The Wraeththu Chronicles (15 page)

"And . .. you will let me stay?" An obscene plea. There was silence and I could sense Lianvis's

disgust.

After a short while, I heard him sigh. "Very well. Yes," he said. Cal put a hand on my shoulder

and I jumped. The curtains trembled. "Come on Pell," he whispered. "I've heard all I want

to."

Back in the inner room, we sat on the floor and looked at each other

"God, I can't believe that!" Cal exclaimed, hitting the air with his fist. "Is it ... then?" I asked stupidly. Cal did not answer me. "Lianvis is nothing more than a paid killer, and for men too! How could he?"

"Oh simple," I replied. "For money. Economies crumble like burnt wood all over the face of the globe, but there's no denying it can still buy a lot . . ."

"Oh grow up, Pell!" Cal sneered at me, making me feel ridiculous. "You can be really stupid sometimes! There's more to it than that. Didn't you listen?! Since when has money to be" (and here he struck a typical Lianvis pose) " 'delivered to the secret place when the moon is high'? Money? God! Pathetic!"

"What then?" I asked in a small voice but I thought I knew.

"Flesh," Cal muttered, with a grimace. "Of what kind, I'm not sure, but I'd swear to it. Flesh; Mr. Shasco pays in blood."

It was inevitable that Cal wanted to follow Shasco that night. I knew it would be an expedition fraught with the most horrible danger and told him so. "You were the one who warned me off Ulaume. You were the one that told me caution had kept you alive. Now this!"

"Now this!" Cal agreed, a fanatical light in his eyes. (A look I came to dread). "Remember, Pell, you'll be alone with these creeps and in a position of submission pretty soon. How long is it to your ascension ceremony? Two days? Three? Maybe after tonight, you'll decide to forego the honor. Maybe you'll learn something useful."

"Oh alright, alright," I said, giving in, starting to flick through Lianvis's book, seeing

nothing.

"Look, Lianvis will be busy magicking Shasco's foes this evening. He'll have little time

for us. Drugged wine again, perhaps? We'll take a romantic walk in the desert together,

before the eminent Mr. Shasco trundles forth."

I could not really understand Cal's zeal for nosing into Lianvis's business. I felt it had nothing to do with us; the only interest I had was simple curiosity.

It was without surprise that we received the news that we would receive our evening meal in our own room that night. Ulaume had been efficient in his attempts of avoiding me since our skirmish, but it was he that brought our food to us. Cal was feeling bored, lying on the bed, and I could see a cruel mischievous light come into his eyes as Ulaume silently laid out our food. He watched the Colurastean for some minutes, various calculations slipping across his features, before uttering, "Come here, snake-beast," in a voice like ripping silk. Ulaume glanced up, his hands wavering above the plates. I still thought him beautiful and watched him carefully. He did not look at me. I could tell he was frightened of Cal. He started to back away, but with striking speed, Cal shot up and grabbed his wrist. Ulaume made a pitiful little sound, half whine, half cry.

"I said come here," Cal hissed through his gritted teeth. "Where's that now? You can stay can't you? Won't you share breath with me, Kakkahaar plaything."

"No," Ulaume gasped, trying to prize himself out of Cal's hold with his free hand.

"He's not Kakkahaar," I said, "Colurastes."

"He's Kakkahaar," Cal spat, shaking him. "You're Kakkahaar, aren't you, Ulaume. The

Colurastes demand respect for their craft. What would your people say if they knew what

you are now, Ulaume?" Cal shook him again.

.

"Cal, shut up!" I cried, afraid he would say too much. We could not risk alerting Lianvis

to what we knew.

"It's alright, Pell," he answered, not looking at me, but the venom had left his voice

I wished I had not told him about what had happened with Ulaume. Cal could be insensibly vindictive when the mood took him. He wound a handful of the threshing, tawny hair around his other hand.

"Come on viperling. Braid your hair. It gets in the way, doesn't it? It might creep around my neck. It might give my throat a little squeeze, accidently."

