The Wraeththu Chronicles

by Storm Constantine

  The previous evening, I had sat in Gahrazel's room and watched him pack away his belongings, as if he would never return to Forever. He is truly adult now, I thought. His enthusiasm is contained, his fire quenched. I watched him cut off his hair and

  burn it. There were few times we could reach each other now. After all, I was still just a child. Perhaps I bored this new, sophiscated Gahrazel. The Varrs, the state of being Varr, had come between us.

  Not long after my father and his army had gone south, Cobweb and I celebrated my birthday together. Yarrow baked a big ginger cake, but no-one came to eat it with us. We sat in my room, drank sheh, and Cobweb cut my arm with a knife to take some of my blood. He made spells for my protection and put his hand on my face and said, "Some day soon, the animal sleeping inside you will wake up."

  I remember I made an angry, bitter noise. "And what will happen then?" I demanded. "What will happen when my body takes over and there is no-one to take hold of it?"

  Cobweb took me in his arms. "I would keep you as a child forever if I could," he said.

  At night, lying awake, I would think of my father and of Gahrazel, wondering what they were doing and if they thought of home. Then I would drift off to sleep and the dream presence would visit me, the wondrous eyes, the hint of alien breath. In the morning I would wake afraid, but at night, in the dark, I felt comforted.

  Sleeping late one morning, I was woken up by a female scream, coming from the Hall. Bryony's white face looked up at me when I leaned over the bannister, half dressed. "Swift, come quickly!" she cried.

  Cal had collapsed, halfway through eating his breakfast. When I saw him, my heart missed a beat. Could he be dead? Could we be free once more? But he moved in our arms as we carried him up the stairs to his room. When we laid him on the bed, he moaned and threshed, curling and uncurling as if poisoned. Cobweb? I wondered. Someone had sent for Phlaar and I was left alone with Cal, while everyone raced around the house as if the end of the world had come. (Already he was Forever's heart.) He opened his eyes and saw me standing there. I stared back haughtily into his twisted face. We know each other now, I thought.

  "Do you know what's happening to me?" he croaked.

  "No," I answered, "but whatever it is you deserve it!" I was uncomfortable, thinking how not long ago, I would have been soothing him or stroking his face, craving his attention. It would have felt natural to go and do that now, but I controlled myself. "How things change," I remarked cooly, walking over to the window, so that he could not affect me. I could hear him groaning softly. When I could resist no longer and turned to look at him, he was clutching his stomach. His face was damp.

  "Swift.. . don't hate me . .. please, not now." I began to speak, but he rolled around and shouted, "I need you! I need you! Swift!"

  Even as I went to him, I was thinking, Surely you're strong enough to resist this?

  His face was hot and wet between my hands; he was weeping. "You are witness to a miracle," he said, and laid his head in my lap. I put my hand on his arm where it lay across his stomach.

  "What is it?" I asked. "Life, I think," he said.

  Cal was in torment for two days while his body sought to expel the pearl that would become Terzian's son. Phlaar did not seem unduly concerned about Cal's condition, and I shuddered to think that this agony was normal.

  Only Cobweb had no interest in this momentous birth. Everyone else in the house was fascinated. Someone had to sit with Cal all the time as he struggled feverishly with his body. Phlaar would not risk leaving him alone, because sometimes he got violent and Phlaar was afraid he would try to damage himself. Bryony was particularly intrigued by Wraeththu birth, for the bearing of life had previously been a female prerogative to her. Near the time, when everyone was sitting up all night waiting for news, Bryony took me to the kitchens. We curled up in the darkness next to the stove,

  drinking strong, sweet coffee and talking of the mysteries of life. How intrigued she was (without actually saying so) about the secrets of Wraeththu physiology. I evaded her subtle questions for it was something I preferred not to think too deeply about. Not so Bryony. She explained with great candor a lot about woman kind and how their bodies worked.

  Then I learned about human procreation, so similar in some ways to our own, yet so different in others.

  "The whole rotten business has been drastically improved in Wraeththu," she said. "I can see that, and it takes so little time. It's so unnoticeable. Women do not have it so easy. Oh no! We have to lumber around for months, growing and growing. It's something I've never cared for . . ."

  Human reproduction did seem messy to me, and how inconvenient to have to look after such a helpless creature for so long. (No teeth, no hair!) Like little rats, I thought. I had seen Mareta's kittens take milk, but it seemed inconceivable that intelligent beings could be brought up the same way. What if they were separated from their mothers? How would they survive? Did many babies die?

  During those strange gray hours before the dawn it was my turn to sit with Cal. "It will be soon," he said to himself and clenched his fists along his sides.

  "Cobweb will hate me for this," I said, hoping to make him smile.

  Cal barely recognized me and kept calling me Pell. "I've always lied to you!" he said. "You don't even know me, not really, but in spite of all that I've done ... I do love you, Pell."

  I sat beside him. He looked weak and helpless. His body was merciless; the personality was irrelevant at this time. His mind, set free, wandered at random. "Cal, you're a wicked, wicked person, but enchanting all the same!"

