Ashmael shouted something. His eyes were wild. Everyone was tense, staring upwards, toward Fulminir. Seel was at my side, quite calm. He said, "Ashmael will now panic." I could only stare at him in horror. In the sky above Fulminir, the light, the child of our crystal, and the oily, black smoke demon that was the child of Ponclast's sorcery were entwined in combat. Horrible, deafening scrapings and squealings ripped the air.
"It will beat us," I said. "It will beat us."
I felt Seel's hand take my own. "Never. Come with me."
We stood beneath the tripod, looking up. The beam was weakening. We could see that. I was trembling. Seel put his hands on my arms and turned me to face him. His eyes were the eyes of a stranger. His hair was moving, as I had always expected it could, of its own volition.
"That is another of our children," he said, jerking his head upwards. "The child of Grissecon."
I was numb. "Don't say that... it is hurting. Oh, Seel, I can feel it!" I could. It was like being ripped apart. Seel made that happen. He made us be in tune with it. Hysteria raised my voice to a squeal. Seel shook me firmly.
"Shut up! Listen to me. We have the power; only us. Do as I say! Do you hear me?" He looked incredibly fierce; a Seel unknown to me. I nodded. "Then be naked, Swift."
"What?"
"Do it, Swift!" There was no way I could argue with him. He scared me. He was different. This was a Seel who could kill. Ashmael, wide-eyed, stared at us maniacally through the legs of the tripod. "Seel!" he shouted. "Seel! Seel!"
"It's alright." That was all he said, all he had to say. Ashmael dropped his head. My fingers fumbled with fastenings to my clothes. "Help him!" Seel ordered and hands were upon me, ripping, not bothering with fastenings. I had heard of pelki and I thought it must feel something like that. To lose control of your body. To have other people move it for you. I resisted the urge to struggle. Shivering, I was on my knees in the black earth, naked and defenseless, three hundred pairs of eyes upon me and God knows how many more beyond the walls.
Seel dragged me to him and we sat on the ground beside the tripod. His hair was across his face; I did not know him. "Trust me, Swift!" My leg was twisted beneath me. I could not move. Seel straightened it out.
"This is the most vital Grissecon either of us will ever have to perform," he said. "Do as I say. It will not be much. But concentrate!"
We sat facing each other. He arranged my limbs and pulled me onto his lap. I was not prepared; it hurt horribly. Flashes of red appeared in the light around us. Seel held me against him and I could feel his heart beating and buried my face in his hair so I could not see them watching us. But I could hear the crooning. Seel threw back his head and screamed out in a language unfamiliar to me. It was like gibberish, but I understood the meaning. He called to the crystal, ordered it to feed from us, let our strength combine with its own. Seel's fingers pressed the base of my spine and he moved within me, seeking the special places so that desire flamed inside me; I had no control over it. I was mindless, like the power, just body, just essence. The pain made it like perversion. I was making noises and when I heard them, it was as if they came from somewhere else. I opened my eyes and saw a dozen greenish fingers of light tentatively reaching down toward us from the crystal. Seel bit my ear and I winced.
"Concentrate! Power!" he cried. "Power! Power!"
I threw back my head, my eyes snapped open again and the radiance burned into me. I howled and felt the core of heat build up within me. I dragged it out of myself. I was rising. I was becoming stronger and stronger. Bigger; rising. We were so tall, we filled the sky. Like Gods, like angels; pure fire, nothing else. The moment came.
