The Wraeththu Chronicles (40 page)

When the last words had been spoken, the last thurible cast above my head, Thiede came toward me and took my face in his hands. I did not tremble when I felt his breath upon me; I was equal to it. "I have brought you through pain," his voice echoed in my mind. "Give me back some of the life I quickened."

It had not been planned, I was sure of that. Silence thickened among the congregation, yet I could feel their eyes upon me. I was heavy with silver and turquoise; feathers folded around us like wings.

The altar of inception, in that most sacrosanct of Wraeththu temples, is tasselled with gold. Power was red behind his eyes and his red, red hair fell into my mouth and eyes. "Pellaz, my jewel," he said, with a voice he had never used with me before. As with all Wraeththu temples, the place of inception could be veiled.

Tumbling, black muslin shot with sparks, pooled to the floor, and it seemed we were alone. Tharmifex stood within the curtains. He looked at us once and we looked back with frightening unity. He twitched the curtains aside and stepped through. I climbed up onto the table and stripped the feathers from me. The Chosen One. He came to me and his heat was just har, nothing more. I cried out once, but not with pain. His eyes never left my own; he wanted to read everything there. When the moment came, it shocked me like electricity, switching on, opening up to a greater current. His flame hair crackled with static dust and I could see his face, so vulnerable in ecstasy. A god trapped in the anemone folds of aquatic soume. I could control him and make him writhe, and I did.

There was great feasting that day. The streets of Immanion were alive with celebration and so packed with hara; many had come from afar for the occasion. Thiede and I led the way back to Phaonica. Chrysm came up to me and embraced me.

"A coronation sanctified by aruna!" he exclaimed. "Will this become a custom?”

Now, it seemed, Immanion's reservations about me had been thoroughly quelled. I basked unashamedly in the admiration. This was my home, these were my people; for once everyone seemed happy.

Once evening had folded into dark, Thiede took me to his chamber of office. I was feeling dizzy with happiness and more than a little drunk.

"Pell," he began, "you might think it is too soon to discuss this matter, but it is important, especially as we may all be called away from Immanion in I lie near future to deal with potentially dangerous concerns."

I listened, still smiling. Thiede pushed me back into a chair and leaned on his desk in front of me. "Pell, you must know that as Tigron, we must he selective as to who shall host your heirs. Had you thought of that?"

I shrugged. "I can see that, even if I hadn't thought about it."

"You know, of course, that often hara are committed enough to each oilier to become chesna . . .?"

I could not keep the edge from my voice. "I think you could say I am aware of that.

Thiede nodded and tapped his lips with steepled fingers. "You need a partner, who is mostly soume, at least publicly, who shall host your seed. This har will also have to be trusted with domestic government in our absence, that is, government within our own lands."

I laughed. "What you are suggesting, Thiede, sounds almost like a marriage!"

Thiede did not laugh. "I suppose in a way, it could be seen as that. You need a consort, and you shall be united in blood at the temple to show our people that you are of one mind."

"Who?" I demanded.

"I haven't decided yet."

Anger shouldered aside the effects of alcohol. I could feel myself burning. It was not just that Thiede, as usual, was organizing my life for me; I was becoming used to that. It was that he expected me to commit myself in blood to another. I knew I could not do it; such a union would be a lie.

"Are we men then now?!" I stormed, "that we have to marry amongst ourselves?"

Thiede flapped his hands at me. "Pellaz, calm down, calm down. What I'm suggesting is not a stifling fidelity which might be alien to you. This is merely a political arrangement."'

"But it's barbaric!" I cried. "I can't believe I'm hearing this!" I stood up. "And how many concubines will I be allowed? Is there a harem quarter in Phaonica?"

"Oh don't get emotional, Pellaz!" Thiede said impatiently. "Tomorrow, you will see the sense in what I say. There is no reason why you should not do this."

I read the challenge in his eyes immediately. Maybe I should have kept | quiet. "Oh, I see. This is a test is it? Am I over Cal? Is that it?" Thiede said nothing. "It really bothers you, doesn't it," I said bitterly.