  He did not hear me. "Pell, do you remember. .. that time ... when was it? When I found you. Oh, there's something I've always longed to tell you . . . about the first lie, and it's so important... I must tell you!"

  I put my hands on his face. "Hush, I'm not Pell. Be quiet." He tried to shake free of me.

  "You must hear this, you must!" he whined pettishly. "It's important, because I mustn't lie to you any more. I want you to know everything . . . about Zack ..."

  "Zack? Who's Zack?"

  "You know . . . have you forgotten? Years . . . years . . ." He lay back on the pillows, his eyes searching the ceiling frantically. "I told you he was dead, didn't I? I did say that, didn't I? Well, it's not exactly... true. I don't know. Not when I went back for him ... he was alive then . . ."

  "What are you talking about?" I asked to humor him. "Who's not dead? Pellaz?"

  "No!" he said, as if angry with my stupidity. "Zack, before I met you. I ran away. I left him ... I told you he was dead. It was a lie." He closed his eyes.

  Thinking he'd be quiet for a while, I fetched a damp cloth and bathed his face. His eyes flickered, half open.

  "There is no-one on this earth more lovely than you," he said, his hot hand seeking to curl itself around my wrist.

  "Who, Pellaz . . . ?" I dabbed at his temples.

  "No, no, Pell's dead. I mean you, now that he's gone . . . it's you, even though you hate me . . ." He sighed. His voice sank. "Unbind your hair, all over me. Fill me with your perfume, let me taste you . . ."

  My hair grew only to my shoulders; I never braided it. Incensed, I threw the cloth back into the bowl of water and stood up, wrenching my wrist out of his hold.

  "Why can't you see me?" I complained. "I'm Swift and I'm alive and I don't hate you, at least, not at the moment."

  He looked confused. "Oh Swift," he said. "Yes . . . Swift. I was just thinking of a time, oh, it was along while ago, before I met Pell. I was with someone else. We were in trouble and I left him for dead. I could have helped him, but then, maybe we both would have died. I had to save myself, don't you see? I told Pell I'd hurt my arm in a fall. Look . . ." He took my hand and ran my fingers over the long, white scar. "That was a lie as well. there was no fall, no. It was Zack's knife that did it. His curse and his knife thrown at me, while I saved my skin ... ah well."

  At dawn he was wholly lucid, the fever had gone, but his breath came quickly. "Fetch Phl
aar!" he cried. "Quickly!" When I reached the door, I heard his voice behind me. "Don't come back in here, Swift."

  They took the pearl from him and it was black and gleaming with the essence of his body. I saw them carry it down the hall like a holy relic. It was tested for life and washed. I wanted to look but they made it clear I was in the way, so I wandered back to Cal's bedroom to find him lying drained and relieved among the pillows.

  "So, it's over," I said.

  "Yes, it is." After a moment, he laughed quietly to himself.

  I wanted to know how much it hurt him.

  "Quite a lot, I suppose," he said, "But the memory of pain fades so quickly. It wasn't as bad as I thought . . ."

  "You are pleased," I observed, conscious of a vague kind of prickly, edgy feeling within me.

  "I'm pleased that it's over, certainly," he replied, but I knew it was more than that. His eyes were alight.

  Not long afterwards, they brought the pearl back to him. It appeared to have nearly doubled in size already and its surface seemed to have toughened over. Now Cal would have to incubate it with the warmth of his body. He will hate this, I thought, he hates having to lie around. But he curled himself around it like a great, contented cat and closed his eyes. I once came from a thing like that, I thought. It was disorientating to think about it, so I chanted three words of terrible power to empty the mind and went down into the garden to think of other things.

  We had had no news of my father. Rumors reached us, of course, but we guessed that most of them were untrue. From one source we heard that the Varrs had successfully exterminated the Gelaming with little effort, the Kakkahaar allies wreaking havoc with their elemental force. From elsewhere, we heard that Terzian had been defeated and been taken prisoner, that Thiede now held him in Phaonica, subjecting him to torture, and that the Gelaming were marching on Galhea. It was said that they also possessed vehicles that ran without fuel and vomited demonic flames capable of incinerating whole cities. The Varrs had no fuel for vehicles. We knew that in the north, Ponclast had some kind of wide, black car that growled like a tiger, but his fuel conserves were precious and the car was only used on ceremonial occasions or to ferry Ponclast to executions of particular interest. Swithe told me that not all of the Earth's natural resources had been depleted, but that it would be a waste of time for us to try and go back to the old ways. "Now is the time for Wraeththu to seek a new way, a new source of power," he said excitedly. "Maybe the Gelaming have already found it.

  The less time spent fighting and squabbling over land, the more time we have for research, for rebuilding!"

  I studied hard, using books from Terzian's library, marvelling at the sparkling metal cities that men had left behind them, touching the photographs. Had it all gone forever, this world of metal and glass? Gahrazel had once told me that the land was growing back over the cities of men, that vines had dragged down the buildings that once reached toward the sky. Often, he had said, only the creepers still stood, with stems as thick as oak trunks. Inside the cage of leaves, the buildings had crumbled away already.

