

Kate's smile came back again then and she relaxed against the seat, proud to be seen with us.

Feeny's was a small hostel-come-bar and seedy in the extreme. The proprietor, a large, oily man and an apparent stranger to the concept of hygiene, grumbled at having to find room for six. While Cal organized our rooms, Kate grabbed my arm and flounced me off to buy a drink. She bought me a beer (uncannily enough one of the first things she did next time we met). Boyish in her manner, barely older then myself, she sprawled on a stool like an ungainly colt, appraising me with green eyes, "I curse the day I was born a woman," she told me.

"I can see that," I muttered drily. She unnerved me because she reminded me of Mima, although in appearance they were entirely dissimilar. Kate had blond hair, the kind that is almost green, and not such a bony face as my sister.

"It's so unfair," she continued, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand (a hardened beer drinker!), "I know I would make a brilliant har."

What could I say to that? I could not tease her like Seel. She could sense my discomfort and hated it. She asked me my name, how old I was, where I was born, even how I did my hair!

"'Why me?" I asked her, attempting to stem the flow of her questions. "Have you pestered all the others like this?"

"Oh no!" she exclaimed with an endearing innocence, and shaking her head vigorously. "You were the most beautiful.

"I shall have to wear a mask then," I laughed, "Otherwise I might be hounded by inquisitive girls to the ends of the earth."

"Wear a mask?" she grimaced with a careless wave of her hand and taking another gulp of her drink. "What makes you think that will hide it?"

There was some truth in what she said. It wasn't beauty that marked me though, but something else.
 
Something that would draw trouble toward me like a magnet when the time came.

As the sun sank, Greenling hara came to drink at the bar. Sultry and rather unsociable creatures, festooned with decoration; heavy earrings, thick bangles laced with spikes and chains. Seel and Cal and I sat apart in a corner. Tomorrow we would part and there was little conversation between us. Cal reached out and curled his fingers round Seel's arm where it lay on the wet tabletop. "Stay with us tonight," he said. He kicked me on the ankle, sharply, pressing me to silence. Seel said nothing to Cal but turned to look at me. I briefly touched their hands where they lay.

"We both want you to," I said, not really sure if that was true. I still had fears of showing myself up. Cal and Flick were the only ones I had taken aruna with. But I need not have worried. Seel wanted us to remember him. It was the only way to say farewell.

It was decided we would travel south, back into the Desert. Out there, hidden in the dreary scrub, bleak dunes and rocky terraces dwelt the Wraeththu who could take me to Brynie. The desert people: Kakkahaar. I had been told of their cautious instincts, their preferred solitude. It would not be easy to find them, even less so to enlist their help.

Once again, Cal and I had to stock up on supplies and Seel advised us to purchase things that the Kakkahaar might find appealing. Runes, incense and colored scrying beads from a Wraeththu shop in Greenling center. We also bought weapons, long knives that were expensive but essential, from a surly, lank-haired man in a cluttered shop reeking of human sweat. Afterwards, we loitered round Feeny's till noon, drinking sour coffee at the bar and laughing at our occult purchases. But our humor was underscored by sorrow. That afternoon, we would make the final break with Saltrock and sanctuary. I think in our hearts, both Cal and I longed to say, "Damn it, Seel, we're coming back with you." But to do that would have been to go against destiny. There was no way back; for me especially, and Seel, beautiful See], who in times to come became a great leader, a tactful and trustworthy politician, his future too would have been spoiled had we returned to Saltrock. It is also true that someone else was marked for death that day.

When the bar began to fill with lunchtime patrons, both human and Wraeththu, Cal and I prepared ourselves to leave. Outside, we blinked in the brilliant sunlight. Red and the other horse, Splice, were already loaded up and waiting, sleepily kicking the dust.

"Greenling might be the last peaceful place you'll visit," Seel said, musing aloud. Leather creaked in the hot sun and we gathered up our reins.

"Goodbye Seel." I reached for his hand. Splice's head went up, ears flattened, as Cal made him prance into life.

"Come on, Pell!" he said irritably, and his horse sprang forward, halfway up the road in seconds. I looked at Seel but he shook his head.

"It's alright. Go on."

And so we left him, Cal galloping Splice into a lather, an expression like fury on his face.

Two miles into the desert's perimeter, a jeep screamed out of a dust cloud and swung to a halt beside us. Red stood stock still, ears pricked, muscles tensed, while Splice made a scene, sidestepping, half-rearing. Someone jumped out of the driving seat, leaving the engine running. It was Kate.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Cal exploded at her, attempting not too successfully to get Splice under control. Kate came straight to me

"Pell, I'm sorry, I meant to catch you earlier. I went to Feeny's but you were gone. I've got something for you."

She pointed to the jeep and I followed her over to it. "Here," she said. "Guns." She was smiling up at me with that deceptively innocent expression, holding out the weapons.

"Where did you get them?" I had never handled a gun before, but I knew weapons were probably the only thing that would ensure our survival, and bullets were more effective than blades.

"My father," she explained. "He deals with many things. He'll probably miss them, but what the hell. It'll be too late then."

Cal snatched the other gun from her hands, weighing it up, gazing over the barrel. Kate frowned at him, not really understanding his ignorance. She handed me a peeling box of ammunition.

"Don't mind him," I said, nodding at Cal. "Thanks anyway. How much do you want for them?" She laughed. "What? Oh, nothing, nothing."

"We'll think of you, then, when we're fighting for our lives," I joked and she nodded. "Till we meet again," she said, swinging back up into the jeep, "and I'm sure we will." "I fucking hope not!" Cal replied, thankfully drowned out by the roaring engine.

As we rode away, he said to me, "Don't be like Seel. Don't bother with men and their bitches. Remember, they'd kill us all if they could."