"Pellaz, he is not worthy of you. I should have stopped that relationship a long time ago, and would have done, if I'd guessed how deep your feelings ran. Don't you remember what I once said to you about how dangerous such feelings are? You must have seen within him all the time the possibility of.... He was Uigenna once; the fruits of that inception can never be truly eradicated."

"Why did you have to say this today?" I asked, but all I felt was anger, not pain. Thiede was not oblivious of that.

"I know, perhaps I should have waited, but I had hoped that this discussion would not become an argument about Cal."

"Thiede!" I cried. "That is bullshit!"

He twitched a corner of his mouth and walked to behind my chair. I sat down again.

"What if it was Vaysh?" he said slyly. "Would you be so angry then?" "Thiede," I said in a patient voice. "We both know that it cannot be Vaysh."

"Yes, most unfortunate."

"But even if it could be, I would still say no. I can't. If you cannot understand that, I'm sorry. I will let you choose a consort for me to host my sons, and I will gladly hand over the reins of power to that har should I need to, but I will not, certainly and most definitely not, mix my blood with his in a vow of any kind involving spiritual communion. And that is my last word!"

He let me walk to the door. "Pellaz, all that I have given you; it could all be so easily taken away ...

I turned with my hand on the door handle. He had spoken so quietly I was not sure if I had

heard it.

"Thiede," I said in a weary voice and shook my head, "are you incapable of compromise?"

He looked seriously at the ceiling in a comic display of deep thinking, then back to me. "Compromise? Are you joking?" He laughed. "Oh, Pell, get out of here. We've reached a stalement for now, that's clear. We'll talk again some other time. Tomorrow."

I went back to the party, but my heart was no longer in it. Cal's ghost had intruded once again. I could almost see him, standing in a corner of the room, among the tall ornamental plants, smiling, his hair matted with blood. But whose blood; mine or Orien's? I wanted him out of my head; that time was the closest I ever came to really hating him. He'd thought he'd had a murderer at his mercy. Did he feel elation as he tore Orien's life from him? (One for you, Pell.) Orien, no murderer, who had nurtured the seeds of my wisdom and kept my past in trust for me. My hand wandered unconsciously to the talisman. Cal, you fool! You blind, stupid fool! They thought he was mad, but I knew better. I had looked through the door with him beneath the Kakkahaar sands, and seen Lianvis take life for power. We had seen that and we both knew, knew what lurked in the shadows of Wraeththu consciousness. Because of that, he would kill for me.

Back in my apartments, sounds of merriment still reached me through the open windows. I was feeling mellow and sad, but in a hazy, wistful sort of way. I was not unhappy. I went out onto the terrace to stretch against the cool, diamond-studded night. Tomorrow.... Something was over now, but I couldn't explain exactly what. The music sounded mournful below me. The gardens were in darkness, but thronged with rustlings and muted laughter. I looked along the terrace. Vaysh's window-door was open and a low light burned inside the room.

He was lying on the bed, half conscious. Two empty bottles stood upon the table where the light glowed. Nothing was knocked over. I went over and sat down beside him. "Vaysh." I shook him and he made a sound. "Vaysh." His eyes opened and I could see the redness. "Pell, get out of here," he said.

"No, no." I took him in my arms and he wept anew. Vaysh was soume, more so than any other har I had ever met. The female was strong in him. He seemed made to be my consort, yet Thiede had scoured him barren; such justice.

"What is it?" I asked.

"His eyes," was all he said, but I knew. To someone, what lived in Vaysh's body was not Vaysh. "What am I, Pell? Why am I still alive?"

"Oh, Vaysh, Vaysh," I murmured and put my mouth upon his brow. His skin was hot and dry.

"I am a monster!" he said and tried to pull away from me. "You try to make me feel better, but I know, I know there is no hope for me. What hope is there for someone who can only repel, who makes Hara back away in revulsion?"

"That's not true," I told him lamely. I put my hand in his luxurious hair and touched his neck.

"Isn't it? Isn't it?"

