The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure (6 page)

Ulaume unwrapped the sheet and found the child wore a talisman on a leather thong around its neck. The leather was wet as if it had been chewed. The talisman, however, was Kakkahaar, a symbol of protection, stiff herbs bound with horse-hair, wrapped in a leather scrap. Ulaume stared at this talisman in disbelief. He knew there was only one Wraeththu child this could possibly be and yet it made no sense. Had he intruded upon some kind of ritual and soon shamans would emerge from the desert to chase him off? He looked around himself, saw only empty desert. The camp was some miles away. That left only one conclusion. The harling had been abandoned here deliberately. So what was wrong with it that the tribe would expose it like this? Everyhar had been so excited about the hatching – too excited, in Ulaume’s opinion. Tentatively, he picked the harling up, holding it beneath its arms. It squirmed in his hold, uttering a series of trilling calls, like those of the desert birds, the little hoppers that pecked insects from the scrub. Its legs dangled and kicked. It expressed a robust cry, like a command.

‘Shall I eat you?’ Ulaume said again and snapped his teeth at the harling.

In response, it laughed, or perhaps it was just another animal sound. Ulaume knew he could not kill and eat the child, but what else could he do with it? Just walk away? He put down the child and stood up. It would be difficult enough to feed himself, never mind a helpless harling and yet it was impossible to ignore the instinct inside him that clamoured to protect the infant. It was a gut deep, ferocious feeling, all teeth and snarls.
Must be a female thing
, Ulaume thought, but it didn’t help the situation. The coyote was circling the pair of them, her head low, her tongue lolling.

‘No meat for you either,’ Ulaume said, and considered picking up another stone.

The harling, who’d been lying on its back, scrambled onto its belly as Ulaume spoke and before he could blink was crawling at preternatural speed towards the loping coyote. Small stones were thrown up in its wake.

‘No,’ Ulaume said, reaching down to grab the harling. He couldn’t believe the child could crawl this fast if it had only hatched hours ago.
What are we?
he thought.
Animals?
He thought of calves and foals, which could walk virtually as soon as they fell from the womb.

The harling adeptly avoided Ulaume’s hands and he stopped trying to catch it. It seemed to know what it was doing. The coyote was standing absolutely still, her ears pricked. The harling halted a couple of feet away from her and Ulaume could hear it sniffing the air. Then it advanced once more and, reaching the animal’s side, groped upwards with tiny hands. It pulled itself to its feet, gripping the coyote’s fur.

Ulaume shook his head in delight and surprise. ‘So, the next best thing to being brought up by wolves,’ he said. In that moment, he thought he had found a kindred soul.

The harling had nuzzled into the coyote’s belly and had begun to suck milk from her noisily, while the animal stood passively, allowing it. If Ulaume had instincts, so did the child, an instinct to survive so strong, it coloured the air around it pure gold. So strong, it knew about mother’s milk, even though, in the normal scheme of things, it would never have tasted it.

Chapter Four

On the day that Cal returned to Saltrock, the air, the very earth, writhed with omens. Pink-edged grey clouds clustered in the sky at mid-day, lightning stitched through them that never hit the ground. The sun was a gloating eye, peering blindly through the boiling heavens. A group of crows attacked a calf and pecked out one of its eyes. Dogs howled as if a full moon soaked them in lunatic radiance and had to be tied up, while cats fled to the rafters in the attics of every completed house and crouched in the spidery shadows, hissing, their fur erect along their spines. Ghosts walked the rough main street of the town, although only a few hara could see them.

Seel put all this down to the strange weather, although Flick knew better and believed that Seel did too. He wanted to say, ‘It’s coming, whatever it is,’ but Seel wouldn’t hear it. He was clinging with all his strength to a mundane life, as if Wraeththu life could ever be that. Flick pitied him. Hara wanted to go to the Nayati and pray. They wanted ritual, to appease the gods, but Seel wouldn’t hear of that either. He marched around the small town, growling orders, inspecting work, his hair livid in the peculiar light. Orien did not emerge from his dwelling at all.

Ever since the episode of Orien’s trance, Flick had felt as if life was on hold. He could barely breathe sometimes. After their argument, Seel had made a great and obvious effort to be less grouchy, but the strain of it was clearly wearing him out. Everyhar was terrified and didn’t know why. Hara approached Flick, because he was the most approachable and close to Seel, but he couldn’t tell them anything. They thought he lied to them, and perhaps he did, but there were no words to express what he felt. It was as if the whole of Wraeththu history, such as it was, had only been a preamble to what was going to happen next. How could he tell hara that, when the obvious question to follow it would be ‘And what
is
going to happen?’ Flick didn’t know the answer. Orien might, but he had become reclusive. Many times, Flick had knocked upon his door and been ignored. He had shouted, pleaded, but had received no response. Time and again, the thought ‘He’s preparing to die’ flashed through Flick’s mind, but he pushed it away. Thinking those words made them real; it was the worst magic. Flick realised how special Orien was to him. This was the har, after all, who had led him from the ruins of his human life to a new existence in Saltrock. This was the har who had incepted him, and had always been there for him. Flick wished he could help now, but it was clear that Orien had decided to shut the world out.