Deep within me, the burning serpent bit the star and with a wordless scream, a great tide of energy burst out, like an exploding sun. Around us, the Gelaming fell to the ground, hiding their faces, curled up. I was ignited again (it so rarely happens twice like that), and in a glorious blaze of light, shaped like a towering figure with wings across its face, its feet, its back, so full of light, so ultimately wondrous, the child of our essence reached out one lazy arm and touched the walls of Fulminir. Ponclast's demon seemed piteously small beside it, quivering, shrinking. I was laughing out loud, crazily. Through tears of laughter, I watched as, like powdering rock destroyed by rain, the walls of Fulminir crumbled. Great chunks of stone rolled earthwards, revealing the dank innards of the citadel, spiked towers, curving walkways and squat, blackened buildings. The citadel was wrapped in the blue-green radiance of aruna power. Frothing, fizzing, the child of the crystal jetted up into the air and exploded in a million droplets of sparkling foam, drifting downwards like bubbles, descending like sleep on the streets of Fulminir.
Seel and I shivered together, spent on the ground. The light had left us. The bowl on the tripod was empty. Someone came over and wrapped us in cloaks or blankets; something. Rain began to fall and I looked up into it, blinking.
High above, through the blinding sheets of water, a crack had appeared in the cloud. Beyond it, the sky was blue.
I turn the pages of a storybook. It is old, its pages thumbed by many human children. I come to the part where the prince comes through a barrier of thorns and finds a sleeping palace. The thorns are everywhere. Perhaps it was difficult for him to see the people. They would have been dusty, almost insubstantial, frozen forever at that moment when the spell was cast. Birds hanging in the air; impossible. A bee poised motionless at the brink of a flower and all the bodies. . . . Are their faces alarmed? Are they looking skywards, feeling the awful power descending, one last moment of dread before their minds are numbed? The book does not tell about that.
In the story, a princess sleeps in the highest tower and only the kiss of the prince will awaken her. In this palace, the one before me, the one that I brought back the memory of a childhood tale, the only possible princess, the king's only child, is long dead. Not a spindle-prick, not death through innocence, but a father's hand holding out the fatal cup.
There is a tower in Fulminir. It is tall and it is perpetually dark. No princess ever slept there, I'm sure, but I ordered it to be forever sealed and I had them plant briars at its foot, so that one day thorns and flowers will cover its walls. It is a tomb without a body. It is for Gahrazel and to show him that I did not forget.
When our horses picked their way carefully over the fallen stones of Fulminir's walls, I did not know what we would find within. Neither did I want to find out. I was dog-tired, my body ached and I was floating in a half-dream state that little could penetrate. I stared at the city around me and it was like walking through a painting. A child's painting of hell; red and black too stark, gaping faces. Eerily, the only sound was the hungry crackle of flames and the occasional thump of falling masonry. We rode by Varrish hara standing like imbeciles, utterly immobile, staring at the shattered walls. They did not see us. Like the people of the fairytale, their minds had frozen at the last instant before the spell was cast. Tendrils of blue-green light still investigated the dark, labyrinthine streets. Streets that were like tunnels, some of them disappearing into the ground like open sewers. Everything was damp and stilled.
Transfixed hara were caught in attitudes of bursting from open doorways, alarm forever painted across their panic-stricken faces, arms raised as if to ward off a blow. We passed a young har dressed in fine white silk, curled up in the gutter, gold at his ears and throat, his back branded and striped with weals. In a square, three rotting corpses hung from a scaffold, their blind, white, ruined eyes staring down implacably at the tumble of enchanted Varrs lying on the cobbles around them. In another place we found beautiful hara tied up with their own hair, their bodies naked and bruised. Varrish torturers stood grinning like stone around them. Others, who had perhaps only been passing by, had stopped to spectate. Their faces showed only mild interest.
Arahal pulled his horse to a halt; it skipped nervously sideways. He dismounted and stared up at the victims.
"Will they ever wake up?" I asked. My voice was blown
away from me.
Arahal took a knife from his belt and sawed at the shining hair. He spoke three words and the wind sighed. Three bodies fell, slipped silently to the ground and twitched there feebly. Arahal rubbed his face, groaned, squatted and lifted the nearest har in his arms.
This was only the beginning. Fulminir had many other darker, fouler secrets to disclose.
Ashmael trotted his horse up beside me, an absurd blur of movement within the tomb. "Wake up, Swift," he said, with obscene cheerfulness.
