‘To Cal and Pell,’ Flick said with enthusiasm.
Orien frowned slightly, then raised his glass silently and clinked it against the others. He took a sip of wine, his expression thoughtful.
Seel cocked his head to one side. ‘To old friends, Orien? Can’t you drink to that?’
Orien smiled rather grimly. ‘I find it hard to drink to Cal. But I don’t like the way that makes me feel.’
‘You don’t like him. Admit it,’ Seel said, pouring more wine into his glass. ‘Don’t feel bad about it. You’re not perfect. You don’t have to be.’
‘Was that a claw showing?’ Orien said.
Seel shrugged. ‘You know how I feel about Cal. He’s hag-ridden by his reputation, and your attitude doesn’t help, because you are respected and therefore you affect other hara’s attitudes too. That’s not fair.’
‘He earned that reputation,’ Orien said mildly.
‘Oh please don’t argue about this again,’ Flick said. ‘I’m sick of hearing it.’
‘Be quiet, we’re not arguing,’ Seel said. ‘You must admit I’m right, Orien.’
Orien put down his glass on the table and moved it around a little. ‘Don’t corner me, Seel. We have to agree to differ over this.’
‘You can’t bear it because he was right about Pell,’ Seel said. ‘He found you out, didn’t he? You’ll never forgive him for that.’
‘And you’ll never forgive him for leaving you,’ Orien said. ‘See, I can show claws too.’
‘Right, that’s it!’ Flick snapped. ‘If you don’t stop this, I’ll pour the rest of the wine down the sink. You’ve been over this ground too many times. Let it go, will you.’
‘I can’t let it go,’ Seel said, fixing Orien with a manic stare. ‘I worry about what’s happening to Pell, and that’s got nothing to do with Cal. I worry that you won’t tell me things. I worry that you’re creating a scapegoat in Cal, because that means something might go wrong. Will you ever tell me the truth?’
‘No,’ Orien said. ‘And as Flick correctly suggested, we should drop this. You know why I can’t speak.’
‘No, I don’t actually,’ Seel insisted, grabbing hold of the wine bottle before Flick could snatch it from him. ‘It’s preyed on my mind for months. I can’t talk to you about it because this great wall of silence goes up. We’re supposed to be friends, but you won’t trust me. If you continue to keep silent, I can only think the worst.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ Orien said. ‘It won’t change anything.’
‘What are you afraid of? Or should I say “who”?’
At this point, Flick thought, a divine mechanism should intervene: fire from heaven should shoot through a window, or a building should collapse outside. Like Seel, he thought Orien had secrets, but he knew Orien would never reveal them. Nagging him to do so always ended up in argument. Seel should let it drop, but he couldn’t, because he and Cal had a history.
As young humans, Cal and Seel had been lovers and they had believed the only path open to them was to cast off their humanity and become Wraeththu, so they could be together for eternity, in complete harmonious bliss, and all the rest of it. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Being har had driven them apart rather than bound them together. The first tribe they had stumbled across, who had taken them in and performed, in their particularly brutal way, the necessary procedures to change their being, had been Uigenna. Not the best choice, but then they’d not had a choice, only desperation. Seel hadn’t stayed long with them. Essentially, his soul was gentle, whereas Cal’s… well, nobody really knew what comprised Cal’s soul. He’d stayed with the Uigenna though, even when Seel had defected to a less rabid tribe, the Unneah.
Seel had never spoken to Flick in great detail of his early Wraeththu life. Flick knew this was because it embarrassed him as much as it pained him. But Flick did know that things had gone really bad for Cal, so bad that even the Uigenna had cast him out. He’d gone to Seel for sanctuary, but that hadn’t lasted long either. By then, Cal had had a disreputable chesnari in tow called Zackala, a har who’d died a short time afterwards under circumstances of which the details were disturbingly vague.
