The Wraeththu Chronicles (94 page)

"Is there anything you want?" Cobweb asked stiffly, even though he must have known that Terzian's every need was being catered for. He showed that my father's words could not affect him; it was incredible.

"Want anything?" Terzian's eyes narrowed. The cue was irresistible. "In this life there has only been one thing that I have truly wanted . . ."

Cobweb and I looked at each other, both painfully aware of what he meant. If only Terzian could have known how the implication in his words, the sting he hoped would poison, could not touch us. Perhaps Cobweb would tell him. Perhaps he would say, "Oh, you are talking of Cal. Of course. The one who gave meaning to your life and who came to my bed after you left Galhea," but no, unpredictable as ever, my hostling kneeled at Terzian's side and took one of his hands in his own. (Surely my father must be able to see how Cobweb had changed. He was no longer the bound half-har whom Terzian had manifestly tried to keep utterly female. Surely he must see the difference?) My hostling smiled.

"Terzian, if I could do that one thing for you, I would," he said softly. "If I could bring Cal back, I would." He stroked my father's face. I could not bear it. My toes were curling in embarrassment. Tears began to run from my father's eyes, trailing unchecked over his gaunt cheeks. His body began to shake; he sobbed. Cobweb gathered him in his arms and kissed him.

"Cobweb, I ... I never loved you . . ." Terzian said in a horrible, gulping, cracked voice. I wished it would end. I could not move, transfixed by a kind of fascinated horror. My father looked dead from the neck down. Could he even feel Cobweb's hands upon him?

"Hush," my hostling murmured. "You don't have to say these things. You don't have to. I will say them for you."

"No!" I cried. I don't know why.

Cobweb smiled crazily at me. "It's alright, Swift. He just wants to say that he gave me the best he could, that's all. I've always known that. Terzian lost his heart to Cal a long time before he met either of us. It was meant to be. Cal was just the one."

"Cal is just 'the one' to many people, it seems," I said scathingly. They ignored me.

"Cobweb . . ." Terzian's voice was almost nonexistent now. "I never thought this could happen to me. I'm dying, aren't I? I really am . . ." Bewilderment, weak frustration, envy of the living; what was really going through his head? Cunning, I thought, uncharitably. "I never thought I'd say it, never," he wheedled, flopping a helpless hand against the coverlet."We must all die eventually," Cobweb soothed. (Pathetic! Could such an inane observation possibly help him?)

"No, no, no," Terzian groaned. "Not that. I never thought I'd say 'I love you,' not to anyone. Now I say it to him all the time .. . only ..." He reached up, gasping, mustering his failing strength, and caught hold of Cobweb's clothes by the neck. "In Immanion, it's all I thought about, what kept me going, just one more day, just one . . ." He trailed off, wilting visibly. "I cannot die without seeing him again, not knowing whether he's safe or not. I've kept myself alive for that, for the hope that he might be here when I came home . . ." He shot me a withering glance. I wanted to say, "Any more cliches, you two? Oh, come on, there must be more! Please, don't mind me, just carry on!" but I said nothing. Cobweb turned the sad, sick face back toward his own. "Terzian . . ."

My father started to shake again, his eyes rolled maniacally. "Cobweb, Cobweb," he wailed. "Your magic . . . your magic . . . how I've scorned you . . . what I've seen! The Forest! The Forest! Oh, Cobweb!" To watch my father weep was an obscenity that nearly made me physically sick. It seemed the Gelaming (or his own guilt?) had destroyed everything within him but for his bitterness and his obsession for Cal. I wondered whether Pellaz had ever interrogated him about that.

Cobweb spoke my name. My father lolled in his arms, spent and shuddering. I said, "What?"

"You may leave us now," my hostling replied, and I saw his anger at the relief those words gave me.

Downstairs, I found Thiede in the drawing room with the others, opened bottles of sheh on the carpet, the room thick with cigarette smoke and laughter. I found it hateful, yet I wanted to be part of it. I sat down beside Thiede and he thoughtfully thrust a full glass into my hand.

