"Where did you get it?" I asked. No answer. Seel's flower garden, I thought. His ritual flowers. I felt Cal sit down heavily on the other side of the bed, humming quietly to himself; thuds as his boots hit the floor. I could not resist looking at him. He was lifting his loose white shirt over his head, brown skin and white linen, standing up to finish undressing. He had his back to me, stretching like a cat. All the Wraeththu things inside me that needed aruna were going berserk. He looked over his shoulder at me and I shut my eyes. I heard him laugh, quietly. My body felt uncomfortable. I wanted to run away. I wanted Cal. I could not cope. He could so easily have put me out of my misery with a single word of reassurance
When I could bear it no longer and looked at him again, he was lying beside me, some distance away, arms behind his head, just gazing at the ceiling.
"We were friends once," he said, conversationally.
"You didn't come . . ."
"I couldn't. You should know that."
"Why?"
I heard him sigh.
"Because ... I had my own rituals to go through."
"Cal."
He looked at me and laughed. "Oh, I know, I know. I'm sorry. Why do you make me so angry? I know. You make me feel inadequate, can you believe that?" I shook my head, confused. "Oh, God, you're incredible. I can't get used to having found you. Come here." He pulled my nightshirt over my head. "There, that's better. Skin to skin." His hands stroked my back, while I clung to him as usual, scared to move. "It is an enormous privilege to share breath, Pell," he told me. "You can even get power over someone that way."
"How?" I could only say the right things. He made it happen that way.
"Oh, like this." Now I was no longer Unhar, it was different. I could liis soul. I knew then that we had not shared breath before, no matter what he had told me that first night back on the cable farm. It had been nothing in comparison. Would it have poisoned me then if we had? "Even aruna is not quite like that," he said, "What do you think?" "What do you think!?" We laughed, hugging like children, sharing our breath again, getting mixed up in each other, like overlapping colors, tasting each other; his a taste of ripening corn and sunlight on fur. He pulled away to look at me.
"In the desert, I nearly killed you. I nearly jumped on you," he said. "You're exquisite. The crocus. Let me look at you; all of you." He tossed buck the bedclothes and cool air hit my skin with his eyes. "Thiede is Interested in you," he remarked. "He knows something about you. Too perfect. What are you?"
"Yours," I told him, making him laugh.
"Oh, I don't think so. But just for now I'll happily believe that." I asked him, "Cal, why have I done this? What made me do this? Was it Fate that I've become Wraeththu? Did I have a choice? Will I . . .?"
"Hush," he answered. "If there are a thousand reasons or only one, the outcome is the same."
"Is that an answer?!"
"Not really," he said, smiling. "Believe the answer is merely that I wanted you, that I bewitched you into coming with me. Perhaps you didn't have a choice . . ."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"Perhaps." He laughed and folded his arms around me like wings. I never asked those questions again.
There is no coupling in eternity that can rival aruna. After a while we did not talk again; there was no need. Thoughts transferred between us like kisses. It was like dreaming and being in someone else's dream all at the same time. A star of pain inside me shot out light like a comet. It was a signal. His face was serious, but he did not speak, just culminated our foreplay by laying me back gently on the pillows. I was in agony, but for II while he did nothing, almost afraid. Feverishly, I reached for him, calling his name. End this torment. Dark flower. Touch. The star of pain fizzed wildly and went out. Tides of another ocean washed me delirious. Inside me, deep inside me, a nerve, a second heart, throbbed, itched, desperate to he stilled. Something snaked out from the heart of the flower and licked it like a bee's tongue. The heat of liquid fire engulfed us, sizzling our sweat and I cried out. Aruna. Ecstasy that can kill. The poison fire that is narcotic. I could never have imagined so much, The finest time of my life? There was something in what Seel had said. Later, others would bring sparks to my eyes, but that time, that first time ... I could speak of it forever and never fully convey the magic, the power, the union that makes us strong. Nothing like the affairs of men: it is quite different.
We recovered and Cal said, "Be ouana for me, Pell," shining, lazy, passive. We blazed again, and I bloomed within him. When the dawn came, we slept, but even in my dreams, it was the fires of aruna flaring and flickering, a dense inferno, the heart of the volcano, flowers and ashes.
CHAPTER FOUR
On the learning of craft, and beyond sanctuary
My caste was Kaimana, my level Ara. The beginning. Kaimana progresses through three levels; Ara, Neoma and Brynie. Ara means altar and signifies a time of learning and preparation. I had many things to learn; basic occultism as I found out later. Its strange and lavish ritual intrigued me and I took the Oath that bound me to secrecy. There have been books based upon the codes of our religion. This is not one of them. As I speak to you directly through these pages, so I take heed of my vows. To those who already know the truth, there is no need for me to enlighten them. At that time, I had also to come to terms with the biology of my body, to understand its limitations and abilities. I learned to flex the muscles of my mind, so long unused.
