"And what's kept up there?" I asked lightly. "A mad consort of Jafit perhaps? A deranged kanene?"
"What do you mean?" Astarth responded frostily.
"Well, you have to admit, it does rather look as if something's being . . . kept in up there, or hidden at least. Very gothic, Astarth, a nice touch."
My laughter did not amuse him however. His face had assumed a curiously blank expression.
"You must be tired, Calanthe. Sleep is what you need now, I think," he said, and the door was firmly closed.
That first night in Piristil, I succumbed to an exhausted slumber, stretched out on the floor in Astarth's room. In the morning, I awoke with my feet uncovered, freezing cold, my neck complaining fiercely because I'd rolled off the pallet in the night and slept on the hard floor. Across the room, I could see Astarth looking blissfully comfortable, up to the ears in thick quilts, his head buried in a mound of white pillows. As soon as I looked at him, he woke up. He has the instincts of a wild animal.
"Well, I'm glad you look different. You were telling the truth, it seems. You are beautiful," he said.
Normally, such words would be taken as a compliment, but Astarth delivered them without feeling. Nothing for me to work on there!
"You will never catch me lying," I said.
Astarth ignored this remark. "At least your training will be that much more pleasurable, well bearable, for me. As a rule, ugliness revolts me," he said profoundly. His conceit amused me. Piristil was certainly a little world of its own.
"Training," I said, without inflection, somewhat affronted, somewhat amused. I didn't know Astarth's age, but I estimated that he was anything between thirty and fifty years younger than me; a second generation Wraeththu har. "It will be interesting to see what you can teach me." The matter would clearly have to be dealt with on a scientific basis. Astarth didn't answer. Secure as a princeling of his own little kingdom, he sat up in the bed and lifted aside the curtains to glance out of the window. "Rain again," he said. "Well, what a surprise!"
"I would like to live in a warmer country, but Jafit thinks I would find it uncomfortable," he continued vaguely. "Orpah will be bringing our breakfast in soon. You'd better dress. You don't want the servants seeing you in that state."
I groaned and lifted my cursing body off the floor. Astarth brushed me with a fleeting glance.
"Oh, scars," he said.
"A few. Will that increase or decrease my value?"
"Neither."
"I hope I'm not going to regret any of this," I said, in a cheerful tone, pulling a shirt over my head.
"Hmmm," Astarth said.
"Have you?" I asked. "Regrets I mean . . ."Astarth stared at me. I had offended him, asked a question he did not want to answer. I put up my hands in a gesture of apology.
"I don't intend to stay in this place for long," I said. Astarth was silent. He rose from the bed, crossed to the mirror, touched his face, stretched.
"Jafit is impressed by you," he said.
/ am Uigenna. This is the tribe that took us in. Uigenna. We had no way of knowing one tribe from another; we did not know they have different beliefs, different ways, different breath. Inception was ghastly. A fire-lit cellar, leaping flame shadows on the walls, a stink of filth. Inception room. Their hienama wore feathers and fur, stripes daubed across his face and chest. He took glass, a shard of glass in his hands. Someone held me down. I felt the painless, sickening kiss of sharpness against weak flesh. A transfusion of Wraeththu blood. We 'd heard it was something like that. Hienama and me. His blood into my veins, humanity dripping out of me onto sand and sawdust, with a halo of whimpering. I heard Seel crying, far away, nearby, in my head. Yes, in my head. Seel would not accept inception to this tribe. I had already made up my mind. The past was powerless to persuade me otherwise, whether through love or hate. Even in my pain and fear, I did not regret. Not once. Not ever. For the next few days, whilst my body churned and changed, it was that one, fierce thought that kept me alive. It was what I wanted. I would face death to get it; and I did. And now is the time ...
