The Wraeththu Chronicles (39 page)

"I wouldn't advise it; not yet," I said smoothly. "I don't think he could cope with it yet." I realized afterwards that this was ultimately a lie; I don't know why I said it. I should think the truth was, Vaysh really did want Ashmael to speak to him, but I did not.

"Oh God, Thiede can be a monster, he really can," Ashmael murmured, his eyes shining. "It was an accident," I said.

This was like being an observer to a situation I could imagine happening about me some day. Then too, people would doubtlessly try to keep Cal away from me. I said, "Ashmael, you said it's been years since . . . how do you feel about Vaysh now?"

He shrugged. "Feel? I can still smell his blood, even now. He was so beautiful, so alive. Losing him was like losing life. Everyone worshiped him ..." I had gone cold, although the night was warm.

"But now, how do you feel now?" I insisted.

"Now?" Ashmael wrinkled his brow. "Now . . . something lives in a body that looks like Vaysh, but is it him? I watched him die and spent a year demented with grief. Now? What can I feel? Vaysh is dead."

Was this the way it would be then, when Cal found out that I still lived? Would he be angry because all his grief and rage had been misdirected? Would he feel cheated? That night, I tossed and turned in sheets that turned to wet rope against my body. I could not sleep for the thoughts that tormented me. Several times, I was on the point of going to Vaysh, but I did not want to answer the questions he might ask me about Ashmael. My thoughts turned to salt in my eyes. I could see Cal so clearly; time and absence had not blurred the memory of his face. I remembered the times we had sought each other's warmth in the dark, in the dangerous open country and by the stranger's hearth. The velvet texture of his skin, the flame of his violet eyes; all of this was lost to me. There could be no other to touch my soul as he had; no-one. Beauty could make me twitch (and laughter), but in my heart, in the deepest fibers, there was only him. Was I condemning myself foolishly to an eternity of loneliness? It was a possibility, but only if I stopped believing.

Seel arrived earlier than expected; Thiede brought him to my rooms. Vaysh and I were poring over some ornate and ancient maps in the library. They illustrated where dragons and trolls may be found and it was with amusement we discovered that one of the locations was right by Phade's tower. Gradually and carefully Vaysh and I had developed an easy friendship. Sometimes he was still staunchly unapproachable, but the cruel tormentor of our journey to Immanion had gone. His acid remarks were no longer tinged by hatred. We never spoke of how it had been before.

Seel had not aged in appearance, but as Wraeththu hardly do, this was not surprising. We began to greet each other as strangers, but then I threw my arms around him and the ice was broken. He still had about him a faint fragrance of soda.

He laughed and said, "Well, Pell, who could have guessed it would all have come to this?"

Later that day, over dinner in Thiede's apartments, I asked about Salt-rock.

"Oh, it is bigger and better now," Seel replied in response to my questions. "I could have done more there, but not much. Thiede has impressed on me strongly how much work there is to be done elsewhere."

Thiede smiled gently at the cold edge to Seel's voice.

I waited until the last course was cleared away before asking about Orien. "He was murdered," was all Seel would say. I could tell he did not want to talk about it, but he had only made me more anxious to know what had happened. He asked me nothing about Cal, but that may have been because Thiede was there.

Time passed slowly in Immanion; every day was golden. I was invited to gatherings at Tharmifex's house and Dree's; in the latter case I sensed the invitation was wary. Delegates began to arrive from different tribes; they could easily be recognized by the expressions of bewilderment or wonder on their faces. To many hara, the splendor of Immanion seemed but a dream.

The time came when my coronation was but two days away. After that, talks would begin in earnest and there was a feeling in the air as of a holiday drawing to a close and the party that would mark the last night. Costumiers came to fit my regalia; an outstanding creation of black and azure feathers. My jewelery was made all of turquoise and silver. Seel wandered in to visit me, smoking a black cigarette and leaning against a table to watch the outfitters at work.

"You're still a wonder of the world Pell, and still to me that absurd little urchin who trailed after Cal into Saltrock burning with ignorance."