"Harrowing?" he inquired lightly. He was smiling, but I knew he understood exactly how I felt.

"Yes. Harrowing."

"Behind you now, though."

"Yes, behind me." I sighed. "My father needs Cal, Thiede."

Thiede sighed as well, but theatrically and embroidered by waving arm gestures. "Oh God! Must my life continually be plagued by love-sick fools continually bleating that particular demand at me?" he said.

There is little more to say now. The time of upheaval was nearly over. I have to speak of the end of my father's life, for that will truly end the tale. With his ending, there began a kind of peace for me. I had played my greatest part on Thiede's stage. For a while, he would let me rest. Fulminir was deserted, peopled only by winds and dust, her victims succoured, her cruel inhabitants transferred to the shadowy, make-believe land of Gebaddon. For them, the play was over, at least in this world.

Taking Fulminir, of course, was not really the end. Megalithica is a vast country and the Varrs were widespread. Suddenly, what was left of my tribe found that those they had looked on as allies had turned against them, their slaves had the courage to rebel, their own loved ones, sickened by blood-•ihcd and cruelty, broke free and ran to the Gelaming. Of course, many lives were lost. We could not avoid fighting, much as Thiede and his Hegemony hoped we could. Magic is sometimes not enough. Some minds are too far immersed in darkness to recognize light even when it is thrown in their eyes. There are probably a thousand thousand tales to be told of my country at that time; the heroes that rose up, the monsters that were discovered, the legends that were

born. One day, I might go looking for those tales, for even as a child I had longed to write, and as I have said before, Wraeththu !
  
have not yet had much time for making books of their history.

Seel and I mingled our blood beneath the heavy, shady trees in the gardens of Forever. Thiede's ceremonial blade made the cuts, Thiede's own hand pressed bleeding skin to bleeding skin. He smiled his long-toothed smile and blessed us. Cobweb watched us with wistful eyes, thinking of what might have been. His gaze flicked once to Terzian's window; that was all. My father would not even countenance my blood-tie to Seel. I offered to help him to the chair by the window in his room but he declined with scorn.

Later, I couldn't resist going to see him, brandishing my blood-stained flesh. "Look, father, a different kind of inception!"

He winced away from me. "And we were once accused of emulating men!"

"I pity you. You cannot understand."

He smiled wryly to himself. "Oh, Swift, must I bicker my way to the grave?" His voice was introspective.

I watched him looking at what was left of his body, hidden beneath the bedclothes. Half of me wanted to gather him into my arms as Cobweb had done, half of me didn't care about him at all. There was a few moment's silence, then I said, "Why, Terzian?"

He sighed. "Why . .." Looked up at me, his eyes young, sparkling with shadows of the past. "What particular 'why' do you mean? Is it why didn't I say what the Gelaming wanted to hear or why did I ride south in the first place, or why did I ever become Wraeththu to start with? Or is it the darker 'whys,' those best not spoken, eh?" He smiled and I thought his face was so much as I remembered it, and I recalled how it had sometimes frightened me and sometimes filled me with fire. Of course I have always adored him, always feared his displeasure, always craved his attention, yearned his respect. It was still the same har lying there, only the balance of power had changed.

I said, "No, none of those things. The 'why' I mean is, why are you killing yourself?"

I thought he would wince again, but he didn't. There was silence in the room, deep but not uncomfortable. My arm had begun to throb a little and I sat down on the bed and sucked at the flesh.

"Let me see that," Terzian said. His hands were hot and dry, papery dry. He traced the line of the cut with one finger. "By this mark, you have committed yourself to another har—for life. His welfare is your welfare. You are prepared to uphold each other, whatever happens. It is not a vow to be taken lightly."

"I know that."

"Of course you do, that's not what I'm trying to say. Some vows are made when you are very young, Swift, personal vows that might never be spoken. I cannot go back on promises that I've made to myself, whatever others might think of my beliefs." "Is it that simple?"

