The Wraeththu Chronicles

by Storm Constantine

  Sometimes, little Swift would escape from the vigilance of his attendants and creep into our room to chatter to us. He was a disarmingly attractive child and very precocious, but not annoyingly so. Cal studiously avoided contact with him, but I liked listening to his childish ramblings and would take him on my knee and tell him stories. It was almost disorientating to think that I held a creature who had not been born of woman or even heard of men. I had long since given up asking Terzian about Cobweb. He would never answer my questions and I did not like to try and ask Swift for fear of upsetting him. I often feared the worst. Perhaps Terzian was reluctant to admit that his celebrated physicians had failed in their ministrations for once.

  One evening, after we had been at Galhea for about two months, Terzian sent word to us that he would like us to dine with him in the house. When we went downstairs, we were served the usual sumptuous fare, but there was no sign of Terzian.

  "So what!" Cal declared. "Let's eat."

  We thought he must have been called away to deal with some of his clandestine business. He was forever disappearing from the house for some reason or another; sometimes for days at a time. There was an unusual tension in the air that night, and I remember remarking upon it to Cal. He had rubbed his bare arms and shivered, although there was a huge fire burning in the grate. We had just finished eating when the door opened and Terzian came into the room. He stood there, one hand gripping the door frame, just staring. Cal and I both jumped with surprise. It was obvious Terzian had been drinking and the very fact of it was chilling. He was normally so contained; his every action controlled and precise. I could not think of anything to say and Cal looked cynical. He half twisted in his seat, leaning back, waiting for Terzian to speak. For one brief instant I was crazily frightened for him. Cal bloomed under the right conditions; at that time he was second to none. Terzian knew that, and in his intoxicated state could not hide that he knew. He stepped forward unsteadily and leaned on the back of a chair. I could see he was trembling; it was terrifying.

  "Cal, I have to speak to you," he said. His voice was surprisingly steady. I noticed Cal's shoulders stiffen and I knew what went through his mind. His eyes kept flicking over to the door and back to Terzian. At any moment I expected him to make a run for it. Terzian guessed what he was thinking.

  "Cal, please," he said, very quietly. "Why are you afraid?"

  "Afraid?" Cal sounded dazed. I knew he feared Terzian, or more exactly, what Terzian might ask of him. I could not tell if that was a possibility or not. Terzian tore his gaze away from Cal to look at me.

  "Pellaz?" he said, in the same quiet, deadly voice. I pushed my chair away from the table and stood up. There was still a chance he did only want to talk.

  "It's OK," I said. "I'll leave you to your conversation. I was just going to go upstairs anyway." It sounded about as sincere as Lianvis at his worst. Cal glanced up at me quickly. I could not interpret his expression, but something said inside me, "He has been waiting for this." We both had

  I shut the door behind me and went quickly to our room. Everywhere seemed strangely empty. I kept repeating to myself, "We cannot be selfish with each other," but it was difficult for me. Cal and I were together nearly all the time. I remembered that night in the desert and a Kakkahaar incubus whose name I dared not guess. I remembered Cal's troubled eyes and the darkness he had sensed around me. It is not easy to be selfless in that way; it is almost unnatural, fighting against an inborn instinct.

  I ran myself a hot bath (the water was always hot there), and miserably misted myself up in it. We had heard that Terzian planned to make one more destructive venture into the countryside before the cold season got its claws into the land. I hoped he would leave soon. There was little left in this area for him to deal with. Come the spring, the Varr armies would trek north for some serious spring-cleaning amongst the colonies of humanity that still stubbornly held on to their lands. We had overheard talk about it. Cal and I had never seen the warrior quarters of the town but we had heard about it. One of our friends at the farm had told us that Terzian's fighters lived like kings; nothing was denied them. Sleek machines whose only purpose was to kill and make Terzian more powerful. But, of course, he had kept us away from all that. Whatever he thought of us, whatever purpose he had in mind for us, it was clearly nothing to do with the belligerent side of Varrish nature. He admired the way we looked and, I think, liked to have us around the house for that reason. His house was full of beautiful things. I had always known he liked Cal better than me; he never looked me in the eye. Now he had obviously decided to take his admiration for Cal one step further. There had been no hint of it before.

  The water had begun to cool and I lifted myself out, reaching for the ! thick, white towels, wandering back to the bedroom, drying my hair. I had let it grow back again on the side of my head, but still tried to keep it short there. I was still vain, but out of boredom more than vanity, I sat on a stool in front of the mirror and messed up my hair with a comb. Unplaited, it now reached my waist. For convenience, I had adopted the kakkahaar fashion of braiding my hair; there had been little opportunity on our travels of late for preening. Staring hard at myself at the mirror, I remembered thinking: you can be taken for a boy no longer. What you are is Wraeththu; male and female in one body. Then it was just an abstract, but now I know we are made of the hardest part of woman and the softest part of man. Is it any wonder then that we have to fight not to be cruel? Living in Galhea, my eyes began to open, my thirst for knowledge increase. "What lies outside, outside across the hills, the forests, the abandoned towns? Does enlightenment lie that way? Does Wraeththu shine with a different kind of light that way?" We are made in the image of the First, of the Aghama. If he still watches us, have we lived up to his expectations? I doubted it. Weary with a half recognized depression, I burrowed into my bed.