The first time Flick had met Cal was a couple of years before, when he’d turned up unannounced at Saltrock. Flick had been jealous of Cal on sight, because his was the lithe, sinuous, lazy sort of beauty that enslaved hara’s souls and hearts with no effort whatsoever. It was the kind of beauty that caused trouble, a sort of poison, a narcotic that made you feel good to start with, then sent you spiralling into a gutter, retching your guts out and wishing you’d never had that first taste. He’d had a lovely human boy with him, who he’d stolen – or bewitched – away from a comfortable home and had brought to Saltrock for inception. Even at the time, Flick had thought this act was perhaps not expedient, but just another way to turn the knife in Seel. But Seel, living up to the image he wanted to portray, had been willing to help, or at least had seemed so.
Seel didn’t know that Flick had overheard him telling Orien all about this lovely untouched boy, whose name was Pellaz Cevarro. Seel had said there was something different about him. Privately, Flick wondered whether this was perhaps the fact he could hold Cal’s interest for more than a minute. Seel had tried to for years without success. Had it been a sense of duty or sour envy that had driven Seel to confide in Orien? Flick still did not know. He did know that Orien had been on the lookout for something, or someone. A high-ranking har somewhere had given him instructions, and in Pell, he’d found what he’d been looking for, or thought he had. Seel had implied so to Orien, which had resulted in Orien making contact with a har who’d arrived at Saltrock with supernatural haste to incept Pell himself. This har was Thiede, a legend among Wraeththu, who hadn’t existed long enough to have that many legends.
Thiede was a creature so alien it was impossible to imagine he’d ever been human like the rest of them. He possessed great power and influence, over a race that had little cohesion. It was said that even the Uigenna deferred to him. Thiede had created a destiny for Pell, but no one knew what it was, only that Pell was innocent and ignorant and very possibly in great danger. Now, Flick thought, Seel tortured himself with guilt about it. It was a complex seethe of emotions that didn’t do Seel any good at all. It made him short-tempered during the day and desperate for alcohol and oblivion at night. Flick felt powerless in this situation. He cursed the day Cal had come to Saltrock, even though he’d liked Pell very much and still missed his company. He wished they could all forget about it, because it was over and done, and no har could change the past. Cal and Pell had left Saltrock earlier that year, because Pell had needed to continue his caste training. Orien had sent him to the Kakkahaar, but they’d heard nothing since. The Kakkahaar were dangerous creatures, supposedly steeped in dark magic, but Orien had wanted Pell to go to them. Why? Was it because he knew Pell would need that dark education in order to survive?
While Flick had been immersed in private reverie, Seel had continued to rant at Orien, who sat bland and composed, infuriatingly tolerant. ‘I know how you feel,’ he was saying now, ‘and I’m sorry.’ He glanced at Flick. ‘I think I should leave now.’
‘Thanks,’ Flick said bitterly. He didn’t want to hear the rest of the rant. He knew it all by heart. At least when Orien was present, Seel directed it all at him. ‘I don’t want these ghosts around us,’ Flick said. ‘There’s no point to it. It doesn’t get us anywhere.’
Seel pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and Flick discreetly removed the wine bottle. Orien stood up, fingers splayed against the table top. He stared at Flick as if he didn’t know what to say.
Flick made a dismissive gesture. ‘Get going,’ he said. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Orien nodded, his expression dismal. Flick could tell he hated these confrontations and regretted the worm of suspicion and distrust that had begun to eat away at his close friendship with Seel. Perhaps he should tell the truth, no matter how terrifying or
dangerous it might be. At least, it would clear the air and they could face whatever it was together, as a united front.
Orien took his coat from the back of his chair and began to put it on. Silence hung thickly in the room and the candle wax smelled sour. Flick shivered. He felt slightly feverish: it had come upon him suddenly.
Orien appeared to be about to say something, then his eyes glazed over and his body went stiff. Flick glanced round, his skin shrinking against his bones. He was sure Orien could see something in the shadowed corners of the room. ‘What is it?’ he asked quickly.
Orien held his breath, swaying slightly on his feet. Flick realised that he gazed beyond the mundane world. He was looking through a window that neither Seel nor Flick would be able to see. Orien emitted a short strangled sound and clutched blindly for the table to steady himself. His expression was that of naked terror, his eyes still fixed on an impossible distance.
