‘Far from it. Come with me to Almagabra, Seel, for that is where Immanion lies. It is a dream come true, and you must walk its streets to see for yourself.’
‘You’re asking me to leave Saltrock?’
‘I’m asking you to visit, that is all. You do not yet have to leave here permanently. You will have a few years to make the necessary arrangements.’
‘No,’ said Seel. ‘This is my home. I built it, and I intend to carry on building it. I don’t want any part of your schemes, your glamours. It’s over, Thiede. Forget Saltrock. Do what you have to, but leave us out of it. We played our part for you and look how it ended up. No more, I swear it. No more.’
Thiede laughed quietly, a terrifying sound. ‘I will not accept no for an answer, Seel. What harm will it do for you to visit the city? Have you no curiosity? I think you have plenty. You are merely being difficult for the sake of it.’ He paused. ‘And because you have no liking for me.’
‘True.’
Thiede leaned back in his chair. ‘Then I see we need more valuable currency to persuade you. Name it. Name your price.’
Seel gazed at Thiede’s face and realised, with incredulity, Thiede meant it. He would pay anything. Am I that valuable? Seel thought. Why? What does he really want of me? ‘Well, there is one thing,’ he said.
‘Name it.’
‘This is the cost for me to come and visit, nothing more. I will not be your plaything, Thiede. You have far too many of those already.’
Thiede inclined his head. ‘What is the price?’
‘Find Cal, punish him.’
‘That might not be easy.’
‘If you are so powerful, you can do it.’
‘Very well.’ Thiede held out his hand. ‘Do we have a deal?’
Seel stared at the hand, so much bigger than his own, yet elegant and attenuated. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Thiede withdrew his hand. ‘Then let’s eat whatever smells so tempting and afterwards return to Immanion. Are you prepared to see your vision of reality come crashing down about your ears? Believe me, after travelling the otherlanes and seeing Immanion, you will never be the same again.’
‘I am prepared to endure whatever you show me.’
Thiede laughed again. ‘I like you, Seel. I have great admiration for you. Perhaps in time you will come to view me as less of a monster.’
Seel glanced up at Stringer, who said, ‘I’ll serve dinner then, shall I?’
Seel reached for Stringer’s hand, squeezed it. ‘Please.’
Colt, who had said nothing the entire time, sat down opposite Seel. Without looking at Thiede, he said, ‘Tell him I will come with you. It’s not right you should go alone.’
Stringer set down a tureen on the table with force. ‘Colt, no!’
‘It’s not right,’ Colt said stubbornly. ‘Seel’s Saltrock’s heart. He shouldn’t be placed in danger.’
‘It’s all right,’ Seel said, but Thiede interjected.
‘Your friend is right. It would be a symbol of trust if more than one representative of Saltrock came to Immanion.’ He smiled up at Stringer. ‘Please don’t worry. He will be quite safe.’
‘I want to see it,’ Colt said. ‘If it’s real.’
‘You would be aghast at what is real nowadays,’ Thiede said and tasted his meal. ‘Mmm, I miss simple cooking.’
During the meal, Thiede informed Seel that two of his Gelaming guard would have to stay behind in Saltrock so that Seel and Colt could ride their sedim. The country of Almagabra lay on the other side of a great ocean, and it was necessary for Seel to use Gelaming transport to get there quickly. Seel was not entirely happy about Gelaming strangers remaining in Saltrock while he was gone. He wondered if, as Thiede’s agents, they would set about making changes and indoctrinating hara the minute his back was turned. Grudgingly, he offered them accommodation in his home, sure they would be poking into everything.
Seel returned to his house to gather a few things for the journey, and found the Gelaming sprawled on the porch, laughing together and sharing a drink. They seemed more like ordinary hara now. But what specimens they were. These were the kind of hara Thiede had instructed Orien to find for him: the best. The cream of Wraeththu.
Seel took his unexpected guests around the house, pointing out where things were kept. He wasn’t completely sure he was awake, for these were creatures from a dream. They were so much taller than him, and somehow so much bigger in more than a physical way. One of them went unbidden into the room Seel had shunned since the night of Orien’s death, Cal’s old room. The Gelaming looked round it without speaking, then came out again, closing the door behind him. ‘We could clean that for you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Seel said. ‘Yes. Whatever.’ The room was clean of blood already, but he knew what the har meant.