  Sometime, in the darkest part of the night, when everything wears its worst shadows, something woke me. I held my breath and hid under the bedclothes, suddenly conscious of the size of that huge, slumbering house, sentient in its hugeness. That someone, standing in my room unbidden, spoke my name, and it was not Cal. I did not answer. Again, "Pellaz." Soft, chiding; it was the voice of someone who saw me as a child, wrapped in the heart-coccoon of blankets. I felt the weight of someone sitting on the bed, and my skin prickled. (This house is so old, so many corridors . . .) I thought of a vampire face and hollow eyes. Many faces look that way in moonlight. "Pellaz, I know you're awake . . . look at me." The voice was

  familiar and I threw back the covers. At first, I did not recognize him and he said, "Yes, it's me. You look like you were expecting a ghost."

  "Looks like I've got one!" It was Cobweb. I could only just see him. The curtains were pulled tightly together at the window; very little of that pale light outside shone through. The room felt cold.

  "Let me in ... beside you . .." Did he think I knew nothing, that I had not heard the stories of how the night creatures can only harm you if you invite them in? There was only werelight and cold; I was not sure about him.

  "No.

  He sighed and stood up, reaching to turn on the lamp by my bed.

  "You look better," I said.

  "Mmmm." I noticed he still limped as he came back to sit on the bed.

  "Why are you here?"

  He made a short, bitter sound. "I have not thanked you for saving my life."

  His face was still too thin; the skin as white and flawless as ivory.

  "Terzian sent you." It was not too brilliant a deduction.

  "Well, yes."

  "You don't look too happy about it." He shrugged and wrinkled his nose, running his fingers nervously through his dark hair, looking fragile enough to break. "It's taken a long time to heal, has it?"

  He nodded. "Yes, a long time. I still get so fucking shaky, I hate it." He pulled at his hair again. "This house is so big, isn't it? I don't like it at night. Creeping along here, I felt like things were looking at me all the time. Lots of people
must have lived here . . ." He shivered.

  "You scared me."

  "It's easy to get scared here at night. Anyway, part of you is still living in that old desert, isn't it. Peasants live on creepy stuff; it's in you."

  "Oh, you've seen the sharp sticks under my pillow then?"

  "And the silver crucifix!"

  We were both silent for a while until I gave in and said, "OK, get in." He was wearing only a long, white shirt and felt as cold as death.

  "I wondered what had happened to you," I told him. "Terzian wouldn't tell me."

  He crept closer to my side and rested an icy cheek on my chest. "You're hot," he said. "No, you're cold. Are you sure you're not a ghost?"

  He laughed, "No, not sure. Stroke my back." I could feel every bone in his spine and was unsure whether it was attractive or repellant. He did look like a vampire. The ivory skin, the ebony, bruised-looking eyes; but he was not half as gaunt as the last time I had seen him. I put my hand to his face and tried to draw him toward me, but he pulled away. "No. Not that. It scares me."

  "Why? I don't breathe poison."

  "Everyone breathes poison. Poison of themselves. It makes me feel like I'm getting lost, all mixed up in someone else; and their breath is always stronger. What if I can't come out again? What then?" I remembered Ulaume and knew something of what he meant. "Terzian is like that," he continued. "Like a big, black cloud filling the sky in the shape of a wolf."

  I shuddered. "Cal . . ."

  "I know." He sounded resigned, and not a little bitter.

  Was it within me to warm away that kind of chill? Terzian had sent him to me and I wondered what had made him obey that order. In his position I wouldn't have done

  "I'm no substitute, am I, to either of you," he sighed.

  I had forgotten he could eavesdrop on other people's thoughts. I held his face in my hands; his jaw trembled. "You are still beautiful," I told him, "and so is your son. I've seen him."

  A faint cunning hardened his eyes. "Love me," he said.

  "There is no love!" I replied.

  "Oh, there is!" he said.

  Masculinity in progenitors is considered unaesthetic and they try to hide that side of themselves. Aruna was a great skill to Cobweb; he teased me effortlessly. I could not understand why Terzian did not appreciate what he had; wit, sensuality and grace, if a little skinny.

  "Why are you here?" I asked him. "With the Varrs, with Terzian. Why did you leave the Sulh?"

