The Wraeththu Chronicles (89 page)

looking up when Terzian staggered out of the trees, letting the dice fall one last time. Their ultimatum had been simple: change your ways, Terzian, confess your crimes, beg forgiveness, or go to your doom. His response had been inevitable: go to Hell! It was unfortunate for him that he did not understand what form his doom would take. Had he expected a sword thrust to the heart, a cup of Uigenna poison, a bullet to the brain? But it was not death; not that. Not any of those fitting punishments.

They had taken him to Immanion, capital of Almagabra, lush, green Gelaming country. In some place there, which Ashmael did not describe to us, the Gelaming stripped my father's soul and regressed him to the blackest, reddest times and made him face himself; his weaknesses, his faults, his sins. Oh, they'd known who would have been the best Varr to make Gelaming and turn against Ponclast. It had not been me. Not at first. It showed me that Terzian had not been beyond redemption; they wouldn't have bothered with him if he was. But he would not break, he would not turn around. Instead, he raved, he wept, he flailed his arms helplessly against the truth, but he would not recant. I had to sit in the calm, golden

drawing room of my father's house while Ashmael told us that Terzian had eventually begged Thiede's people to kill him. It had come to that. He would never try to kill himself and they knew that. They would not end it for him.

"Seek forgiveness from the souls you have wronged!" they ordered, but he still refused. Then they spoke about Gahrazel. Insidious voices. "Didn't you once have fond feelings for Ponclast's son? Do you remember the first journey south that you made and what you said to him then? Didn't you promise him protection? You knew he was different, didn't you, Terzian? You knew he held, deep within him, the urge to run. You could have protected him, couldn't you? You had the chance. But instead you chose to enjoy his death. Did you enjoy it, Terzian?"

Terzian had shaken his head at them. "No. I did not kill him. It was Ponclast. Ponclast did it!"

"You deceive yourself!"

"I never lie!"

"You took part in his murder."

"I had to!" His cry had been despairing. He thought he would never speak these words, for it showed his weakness, and it was a weakness of the heart. "My son was implicated," he told them. "They were close friends. Ponclast believed that Swift was involved in Gahrazel's defection. The only way I could protect my son was to comply with Ponclast's wishes. I always had to comply with Ponclast's wishes. There was too much he could do to damage me. I love my family!"

Did it bring me relief to hear that? It was an excuse, wasn't it? An excuse for all that bloodshed and bestiality. He had done it for love; for me and Cobweb. It sickened me. If Terzian had really felt all that, why, in God's name, hadn't he turned on Ponclast when he got the chance? I couldn't understand it then and I never will. Ashmael continued with the story of my father's imprisonment and my hostling and I sat apart on the sofa, listening with frozen faces.

They told us that most of the time, Terzian refused to eat, and he could not sleep. He was wary of drinking the water they brought him, in case it was drugged. Pellaz had spoken to him alone. "For your son's sake, Terzian, let the evil go!" he had pleaded.

My father had simply replied, "I am not evil. I merely did what I had to do."

In the end, they realized that Terzian really would prefer to die than turn to the Gelaming. He did not want their absolution. They could not release him from whatever private hell he had put himself in. He wanted to die; nothing else. He could see no other future for himself. And so, they had taken him from the place where they had kept him for so long and put him into a suite of rooms in the palace Phaonica. They had given him attendants to see to his needs (to guard him) and eventually they had

left him alone. It was then that Thiede had said, "Terzian is finished. It does not matter what he's doing to himself." And it didn't.There was no moment of silence to let these words settle on the room. Cobweb had cried immediately Ashmael finished speaking, "And what now? What now, for God's sake?"

Ashmael raised his hands. "Be still, Tiahaar," he said. "Terzian will be brought back to you now."

"What will be brought back to us?" I asked sharply.

Ashmael glanced at me quickly and then at Cobweb. "Terzian. Your father."

"Terzian is finished. You said that. What will be brought back to us, Ashmael?"

