"At no time, Pell," he continued, pointing a curved claw at me, "underestimate the scale of our proposal. It is vast, it will take time, and doubtlessly, lives as well. As Gelaming, we scorn the taking of life, but it would be naive to think we won't have to fight for our beliefs. Therefore, as with everything Gelaming put their minds to, our army is the best; the finest, fittest, fearless hara you could hope to gather under one banner."
Tharmifex laughed, unexpectedly. "If our Lord Thiede could remove his tongue from his cheek for long enough, I feel sure he could impress upon you that we will be well prepared for what faces us when the time comes. I wish we had more time to educate you, Pellaz; we need years really, and I fear we shall have only months ..."
"Are you joking?!" Thiede exclaimed. "You'll have your years to indoctrinate him, Thar, you know that."
"I only know that we anticipate having years of preparation; we have no way of ensuring that the Varrs and their kind will allow that."
Thiede made a dismissive gesture. "Trust me, Thar, we'll hold them off for as long as it takes. Don't be frightened of Megalithica because of its size; it's a mess."
Tharmifex was clearly anxious not to continue this conversation in front of me, I had a feeling it was one that he and Thiede had had many times before.
"You must be able to talk to the other tribes' representatives as if you know what you're speaking about," Tharmifex said to me. "I'll give you a couple of days to settle in. After that, your education must begin in earnest.”
As we ate the meal, I assessed what I had learned. Of the hegemony of Immanion, Tharmifex and Chrysm seemed the most inclined to assist me.
The others barely spoke at all, but I was aware of their scrutiny. Chrysm reminded me of Seel; the same eyes, I think. Tharmifex probably disapproved of me in principle, but was prepared to wait for me to prove myself, one way or the other. I discovered later that he was Thiede's oldest friend and was, therefore, obliged to agree with him to a degree. The others were all staunch followers of Ashmael. The Gelaming had long since got their own country in order and Ashmael had been mainly responsible for that. It was not a large country, Almagabra (as I had learned it was named); bordered to the north, east and west by mountain ranges, the south open to the sea. Being an old race, and therefore sensitive to the true nature of Wraeththu, Almagabra's human population had not struggled too violently to maintain a hold on their lands, discouraged more by superstitious awe than anything else. Ashmael had organized the survivors (and there were many), giving them control of land to the north. They were councilled, naturally, by Wraeththu, but governed fairly and left, for the most part, to their own devices.
"Their women are barren, however," Tharmifex told me. "So we envisage a time when their aging population will become something of a burden.
"How come the women are barren?" I asked.
"Well," Tharmifex replied. "That is something that rests only in the hands of God."
I looked at Thiede, who glanced at the ceiling, whistling casually.
Gelaming technology is a strange marriage of the barbaric and splendid and advanced science, or para-science. Their architecture is classical, rhythmic and spacious, reminiscent of a much earlier time in the world's history and they have a fondness for labor-saving gadgets which sometimes sit uneasily in the lofty, camerated chambers of their homes. As with all civilized Wraeththu, the Gelaming have a love of beauty and harmony in their environment, and a great affinity for ceremony and ritual. Everybody seems to talk in long, carefully constructed sentences. Slang is rarely used. Cal would have considered them elitist and too concerned with appearances of all kinds.
I spent several hours in Thiede's dining room, watching and listening, and was in a thoughtful mood as I followed Thiede's servant back to my own apartments. There were so many people I had to meet and at the moment I was ill-equipped to discuss with them the things they felt so passionate about. Thus the thought would spring to their minds: where is Ashmael? Why is he not taking charge? It was easy for me to see why, even if the Gelaming couldn't. Thiede would have had a hard time controlling Ashmael as Tigron. Whatever meandering rubbish he fed me about my being "right" for the part, I knew the truth; he wanted only someone he could manipulate; someone whom he had formed, moulded, someone who was nearly himself.
I dismissed Thiede's servant at the doors to my rooms. They were huge, but opened silently. Beyond them, a skylit corridor led to the main salon, punctuated by doors to different chambers. The floor was pale, green marble. Large, dark, shiny ornamental vases filled with rushes and feathers stood in alcoves; statues posed unselfconsciously, half in shadow. I was anxious to discuss with Vaysh all that I had heard. His comments, though dry, were always sensible. I could feed all my confused thoughts into him and get them repeated back to me in some kind of order. I expected to find him in the main room. He had planned to spend the afternoon there, reading. I saw someone lounging on a low couch, idly leafing through one of Vaysh's books, but it was not Vaysh. He paused a moment (too long for politeness) before glancing up. I was presented with a face both elegant and bored, an expression laden with challenge.
"You must be Ashmael," I said, walking over to the couch so I could look down on him. "What are you doing here?" It was not the wittiest thing I could have said, under the circumstances.
"I'm here to see you, of course," he answered in a cultured voice, flavored by an accent
I could not identify.
"You were expected at Thiede's for lunch, I believe," I said. "I've just come from there."