The other Gelaming said he’d be happy to care for Seel’s animals, so a tour of the stables and yard was also necessary. As Seel indicated where the feed was kept, the Gelaming said, ‘You mustn’t fear. Immanion exists at the end of your journey. It will be worth it.’
‘Mmm,’ Seel murmured in a non-committal tone.
‘You won’t wake up and find this is a dream,’ said the Gelaming, smiling. ‘Believe it.’
Outside the house, Colt was already mounted on a Gelaming sedu, which was prancing around, tossing its head. Colt, however, looked perfectly at home. ‘It’s like sitting on a time bomb,’ he said to Seel, grinning. Colt was an excellent rider.
Thiede handed the reins of another sedu to Seel. ‘Mount,’ he said.
Seel paused. ‘How do we do this?’
‘Just mount.’
The minute he was on the horse’s back and had gathered up the reins, Seel was aware this was no ordinary beast. It felt, if anything, like a machine that was designed to obey his commands. There was a sense of quivering power, and of alien intelligence that he could almost feel pushing against the boundaries of his perception.
‘The sedu will follow the others,’ Thiede said. ‘He’s well trained, so you don’t have to worry. Our intention will be strong enough to carry all five of us.’
‘Intention….’ Seel said.
‘Intention and will are the aids these horses obey,’ Thiede said, swinging up into his own saddle.
The other two Gelaming positioned their mounts behind and to the left side of Seel and Colt, Thiede in the lead. Seel cast a glance at Colt. ‘We’re not doing this, are we? I mean…’
Colt shrugged. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’
Thiede raised his hand and the sedim began to walk down the main road. Once Thiede’s horse started to trot, the others followed, their pace increasing all the time.
This is like taking off in a plane, Seel thought. They will take off any minute.
He couldn’t help laughing out loud, because the sense of power beneath him was so strong and so awesome. The horse felt as if it was revving up, the muscles roaring with energy.
But the sedim didn’t gallop up into the night sky. Suddenly, there came a crack of thunder once more and the air splintered around them. Seel’s breath was knocked from his lungs. He lurched forward and had to grip the horse’s mane. Its neck reared up and hit him sharply in the face. There was no reality. It was beyond dreaming, unimaginable. No harish mind could conceive of this even in dreams. He was aware of other presences around him, but knew he had no body, no substance. In this no place, he was pure essence, clinging like a leech to a presence more at home in this environment. It would be so easy to lose his grip, to float off into the void, be lost forever. Cosmic winds he could not feel buffeted his being, trying to rip him from the sedu-essence. There were entities in this wind, but he could not perceive them properly, just sense they were near. These presences were malevolent, eager to claw him away from his companions.
Just when he thought he was lost, hard air splintered around him and the sedu was plunging, as if having taken a high jump, down onto a road in daylight. Seel was freezing cold. His hair was full of ice. The horse’s reins
dangled free. His hands were knotted in its mane, frozen into place. He feared his fingers would break like glass if he tried to move them. His vision was obscured, so he could barely take in the landscape around him, but was aware of the smell of the sea and the vague shapes of tall poplars that lined the road.
Thiede pulled his horse to a halt and both Seel’s and Colt’s mounts slid to a stop behind it. Tears of ice streaked Colt’s face. He gathered up the horse’s reins, shaking frost from his long braids. ‘No words,’ he said. ‘None.’
Thiede had turned his horse and now came to Seel’s side. ‘Are you all right?’
Seel managed to nod. ‘So cold.’
‘It can be,’ Thiede said. ‘Now you must admit that has to be the finest of my illusions, eh?’
‘It was… awakening,’ Seel said.
‘Forgive me if I sound smug, then,’ Thiede said, and gestured down the road, which sloped towards the white towers of a city that hugged the coast beyond. ‘Behold Immanion.