This way. Follow me." He reached over and took hold of Afnina's rein by the bit-ring. I clung to the front of my saddle and we cantered through the ensorcelled streets of Fulminir.
Not even by those who have the most bizarre tastes in architecture could F'ulminir be called a handsome city. But its sheer size and ugliness do inspire a certain kind of awe. The buildings are built very close together and the majority of them are tall; narrow but with many stories. Evidence of extreme poverty was everywhere; the further we progressed toward the city center the more harrowing became the scenes we encountered. If ever I had doubted that Varrs ate Wraeththu and human flesh, now I was given ample proof. We found a harling crouched in a blind alley, gnawing on a dismembered limb, his eyes frozen in a glassy expression of defense.
Ponclast's palace squatted like a scrawny bird of prey at Fulminir's heart. We rode right into it. More scenes of darkness, more tableaux of despair. I tried hard to imagine the lively Gahrazel growing up in such a place, but it was impossible. There was a throne room, vast, black and vaulted. Seel and some of the others were waiting for us there.
"Is there anywhere here we can get hot coffee?" Ashmael asked, with abysmal cheerfulness.
Seel grimaced. "Save thoughts of refreshment until we are safely back in Galhea," he said. "You must find Ponclast."
Ashmael nodded. "We will. Come along, Swift."
We urged our horses up wide, splintered stairs, shadowy banners motionless above our heads. When we could ride no more, we walked. Ashmael dragged me. I was dressed only in a woollen cloak; my feet were bare, my skin still wet. I remember saying, "Is this my kingdom then? Is this what Thiede's given me?"
"We must find Ponclast," Ashmael answered, repeating Seel's words, pulling me forward by my wrist. We hurried along endless black corridors, shuttered doors punctuating them at intervals, terrifying in their silence. No windows, no light. A young har swathed in diaphanous veils, forever lifted in a breeze we could not feel, pressed his back to the wall, looking backwards. We walked past. He could not see us. I don't know what he saw, but his face was frozen in terror.
At length, we came out upon the battlements. In the open air, beneatha boiling sky shot with clear blue, we found them, Ponclast and his staff. They were leaning on the stone, looking down into the city streets, perhaps beyond them to the walls. On the stone floor was chalked a rough pentacle; magical implements were strewn carelessly around. From this point had the oil-smoke demon arisen. There were smears like soot and black liquid along the walls of the palace. A vague charnel stench still hung around. Ponclast's wide black cloak was lifted up behind him like wings, petrified in that position. I recognized him immediately. The first thing I thought was, Gahrazel's murderer, and this was followed closely, as more uncomfortable thoughts began to crowd my head, by: my father's seducer.
Ashmael pulled me to face him. "You realize I have to release him from the stasis, Swift."
I nodded. "As you must."
He spoke three slow words that sounded and smelled like ashes and lime, and then suddenly Ponclast jerked upright. He was so surprised, he nearly fell forward over the battlements. He uttered an exclamation and turned. I was a stranger to him. He did not recognize me, but he knew immediately that we were Gelaming and that we had defeated him. In one swift, supple movement he reached for the gun at his hip, but Ashmael had
anticipated that, raising his hand, calmly, languidly. It was enough. Now Ponclast's arms were frozen again, his legs paralyzed. His eyes were wild. Any chance he'd get he'd try to kill us, and then keep on killing. He enjoyed it. Neither was he afraid of death.
Anger spurted through me in a hot, quick wave. "What can you do with him?" I cried. "You can only kill him! It's the only way to stop him!" Ponclast looked at me directly for the first time. He almost smiled. "Yes, I am Swift," I said in a cold, low voice. "I am Terzian's son. I am with the Gelaming and now your kingdom is mine."