Seel lowered his hands from his eyes, while Flick jumped out of his seat and knocked over his chair.
The air in the room had become chill, in an instant. Something was there with them. Drunkenness dropped from Seel at once – it was plain to see – but before he could do or say anything, Orien fell heavily to the floor.
By the time Flick and Seel reached him, his body was arching in an unnatural way, so that only his head and his heels touched the floor. His hands shook, twisted, over his chest.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Flick cried. ‘What is it?’
Seel knelt down, took Orien’s head between his hands. Flick could hear him murmuring: the words of a magical spell or perhaps just of comfort. Orien screamed: it was the most hideous sound Flick had ever heard and he’d heard quite a few nasty screams during other hara’s inceptions. ‘Get me the salad spoon,’ Seel said.
Flick was nonplussed for a moment.
‘Do it! Hurry!’ Seel snapped.
The wooden salad spoon had a long handle. The moment Flick handed it to Seel he realised what he meant to do with it. He forced it between Orien’s teeth to stop him ruining his tongue.
The fit seemed to go on for hours. Other hara were attracted by the screams, which had rung out through the peaceful Saltrock night. It was most likely that they were afraid their leader had been attacked. Flick had to answer the hammering on the front door, let them in. When he returned to the dining room, the air stank. Orien had bitten the salad spoon in half and was now lying on his side in a pool of his own vomit, heaving onto the wooden floor. Flick, responsible for all house-keeping, could not help feeling relieved he’d missed the carpet. Seel stroked Orien’s wet hair back from his face. The hara who’d come into the house stood around in silence, their surprise at finding their competent shaman in such a state palpable in the atmosphere. Eventually, Orien stopped retching and groaned.
‘Help me lift him,’ Seel said, and two hara went to assist.
Orien lolled between them, a caricature of his normally elegant graceful self. ‘It’s done,’ he croaked. ‘It’s done.’
Seel and his assistants lowered Orien onto a chair. ‘What’s done?’ Seel asked. ‘What has happened?’
In response, Orien surrendered to a fit of weeping so heartfelt it instilled horror in the breast of everyhar present. Flick had never heard sobs come from so deep within a harish frame before. It was a lament for the world. Something terrible had happened. Orien held onto Seel tightly, as if Seel could somehow make the terror go away.
‘What’s happened?’ Seel asked again, but it was clear that Orien couldn’t answer.
After everyhar had gone, Flick left Seel to help Orien upstairs to a guest room and went out into the night. He knew Seel and Orien needed time alone, bound together in an uncomfortable cocoon where there was no room for him. He walked around the yard behind the house, restlessly pacing. Horses watched him nervously from the corral, unable to sleep so close to his fizzing energy. Flick looked up at the sky, so many stars there. Some of them were already dead, of course. Still beautiful to behold, but already dead. Flick hugged himself. The air was hot, but he felt so cold. He was eighteen years old, but felt ninety. What are we doing? he thought. What are we?
He glanced back at the house, solid against the sky, a house built by harish hands, but no different from a house that humans might once have lived in. Aeons ago, a flicker in time, Flick had lived in a very similar house, where there was a magnolia tree near the porch and children’s toys strewn over the lawn. Now he was here and someone else, but there were too many holes in the story, as if he was dreaming and couldn’t wake up.
Have we any right to mimic the past? He thought. Isn’t it a travesty? We should live beneath the stars, howling like coyotes; we should live in tepees or tall towers of stone with no stairs. We should not eat dinner together in candlelight, or drink wine, or talk about inconsequential things. We are not allowed to, and look what happens when we do. The otherness comes creeping in to remind us of what we are. It’s done: he said so. But what?
It was something big, Flick was sure of that. And it wasn’t merely going to touch them – it was going to reach down and grab them and squeeze them of breath.
Without realising he had done so, Flick found he’d gone back into the house and up the stairs to the room he didn’t share with Seel, but was regularly invited to. Seel lay on the bed, smoking a cigarette in semi-darkness. His multi-coloured hair was spread over the pillows. He looked fierce.