"I'll remember that with the first bullet I fire," I answered. Cal gave me a sour look but said nothing.

It seemed we traveled in circles. The ground underfoot was too stony for us to go faster than a walk and the landscape so monotonous, it was difficult to tell which way we were going. I thought of Saltrock, where everyone would be sitting down to eat after a day's work. Cal and I did not feel hungry and certainly did not feel inclined to stop and make camp. We would have felt vulnerable and unsheltered trying to rest out in the open. The light had gone from the sky by the time we found a tall, stark rock poking without welcome from the dry stones. Grumbling and unhappy, we tried to make ourselves comfortable beneath it. I felt guilty. If I had not been so insistent about the Kakkahaar, we could have traveled east, where there were other Wraeththu settlements, though small and of low caste. I had discovered that the majority of Wraeththu rarely passed to a higher level than Acantha, which is the first of Ulani. I could not progress without the aid of adepts, the knowledge-seekers. In a fit of self-pity, I started apologizing to Cal. It was my fault. We could have stayed in Saltrock for longer. The desert might starve us to death. Something of the old Cal broke through his reserves of grief at leaving Seel and the miseries of our position. He held me to him.

"Oh, Pell. Don't ever think me selfish. Never. I knew the moment I saw you, you were special. Brynie you shall have to be, and more. Tomorrow we shall set out and find the Kakkahaar. Without fail!"

It took slightly longer than that, however. We wandered about aimlessly for three days, eyeing our dwindling water with concern. The only pool we had found had been in the process of dissolving the carcass of an unspecified animal. Large, scraggy birds trailed us hopefully; flies appeared from nowhere, clustering like grapes around the animals' eyes, leaving unbearably irritating bites on our faces, hands and ankles. We were so dejected, we did not even notice the Kakkahaar had been trailing us along with the birds for about forty-eight hours. They made their presence known in the late afternoon of the third day.

The inverted pentagram

They rose up out of the sand, unfolding like dune snakes ready to strike. Faceless, hooded, motionless. Cal drew Splice up sharply, biting his lip. He had no experience of the Kakkahaar and was unsure what our reception would be like. I was feeling dizzy with heat-sickness and in no mood to put up with any ritual feinting. Something made me draw Orien's talisman out of my shirt. I lifted its leather thong over my head and held it up for all to see, urging Red forward at a walk at the same time. The nearest figure strode toward me, his robe blowing all about him, the color of the desert.

"What is your business?" he asked in a low, rasping voice.

I could see little of his face; a moving mouth, a strong, well-shaped chin. "We are from Saltrock," I began. "The shaman, Orien Farnell has bidden
 
me seek out the Kakkahaar."

"For what purpose? Why tempt danger in the desert?" He spoke as the wind speaks, whistling over the shifting sands in the dead time before the dawn. A dreadful cold that changes the desert to a different kind of wilderness.

"I am Neomalid," I answered. "I have to pass to Brynie. There are not enough hara of Algoma level at Saltrock . . ."

Red was sniffing the stranger's robes, inquisitive. The whites of his eyes were showing.

"Give me your hand." I leaned over and reached down. His fingers were dry and hard, and from that position I could see his eyes sparking beneath the folds of his hood.

"There is more." His voice was little more than a whisper now; his followers still as sand-stone behind him.

"The one named Thiede incepted me." There was no choice. I had to tell him, even though there was a risk that that information might go against me. I had no way of knowing what the Kakkahaar thought of Thiede.

The stranger drew his breath in sharply and stared at me intently for a moment. "We are a nomad people." He stepped back a pace or two and with careful grace, lifted both hands to his head to throw back his hood. "Our camp is not far from here. Welcome. I am Lianvis."

The Kakkahaar are steeped in mysticism; there are few amongst them less than Ulani, although they keep a choice selection of Aralids as servants. I expected them to lead an austere life, but in fact found them to be a luxury-loving tribe. They loved to be waited on, hungered for comfort and trinkets; their Ara attendants were dressed in diaphanous silks and heavily hung with gold adornments. I could tell Cal disapproved. He thought the Kakkahaar treated their Aralids like women, and although I could not disagree entirely, at no time did I meet anyone in the camp dissatisfied with the arrangement.

Lianvis, asking us polite questions about ourselves, but not too prying, led us to a tasselled pavilion; his home. Inside, it reminded me of Seel's living-room, though Seel would have been sick with envy had he seen it. The color scheme was dark bronze, dark gold and black. Tall, decorated urns spouted fountains of peacock feathers, canopies hung down from a central pole sparkling with sequins. The tent was so large it had several different rooms. A near-naked har with hair to his thighs bound with black pearls, rose from the couch. A book lay open there beside a half-eaten apple. He bowed before Lianvis. "Ulaume, barley-tea for my guests. They need refreshment." The Aralid looked at me from beneath long, thick lashes. His dark eyes looked bruised, his lips full as if aruna was never far from his thoughts. Never had I seen such a breathtaking, sulky beauty. Lianvis caught me staring. "Magnificent, isn't it," and then ushered us to be seated, I would not help but remember, with amusement, Seel's introduction of Flick. Enormous cushions, slippery silk and satin, littered the floor. We sank down into them and Lianvis sat down in front of us

"I know of your Orien," he said. "A well-respected har among Wraeththu-kind, though it is some time since we met. How are things at Saltrock?" All the Kakkahaar wear their hair incredibly long. Lianvis's pooled about him, the color of honey.

"It progresses in leaps and bounds," Cal told him. "The terrain is difficult, but at least they can grow things." Lianvis leaned back sighing.

"Ah yes. They work hard at Saltrock. Not the life for me, I fear. Not a day passes that I do not give thanks for how we earn our living."

"How's that?" I asked, hoping it would not sound impertinent. Lianvis smiled, tapping his head.