"I know," he drawled, sitting up, putting down the book, stretching. "There is a rumour going round, that Thiede actually made you. Is it true?" He did not concern himself with hiding his contempt.
"Believe as you like," I countered. "It is of no importance to me."
"You're pretty, yes; pretty. That's not enough, you know." He stood up and towered over me by some inches. "Don't think I'm unaware of why Thiede has brought you here. You won't be Tigron; Thiede will. He's too selfish or too greedy to surrender any of his power.
"You're just his puppet, you know. A glamorous sovereign for the people to fawn over so they won't get in Thiede's way. But it will be his words on your tongue all the time."
"Listen," I said in a low voice, but unconsciously moving away from his invasion of my space. "I'm not going to play any of your fucking games!"
His face hardened, almost imperceptibly. "Where do you come from? What antediluvian tribe spawned you?" His calm disdain was electric. His eyes steadily sought to hold my own; it was a simple technique, the most primitive of occult attacks
I turned my back on him. "If you don't like the situation, I don't give a damn. Think what you like of me and enjoy it! Now get out!"
"I'll leave when I choose to," he said defensively. I mustered my strengths and turned back to face him.
"No, you won't. Attica!" I knew Ashmael would be loath to squabble with me in front of a servant and praised the moment when I had asked Attica and Cleis to move in with me. I could feel Attica hovering uncertainly behind me. "Escort Tiahaar Ashmael to the door," I said.
"You will regret this, I think," Ashmael said quietly.
"Save your complaints for Thiede, I feel sure he will be interested," I said with a smile. Ashmael uttered a furious snort and stalked out. Attica visibly flinched as he passed.
Perhaps my hostility had been too immediate. That, in itself, was a victory for Ashmael. Maybe I should have handled him differently; attempted to win him over. He was a forceful opponent and very strong. One show of weakness on my part and he would defeat me. I sat down on the couch, alarmed at how much I was shaking. I must learn to control myself, discipline my inner strengths. If I couldn't then I deserved to be beaten. This was no game of social etiquette; this concerned the future of our race. I needed the test to prove myself. To be Tigron, I had to be stronger than all the rest. Yet I was not too naive to recognize the seeds of truth in Ashmael's words. I was young and my position was
uncertain; obviously not one from which to make a stand, because I knew so little. All I could do was be alert and absorb what I could. Vaysh put his head around the door; his face was white. I imagined I understood why.
"He's gone," I said.
"Thank God!" Vaysh came into the room and sat down on the edge of a chair opposite me. "I must confess, Pell, I'm displeased, grieved, to find Ashmael here. I had hoped he might have moved on."
"Do you know him then?" It was disquieting to see Vaysh upset.
"Once, once I did." His hands were clawing his hair. "A long, long time ago and I was different then. It was... very awkward when he just walked in here."
I went to kneel by Vaysh's chair. "How intriguing, are you going to tell me more?" Vaysh sidled away from me.
"You sound like them."
"Vaysh, this is not like you."
"No."
"Are you going to tell me?"
"No. ... At least . . . not now." He clenched his jaw and swallowed. "How did your meeting go?"
"It's difficult to tell," I said, standing up because my knees had begun to ache. "How many of the Gelaming hierarchy do you know?"
Vaysh shrugged. "Not many. Tharmifex; he's OK. Cedony; he's a bit of a dreamer and worships Ashmael but apart from that, alright. The others I know by sight but that's all. I should imagine the ones to cultivate are those two and Dree; he has a big say in everything, but he's not that easy to get on with. Oh ... and Ashmael, of course. I'm sorry Pell, but I think you will need him. If he's still here . . . well ..."
"Hmm, you saw how we hit it off.
"I didn't but I wouldn't worry too much about that. He doesn't bear grudges for long."
"It's more than that," I argued.
"Not really. He's bound to come around once he's seen more of you. You're not what he thinks you are, whatever that may be." "Even I'm not sure of that!" I said.
Vaysh scratched his brow. "He won't be like this for long; once he starts fancying you, which is inevitable, I'm afraid . . ." "I thought you disliked him!"
"I didn't say that, Pell. He's not the angel of Immanion for nothing. He's probably hurt because Thiede doesn't think he's fit to be Tigron. It might be hard going for a while, but he'll get fed up of being vile to you; I know him." "How well?" "Well enough."
There was that strange echo again in Vaysh's voice. Maybe I was just feeling very perceptive. "Is he your Cal, Vaysh?" His eyes flashed up to meet mine, briefly, and then away. "Was it the same for you?"
He did not know whether to speak or not. I could understand. The act of speaking your thoughts realizes them, somehow. Some thoughts are often best left unvoiced. He stood up and paced the room, wringing his hands, picking things up, looking at them, putting them down again, opening his mouth to speak, and closing it again. I tried to imagine how I would feel in his place, but the picture would not come. Vaysh's panic was infectious. Then he stopped dead, in the middle of the room, fists clenched by his sides.
"Pell ... I don't have to tell you. You've guessed enough. Leave it at that." He was the color of chalk; his hair livid about his face.