Now is the time for this virgin body to flower. I have arisen, shining, from althaia to a waiting hunger. The leader of this Uigenna tribe is known as Manticker the Seventy. This is because he once slew seventy armed human soldiers in one frenzied outburst. I can believe it. He is scarred and muscled, his femininity betrayed by his temper, his inner strength. I have only been here for a short while, yet already it is clear Manticker is being rivalled for control of the tribe. His contender is one Wraxilan, a great favorite of the warriors. He is rash and careless, but fearless and strong and quick. He carries few scars. His blond hair is shorn at the sides of his head, but as the rest of it is so thick, he still carries a splendid mane. He is also known as the Lion of Oomar, which is how our branch of the tribe is named. Wraxilan has the broad shoulders of a man, the slim hips of a dancer, the hands and neck of a graceful Amazon, the shapely legs of a whore. He laughs nearly all the time. Like all the others, I am passionately intrigued by him. Slightly afraid, yes, but that is a wise precaution. Now, I lie waiting in the straw, by the light of a single candle, in a dank cellar. I am waiting for the one who will come to me, awaken my new, female crevices, seal the pact that I have made with Wraeththu. As he comes toward me, it is his hair that I recognize first. "You," I say, and in my voice I hear the echoes of welcome and fear.
"You think I would let anyone else have you, Cal?" he answers, smiling. "You're the best we've had for a long time. Lie back. I will make this good for you."
The Lion of Oomar. He says, "I am your first. You must remember this. " "No," I answer, "you are not the first. It was Seel. "
He laughs and cups my chin with his hand, squeezes hard. I wince.
"No, my darling, that was before. All that is gone, do you hear? I am your first. Me!" As he says that, he plunges into me. Ouana-lim, the phallus of Wraeththu. Bone and petals, with the tongue of a snake. He enjoys my weeping. He licks the tears from my face, and even in pain, I cannot resist the rising delight of aruna. That is the way of it. Irresistable. At the end, he takes my head in his hands once more.
"What am I?" he asks, and through a haze of tears, half-delirious, I say, "You are the first. The first."
"And will you ever forget that?"
"Never. I swear it. Never."
He pushes me back into the straw. Stands up. Rearranges his clothes. As I lie there with tears falling down my face into the straw, I can hear him whistling as he strolls away from me .
Breakfast in Piristil is necessarily a light meal. This is because most kanene rise late in the morning and the mid-day meal follows soon after. It is customary for most of the kanene to meet at lunchtimes, in the dark and elegant dining room on the ground floor. Astarth told me I could use his cosmetics until I had some of my own.
"Is it really necessary at this time of day?" I asked.
"It is always necessary," Astarth replied in a stony voice. "You had better get into the habit of it quickly."
He was strangely modest about displaying his body and even reprimanded me about my own carefree attitude toward nakedness. "Your body is the tool of your trade," he said. "Get used to the idea that it is to be flaunted only in the presence of paying clients. If you like, this is a psychological exercise in maintaining a certain mystery about what we do."
I did not bother to argue. It was a minor point.
About an hour later, we heard the chime of a gong from downstairs. "That is for lunch," Astarth said. "Come on. Hurry up." I was still fighting with my hair in the mirror, not possessing Ezhno's quick knack of arranging it. I followed Astarth downstairs. It is quite amusing how the kanene look upon themselves as creatures of quality. All day, they maintain this genteel code of manners and behavior that would have been more at home in an upper-class girls' boarding-school of perhaps a century before. They are obviously not blind to their station in life, hence the need for a pretense of class and etiquette. Downstairs, I was formally introduced to th
e other kanene. Several of them were natives of the fabled land of Jaddayoth. Salandril and Rihana, languid creatures, came from the cat-worshiping tribe of Kalamah in eastern Jaddayoth; Yasmeen, Nahele and Ezhno from the gregarious Hadassah; and a gaunt, forbidding-looking creature named Flounah from the Maudrah.