He shook his head. "No . . . nothing can ever be that simple, can it? I worked hard for Galhea, Swift, worked hard to make it what it is. Perhaps, in caring so much, I've done things that I shouldn't have. Bad, evil, whatever you want to call it. It was because I've always cared about my people, this town was mine and I didn't want anything or anyone to take it away from me. I thought that whatever I did outside Galhea could never harm it. Maybe I was wrong. I can offer no excuses for my life, Swift, and I don't want forgiveness, but I want you to know that I did care, even if the popular view of me in this house is of a hard-hearted monster!"

I laughed nervously and he squeezed my arm. "I know you've always disapproved of the way I've treated Cobweb," he said. "Will it help you to understand if I tell you that I've always feared him and, because of that fear, envied him? Yes, I've envied him in

other ways too. I know I tried to make him weak, but I could never do that for Cobweb's strength is pure, elemental. If I'd had a little more Cobweb in me, who knows, I might not be lying here now." He sighed and lay back, blinking at the ceiling. "Oh, Swift, I thought I was so strong! I saw defeat as going down in a blaze of glory with a curse on my lips, a curse and a smile. I knew we could never win, of course, that was obvious from the start, but I also knew I could never wait for the Gelaming to come here. Neither could I have done what you did, and joined them. Perhaps I'm not as sensible as you or too vain, I don't know. I travelled south seeking a noble death, I suppose, but what happened . . ."He shook his head upon the pillow, his face twisted with pain as he remembered, as he went back in time.

"No," I said. "Don't say any more! Don't think about it! Let it wait for another time!"

"No! There might not be another time!" he said desperately. "I have to talk to you, Swift! I have to tell someone! It's all inside me, boiling away, I've got to let it out! Does my distress upset you? Is that it?" I felt I should apologize, but could only hang my head.

"They told you about what happened in the forest?" he asked.

"Yes. They were waiting for you, weren't they?"

"Years, Swift, years!" he said, his mind jumping backwards and forwards. "In that place of hell, and then in the towers of Immanion. They pulled me this way and that. All I could say was, 'Why am I so important to you? Just kill me!' but they wanted me with them! They wanted me to confess my sins and seek absolution. But why? What am I to them?"

"They wanted to save your soul," I answered.

Terzian laughed. "Oh, is that it? Is that why they brought my thoughts into form and made me face them? Is that why I watched a thousand deaths a day, and torture and blood and despair? To save my soul?" (But didn't you watch it for real once, father?) "Oh, Swift, let me tell you this. One day they starved me and gave me salt water to drink. They would not let me sleep. I was woken again and again and again. Then I was taken to Pellaz. He's so radiant now. They've made him a god. He had a pool for scrying, in a wonderful cool parlor with plants and birds all around, and lovely hara to bring him all the things he needs. He gave me a crystal flute of wine, ice-cold it was, and he smiled and touched my face. 'Terzian,' he said 'drink the wine. Drink, and look into the pool with me.' I drank. I looked. I saw a room. Forever. Two hara glowing with aruna fire. I had to look away. It was an invasion of something so private . . . even though . . . Pellaz the golden spoke. He said, 'You see, Terzian, already they have forgotten you.' Cobweb and Cal. Together. Of course, I realized it was only an illusion. I laughed at him. They could not break me that way."

I pulled my hand from his hold and stood up, afraid my eyes would give away the truth. That was no illusion, Terzian. "You are letting yourself die," I said. "You still haven't given me a reason!"

"Well then, do you want me to live, Swift?" he asked quietly. There was silence. A silence too long. "There's nothing left for me," he continued. "I have no place in this new world you're all building, no function—"

"That's not true!" I said harshly. "They wanted you, Terzian! It was you they wanted to run Megalithica for them, not me. I was second choice. You would have had Galhea for eternity then and you could have made it bigger and better; nothing would have been denied you. You are a fool! When you say you have no function, that's just a self-indulgent complaint. You were never one for self-pity before, Terzian!"

"Well, maybe I am now!" he answered with equal venom. "Anyway, do you think I wanted to be another kitten chasing bits of wool that Thiede would kindly dangle for me? No thank you. I am my own master—"

"Liar!" I cried. "What about Ponclast?"

"That was different."

"Rubbish!"