"Least of all Cal," I said. "He doesn't even know Pell is still alive."
"I pity him, in spite of his sins," Chrysm said, and for a while, we all fell silent.
Eventually, I had to ask some questions about Seel. I noticed my companions pause and grin at each other before Ashmael answered me.
"What about Seel? He's a born organizer, I suppose. He enjoys bringing order out of chaos. He's a close friend of the Tigron's and through that, the closest link to home. It is said they communicate frequently."
"He's beautiful," I blurted, inadequately.
"We are all beautiful," Chrysm laughed, throwing back his head and gazing haughtily down his nose in a typically Seelish manner.
"Of course Seel has inner light," Ashmael said caustically.
"Don't you like him?" I asked, appalled.
"Of course we do," Ashmael answered quickly, patting my head. "It's just that he's full of Pell's essence and finds it difficult to keep his feet on the ground nowadays. Few can aspire to embrace him. His nights are spent in solitary meditation, enjoying our Tigron's touch on the astral plane, no doubt."
"No doubt at all!" Chrysm agreed, raising his glass.
At dusk I wandered back to the pavilion that had become my home, thinking about the afternoon's events. The visit to the Hegemony had been purely social, I could see that. They had wanted to put me at my ease and had succeeded effortlessly. I was no longer so anxious about my purpose for being in Imbrilim, for the Hegemony seemed as vague about it as I was, and that was comforting in a strange sort of way. Some of the elated mood that had accompanied my arrival in Imbrilim had come back to me. I had walked away from my pavilion that morning, afraid of what to expect and of no worth. Now I walked back a friend of august persons who had a definite place in the scheme of things, even if no-one was sure of what it was. I was full of Gelaming wine and felt like dancing. For the first time in ages, I felt once more like a son of a Wraeththu tribe leader. My shoulders drooped no longer and the effect was magical. Hara bid me good evening and waved. A woman carrying a child in her arms stopped to speak and told me she was glad I was feeling better. "I am Shara," she said. "My people came down from the north some months ago, and after my father died, it fell to me to take charge of them. We were driven from our homes by the Varrs."
I must have gone white. Shara immediately reached for my arm, flustered by embarrassment. "I'm sorry. Please don't think I meant anything by that. We heard you were coming here. We know who you are. Did you suffer terribly at the hands of your father?"
How could I answer that? To say yes would be a lie and to say no might go against me. "Many have suffered at the hands of my father," I said and she nodded in sympathy.
"Our tents are in the eastern quarter of Imbrilim. My people are known as the Tyrells. Please come visit us sometime. You would be most welcome."
I thanked her and she walked away from me. So humans too were forming into tribes, it seemed. As the Hegemony had treated me like an equal, so too had the human woman. There were many things I'd have to get used to. I also realized that everyone in Imbrilim seemed to know everyone else's business. I'd never seen Shara before, yet she'd known who I was and that I'd been feeling unwell. Isolated in Forever, I'd never known that communities can seem surprisingly smaller than they really are and that gossip travels faster than fire.
Leef was waiting for me outside the pavilion, staring anxiously up the avenue. When I saw his face, which was wretched, I was angry, because I could feel my mellow good humor melting away. "Cal is gone," he said. He did not know where, only that Arahal had come back to our pavilion some time in the afternoon and told Cal to gather up his
belongings. He had not owned much. "Say goodbye to your friend," he had been told, and Leef had watched helplessly as Arahal led Cal away.
"He knew it would happen," Leef said, shaking his head. "What's going to happen to you and me? What do they want with us?" I put my hand over his and said nothing.
They would not tell me where Cal had been taken, nor what fate awaited him. I had to ask, I had to stand up and demand answers; Leef expected it of me.
I sought Arahal; I found him sitting outside a pavilion with a group of friends, sipping green liquor, absorbing the evening air, laughing softly. Never had a scene looked more inviting. He listened politely to my outburst, nodding at the end of it. "You must not be concerned," he said and offered me a drink. "Please, sit down, Swift. Join us."
"I had thought his suffering had ended," I said, complying with his request and accepting the cool crystal goblet he placed into my hand.
"What makes you think Calanthe suffers?"
I turned away from him, angry at the evening for being so tranquil, annoyed at myself because I knew my anger was only superficial and that I only wanted to get this conversation out of the way so that I could enjoy myself and talk with Arahal about my conversation with Ashmael. It wasn't that I no longer cared about Cal's fate, just that I had accepted it. Before Arahal even told me, I knew that Cal's future, his path, was divergent from my own. If I sound cruel saying that, then it must be read as cruel, but it is how things were, nevertheless. When I turned round again, I realized Seel was sitting at Arahal's side. He was looking at the floor, one hand in his hair. As soon as he felt me looking at him, he stood up, excused himself to the others and walked away. Nobody commented on it. "Where is Cal?" I asked Arahal. He refilled my glass which I'd emptied too quickly. "This is awkward,
"Swift. I can't answer you and you must stop wondering. There is no sense in it. It is Thiede's will, or the Tigron's, so you can do nothing."