I feared for his sanity. "That's alright," I said in a gentle voice. "Don't say anything." I sat down again on the couch. "But if ever you do feel you have to ... I'll always listen." I thought that would be an end to it for now, but Vaysh sat down again, next to me. He looked ill and some small part of me was selfish enough to consider getting up and walking out. I wasn't sure I could handle him.
"Pell, I'm scared," he said. "I'm so scared."
Hating myself for wanting to leave, I put my arms around him. His rigid body collapsed against me; he was cold and trembling. This was not the Vaysh I knew.
"Scared, of what?"
"Breaking up ... disintegrating." He made a sad little sound that was half moan, half laugh. "What do you mean?" He raised his head and looked at me. "When I lived in the cold place,
I could be like that; cold. What had happened to me meant nothing to me. I made "myself strong. Now I've come back to the real world, having to lace things again. Myself, for one. You're half to blame, Pell."
"Shit," I said and he almost laughed.
"I mean . . ."
"No, no, I know what you mean; and you're right. I wanted to crack the ice, Vaysh, I wanted to get in at you. But you heard what Thiede said this morning; ice preserves doesn't it?"
He lay with his head on my chest, chewing a lock of my hair, thinking about what I'd said.
"What did Ashmael say when he saw you?" I asked. Vaysh's glassy eyes did not flicker.
"Say? What do you think? A long time ago, I died in his arms."
CHAPTER NINE
This news may not be welcome . . .
Some days later, Tharmifex came to visit me in my rooms. I had seen nothing more of Ashmael and little of the other members of the hegemony. Vaysh had kept mainly to his room, listening to endless tapes of mournful music, but I had spent a lot of time with Thiede. He lavished attention on me, showing me the city ("Here we shall build the finest theater . . ."), dreaming aloud about how things would be when the Reign of Peace arrived.
"You have missed so much of it, Pell," he said, as we walked among the trees. "All the horror; the worst of it was over by the time . . . you were found. But / saw it; terror, panic, gluttony, fear and worse things besides. Boys dragged from the blackened ruins of their homes; firelight caught on steel and their screams as Wraeththu blood rained down upon them. That was often the way at first; that was why so many died. Inception, by its very nature, demands the discipline of ritual, of an educated mind; the other way was messy and for so long it was the favored way, because of our hate."
"I cannot imagine you young," I said.
"Perhaps I never was," he answered.
I loved to talk with Thiede and, although my opinions amused him, he always listened carefully to me. "Hara are not like that," he would say. "How you see them, Pell, perhaps that is how they should be; but they are not." We never spoke of my time in the other country. There was so much I wanted to ask him, but the subject seemed taboo. Perhaps when Seel came, it would be different.
Tharmifex brought me a gift; a spotted cat the size of a dog. He said he liked cats. "They never embarrass themselves," he said. Tharmifex, unlike Thiede, was not loath to talk about the tribes from across the sea. Gelaming call that country Megalithica; a somewhat tongue-in-cheek title, I suspect. Megalithica it still is. Tharmifex would frown a lot and say things like, "Time is running out. Once tribes like the Varrs have wiped mankind and all the weaker Hara off the surface of their lands, they will be at a loss for what to do. That's when some bright spark among them will suggest a coalition between them, and that's when they'll all turn their eyes toward the east and Almagabra and Immanion."
"Why are some Wraeththu like that?" I asked. "We happened; and our purpose was to change the world, yet so many Hara still follow the same path as Mankind."
"To understand that, Pellaz, you must understand something of the nature of humankind," Tharmifex explained. "Although there are two sexes, man has his female side and vice versa. In earlier times, the feminine principle was not denied and the world lived in a happier, peaceful age; a water age. All that changed and then, at the end, men came to uphold a rigid patriarchy; to be feminine was considered "unmanly"; all men were afraid of that. The age of Fire had come. So they buried the femininity in their souls, subjugated women, whom they feared, and took away their power. Women, too, were encouraged to think like men; motherhood was virtually scorned by all intelligent females, a kind of last resort when a woman was too stupid or uneducated to do anything else. Power, material power, was worshiped as a god; all other religions squeaked in comparison. Love between men was held in abhorrance; after all, feminine bits of the soul could then start leaking through and the warmakers feared that more than anything. Women, being discounted as worthless, were not as censured for seeking affection amongst their own kind (so long as its purpose was for the titillation of men!); they could d
o no damage to the myth, to the Fire God. Man could not grasp the truth; the power of sexuality and what it meant. A potent force was degraded to something animal, something steeped in guilt. Violence became the only true force.
"Warmaking is a strange disease, Pell, and goes hand-in-hand with greed. The majority of Wraeththu are those who have taken the Harhune; the changing. They are no longer men, physically, but the Harhune does not mutate the mind; that we have to learn. Until a new generation of Wraeththu children grows up, we shall always have this problem.
"But Thiede's power is great," I said. "Surely he will be able to quell the trouble?"
"Eventually, yes; but we are anxious to avoid as much conflict as possible."