One day I would have to touch him and his eyes would be veiled like cat's eyes and his head would be held to the side. I never had to be told all these things, no-one ever told me, but I knew them as surely as if Seel had told me himself.
Arahal stood up. He took my shoulders in his hands and shook me slightly. "Stop this; you are hysterical," he said blandly. Yet I made no noise. Perhaps my eyes were hysterical. How could I tell Arahal about my dreams that I'd had for years, the dreams that had been an intimation of the person to come? That person had been Seel; I knew that now. From the moment I first saw him, recognition had woken within me. Now, that one thing toward which I had been unconsciously striving all my life had become, indescribably, something terrible that I wanted to run from. What should have occurred naturally had become contrivance, Thiede's contrivance, and because he had accelerated everything all the harmony had been destroyed. I was numb. Maybe, if it hadn't been for this, Seel would have come to like me. I could have made him like me, but now he was angry and affronted.
Arahal's voice broke through my thoughts. "Swift, be objective, for God's sake!" I looked up quickly, feeling my glance strike his eyes like an arrow. He turned away and poured me wine into a long, thin glass that felt temptingly shatterable when he handed it to me. I drank from it and tasted sourness; Gelaming wine was rarely sour. "You are reacting irrationally," he continued smoothly. "You think you are obsessed with Seel, but that is only the effect of a powerful psychic attack. You were made to feel this way. Time was running out. Now you can stand back and view things calmly."
His words sluiced over me like a stream of melted ice. Made to feel this way? It was laughable. They didn't have to do that. I was obsessed with Seel a long time before the Gelaming had even dreamed of their plans.
"I am ... confused," I said. I couldn't bring myself to tell him what I was thinking. His hand rested lightly, for a moment, on my shoulder.
"Obsession is desire," he said. "Desire is the seed of power. You must fashion your thoughts into a cool blade. Focus your energy, Swift."
"You speak of me and my behavior," I said, "but what of Seel's?"
"What of it?" Arahal asked. "Have you ever really spoken to him?"
"No," I answered irritably, "but I've sensed things. He doesn't like me."
Arahal made an impatient sound. "You must remember Seel is Gelaming," he said, not without sarcasm. "He is aware of his duty. His mind is trained to overcome personal preferences."
"That's sick! This Grissecon will be impossible, and if it is possible, horribly
humiliating for both of us."
"Oh, Swift, calm down! There are ways of overcoming any difficulties that may arise."
I shrank from asking him what they were. I put my empty glass down on the table. In a dish lay a lock of hair, shining, curled like a sleeping cat. Arahal saw me looking at it.
"Go back to your pavilion," he said.
Sitting alone on my bed, I found my thoughts drifting toward my father and Cal. Both victims of the Gelaming, I decided uncharitably. Perhaps I feared I was being lost, misplaced, in a similar way. I tried to recall the way I had once felt about Cal, when my Feybraiha had come upon me. I tried to remember if I had felt like this, but the memory eluded me. I habitually banned all erotic thoughts of Seel from my mind, because I found them too painful to think about. Now I tried to imagine the feel of him, but all I could see were those unfathomable eyes, cold and distant. I imagined Grissecon and our bodies tangled together, his flesh hot beneath my mouth, damp with a mist of sweat; our craving, our energy. Then in my thoughts I took his face in my hand and turned it toward me. His eyes were dead, his mind untouched, even as his body moved around me. Could we make magic that way?
I lay back and put my hands behind my head, sinking into the soft cushions, going down and down. I was aware that I needed aruna, my body felt strange. I had rarely been denied it before, not when I needed it. I thought about Caeru; another of Thiede's puppets. I wondered if I would ever see him again. Did Pell know what had happened between us? I turned on my side and thought I would sleep. Then I was listening to the eeriechime that signaled someone was seeking ingress to my pavilion. I made the thought-forms that would open the portal and, after a moment, someone came to the inner chamber and lifted the curtains. I looked up, and saw him standing there. He said, "I think we have to talk."
"I think we do," I agreed, surprised to find that I was not nervous at all. He sat down on the end of my bed and looked at his hands and I wanted to say, "Seel, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," even if it wasn't true, but all I said was, "Well, what?"
"I think this will be difficult," he answered, and I was not sure whether he meant this conversation or what was to come.
"I was told today," I said. He did not turn round, just nodded. All that hair; it was unnatural. I wondered whether it had a life of its own and just lay there around his shoulders and down his back, for convenience. Perhaps it would stretch and crawl around if I touched it. He must have known my thoughts. Cal had once called him a true adept; thoughts might reach him like a scream.
"You must understand," he said, "that this . . . state is alien to me. I don't know what Thiede's done to me, I don't know... I do know I dislike it!"