The room was full of darkness. I felt cold. Nobody spoke. Ashmael lowered his eyes. Arahal had been staring at his hands for some minutes. "It is only right that your father should return to his family," he murmured, with difficulty. He braved looking me in the eye. "It is only right. He is dying, Swift."

They left us alone. I took Cobweb in my arms and we watched the last of the light fade from the sky outside. Neither of us wept. When it was nearly completely dark, Cobweb said, "I did not know about Gahrazel." His voice was clear, thoughtful.

"Leef told me," I replied huskily. I could not tell him about the forest. Perhaps one day, but not yet.

"It changes things, knowing that, doesn't it?" (Knowing what, Cobweb? How much do you know?) "It did for me when I found out," I said. "It did for a time ..." Cobweb stood up and walked to the window. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to cope with this, Swift. I'm not sure if I want to. In a way, I've got used to the idea of Terzian being gone. I think I want to remember him the way he was. I think I'm afraid of what they'll bring back to us." "We'll be together. I'll help you." "You're going north."

"Then I'll tell Ashmael not to do anything about this until I return." "If 'you return." He clasped his arms and sighed. "You're telling me I should trust these people, Swift? You're telling me I have to let them live in my house after what they ..." He could not finish. "You heard what they were trying to do."

"Swift! That doesn't make it right. . . does it?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I think, except that there are some things about Terzian, Cobweb, that you don't know about."

He turned on me, snarling, "Don't you dare to think that! Don't ever think you know more than me! I know what you're implying, I know all about that! I will never speak of those things, Swift, but just because of that, don't think I don't know about them!"

"Yet you loved him!"

"You think that's incredible?"

"Yes. You knew what he was, yet you loved him." I shook my head in disbelief.

"You don't know what he was, Swift." He stared out into the evening and there was utter, calm silence for a moment. I still did not think Cobweb knew everything.

"1 can't believe that Pellaz did that," he said, shaking his head. "I was wrong about so many things, wasn't I? Right from the beginning. Pell and Cal. The light and the dark. . . . Which is which? Aren't they both a little of each? The Gelaming have destroyed your father, Swift; think about that. Think hard. All that strength. . . . Now they will not let us keep even our memory of him intact. They will bring a shattered husk back to us that might not even look like Terzian anymore. Even at the end, they will not let him keep his dignity. They could end it for him! They could! So easily. Painlessly, kindly. But no! They have to ... they have to . . ."

He put his arm against the window and leaned his forehead on it. I had never heard him weep like that, loud, animal sobbing. His whole body shook. He had never wept like that. I went to him. Now we were the same height. I held him and kissed him, but I could not weep with him.

"Gelaming do not like to kill," I said.

The Fall

Deviation is the hidden dawn of daunt. Phalanxes huddle in the kismet of deceit, Profligate cortege of freedom Mustered by the sanguinary evil.

The sky is darker in the north; leprous clouds boil across it. When rain falls there, it smells bad, or maybe it is the wet earth that is noxious. Nothing is ever quite as you imagine it. Usually it is either worse or better. Ponclast's domain was different to the mental picture I'd formed when listening to Gahrazel, but the horror, the darkness, the sheer barbarity were utterly as I'd visualized them.

We broke through from the other-lanes onto a scorched plain. Nothing grew there; its surface was pitted and gouged as if by a great battle. In the distance the great black walls of Ponclast's citadel reared toward a turbulent sky. Fulminir, a gaunt and skeletal shadow, whose poison seemed to spread outwards, tainting the land. Above us, the clouds growled and crackled with subdued lightning. Above Fulminir, the sky was dark red. We rode to within a mile of its walls and from there we could see the raw light of naked flame upon the battlements and dark shapes that might have been vigilant hara. Ashmael was leading us. He pulled his sparkling horse (so out of place in that land) to a halt and raised his hand. The only noise behind him was the jangle of bits against teeth and metal, the occasional snort. No-one in our company felt like speaking. We numbered maybe three hundred. Sighting Fulminir, many of us realized how few that was Maybe thousands of fit, vengeful Varrs waited in the darkness and we still had no way of gauging Ponclast's strength. A biting wind plucked at our clothes, our hair, the horses' manes. Beside me, Seel sat tall in his saddle and stared bitterly before him. I wanted to touch him, but it would not have seemed right in that place.