So on this day of doom, Flick rode his grey pony, Ghost, out alone beside the soda lake. Leaving the creature to nibble furtively at dry scrub, Flick clambered up one of the spiky crags to gaze out at the eastern horizon, which was invisible in a milky haze. He had come to this place many times with Pell, when Pell had been silent and tense, staring without blinking into the future, which of course had lain to the east.

Flick said aloud, ‘Is this to do with you, Pell? Are you trying to tell us something?’

And a ghost Pell beside him, who existed only in his mind, said, ‘You know that I am.’

‘Then speak plainly.’

‘You have to imagine it, invent it. You know that.’

Flick sighed and rubbed at his eyes, feeling the weight of the eerie sky pressing down upon him. The back of his neck felt hot, as if somehar breathed upon it. He could imagine hands hovering above his shoulders and almost reached up to find them, pull whoever they belonged to through into this reality, but then he thought he heard a gasp behind him and opened his eyes quickly. The sensation of presence vanished and the world seemed stark and raw and without spirit.

A horse was stumbling towards Saltrock along the dusty eastern road. Its head hung low in exhaustion and a shapeless figure was slumped upon its back. The clop of the horse’s hooves echoed in the wide cup of the mountains. Birds rose from the caustic bath of the lake in a shimmering throng. Flick got to his feet and put his hands around his eyes to focus on whoever, or whatever, approached. He heard Ghost whinny softly below – a sound of alarm – and jumped down from the rock. He was aware of a sense of relief. This was it. At last.

He mounted the pony and urged it towards the approaching horse, which lifted its head and found the energy to prick up its ears. Its rider seemed asleep in the saddle.

‘Hoi!’ Flick called.

At the sound of his voice, the horse came to a halt. Flick could see the rider wore a wide-brimmed hat. His body was wrapped in a dusty, colourless cloak. Flick jumped down from his pony. The rider was motionless; there were flies around him. Could he be dead? Flick remembered instances of disease being brought unwittingly into Saltrock. Perhaps he should be cautious. Scanning the ground, he found a thin black stick and used this to poke the rider in the leg from a short distance. The body twitched and slowly the rider raised his head. Flick saw smouldering violet eyes gazing down at him from a filthy face. He felt paralysed, even though at first he did not recognise who he was looking at.

‘Flick.’ The voice itself was dusty, like that of a revenant, full of earth. It was dead, without inflection.

Flick didn’t say anything. He was thinking of hauntings and curses, and wondered whether he should just leap back onto his pony and gallop hell for leather back to town.

The rider took off his hat, revealing flattened white-gold hair that the dust had not touched. ‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Great gods!’ Flick cried. ‘Cal.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say. This was too unbelievable, and surely no coincidence given what had happened a few weeks before.

‘I had to come back,’ Cal said.

‘Well… well it’s good to see you,’ Flick said insincerely. He frowned. ‘Where’s Pell?’ He looked around, which was ridiculous, because the landscape was so empty. ‘I was just thinking of him.’

Cal smiled sweetly and said in a matter of fact tone, ‘Oh. Dead.’

‘What?’ Flick’s voice was a squeak. ‘How? Why?’

‘It’s what I’m here to find out,’ Cal said. ‘This is the end of the path.’

It didn’t feel real, Pell being dead. It wasn’t real. Flick couldn’t believe what he’d heard, sure that he’d have felt it in the fibre of his being if it were true. But something had happened. Something. ‘Come to Seel,’ Flick said. ‘I’ll take you.’

‘I know the way,’ Cal said. ‘You know I do.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Flick said, but they were just words.

‘Everyhar
will
be,’ Cal said.

Flick smiled nervously and clambered back on to his pony. He fought an urge to hurry. It was clear that Cal’s horse was at the end of its strength, as was its rider. Cal looked as if he’d fought a battle and lost. He should be dripping blood. Flick had a water bottle with him, containing a small measure of warm stale liquid. This he offered to Cal, who declined it.

‘What happened?’ Flick asked, fully prepared for Cal not to answer him, because he was used to his questions being ignored. ‘
Where
did it happen?’

‘Near Galhea,’ Cal said. ‘Pell was shot there. I had to burn…’

‘No,’ Flick said. ‘This can’t be true. It can’t.’

‘Then please tell me it isn’t and be right,’ Cal said, dead-pan.

That was when Flick realised it must be true after all. His friend was dead. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘It can’t be.’

‘It is,’ Cal said. ‘A mark was put on him, and it was seen, recognised. Just a nobody. A human. But they might as well have been a god.’

‘But… but how?’

Flick wanted to say, well, weren’t you there to protect him? Didn’t he have Kakkahaar magic behind him?

‘I want to know, Cal said. ‘It is my only purpose now. It’s why I’m here.’

‘You think Orien can help?’

Cal was silent, his face grim. He thought Orien could help all right.

‘Things have changed,’ Flick said. ‘Orien had a strange turn. He hardly comes out now. He won’t speak to me.’

Cal still did not speak. If he’d been damaged before, he was clearly ruined now. Flick was anxious to turn this casualty over to Seel. ‘Perhaps that’s when it happened,’ he said, thinking aloud.