After polite greetings, I took my place at the table, between a delightful imp named Lolotea and Ezhno. Of course, as before, the usual ways of starting a conversation were taboo, and it seemed my presence inhibited the sharing of gossip, so I opted for a safe subject, and one in which I had a deep interest: Jaddayoth. Nobody was loath to talk about it. I learned that there are twelve tribes of Jaddayoth and, from what I could gather, they were all equally eccentric in one way or another. Most of them had formed from groups splitting off from the Gelaming, who wanted to develop their own brand of Gelaming philosophy and lifestyle, whilst others had grown from bands of refugees fleeing Megalithica at the time of the Varrish defeat. Of course, during that time, many hara were reluctant to live under Gelaming rule. This would, naturally, have meant their giving up such practices as murdering, looting, raping and conquering, and most of the hierarchy of the Varrs and their chief allies, the Uigenna, did not welcome the prospect of a world of peace and plenty. Their rituals were too steeped in the previously mentioned depravities for that. In Jaddayoth, such a vast and empty place, they had been able to hide and lick their wounds, eventually emerging as new tribes. The Gelaming, true to their all-powerful reputation, do keep a cursory eye on what goes on in Jaddayoth. Several of the tribes are, in fact, still closely allied to Almagabra, but on the whole, it is still an unsupervised country, where new societies can blossom unmolested. All natives of Jaddayoth are surprisingly patriotic about the place, even those who, for dark and untold reasons, have obviously had to leave it, such as the kanene. Obvious too was the fact that Jaddayoth is a rising star in terms of affluence and trade. In Piristil, we eat Gimrah meat and vegetables off Hadassah plates. Our perfumes and cosmetics come from Kalamah, our oil and carpets from Emunah, our wine from Natawni. It didn't take long for one clear and radiant idea to settle within me. Once I'd saved enough of my immoral earnings, Jaddayoth was the place I'd go. Privacy and freedom; what more could I want?
After lunch, Astarth excused us both from the company and took me upstairs again. "Take a bath," he said. "The water should be hot now."
"Again?" I protested. One bath a month had been luxury to me for the past couple of years.
"Yes, again," Astarth replied. "I want you thoroughly clean, if you don't mind."
I thought, "Ah, training," and complied without further argument.
Sitting in a deliriously warm bath, soaking in bubbles and steam, I found a package of cigarettes on a reachable table, plus a couple of yellowed but professionally-produced newspapers. I lit a cigarette and lay back to examine one of the papers. It had apparently come from Maudrah. This was obviously the top cockerel in the pecking order of Jaddayoth tribes. I read with interest. It was mostly propaganda stuff; how marvelous the government was, etc. About every five sentences the name of the Archon cropped up. Ariaric, Lord of Oomadrah, first city of Maudrah. If ever an election was held in heaven, this Ariaric would definitely be confident enough to run a campaign against God. From what I read, he certainly seemed powerful enough. There were a couple of muddy photographs, showing an individual whose face held the same expression and air of potential destruction as the blade of an axe. I smiled to myself. Whiffs of Terzian, I thought. Astarth came bustling in.
"What are you doing in here? We haven't got all day!"
"Who is this character?" I asked, dripping soapy water all over the paper.
Astarth took it from my hands and wiped it. "Ah, Ariaric," he said. "I've only been in Maudrah once. I've never actually seen him in the flesh."
"Now there's someone I would like to meet!" I declared with relish, putting my arms behind my head, blowing a series of smoke-rings at the ceiling. "He sounds just my type. Rich and powerful."
"And complete with royal consort," Astarth added sharply. "You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, Calanthe, I'll say that."
"Certainly not. I am perfectly at home in royal houses."
"Yes, well, you're not in a royal house now! You are a lowly kanene, that is all. It might interest you to know that Ariaric's consort Elisyin is a har of the Ferike tribe, whose wit, charm, intelligence and breeding transcends all others. You think you will ever get to Maudrah? Ha!" He laughed coldly. "You think you'll ever get near such hara as the royal family of Ariaric? You are mad, Calanthe. Chances are you'll never see the outside of Thaine!"