  He smiled ruefully. "Ah, well, it is a simple story. Imagine this: Your tribe are a nomad people; fierce, strong, but not rich. You have traveled down from the north to trade with the Varrs. (Your leader carries a message from the Uigenna; that was our visa.) Conditions are bad in the north. It is all dried blood and the smell of burning and horrible black birds everywhere. Galhea looks like heaven and it's full of angels; black angels. One of them, a king of angels, looks at you and suddenly, before you can wake up, your tribe have left town and you're living with a Har who's like the beast in the middle of the maze. At first you don't mind because he's so wonderful, so tall, gold-haired and viciously handsome. He also has a metal heart. He doesn't say much but he knows the right way to touch you. All he wants is sons; he is ouana, never anything else. He takes beautiful hosts for his seed; but of course, you haven't realized that. .." He sighed once more and I could feel his fingers flexing on my chest. "So there I am, Pellaz; innocent, wide-eyed, loving the warmth, the fine clothes, the rich food ... and then one morning, I wake up retching my guts out, feeling like the sky's falling in. Terzian is actually pleased! He has his staff carry me off to the kitchen table and in a red, red, spiky haze, I know they tear something out of me. It shouldn't have been like that; not that exactly. Something went wrong. God, did I shout! I screamed and swore at Terzian and he told me not to swear. There was blood on the table and he put his finger in it, right as he told me not to swear. I can remember that so well. They carted me back to my bed and fussed around my fever and poulticed my torn parts, and so I got better again. Sometime, about a week later, I think, they came and put Swift in my arms. I didn't know he was mine at first. God, there he is; I can still see him. Perfect. He ate meat from the beginning, like some kind of reptile. A demon child. I wake up again and again and again; it's always real. Once I was human, a human boy with a mother that called me in for my dinner and mussed my hair and called me 'honey.' Now I'm something else. Maybe I don't even look the same. But you know something, it's a powerful feeling, very powerful. To make life out of nothing . . . Terzian. ... if it wasn't for him, I could be happy, I guess."

  "Why aren't you angry?" I asked him. "Why stay here? You're treated like a slave!"

  He laughed at me again. "You're a real crusader, Pell. I'm lazy, really lazy. Don't feel sorry for me." "You're lonely."

  "Not really. Once I'm fit again, I'll start fighting. It takes time."

  "Fighting! For what? For Terzian?"

  "What else? He'll want other sons . . ."

  I could not understand him. "Terzian left you for dead with the Irraka," I said, and he turned his face away

  "You don't know what's best for me, Pell. I am the only progenitor he keeps in the house. I am worth something to him."

  In the morning, I could not face going to the farm and stayed in my room with Cobweb.

  "We are on different paths," he said.

  I braided his hair for him, fine as a child's. "You are a fool!" I told him.

  He only laughed. "Oh, go home, Pell. Sort the world out!"

  He brought us food from the kitchens. It was like stealing. It was like hiding from stern and serious things not yet to be faced.

  He said, "Cal will not be with you today," and I looked at him sharply, gut-cold. "Oh, you might see his body, later, but I know where his head will be. Far away. Somewhere deep in that wolfshaped black cloud I told you about. Up there." He pointed out of the window, where the sky was dark and heavy.

  "Cal is not like you!" I answered hotly. "He can't be mesmerised by anyone. He won't be sleeping until it's too late to wake up!"

  "You shouldn't have left him last night."

  "Why tell me this now?"

  "Because I'm a double agent." He put his hands on my face. "I may be wrong, of course, but I know Terzian. He ensnares people. Locks them away in that metal heart."

  I was filled with a cold, condensed kind of anger.

  "You can't kill him," Cobweb said. His cool, light hands slipped over my shoulders, down my back. "I am the chalice in the waters of forgetful-ness."

  "Perhaps you'd like to be!" I began to laugh. Cobweb had the power to make me forget. I couldn't see it. I should have searched the house, shouting, breaking the enchantment, but Cobweb made me forget. He was the web. He was the spider.

  When evening came to draw its shades over the day, I wanted to go downstairs. Cobweb pushed me backwards, back onto the bed, laughing, smiling. His mouth was hot upon my skin and that room became the whole world again. I was hungry. We had eaten hardly anything since breakfast. He said he would go down later. There would be cold meat left from the evening meal. I wondered whether Cal and Terzian had sat, one on each side of the table, to eat that night. Did they talk together?

  "Don't think about them," Cobweb whispered. Cobweb. My head was full of cobwebs. I should have gone down, fought the lethargy, thrown off Cobweb's spidery, wispy magic. But I could not leave him. He could not (would not) satisfy me. I wanted more and more and more. In the dimness, he became more beautiful, more full and the sensations he aroused in me were unimaginable.

  In the night, as Cobweb lay curled against my side, breathing evenly in contented sleep, the door opened. I was still awake, having slept for most of the day. I saw Cal walk into the room, without furtiveness, unenchanted, totally alert. He stood at the bottom of the bed, arms folded and slowly shook his head at me. He was smiling in his usual careless way; there was nothing different about him. After a stunned second or two, I hurled back the covers and threw myself at hi
m.

  "Cal, are you alright? Are you?"

  He held my shoulders, laughing. "Alright? What do you mean? Of course I am." He looked beyond me to Cobweb, who had awoken and was crouching like a cat amongst the wrinkled sheets

  "Get back to your master," Cal chanted to him in a soft, chilling voice.

  Cobweb's head went up. "You should not be here," he said.

  "I am here though, now get out. You've done your part."

  With dignity Cobweb hopped from the bed and went to the door. He had to get in one parting shot. "I don't know what you think you're doing Cal, but you won't get away that easily. And if you do, you'll be back some day."

  Cal made a noise that was half growl, half laugh and raised his fist. Cobweb closed the door behind him.