For the second time that night I looked into eyes that offered me a challenge, but this was a hesitant, fluctuating challenge. At any moment, it might be withdrawn.

"You're beautiful, Vaysh," I said. "And because you're shamefully drunk, I intend to take advantage of you."

Outside the music had died away and the horizon was gray with the promise of dawn. Vaysh lay in my arms; we had pulled a sheet over our nakedness for the air was cool with dew. I thought he was asleep, but he put his hand upon my face.

"Pell," he said, "I'm going to tell you something that no-one else knows; or hardly anyone. It may mean nothing to you or it may explain everything. It's about Thiede.

I propped myself up on one elbow and leaned over him. "What?" He smiled wistfully, seeming anxious about continuing, perhaps wishing he had not spoken. "We've had no time for gods really, have we?" It did not require an answer. Vaysh touched me quickly again and turned his head away. "Perhaps I should not speak," he said softly. I took his hand. "It can't be that bad, Vaysh." He shook his head. "No . . . not bad, but I may be betraying his trust. Then again, he may want me to tell you, I don't know. Do you remember me once asking you if you knew who Thiede was?" I didn't, then. "Vaguely," I said.

"There is one Wraeththu har whom everybody knows . . ." That disclosure implied nothing to me. "Thiede is known to everybody?"

"Yes!"

"What do you mean? How is this important? He is notorious, I know. I've always known that."

Vaysh snatched his hand from my own. "It's more than that!" he hissed. "He is ... he is

the Aghama, Pell!"

"Aghama? What?!" I even began to laugh.

"Pell!" Vaysh's nails dug into my shoulders. "Don't laugh! Can't you see? He is the most powerful, the first, the last, the eternal. He began it all, Pell, everything. Wraeththu is Thiede! We are all his; like cells, like atoms of his own body! Aghama, Pell, think about it..."

I was silent for a while. I thought about it. Only the creaking of the palace walls and the call of early sea-birds broke the calm. I could not even hear Vaysh breathing, though I could see his chest rising and falling quite quickly. I did think about it. I thought of a wooden shack back in Saltrock that they call the Forale-house and sunlight coming in through a high window, falling onto Orien, where he sat cross-legged on the floor. Orien's hair shining around the edges, full of light, his mouth moving. I envisaged once again, after so long, a steaming, gray city, half rubble, dark and soulless and a mutant child-man scrabbling through the ruins, looking behind him, frightened and alone. Homeless, powerless; nothing. Thiede? Could the urbane, sophisticated, potent creature I knew ever have been so helpless? The first Wraeththu. On reflection, who else could he be? Through suffering we rise ... I had been stupid not to guess. Had Orien known? In the beginning, once the Aghama had established his new, feral race, he had slipped into anonymity (changed his name? His appearance? Some people must know him, surely?). Perhaps he had been tired, needed time to recuperate, to plan. Perhaps he had simply become bored. Thiede divulges his inner feelings to no-one, except himself.

Wraeththu speak of the Aghama sometimes, not as often as they should, bearing in mind what he should mean to them, but when they do, it is in veiled terms of his still being involved in manipulating our race. A misty figure; part god, part monster. They are not wrong. The Aghama vanished from the chaos of Megalithica and built his stronghold here in Immanion. He had made the city the nerve-center of his operations, the heart of Wraeththu, and the communication lines he sought to install would become the veins and arteries, our thoughts the lifeblood. Had Thiede once needed peace? Was that why he had come here? Could he ever be allowed in experience it? He had never been human.

I lay back on the pillows and held Vaysh against me. Now I could hear him breathing; the sky beyond the window was faintest pink and gold.

Today, I would tell him; tell him that I knew. I could not anticipate his reaction, but I could imagine relief in his eyes. Together, we would walk outside and look toward the far horizon, where the sleek ships prance upon the skirling waves, and we would see the sky and we would see the future. It lay that way, didn't it? So much, so much; I wanted to know it all. I wanted to live the past through his eyes to understand what was to come. His is blood, the primal blood, ran in my veins. His essence was my essence. He could see everything in the world and I would look through his eyes and see it too. I knew what to look for.