It was both an old city and a new one. A crystal blue sea sparkled beneath it, and in the quay, long prowed boats pranced upon the incoming tide. The boats looked both ancient and alien, as if they’d been plucked from the oceans of far worlds. The city itself was like a mixture of Classical and Far Eastern design: pagodas and pillars, domed roofs of gold and flat tiled roofs of red. It was surrounded by high white walls and constructed upon a series of hills. Nowhere did there seem to be any scruffy corners. Long banners flew from towering minarets, emblazoned with the recently designed arms of the high-ranking families. Upon one hill, Thiede pointed out, were the villas of the city’s governors, while along the coast a short way, lay the sprawling barracks complex and training grounds of the Gelaming army. In the centre of the city was the High Nayati, the greatest of temples, and one day, in this place, Thiede intended to crown Pellaz Cevarro as Wraeththu’s king.
Seel could see all this as they rode down to the gates. He had never beheld or imagined a city so beautiful. It was all that Cal could have dreamed it could be. But even from this distance Seel could tell there was no place for hara like Cal in Immanion.
Thiede said he would take them to his villa on the outskirts of the city. Once upon its streets, it was clear a lot of building work was still in progress. Old buildings were being torn down and others put up in their place. Humans were working alongside hara, perhaps slaves. Almagabra was a beautiful country, but once humans had densely inhabited it. Clearly, the Gelaming had applied themselves to removing evidence of recent human construction, which must not have been as aesthetically pleasing to the eye, or the soul, as Immanion was. From the city, the coastline appeared mainly empty of buildings and towns: a sweeping vista of open land, where sheep grazed in the sunlight. Questions began piling up in Seel’s mind. He must remember them all.
The villa was situated on the crown of the hill where all the prominent Gelaming families lived, and boasted a fine view of the city below. As they rode up the curling drive, Seel caught sight of a huge edifice, half built and surrounded by scaffolding, on another hill in the city centre, near the Nayati. Thiede caught him staring. ‘That will be Pell’s palace,’ he said. ‘Phaonica: a diamond that will shine so bright all the cities of the world will by lit by its radiance.’
Saltrock, in comparison to this, seemed a pathetic experiment. Thiede obviously had far more resources than Seel had had, but then he had elected to build his city right in the middle of what had been human land, rather than hiding away in the wilderness as Seel had done.
‘You are a builder,’ Thiede said, probably having been prying in Seel’s mind. ‘You belong here. You will be able to indulge your dreams to the full.’
Seel could say nothing, because there wasn’t anything to say. If Thiede had been covertly recruiting hara from Saltrock to bring them here, how could it be seen as wrong? Where would they rather be, given the choice? Seel had never felt more humbled in his life. He had never had the breadth of imagination to believe this was possible and had scorned those who had.
‘Don’t be hard on yourself,’ Thiede said. ‘There is much to be said for scepticism. Blind faith never does anyhar any good. I wanted you to see. Now you are here.’
‘But how have you achieved so much so quickly?’ Seel asked. ‘This city looks as if it has stood for a thousand years. How did you organise hara so well?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m stunned by it. It’s amazing.’
‘There have been some hara,’ Thiede said carefully, ‘who have criticised my decision to seek out the best of Wraeththukind. I have plucked enterprising, bright and visionary souls from the wastelands. I have followed the dim beacons of shining spirits to the farthest corners of the world. This is why. I am not interested in posturing, preening fools, or those who wallow in the basest aspects of our being. I am looking for those who are fit to inherit the world and who will be its wise custodians.’ He made a sweeping gesture with one arm. ‘This is but an intimation of all we can achieve. When I look upon it, I see a beginning, an experiment. Immanion may be the first, but it will not be the best.’
‘Is there dark in Immanion?’ Seel asked.
Thiede smiled. ‘Only at night.’
The villa itself was not too large or ostentatious, as Seel expected, but of simple and elegant design. Its tiled floors were cool beneath the feet and every room smelled strongly of lilies. A deferential house-har showed Seel and Colt to a guest room, where scented baths awaited them and a change of clothes.
‘We may be dead,’ Colt observed as he pulled off his boots. ‘He could have killed us and brought us to his heaven.’