I could not move my head to look at him. "I had hoped you'd bring Flick with you," I said.

"Did you?" His voice was bitter and I jerked my head, to a chorus of complaints from

pin-studded mouths.

I feared the worst. "Is he ... alright?"

"I don't know!" Seel stubbed the cigarette out angrily in an empty wineglass.

"Don't know? What do you mean? Did you quarrel?"

Seel took a deep breath and something about his expression angered me deep inside. "Pell, there's something you should know, but I didn't want to tell you before the coronation ...

I was silent for a moment and then said, "Why?" Presentiment rattled my brains; I could feel the cold creeping in toward me. I knew already whom it would concern.

"Send these peacocks away, Pell," Seel requested, "It's now or never."

The outfitters looked at him with displeasure, but silently gathered up their things. I changed back into a loose robe and told them to come back later.

"Sit down," Seel said. He knew where I kept my liquor and went to the cabinet. "Drink this." It was a generous measure.

"Seel, what's all this about?" I asked, fighting my body's urge to start shaking. His face told me enough.

"God, where to begin?" He threw up his arms and walked to the window and back again. "Cal came back to Saltrock," he said. If I could have shrunk back into the chair, let the chair swallow me, I would. If I could have blocked my ears ... and yet, of course, I wanted to know. "He would say nothing except that you were dead," Seel continued, still pacing. "We all tried to do what we could for him; he had lost far too much weight and spent most of his time out of his head; drink, drags, whatever. I know grief has to work itself out. I was as supportive as possible. Flick took it very hard. He's very fond of you and it scared him to see Cal like that. One night, Orien was around, and to try and comfort Cal, he said that he thought you were involved in something none of us could understand. The fool! Cal's face went very strange. He just looked at Orien as if he'd said he'd killed you himself. He did not shout, his voice went very low. He said, 'What do you know about it, Orien?' By this time, Orien was regretting what he'd said; perhaps it hadn't sounded the way it was meant to. He shook his head and tried to mumble his way out of it. That was when Cal went wild. He grabbed hold of Orien and pushed him up against the wall. He was babbling that he'd had enough of witches and savagery. He blamed Orien for what had happened to you, in very graphic terms, and ... Thiede. Well, he was right about that! Flick and I managed to pull Cal away, and then he appeared to calm down. When Orien had gone home, Cal apologized to me, but he said that he knew something had happened at your Harhune that had marked you somehow, and that Orien and Thiede were responsible. He asked me if I knew anything about it and I said no. Well, I didn't. We all had our suspicions at the time but.... Anyway, I think Cal believed me, although he did look at me hard for a few minutes. He looked at me and he told me that he loved you. Loved you ... I felt terrible; his eyes were. ... He was so, so haunted. I have never seen anything like that and I didn't know what to do, how to handle it. Cal said he wanted to be alone that night, so I was with Flick. We heard nothing. Next morning, we woke up and Cal was gone. Next morning he was gone and Orien was dead; hanging half-gutted from the roof of the Nayati ..."

At some point I had buried my face in my hands. I cried, "It was me that did that!"

Seel squatted down beside me and pressed me to him. "No, it was not you. Some kind of craziness did that. The same kind of craziness that made men kill; obsession."

"Yet he called it love . . ."

"It was obsession; obsession and sickness. Perhaps he's never been truly well . . . since Zack . . ."I knew that was not true.

"Flick. . . ?" I said; dreading further revelations.

Seel sighed and stood up, rubbing his arms. "Flick . . . well, for a few days, he was just so quiet, listless, like there was nothing left inside him. I tried to make it better, say things. . . but there was so much to do. He left me a letter when he left Saltrock; it was a very nice letter, but he still went. I was left to clear up the mess. Everyone looked so wild and scared; things like that just don't happen at Saltrock. But then they started to forget, life goes on . . ."

I could feel the warmth of Orien's talisman against my skin. I should have known he was dead. I should have known it

"Seel," I said, "I'm cold ..."