I was expecting Ulaume to muster his defenses at any moment, but of course he knew Cal was Ulani. When Cal let go of his arm, he did nothing but braid his hair. Cal smiled and lay back, arms behind his head. "Pellaz, Commit to memory here another lesson. There is aruna, there is grissecon, and there is pelki . . ."

"Oh!" Ulaume's hands fell to his sides, clenching into fists.

"Oh. Yes. You think the hara of Saltrock are pious upstanding creatures, don't you Ulaume. But we're not from Saltrock, Ulaume. At least, I'm not. My tribe is Uigenna. Does that mean anything to you?" Cal, with the face of an angel and the sensual cruelty of a fiend.

Ulaume started to shake his head. "No, no, no, no, no," he wailed.

Something about this little scenario was beginning to sicken me. "Cal," I said, without emphasis. It is horrible when you realize that someone you think you know quite well could very possibly be a complete stranger.

Ulaume seemed to notice me for the first time. "Uigenna!" he said helplessly.

I could see him shaking. It meant nothing to me. 1 wanted to say, "Ulaume, I don't know, I don't know any of this," which I did not, but I stayed silent. Something inside me told me it was safer to remain uninvolved. Let Cal play this game himself. For a while there was a terrible, heavy silence. Cal stared without feeling at Ulaume, and Ulaume gazed beseechingly at me. I don't know why he expected my sympathy. I looked from one to the other wondering what the hell was going on. Suddenly Cal jumped up. Ulaume winced and covered his head with his arms.

"Oh, get out," Cal told him, smiling. "I don't have the time."

Ulaume fled without a further glance at either of us. I could not bear to look at Cal and started picking at the food.

"Don't eat that!" he said, "Remember the wine."

"Well, let's go then." I turned away from him, unsure of why I felt so angry, reaching for my goat-skin jacket; it would be cold later.

"Don't you want to know what Uigenna is?" Cal asked.

"No."

We went outside. In the distance we could see a smudge on the horizon. "That way, I think," Cal said. We trudged along without speaking. Eventually Cal broke the silence. "You're angry," he stated. I did not reply. "Oh, don't sulk Pell! I wouldn't have done anything."

My voice was harsh. "Wouldn't you?"

"No, of course not. I was just playing. Getting him back for what he did to you." He put an arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek. "Forgive me?"

"Cal, he didn't do anything to me." It would not do for me to give in so easily.

"God, don't you ever bear a grudge? If you've forgiven the snake Ulaume, then forgive me." His face was the epitome of innocent charm and I could do nothing but relent

"Very well, I'll believe what you say." After a while I said, "Cal, what is pelki?" I had my arm around his waist and felt him tense. "You'll be angry again," he complained.

"I promise not to be." We both knew I might not stick to that. "OK, you asked for it. I'll tell you this. I was incepted into the Uigenna. Their belligerence is famous. They are hostile to nearly everyone else on this planet except Uigenna. Pelki is a remnant of man's so-called civilization. It is something Wraeththu hate; it is anathema to them. Some will even deny it exists, but it does. It is rape." He stared into the distance, avoiding my eyes.

"And Uigenna and pelki are synonymous?" I enquired carefully. I was not as upset as Cal thought I would be.

He shrugged. "Not really, but it's where I learned the term. Mention Uigenna and most Hara with their heads screwed on start running, though. I was very young when I was incepted: thirteen. I suppose I had a hard time but it all had a kind of grim glamor. Two years later I defected to the Unneah. They are another northern city tribe, somewhat warlike, but honorable enough. I was really too young to be part of the violence of Uigenna, but I witnessed plenty of it."

"Cal, are you telling me the truth?" I asked him. He looked at me then.

"I've never lied to you, Pell. Never. OK, it might have been wrong of me to threaten even a reptile like Ulaume like that, but sometimes the beast just comes through in me, that's all. I didn't like what happened with you two, really I didn't."

"We cannot be selfish with each other," I quoted, reminding him. "Oh, Pell," he said, rubbing my arm. "It's not like that, honestly it's not." I looked at him archly and he said, "Oh hell!," and leaned down to bury his face in my hair. I had been given a glimpse of the future, but I didn't know it.