"Can you blame me for worrying?"
"Not at all!" He smiled and touched my face. "If you are worrying . . . They said you had a look of your hostling about you. They are right."
"They?"
He shrugged. "Rumors, of course. Yet you have Terzian's steel as well. Let us hope you have not inherited his mania."
I shivered at the possibilities in that concept. "He was always a good father to me," I said stiffly.
"And a considerate friend to Cobweb, no doubt."
I squirmed awkwardly. "Do you know so much about us?"
"Only what was necessary for us to know."
I looked away, up the avenues of swaying silk, in the direction Seel had taken. I wanted to ask about him, but I couldn't. "Is it true the Gelaming deny love?" I asked instead.
Arahal leaned back in his seat. "Ah, love; what is it? Can we ever know? It defies analysis, I'm sure!"
"You have not answered me."
"No. Perhaps I can't. The whole concept is a web of subtleties. Where is the dividing line between a close friend, who cares for your welfare, who shares the intimate pleasures of your bed, and a lover? Is there one?"
"Cal told me that the Gelaming scorn what they call 'the passions of mankind'."
Arahal sucked his upper lip thoughtfully. "Passion of any nature is to be scorned, of course," he answered obliquely.
"You are evading me," I said.
"Not really. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Being Gelaming is a way of life, a state of mind; not just Gelaming either, but many other tribes. It is difficult to convey in words. If you had been trained, if you thought in the right way, then you would know and I would not have to explain."
"But what if I don't want to think that way?"
Arahal smiled. "Then you really are the son of Terzian, to the marrow of your bones, and we are wrong about you."
Arahal became my tutor. For the next few weeks I had to undertake the training that would raise my level. It had nothing to do with warfare as Varrish caste progression did, but was no less rigorous because of it. I suffered gruelling sessions of painful self-examination, when Arahal dispassionately sifted through my innermost feelings and beliefs. It was only through severe concentration that I managed to keep my thoughts about Seel to myself. I dreaded Arahal becoming aware of them. It was obvious that he knew I was keeping something back, but he also sensed
the embarrassment surrounding those thoughts, so for the time being did not press me to reveal them. All he said was, "Guilt is a tool of destruction, Swift, remember that!" His voice full of dire warning. Some part of me really wanted to confess, but I feared Arahal's displeasure, more so because I thought he would not show it.
"Must you know everything about me?" I asked. He smiled.
"You are missing the point, Swift. / don't want to know everything about you, but I want you to."
In the evenings, I began to spend an hour in meditation. Everything seemed clearer then. I was pleasantly surprised how, when my mind was calm and ordered, it was so easy to summon up and control my innate powers. Now I could visualize with ease, which meant that I could now operate the special shields that the Gelaming used as a barrier at the entrance to their homes. I had only to visualize the force field to be there and no-one could pass through without my wanting them to.
After only a few days, Leef had moved out of our pavilion and gone to live with a group of hara he had made friends with, who, like ourselves and many other hara in Imbrilim, had come down from the north. I knew Leef was displeased that I had been absorbed into the elite of the Gelaming and he told me that he believed I had forgotten all about my old home and Terzian and Cal. He did not actually say it, but I'm sure he looked on me as some kind of traitor.
Perhaps I didn't think of my father and Cal as often as I should, but my mind was often full of Cobweb. I wanted to see him so much and he was so far away; our minds could not touch. We had always been near enough to each other for that, ever since I'd been born. Only now did I realize it and miss it. I used to wonder what he was doing and what Swithe and Moswell and Tyson were doing. Did Bryony ever think of me? Perhaps, in the garden, she could feel me near. At night, I liked to pretend I was back there, lying on the damp grass beside the lake; that place where things of importance had seemed to happen to me. Then I would feel like weeping, for I knew those times would never return. My innocence was lost to me and when I thought of that, I was swamped with loneliness, thinking, Nobody knows how to love me here.
A result or cause of these thoughts, of course, was Seel. Every day, my desire to see him became worse. I told myself I was obsessed and that obsession was dangerous and full of lies and that I must deny it. Then I would open my eyes and be full of tranquility and confidence, believing all my demons exorcised. Then I would see him again and a searing flame of longing would open up the wounds within me; I would want him again and more than that, want to tell him terrible things, terrible, wonderful things. I would imagine it again and again and again. The story would have one of two endings. The first ending was Seel smiling and saying, "This was meant to be" and the other was his face convulsed with revulsion, backing away from me in distaste. Of the two outcomes, the latter seemed more probable. I kept my fantasies to myself.