Seel ran his fingers over a white marble statue of a naked har that stood in a corner of the room. ‘That is possible.’ He walked out onto a balcony and leaned against the rail, breathing deeply a scent of pine and roses. Bees hummed lazily in the heavy blooms that climbed the walls of the villa. In the garden below, a har with honey-coloured hair hanging to his knees gathered flowers in a basket. Water ran in landscaped streams throughout the gardens and birds were streaks of metallic light among the lush trees. In a place like this, the dead could come back to life.
Colt, wearing a belted robe, joined Seel on the balcony. ‘I should be tired, but I’m not. I feel as if I’ve just woken from a good night’s sleep.’
‘There is something about this place,’ Seel said inadequately, then paused. ‘What do I do? Do I come here for good? Is Pell really going to come back?’
Colt sighed through his nose. ‘Don’t know about that. I think maybe that was the bait Thiede used to get you here. He does want you for something though. Can’t you just accept it might be because you’re good at what you do and would be of immense use to him in creating his ideal society?’
‘Its design…’ Seel said, narrowing his eyes at the horizon. ‘It’s made to seduce you, to glamorise the senses. It’s like drinking the waters of forgetfulness. Is that good or not? I’m not sure. I think if a har stayed here too long he’d forget everything else.’
Colt leaned on the balcony rail beside him. ‘Thiede is more powerful than any of us thought.’
‘Will he find Cal, do you think?’
‘No,’ Colt replied. ‘Did you ever believe he would? I think you just wanted an excuse to come and look without appearing to give in too easily.’
Seel laughed and punched Colt in the arm. ‘That’s so wrong!’ He sobered. ‘I meant it. I won’t let him forget it either.’
They spent the rest of the day exploring the villa and its grounds, Seel taking time to chat with the household staff. Everyhar appeared contented and enthusiastic about the future. Everyhar knew who Seel was. They told him they hoped he would come to join them for good. Clearly, Thiede had primed them thoroughly.
In the evening, Thiede reappeared and announced he had invited guests for dinner, who were important for Seel to meet. ‘The governing body of Wraeththu, whose seat shall be here in Immanion, is to be termed the Hegemony,’ he said. ‘Most of them I have already chosen: charismat
ic hara from around the world who have done much to further the advancement of our race. You will meet some of them tonight. These are not savage barbarians or mindless hedonists. They have brains. There is a place for you too, Seel, high in the administration.’
Seel smiled thinly. He felt as if he were on a roller coaster, unable to control its speed or destination.
Thiede’s staff laid out a magnificent feast, mainly of cold food, in a spacious dining room that overlooked the gardens. Beyond its huge window doors, a wide balcony hung over a large pool covered in lilies. Seel and Colt were conducted into this room to meet Thiede’s four guests. Their names were Dree Uvayah, Tharmifex Calvel, Cedony Mithra and Ashmael Aldebaran. It was obvious to Seel that these were hara of high calibre, who had perhaps attempted projects similar to his own at Saltrock. They were first generation Wraeththu, hara who had witnessed the very inception of their race. Memories lay deep behind their eyes. They appeared young, yet were old. Seel was especially intrigued by Ashmael, for he felt this har’s attention on him very keenly throughout dinner. General Aldebaran was supreme commander of the Gelaming armies. Seel knew it was only a matter of time before Ashmael spoke to him about the subject that fairly blasted from his aura: Pellaz.
The time came as the party rose from the table to go out on to the terrace for drinks and to bask in the balmy Almagabran evening. Ashmael signalled to Seel to hold back, which Seel did.
‘May we talk?’ Ashmael asked.
‘Yes.’
Ashmael closed the window door and the sound of cheerful voices from outside was silenced. ‘We must be quick. Thiede will notice our absence, and this is a conversation he’d seek to quell. You are a friend of this har Thiede wants to bring to Immanion?’
Seel nodded. ‘I knew him. He is dead.’
Ashmael grimaced. ‘We have heard that, and the mumbo jumbo Thiede spouts to explain why this is not actually so. It mustn’t happen. It’s an abomination. If there is any truth in this matter, it is that Thiede seeks to create a freakish homunculus to govern for him. He speaks of hegemonies, of co-operation, but it’s clear to the most stupid har there are dark forces at work. If the fact of this Pellaz is true, it is unnatural and wrong.’