Beneath the sand

The stony sand beneath our feet cooled for the night. Pebbles clicked in the shadows. Out there, in the desert, the cold and the dark creep up on you unawares. One moment it is balmy evening, the next it is a blue, gaunt, werewolf place.

Ahead of us, sand-sculpted ruins poked through choking, powdery folds, their carved summits eroded to formlessness. This must be the place Lianvis had spoken of. I could feel a hundred prickling emanations bouncing off my skin. It was a place that had felt Corruption's gingery touch.

"How old is this place?" Cal asked the darkness, his voice hushed with caution, echoing among the blind stones.

"God forbid it should answer you!" I replied in a quavery warble. "I think we should hide."

"We should fear least the creatures we can hide from around here," Cal told me cryptically.

I knew what he meant. Perhaps this jumble of disintegrating stone had once been a holy place. There was something of a feeling like that still lingering. Dark holes that were stone throats led down into the ground. Very little remained on the surface; most of the walls had toppled and the sand had swallowed nearly everything. I did not want to go underground. There were many places where we could crouch unseen (by hara and men at least) on the surface.

"Don't be ridiculous," Cal scoffed. "Nothing will happen out here!

"We won't be able to see, if we go down there," I protested as reasonably as I could. It was true there were no lights, however dim, shining out from any of the tunnels.

"Well. Then we shall wait."

We leant against a half-wall, warmth oozing out from the heart of the cooling stone into our backs. We did not have to wait long. Soon a line of shambling figures folded out of the dusk, lit by the steady, orderly beams of flashlights. We crouched lower as they passed us; four or five individuals. Men or Wraeththu? It was impossible to tell from our position. One of them was obviously Shasco. We could recognize the stumbling step and labored breath.

"Now we wait again," Cal murmured, as their sounds disappeared into the earth.

Perhaps you have heard someone say: "My heart was beating so loud I was sure others could hear it!" and have thought it a colorful, exaggerated way of simply saying: "I was scared witless". You are wrong. It really does seem that way. Any moment I expected Cal to say, "For God's sake, stop making that noise!" There was no logical reason for us to be there. If Lianvis found us, we had no excuse. If I had argued more persuasively with Cal back at the camp, I might have been able to talk him out of this reckless folly. I cursed my weakness.

Out of the darkness came a muffled sound. Soft thuds, faint jangling. Horses.

"Two of them, I'd say," Cal whispered, lifting himself a little.

"Don't look!" I hissed, pulling him down. "It's Lianvis!"

He had to know we were there, had to! He was Algomalid. He must be able to sense my fear, at least. We heard them dismount, voices, the words indistinguishable. A horse snorted, hooves dancing on the cracked paving, its bridle jingling. We listened to the voices moving away. I had been holding my breath. Now I let it out, and my stomach ached.

"What now?" I asked.

"Oh, we'll give them a few minutes to get involved in whatever they're getting involved

in." Cal stood up.

"Cal!" I squeaked, tugging his arm.

"It's alright," he said, "there's no-one here."

I stood beside him. Lianvis and his companion had hobbled their horses. They looked at us from lowered heads with troubled eyes and pointed ears, snuffling and backing away. Tassels on their bit rings brushed the ground.

"Which tunnel do you think they took?" Cal asked me, looking round.

"Who cares!" I replied.

"That is not the spirit, Pellaz," Cal chided me in a voice that betrayed not the slightest hint of fear. "You must learn to face danger with strength and courage. You won't last long if you don't."

I will last even longer if I avoid danger, I thought.

"That one looks vaguely lit up," I said, pointing.

Keeping to the shadows, we crept toward it. No sound issued from the uninviting gloom, but a faint, ruddy, flickering glow. I felt as if we were being watched from every other dark entrance. Cal stepped inside and I followed. Shallow, worn steps, dusted with sand, curled down before us. Many thousands of feet had trod here in forgotten times. It was possible that once this building had been well above ground, perhaps even a tower, before the desert had got to work with its enveloping tides