I made an impulsive decision and spoke plainly. "You've known about this since I first came here, obviously. You've avoided me. I can imagine what you've been thinking." He was silent. "First, they must have told you about Cal." His shoulders stiffened and he raised his head, but still he did not look at me. "Don't think I'm not aware what I am to you. It's blighted Wraeththu, that simple. You don't want to soil yourself. Am I right?"
"Yes, you are," he replied, somewhat in surprise.
There were a few moments of awkward silence and then I said softly, "You should have come to see Cal while he was still here. You should have spoken to him."
Then he turned round quickly. "Killing to you of course is commonplace!" he said angrily. "I suppose I should expect that! When I look at you, all I can see is Orien and Orien's blood on the floor and his guts hanging out of him. That's what I see!" He stood up, his arms waving. "Oh, the Varrs! So sympathetic, weren't they! Who else could he have gone to, whining and beaten? Did you soothe him? Did you say, 'Oh, never mind, Cal, what is one more death? It is nothing'? Is that what you said, all of you? As Terzian the murderer, your dear father, fawned over that perfect, demon body, was it all, 'Oh, Cal, you are so good, so one of us'? Of course, there was you too, wasn't there! I expect with you Cal let the beast well out of the cave. Did he bite you? Did he tear at you? It's good, isn't it, that
perversion? Some sick part of you actually enjoys it while it's happening; afterwards you feel disgusted. Only I don't expect you or your father, did!" He glowered at me, color pulsing along his cheekbones. I propped myself up on my elbows and stared back at him. He had made me angry.
I wouldn't have thought that was possible. "Sit down, Seel!" He didn't move "Sit down. There are some things I want to tell you." He hesitated a moment, and then half fell back onto the bed. "My childhood in Galhea was not the way you think," I said. "I want to tell you about it."
I began with that time when my father had come home with the wound in his leg. I spoke with love, for my family and my people. I had to make him understand the way we had lived, that our lives had not been full of death and evil as he thought. I brought back the memory of Forever in the spring and the gaiety of Bryony's laughter about the house and the happy times we had had together, all of us. I went back to the beginning and told him about Festival and the snow on the ground. It was a story all about when the crows left the trees and two small harlings had trudged the boundary of Forever to keep the stranger out. Then I relived the pain of when Cal had first come to us, and made Seel live it with me, and all that followed, until I came to the part about my Feybraiha. Seel didn't want to bear it, but I told him. There were Cal and I, sitting naked on the window seat in my bedroom in Forever, looking out at the dar
k garden, he telling me things about Orien, Pell and Saltrock. Then I was talking about Cobweb and how Cal had released him from a prison he had made for himself, "Good is disguised as evil," I said, "because some evil things have to happen to make the good things come about. There is no escaping that. Our world can never be that perfect, for then it would be out of balance and just fade away. What happened to Orien was abhorrent, for he lost his life, but Cal has lost some of his as well. He was a tortured being; still is perhaps."
At the end of this Seel said, "Cal is lucky. He is lucky that you all cared about him so much."
"I thought our comfort was worthless."
Seel smiled and shook his head and all his hair fell across his face. I could not see him. "You are stormy creatures," he said. "You love and hate as men once did. I pity you."
I laughed. "Pity us? But why? Perhaps you should have come earlier, your people. You should have come north with your bloodless violence and taken all the weapons away. Why didn't you? You let death happen because you didn't come and stop it. I am pure-born and I have feelings and the only way the Gelaming will get rid of them is to beat them out of me. I am not ashamed of them. I am prepared to fight the bad within myself. It can be done without an emotional vacuum."
"It's not like that!" Seel stood up again. "The difference is subtle. We have love in our souls, but it is not selfish. That is the difference."
"You should see my people," I said.
"Oh, I shall!" he answered. "Hordes of them, with Ponclast at their head, all planning to slake their thirsts on Gelaming blood. They do that, don't they? Drink blood?"
I would not answer that. "Where is my father, Seel?"
The pause was barely discernible. "He's alive."
"Does Thiede have him?"
Seel put his hands in his hair. He shook his head and then said, "Ye Yes, he does.
Terzian is in Immanion."
I wanted him to tell me more, but he would only shake his head.
"I can't. That's all I know. I can't tell you more."
"I don't believe you."
"Why not? Why should I lie to you?"
"Because I'm a Varr and because you don't like me that much."
He shrugged. "Hmm, I suppose so. But it is the truth. You'll find out about Terzian sooner or later, but not from me."
He went to the door. He was going to leave and I wanted him to stay, even though I knew the strangling knots were only being wound tighter by his being here. He paused and looked back at me. "You were right about one thing, Swift the Varr," he said. "I should have come and talked to Cal. You were right about that. Now it's too late." He ducked through the curtains and was gone.