"OK, OK, don't distress yourself," I said, rising from the water. Astarth stonily handed me a towel.
Obviously, I had hit a raw spot. It didn't take much to work out what that was. Bitterness. Astarth looked around the four walls of that bathroom as if they were a prison. Perhaps they were.
He stalked coldly back into the bedroom while I dried myself. "Ill-humor!" I thought and expected a cold reception when I rejoined him, some moments later. He was sitting on his bed, pensive in the gray afternoon light. A winsome sight. He looked up and saw me. "Come here," he said, and held out his hand. I took this as an apology for his sharp words. "Well, let's see what you can do, Calanthe." I sat down beside him and he put his arms around me, for a brief second favoring me with the pressure of his bright head upon my shoulder. It was short-lived. The flavor of that afternoon in Piristil shall stay with me forever, I think. The damp air, the sound of rain on the windows, the half-darkness of a gray, hopeless day. Little warmth reached us from the fire. I had never partaken in such a passionless, empty coupling. Aruna should never be like that. Astarth seemed dead to pleasure, his mind buried deep within his head. There was no touching of souls, no sensation of shared thoughts; nothing. Confused. I tried to
change things, to bring us closer. It seemed so long since I had touched another har. I wanted it to be good. Astarth pulled my hair. "What are you doing?" he asked coldly. How those words, delivered so emotionlessly, stung is hard to convey. I had always come alive during aruna. Perhaps it is my outstanding ability. Perhaps that was why I thought I'd make a good kanene. I was wrong. Astarth and his kind are not proficient at aruna, no way. If sex is a machine, then kanene are good mechanics, but there is no way I will call what they do aruna again. It isn't. Now, I'm glad about that.
"It seems you have a lot to learn," Astarth told me resignedly.
"I'm not sure I want to," I replied. He smiled cynically.
"There are two types of pain. Pelcia and chaitra. Now I will teach them to you. Forget what you know. That is no use to you here. No use at all."
Pelcia is a corruption of the word pelki, which means violation. It involves learning how to put up a convincing resistance to the sex act. I must allow myself to be raped. Is that possible? Chaitra, simply, is the same service performed for a client. They want pain, whether delivered or received. That is what they pay for.
"Learn," Astarth said. "They don't know much. There are a hundred ways to deceive, a hundred short-cuts to the desired result. As long as they hear you squeal, they will be content."
I sat up in bed. I actually thought about leaving. Staring out of the window, I could see the depressing vista of Fallsend dropping away into a murky mist. Where could I go next? I had no money, no horse, not even any clothes of my own. It was the closest I had come to despair for a long time. Now, some of Astarth's bitterness when I'd been waffling on about going to Maudrah began to take on deeper meaning. I was trapped in a vicious circle. Unwelcome memories were coming dangerously close to the surface of my mind.
"Astarth, I have to think," I said. "All of this is going to take a little getting used to."
"Of course," he answered unctuously, as if we'd just been discussing a business venture of an entirely dissimilar kind. "Think all you want. I will see you later."
I wandered downstairs, looking for warmth, looking for company, and went into the sitt
ing room that led off the dining room. Only one other person was in there, sitting close to the fire. Once I'd shut the door behind me, cheerfulness invaded the room. "Hi there, come in. Sit down." It was Lolotea. I smiled dimly and sat down in the window seat, my knees up, my chin on my knees, brooding sourly at the yard beyond. "Hey," Lolotea said softly. He came and drew the curtains in front of my face. "Don't sit there. It's cold."
"Is it possible to be warm here?" I asked.
Lolotea didn't reply. He led me to the fireside and poured me a cup of coffee from a pot standing in the grate. He studied me for a moment. "In a week, you'll forget you ever felt like this."
"Like what?"
"Like the expression on your face. Don't worry. You'll get used to it. We all did."
The Wraeththu Trilogy Page 77