One day Arahal said to me, "Swift, it would be best if you did not take aruna with your friend Leef from now on." I was so shocked by this that I did not think to mention that we had not been close for some time now.
"Is there any reason why?" I asked.
"Yes," Arahal replied, but that was all I could get out of him.
I found that I could have a glittering social life in Imbrilim if I wanted to, for I was never short of invitations to other hara's pavilions. There were always parties going on. I had visited Shara's people several times, and although these occasions were never as sophisticated as those spent in Gelaming company, I always enjoyed myself. Most nights, however, I was simply too tired to go out and, once Arahal had called a halt to my education for the day, fell into an exhausted sleep, often without eating or even undressing. The intensive training was worth it, though, because after only five weeks, my level was raised to Neoma.
Arahal was quick to squash all my thoughts of relaxation. "It is essential That your caste should be Ulani, at least," he said. "Once you have achieved it, then you can think about enjoying yourself more."
"Why Ulani?" I wanted to know.
"Because I say so," he answered.
I was curious about what the Gelaming planned to do with Megalithica now they were here. Were they eventually going to ride north and deal with Ponclast once and for all?
"Eventually," Arahal conceded, in response to my inquiry. "But not yet. Ponclast has constructed shields about himself. We shall let him think they are effective for a while."
"I thought the Gelaming had no cynicism in their souls!" I joked.
Arahal shrugged. "The time is not right; that's all. When we ride north, Swift, you will be with us. When we seize the reins of Ponclast's power, it will be to hand them over to you."
I laughed out loud.
Arahal smiled. "Ulani at least, you see . . ."
My purpose for being summoned to Imbrilim was revealed as casually as that. Thiede had once groomed Pellaz to govern Wraeththu as their Tigron, and now he was having me groomed to oversee one of Pellaz's provinces. Swift the Varr, whom Varrs would find more acceptable than a complete stranger. Terzian's son, sharing his blood while not sharing his beliefs. Who else could have more chance of claiming Vanish loyalty except Terzian himself? The Varr now occupied virtually all the north of Megalithica and their influence spread even further than that. Even bearing in mind that the average Varr was little different from the average Gelaming of low caste, it would not be easy to overthrow Ponclast's dominance, for his people believed in his power, and their
belief made his power real. I found myself wondering if Thiede had ever considered trying to win Terzian himself over, offering him sovereignty of the Varrs. Had that been the original plan? Terzian was worshiped by every Varr. He was a warrior prince, handsome, intelligent and fierce; a natural ruler. But the canker in his soul had run too deep and I knew he would never have succumbed to accepting Thiede as his lord; never. Whereas I was young and idealistic and half Cobweb's. The only conceivable substitute. I think the Gelaming's main problem with me was that I did not look more like Terzian.
"There may be violence," Arahal said.
"I should expect so," I agreed. "I know what Ponclast's capable of."
"We hope to avoid conflict as much as possible, but I'm sure you're familiar with the nature of your race. Distasteful!"
"Arahal, I'm lonely!"
"Swift, you must be patient."
Sometimes, Ashmael would send for me and I would sit in his pavilion and listen to him talking with Cedony and Chrysm or other members of his staff. It was the best way to learn. Often, he seemed to forget I was there, but now and again, he would send the others away and talk to me. Once he asked me to massage his shoulders, complaining they were stiff. Beneath my fingers, they felt as supple as a puma's. He sighed pleasurably and said, "What do you think of me, Swift? Do I please you?"
I was so surprised and embarrassed that I backed away from him. My answer was a shaky mumble. "You are Gelaming, Lord Ashmael; that should be response enough."
He laughed and shrugged, turning to look at me. "Swift, I have told you about this before. You mustn't spend so much time looking up to us as if we were gods or something. When I asked you that, you should have just said yes and then seduced me. I was looking forward to it."
After that, nothing happened between us. I think he must have been teasing me.
One evening, I was invited to a gathering at Cedony's pavilion. Arahal escorted me. It was quite an important occasion because everyone of note was there. I had seen little of Seel over the past few weeks and was surprised to see him there. I had thought he was away from Imbrilim for he sometimes went back to Immanion, although his journeys were amazingly swift; he was never away for long. I longed to touch him or even speak to him, but his unbearable loveliness was intimidating. He must have dozens of hara paying him compliments constantly. Whatever I could say to him would bore him. When he walked past us, he smiled and nodded at Arahal and then looked at me. I felt color rise to my face, but thankfully he had gone before he could see it. Arahal threw me a shrewd si
delong glance, but said nothing.
Chrysm came over and asked me how my training was coming along. Arahal answered for me and told him it was coming along just fine, thank you.
"Your looks are improving," Chrysm said to me, touching my arm, so that Arahal couldn't interrupt.