Cal glanced at him.

‘When Orien had his turn. Perhaps that was when Pell died. A week or so before the winter solstice?’

Cal closed his eyes briefly. It seemed he’d lost the ability to speak.

‘I think Orien saw it,’ Flick said. ‘He saw death that night.’

Seel was not yet home when they reached the house. Flick told Cal to go on inside while he saw to the horses, making sure Cal’s animal was given a full meal and clean water. He spent some time grooming the dusty coat, while the horse munched hay slowly. Flick didn’t want to go inside, not yet. He felt numb, yet light-headed. Was this grief or shock or both?
Pell’s dead.
They were just words. They didn’t mean anything. It still didn’t seem real. Cal’s horse sighed and shuddered. It was too thin, its eyes dull. It seemed without hope, eating because instinct made it do so, not because it wanted to live.

Cal was sitting at the kitchen table when Flick eventually steeled himself to go into the house. He had taken off his cloak, revealing an emaciated body from which his clothes hung loosely. His face, though still striking, looked like a grimy skull that somehar had dug up. He had clearly been rooting around the pantry, because he was drinking wine from the bottle. His hands did not shake. They looked strangely strong against the green glass, strong and tanned, the fingers long.

‘Are you hungry?’ Flick asked.

‘No.’ Cal took a drink. ‘Where is he?’

‘Oh… out and about. He’ll be home soon, or do you want me to go and look for him?’

‘I mean the other one.’

‘In his house I expect,’ Flick said. ‘Do you want me to take you there?’

Cal shook his head, grimaced. ‘I want a bath.’

‘Good, yes,’ Flick said. ‘I’ll see to it.’ He was relieved to leave the room. After he’d run the bath, he’d go and find Seel. He couldn’t cope with this.

Up in the bathroom, Flick sat on the edge of the bath and splashed one hand through the chugging water. His heart was beating too fast. His head was somehar else’s. The house was too quiet around him, and the air felt dank. He sensed a presence behind him and jumped in alarm. Cal loomed at the threshold, still clutching the bottle. He was a hideous lich, who had disappeared from the kitchen and manifested here spontaneously without a sound. Flick shuddered. He thought about Cal in the bath and about holding his head under the water. Perhaps that would be a mercy. ‘Nearly ready,’ he said. ‘I’ll go find Seel.’

‘Yes, do,’ Cal said. He put down the bottle and clawed off his clothes. Beneath them, his body was a skeleton barely covered by skin.

Flick swallowed with difficulty. They would need healers: an army of them.

Seel was in the Nayati, Saltrock’s temple. He appeared to be studying a joist, but Flick wondered whether he’d been praying. The cold glance that Seel shot towards him made him speak bluntly. ‘Cal’s here,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Cal’s here. He’s at the house. He says that Pell is dead.’

Seel stared at Flick with a burning gaze for some seconds. Then, without speaking, he ran from the Nayati in the direction of home. Flick was left alone. The air smelled of wood and pitch and dust. Many hara had been incepted here, Pell among them. It was a place of sacrifice and transformation. It was a place of truth. But nothing lived there, even though it was supposed to be the home of the Aghama, Wraeththu’s god. Flick sat down on the floor and thought,
I promised Pell I’d find his family, didn’t I? I never did. Do I find them now to tell them he’s dead?

There seemed no point. Pell had been dead to them for a long time.

For the rest of the day and the night that followed, Seel kept Cal in his room and didn’t come out. Flick could hear Seel’s voice, speaking softly, a sound that sifted down like dust through the layers of the otherwise silent house. Flick couldn’t hear the words, and eventually everything went quiet. He thought of Seel lying on his bed, holding Cal in his arms, his eyes full of pain. He thought maybe he should go to Orien’s house and shout through the door, tell him what had happened, but ultimately did nothing. No hara came to the house, perhaps because none of them had seen Flick taking Cal there. But the town outside was as hushed as the house. Flick realised that there was no need to go to Orien and tell him Cal was here because he would already know. He’d seen Pell’s death and hadn’t wanted to mention it, because Seel would have held himself responsible. It made sense now. Orien had spoken of his own death because it was easier. He’d made it up, anything to stop Seel’s questions. Was Cal’s arrival the beginning of making things better? It had to be. The climax had come and only healing could follow.

Cal and Seel appeared at breakfast together, which Flick had already prepared. He hadn’t gone to bed, but had slept a couple of hours before dawn on the sofa in the parlour. Cal looked better today, somehow sleeker, more filled out. Seel had no doubt spent the entire night creating this effect, filling Cal with the essence of his love. There was an understanding between them that Flick could feel against his skin. He could reach out and pinch it, if he wanted to. It was clear that Seel thought everything was going to be all right now. He had Cal back, minus Pell, and had the power to heal him. There could be no grand destiny for a dead har, so it was all over. They could begin again. Seel was modestly cheerful, while Cal looked like a romantic, grief-stricken lover who was finding solace and comfort in the arms of friends. They kept touching each other, small touches, an intimate language. Seel did not look at Flick once.