  "Things changed rapidly during the last forty or fifty years of man's rule," Moswell explained loftily.

  "Perhaps they advanced too quickly for their own good; their minds could not keep up with their technology. They lost control so that they craved extinction and sought depravity. In truth, men became demented by ennui, unnerved by so much leisure time, driven feral by lack of money. Their brains had been neglected for centuries, their spiritual lives were barren; they could no longer create through thought. Is it any wonder they turned on each other and their environment?"

  I could not accept this explanation without question. It was too easy for Moswell to stand there and say all that, but I knew he had missed so much out. I wanted to know how Wraeththu had begun and what had made us happen. Was it a Grand Design or just a grand and cynical joke, or even merely an accident? Were we fooling ourselves that we were created to inherit the Earth?

  Bryony was not so confused and she talked more sense than Moswell. As she was human herself, I valued her opinions and wanted to know how she felt about what had happened to her people. Had she looked for reasons? Her father, a devoutly religious man, had thought that most men were disgusting and selfish and godless, and that Wraeththu had been sent by God to punish them for their sins. Bryony said that she shared this belief to a degree, but she was not so sure about the wholly religious aspect. Perhaps humankind had just worn itself out. Her people had been seeking the Gelaming because everyone considered them to be the Great Saviors who had come to make everything better. Gelaming were thought of as the true Wraeththu, the pure strain. The Varrs and their like were considered deviants from this. Perhaps this was true. I lacked objectivity, I know, because I had never met any Gelaming, but one thing I was sure of: I felt very strongly about anyone coming to take our lands away from us, whatever their reasons.

  "But it is not your land!" Bryony protested. "It belongs to everyone! Can't you see how wrong it is for your tribe to kill anyone they feel is weaker than themselves? They are in the position to be charitable, but no! They enjoy killing and making people suffer. They want slaves and sport . . . and worse!"

  I couldn't be bothered to argue. I still thought the Gelaming were interfering and hypocritical.

  "You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen," Bryony said in a low, dark voice, "and yet now, I work for a leader of Varrs looking after his house, feeding his family. I should be ashamed of myself!"

  "Run away then!" I snapped. "Go back to the wilderness. Take your chances there with a clear conscience!"

  Bryony looked at me helplessly. "Don't think I haven't considered that," she said bitterly, "But the truth is, I like it here. I've found a home. I like you all. I'm treated well and I'm trusted with a position of responsibility. What's worse is that I've earned that trust. Me, a woman! Many would see me as a traitor to my race."

  "You are like us then," I said, "Like Swithe, Like Gahrazel was before, like me, even. We philosophize about the state of the outside world and we argue and rant, but

  Forever is still our home and it keeps us safe. We don't want to go out there into the cold and do anything!"

  "Forever is an enchanted place," Bryony observed wryly.

  Just over a week after Cal had suffered delivery of the pearl, its shell became brittle, almost transparent, and a young, mewling har burst it asunder from within and crawled out into the world. So, Terzian had missed the hatching of his new son. He could have delayed riding south to be with Cal at this time, but to a Varr war always comes before life.

  I had been out with Ithiel when the great event occurred. Ithiel always look me with him when he went about his duties, for he understood how I would have to learn about the administration of Galhea. We could talk together freely now and I came to realize why my father placed so much trust in him. Ithiel was thorough and economic and diplomatic in his dealings with other hara. He always introduced me as Tiahaar Swift, never Terzian's son. That day, when we got back to Forever, in the haze of a beautiful evening, everything stained red and gold, Bryony was waiting for us on the steps of the house, peering down the drive, still wearing the long apron she was rarely seen in outside the kitchen. She had matured recently, I thought.

  "Where have you been?" she asked crossly. (We had paused in an inn on the way home for refreshment.) "You have a brother now, Swift."

  A brother. I hadn't thought of it that way before. Cal was in the drawing room waiting for me. He didn't have the harling with him. The room was cold: it did not seem the place I had grown up in. "Ah, Swift," Cal said when he saw me.

  "Congratulations!"

  He smiled at my sarcasm. "Would you tell Cobweb that I'd like to speak to him?"

  "Do you give the orders here now, then?"

  "Would you ask him then?"

  "You're wasting your time!"

  "Maybe, maybe. Just ask him."

  We looked at each other for a moment. Cal's face w
as inscrutable.

  "Alright," I said. "But I'm warning you. Direct contact like this might provoke him into further unpleasantness."

  "His unpleasantness is exhilarating!" Cal replied.

  Cobweb was still punishing me in subtle ways for restoring my friendship with Cal. I was not sure how he would receive my news. On hearing Cal's request, he rose from his window seat and went to the mirror. "What for?" he asked, and it was impossible to tell whether anger or suspicion colored his voice.

  I shrugged. "He didn't tell me, but I said it was a waste of time asking you anyway."

  Cobweb slunk over to his table and aimlessly shuffled piles of paper in his hands. He was silent, but his silence lacked character.

  "What shall I tell him?" I asked. "How shall I tell him to go to hell?"

  "He asked for me?"