‘We can’t hide here,’ Flick said. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’
Seel exhaled; the smoke looked like his own breath. ‘Go away,’ he said.
‘Sometimes, I really want to.’
Seel said nothing to this, as Flick had expected, although he couldn’t have been ignorant of the implications.
Flick went to sit on the bed. ‘Did Orien say anything else?’
‘Nothing that made sense,’ Seel said. ‘I’ve never seen him like that.’
‘He’s afraid.’
‘Yes. He’s a fool. We’re our own hara here.’
‘You – we – invited Thiede in. He’s seen us now. He knows us.’
‘We have no proof that what happened tonight has any connection with that,’ Seel said. ‘It would be a mistake to spook ourselves. Orien is a seer. He just had a moment, that’s all. It could mean anything.’
‘Except that it didn’t.’
‘I told you to get out, didn’t I? What’s keeping you?’
‘You were never like this, Seel, not before…’
‘Get out, Flick. I mean it.’
Anger flared up in Flick’s heart. ‘No!’ he cried, ‘I won’t. I’m not your servant. I’m not even your whore, although you treat me like one.’
‘What the fuck are you talking…’
Flick sliced the air with one hand. ‘No! Listen to me. Tonight was all about Cal. You know it was. Something’s happened and you’re scared he’s dead. Isn’t that right? You and Orien invited something in to Saltrock and you can’t undo it. You know it. I know it. Everyhar knows it. What did Orien see? Tell me! I know you know.’
‘He thinks he’s doomed, OK? Does that satisfy you? He thinks he’s dead.’
‘It’s not just that.’
‘Oh, what the fuck do you want it to be, then? Isn’t that bad enough for a har to see, to experience?’
‘Seel, calm down. This anger is just a defence. What else did Orien see? Why does he feel threatened?’
‘His own death. Can’t you get it? You want a message for yourself? Is that it?’ Seel growled and took a long furious draw off his cigarette. ‘Are you that important, Flick?’
Flick’s heart was beating fast now. He felt dizzy with the hostility that screamed silently round the room. He swallowed slowly and with difficulty, as if past a tumour that had formed in his throat. ‘You were never hostile. You’re becoming like him – you’re becoming Cal. Don’t do it, Seel. You’re better than that.’
Seel’s lips curled into a snarl. ‘You have no right to speak to me like that. I
won’t accept it. Get out, before I do or say something I can’t take back.’
‘You never ran from the truth before. You were in balance, with yourself and with others. Can’t you see what’s happening? Is this what you want to be?’ Flick knew he was heading into very dangerous territory, but he had to speak.
Seel sat up abruptly and it took all of Flick’s will not to flinch away. He thought he knew Seel, but perhaps all he did know was what Seel wanted to be. Seel had been incepted to the Uigenna. There was wildness in him, even if it was buried deep. Somehow, pushing the fear back down inside him, Flick managed to hold Seel’s furious gaze. He had to try and reach him: the real Seel, the har he knew and wanted to love.
Eventually, Seel sighed and leaned over to stub out his cigarette in an ash tray on the bedside table. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Now will you please go?’
‘You should talk about it.’
Seel uttered a caustic laugh. ‘About how I probably changed the course of Pell’s life, and through doing that changed all of our lives? We think we know so much. We don’t know anything. I lost sight of that. I was too adept at forgetting. Now it’s too late, and I know something’s happening and I’m partly to blame. I could feel it in that room down there. I could smell it. I smelled Cal, the way he was a long time ago.’
‘Shutting yourself away won’t help,’ Flick said. ‘We should all face this together, whatever it is. We mustn’t fight amongst ourselves.’
‘I don’t want to go back,’ Seel said. ‘That’s what it’s about. I want to stay here, live the life I’ve chosen, but I know I can’t. That’s the worst of it. You’re right, Flick, Thiede has seen us all. And we’re just puppets to him.’
‘Is that what Orien saw?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘What is Pell’s destiny? Will you tell me?’
‘I don’t know and that’s the truth. But it’s not just him. It’s all of us.’ Seel grimaced. ‘My guts ache. They ache so much.’
Chapter Three