We embraced and he said nice things to me to make me weep. It took some time. "I didn't want to tell you," Seel said, "and yet I did; so much!"

My tears were silent and I said, "You hate him . . ." Seel's arms tightened around me.

When Vaysh came in and found us like that, he thought it was something different at first. Then I stepped back and Seel turned away. Vaysh saw my face and I saw the fear come into his. I said, "Tell Vaysh, Seel, tell him for me," and went away to my bedroom. I could hear Seel's voice begin again, but not the words. My curtains shivered in a slight warm breeze, the day outside was golden. I lay back on the bed and put my arms behind my

The aftermath of grief and weeping is almost sensual in its piquancy. Win (Is composed themselves in my head. I could hear birds outside, singing on the terrace, see the pools of light beginning to edge toward my room. The day was black.

He began it all. .

Even when we think we are safest, we never are. Darknesses are everywhere. Both Vaysh and myself had become the victims of cruel shocks since reaching Immanion. We spent the following two days getting helplessly drunk together, licking each other's wounds by intoxicated ramblings. "You must put it behind you Pell," Vaysh advised, "there is nothing more you can do." Nothing more? Banish my fury, the fury I thought I felt, and the seething frustration? Some part of me kept saying, "This is not right; this is not Cal."

It had crossed my mind that it might just be another of Thiede's games. What better way to drive all thoughts of Cal from my mind? But commonsense told me that no-one could have acted as well as the way Seel would have had to. Could he really have acted out so convincingly telling me that the har I loved had butchered the mentor and friend of my early Wraeththu days? Thiede was capable of such an obscenity, but I was sure Seel was not. The worst thing was, although I lamented and cursed the cruelties of Fate, scored by misery, some deep part of me was never touched. That part watched dispassionately, a core of cool rationality. It waited for the surface pain to pass; at night I could feel it lurking somewhere in my heart and it appalled me. On the morning of my coronation, I turned aside the measure of hot liquor that Vaysh offered me. Two days had purged me. My tolerance, my trust and my eternal hope had been battered numb, but some deep and healing well of strength overflowed within me and kept me sane, kept me safe.

They dressed me in the morning; the ceremony would begin at noon. Vaysh and I looked at each other and our eyes were full of granite exhilaration. We shared dark secrets but the terrible things we knew only fed our strength. There was a strained, tense atmosphere in the apartments that day, voices sounded muffled, as if on the eve of a great battle. Within us was the knowledge; we had both been singled out for greatness, Vaysh and I, and the harvest of the greatness had been emotional flaying. Yet neither of us blamed Thiede. He controlled us, bonded us to loyalty; now we had nothing, now we had everything; now we had nothing. It was endless.

We went out into the sunlight and for the briefest moment, the shade of Saltrock blurred my eyes and the solemn, soaring temple up ahead became the wooden-roofed Nayati and the angels that lined Immanion's streets became the cheerful and scarred pioneers of another town. Vaysh sat by me in the splendid open carriage that was drawn by eight silver horses. He was the colors of alabaster, verdigris and rich henna, and among the feathers at my side, he held my hand.

Among the echoing columns, silvered by floating incense, I spoke before the hegemony of Immanion and the priests and the most exalted citizens, the sacred oaths that would bind me to them for evermore. Thiede's eyes, full of satisfaction and pride, watched me with ophidian constancy. He must have known what Seel had told me, yet there was no sign. He trusted me to be strong and indifferent. I was Tigron and I was changing. He would say to me, "You must listen to your wisdom now, Pellaz. See what the world really is and how we must cut out the dark and rotting places." He could never be termed benevolent, Thiede my holy father, but he knew what the Great Rightnesses were and no petty compassion would stand in his way of realizing them. From below, among the little Hara that toiled and scrabbled and tried to understand what they were, I had stepped up to stand beside him, to take my place upon the dais of knowledge and of Power. Wretchedness and fear were no longer equal to me. Tranquility smoothed my cares. I had lived and died and resurrected; resurrected to immeasurable power. I could no longer be patient with the twitterings of passion and pain.