For a moment, Ponclast was expressionless. Then he laughed. It was the most mirthless sound I had ever heard. Had he laughed like that as his son writhed in the final agony of death? "Terzian's puppy!" he boomed, tears of laughter running down his sooty face. "I was right about you. Weakness on my part not to get rid of you when I had the chance. So now you dally with those who destroyed your father—"
"No," I interrupted. "You destroyed him! You!"
"You think so?" Ponclast drawled. "I gave him everything."
"Including evil."
"Including a thirst for evil. He loved power and he loved what we would do together. You never knew him, puppy; he was always mine."
I thought, I will silence you, pig! I could not bear the sound of his voice. Before Ashmael could stop me, I lunged forward, taking Ashmael's knife from his belt, swift, swiftly. I lunged forward and struck at that hateful smile and then there was another smile on Ponclast's face, this one gaping red and toothless. He looked surprised.
"Swift!" Ashmael pulled me back. "That is not the way! Stop!"
I struggled away from him and threw the knife at the floor. "There is no way," I said bitterly. "No right or wrong; not here."
I turned away. I walked back into the palace. Ponclast shouted empty threats behind me. I did not look around.
It seemed I walked for hours, always downwards, seeking the throne room where I thought Seel might still be. I didn't know exactly what Thiede expected me to do with Fulminir, but at that moment I was planning a thousand ways of pulling it down, burning it and mutilating Ponclast's elite dogs. It seemed such an anticlimax to find Ponclast like that. We should have fought. I should have sent him plummeting over the battlements; sent him to a bloody, crushing death. Gelaming do not like to kill . . .
Eventually, I came out into a courtyard, down a narrow, snaking stairway. I looked around myself. I was lost. In the middle of the yard was a well. Sitting on the well's wall was a splendid figure. It was Thiede. In that place of utter darkness he shone like an angel. He was an angel. Uriel for vengeance, clad in silver steel and silk, his hair like a nimbus, his eyes deepest black. I could see his long feet in thin sandals, the toenails curved like claws and lacquered with the luster of pearl. If ever I had thought our race resembled humanity, looking at Thiede dispelled that illusion. He smiled at me. For a face so beautiful, his teeth are quite long.
"Once upon a time," he said. "I lived in a city like this. It may even have been this city. . . . Do you like stories, Swift?" I limped over to him. My feet were cut. Thiede leaned over and hauled up the bucket from the well. "Come to me," he said. I sat on the wall beside him and he tore a strip of silk from his sleeve and, with the water, bathed the blood and soot from my toes.
"All lives are stories," I said. "To somebody, they're stories." He nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, this is true. I enjoy making up my own stories, though."
"As you made up mine?"
"Yes. I construct the plot, place the characters and then they tend to become headstrong and run away from me. I lose control over them. Usually, it is because of Love, a thing I once sought to eradicate in Wraeththu. Now I'm not so sure I can, or even if I want to."
"It surprises me you say this."
"It surprises me too, Swift the Varr."
I shivered. "After today, the name of Varrs should never be spoken again. The tribe should perish, the memory of it should die ..."
"Is this your first decree?" He wiped his hands fastidiously.
"What are you going to do with the people of Fulminir?" I asked him. "And t
he city itself; what will you do with that?"
"Isn't that up to you now, Swift?"
"No, I don't think so."
Thiede looked beyond me at the dark mass of Ponclast's palace rising around us. We were still nowhere near the ground. The wind was chill."Do with them?" he mused. "Well, it is a problem. They are no use to us in this world, that's for sure, but neither would we be thanked for sending such black souls into the next! Come now, what do you suggest?" "I suggest, Lord Thiede, that we make a deep hole in the Earth and freeze them all forever and throw them into it. Then we should close the pit. I would enjoy particularly stamping down the soil." "But nothing would ever grow there." "We could pave it with stone."
"Hmm ... a possible solution, I suppose!" He smiled at me, which I returned. "There is one place you have not thought of, Swift." He stood up and began to walk across the yard, beckoning me to follow. "Another place . . . ?"