My heart began to pound. I relived the past hour a hundred times, seeking hopeful signs, but I was sure there were none. What had he come to say to me? All he had done was listen to me, really. I lay there on my bed, wistful and sad and exultant, and let a long, slow admission seep comfortably into my eyes, my brain, my heart. Admitting it was a relief, a burden lifted. It was as if I had shaken myself and a lifetime's mantle of dust had fallen away from me. I felt lighter and steeled to face the future. I was not ashamed. The admission was this: I love him.
The next evening, Chrysm came to visit me. "You've been hiding in here for a whole day," he said. "Have you eaten? I've brought some food for you."
I wasn't that hungry, but ate some of it anyway to keep him quiet. I had been quite happy in my solitude; I hadn't thought about food.
"What have you been doing here all alone?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing; just thinking."
He carefully dissected an orange and handed me half of it. "Ah, thinking! Ashmael tells me Grissecon will be performed on the first night of the next full moon. Only
four days!" He shook his head. "Is that something to do with what you've been thinking about?"
"Oh no!" I lied and we both laughed. Arahal had been to see me first thing that morning to tell me this news. I had thought of nothing else all day.
"Isn't it what you've always wanted?" Chrysm asked.
"Partly. . . . Has Arahal sent you here, Chrysm?"
He shook his head. "No. They've finished with mauling your mind. I'm acting autonomously! Now, all you have to do is wait; wait and think. They want you to be alone. They want you to fast. They want you rabid with delirium, I suppose. More cheese?"
"Yes, please! Suddenly I am ravenously hungry!"
I told him about Seel's visit and he uttered an exasperated snort. "Seel! I hope you knock some of his glib piety out of him! Still, you seem to have handled yourself better than in the past. It must be driving him scatty wanting you so much!"
"Chrysm. . . ?"
"It must be like being tempted by the devil for him!"
"Don't say that?"
"Why not?"
"Because it isn't true! I can't joke about it."
Chrysm smiled secretively. "It is true," he said. "You'd better believe it, Swift, but don't think too highly of yourself because of it. Thiede's sledgehammer mindgames have been thrown at Seel too, you know. Desire! Think of it! Thiede being thoroughly entertained watching you and Seel hull) squirming frantically, chasing your tails in a whirlpool of confusion. I could have told you that before."
I should have been angry, I suppose. Chrysm had listened to me ranting on about my unrequited desire for Seel and he had known all along that Seel was suffering similar lonely throes of dark, unwanted passion. "You should have said," I told him abruptly.
" I couldn't. It might have interfered with the process of... shall we say, enchantment?"
I ate in silence for a while, listening to the inner tumbling voice of my heart. I could feel Chrysm looking at me. "The force you two will produce may explode the world," he said hopefully. I smiled grimly. "I'm sorry, Swift."
"Don't be. Thank you for telling me. I'm not angry, just numb. I've felt like this before."
"Has it made things easier?"
"Hard to tell yet."
"You must treat him with compassion."
"While knocking his piety out of him?"
"He is distressed."
"Really?"
"Have you started to hate him?" Chrysm feared he was responsible. I put his mind at rest, only to worry him more.
"No. I've realized I am in love with Seel."
Chrysm recoiled, not sure whether to laugh or remonstrate. "Swift!" he cried and then softly, "You are a Varr." It was full of meaning.
"Yes," I replied, smiling sweetly, "It seems I am!"
The day came when the dawn was lemon and rose, the air sweeter than usual and the feeling of life stirring more noticeable. Before Imbrilim was truly awake, Arahal came to me, robed in purple and gold. He brought with him, on a silver plate, a lock of tawny hair surrounded by seven buds of the putiri plant. An attendant, veiled and silent, carried a flagon of water."It will be tonight," Arahal said, perfunctorily. "Yes."
His eyes looked kinder than the last time we had spoken. "I can see yo| have prepared yourself," he said. I did not answer. He indicated the cor tents of the silver plate.
"These buds must be eaten at regular intervals during the day, Swift Their taste is not the most pleasant, but we have brought you plenty of water to wash them down." He took one of the dull gray-green pellet between thumb and forefinger. "You may as well take this first one now"
"What will it do?"
"A slightly narcotic effect; a relaxant... it will help you." By his evasive glance, I gathered there was something more, which he would not tell me. I did not care. Obediently, I took the bud in my hand. "Chew it well, Swift."
The taste was bitter and rancid, reminiscent of a hundred foul things. Even severe chewing could not reduce the fibers to anything that was comfortable to swallow. Arahal offered me water. My eyes were running. "Not too bad, was it?" he asked lightly.
I pulled a face of utter disgust. "Delightful," I said.
He smiled. "We shall come for you later. Spend this day in tranquility and purify y
our thoughts. Calm your body; be still."