"This is far enough," Ashmael called, and the wind carried his voice away from us.

Arahal, just in front of me, backed his horse until we were level. "We don't want to have to stay here longer than is absolutely necessary," he said.

"That goes without saying," I answered. "But how long do you think this will take? Will it be a case of unleashing the power of the crystal and being back in Galhea in time for dinner, or are we going to be here for days?"

Arahal shrugged and gave me a hard look. My sarcasm wasn't lost on him. "Ponclast must know we are here. He will have felt us approach. It is a good sign in itself that there was no welcoming committee. He's still not sure of us. We could have been finished off easily coming out of the other-lanes."

"We must prepare now!" Ashmael shouted. "We are losing time." He gave the order for certain members of the company to dismount. We needed protection; they were to cast a web of power around us, which would hopefully repel any form of minor assault launched from the citadel.

I heard Seel sigh. "Look, Swift, look around you," he said with sadness.

"Mmm, grim, isn't it?"

"This was once a great city. All this black, barren soil. I can remember great buildings being here and thousands of people, and cars and televisions and cinemas and bars and ... oh, what's the point of even remembering. It might as well never have happened."

"Seel, how old are you?"

He laughed. "I was dreading when you were going to ask that! In old time, old enough to be your father, now—" he shrugged carelessly—"ageless enough to be your lover."

I raised one eyebrow, a trick inherited from my father. It is a gesture which can put a pleasing emphasis upon words. "Heresy!" I said.

"You have corrupted me, it seems."

"Do I ever seem too young to you, too childish?"

"God! What a place to have this conversation!"

"Do I, Seel?"

"Often!" He smiled and reached over to touch me. "Oh, it's not naivety; just exuberance! I can be a sallow, bitter creature if I get too wrapped up in the past. I'm still eighteen, my hair's dyed red, I smoke too much . . ."

"You never smoke!"

"That's now. Where do you want me? Now or then?"

"Shut up; you're mad!"

"No, this is madness." He indicated the land around us with a sweep of his arm. Cities once. Now a crater of despair. Hell had been there.

I wondered whether Ponclast was standing on the walls of his citadel, laughing at us. Three hundred Gelaming. Was he just waiting to see what we'd do before he unleashed his hordes? Did he know about the crystal? The air smelled cleaner once the shell of strength had been constructed mound us. Hara began to construct a tall tripod of black, gleamless metal. At its summit was a shallow dish waiting to receive the crystal. I watched Arahal take the simple wooden box out of his jacket. It was lined with velvet. Inside it, reposing in dull, dark silk, lay our only hope. I could see it shining through the wrapping, emerald green, mazarine blue; holy fire. Thin vapors coiled out of it like ice in warm air. Arahal would not touch it with his bare hands. He had put on leather gloves.

We spoke the prayers, intoned the invocations for spirits of protection. The crystal was raised into place and all our faces shone in the glow of its clear, fluctuating light. Ashmael clasped two legs of the tripod in his hands and gazed upwards. His eyes flared green like an animal's eyes. He spoke to the crystal, softly, encouraging. Its flickers ceased for an instant; it listened to him. Ashmael's voice was crooning. He used few words, but his meaning was clear. Within the glowing points, an entity writhed, a living form of the essence of two bodies. Conceived in desire and focused by will. "Turn your eyes to the walls, beloved. They are weak. They are weak but they obstruct you. What is within them shall burn you if you do not burn it first. It offends you and it hurts you. Reach out and remove it. Make it disappear. Breach the walls and fill the space within. Make them feel your power, beloved. Enter their minds and make them sleep. Take the fire from them and all will be quiet. The badness that hurts you will die away. But first, you must breach the walls . . ."