Cal and I lived in Saltrock for about eighteen months and during that time I progressed from Ara to Neoma. Everything I learned came mainly from Orien, a patient and wise teacher. Seel taught me the mysteries and uses of plants (that knowledge was invaluable), whilst Cal, never less than that first time, explored with me the horizons of my sexuality. I suppose I was living in a kind of comfortable vacuum. Saltrock is cut off from the real world in a sense, if only by its location. Often, Wraeththu from other places would make their way there, some hideously scarred in mind and body by the wars and skirmishes beyond the mountains. One thing was clear: Wraeththu was becoming more powerful and Mankind responded valiantly to its threat, but the old world was disappearing fast.
We sometimes heard tales of the Gelaming; they that fought hardest of all and were rumored to have the most sophisticated technology known on Earth.
"At the beginning," Cal told me, "Gelaming were the finest, the brightest; in secret, so long ago. Men did not know about us then; that came later, with the killing. They may never know our true nature. (It was incredible to you too once, wasn't it?) They that joined us, the lucky ones, will be the only survivors."
Immanion reared, splendid and shining, somewhere faraway. One day, Cal vowed, we would find it. Saltrock, meantime, grew more solid, more stable with every day that passed. As Seel predicted, a generator was somehow procured and flickering electricity soon lit the lengthening streets and sturdier houses of the town. Saltrock would never be a proud and haughty temple city like Immanion, but it became a place, where even to this day, I could go to find peace and good company.
During that time I heard no more from Thiede. Sometimes, if I stopped to think about it, a threatening prickle of apprehension would scare me. Thiede had made no secret of his interest in me and he was stronger and more dangerous than we all knew. Several weeks after my Harhune, I was talking to Flick about Thiede's visit to my bedroom and how it had disturbed me. For a moment or two Flick looked at me as if I was mad
"You must have been hallucinating still," he said. I laughed, although a little annoyed that he did not believe me.
"It's true," I insisted. "Thiede did come to see me and he said strange tilings. I wasn't hallucinating. Mur was there as well."
"But, Pell," Flick replied, his voice beginning to falter with bewilderment. "We all saw it. The day after your Harhune. Thiede left Saltrock. Everyone turned out to see him go; he rode away on a great, white horse . . ."
"Then . . ." My skin freckled with goose-bumps and Flick rubbed his bare arms as if he were cold.
"Then . . . well, he is Nahir-Nuri. That's all there is to say."
Hut it was more than that. Thiede is a law unto himself. It is possible, though difficult, to handle him, but not an exercise I would recommend. At that time I looked on him as a kind of god, now I know better. He has his [Imitations; they are just farther than everybody else's.
One day, a young emaciated Har stumbled, half-dead, into Saltrock. His body was in an appalling state and those proficient in medicine were perplexed by its cause. Orien read the crystals to find the answer. Oh, the ways of Men. How they revel in destruction. Now they had discovered a Virus lethal to Wraeththu-kind and had lost no time in exploiting it. I was terrified. I thought it would be the end of everything.
Cal laughed at my fears. "It is a mere tick on the skin of Wraeththu," he professed.
I was amazed at his optimism. "How can we combat such a thing?" I argued.
"Simple," he told me. "Our strength can eradicate it easily."
We had to wait for the next full moon. A week and a half. During that time, ihreeharaof Saltrock fell sick with the killer virus. The carrier could not be saved; he was dead two days after his arrival, already two-thirds decomposed.
One day Cal said to me, "Tonight, Grissecon shall be performed. Then you shall see. There is nothing men can throw at us we cannot handle effectively."
He had taken me to the shores of the soda lake to tell me. Instinctively I knew there was something more.
"Why bring me here to tell me this?" I asked. He put his hands upon my shoulders.
"I'm not sure how you'll feel about this. It will be Seel and myself who will perform the Grissecon." For a moment I did not realize what he meant and stared blankly at him. "Pell, you would have to face this sooner or later. We cannot be selfish with each other. Here, in Saltrock, it is easy. Many hara are paired off... but this, this is different. Orien has told me it will have to be Seel's essences and mine. We are the only combination here that will work."
He did not know that I had been anticipating something like this happening for some time. Cal often expected me to react in a humanly jealous way to a lot of things. Probably because my temperament had made such an impact on him before my Harhune, in the desert, when he was still raw from what had happened in the North. I was different now; almost detached from emotional matters. I felt a lot for Cal and always will, but I was not possessive about him. Outside, a lot of Wraeththu have degenerated from the True Spirit, and are once again the prey of their own emotions. Thiede's blood ran in my veins, his words stamped indelibly in my head. Unbeknown to anyone, I was more Wraeththu than most, and my emotions were slave to me rather than the other way around. I put my arms round Cal's neck and kissed his cheek
"Your essence is healing," I told him. "I know you will destroy this curse." I could feel his relief like a golden rain in my eyes. I would watch him work magic with Seel and be proud. Grissecon, simply, is sex magic. Power is a natural result of aruna, which is normally wasted, dissipating into the air. Now I would have the opportunity of seeing this power harnessed, the potent essence of Seel and Cal combined, taken as a living force and directed back against those that cursed us. Somewhere, a resistant pocket of humankind had combined their own efforts in an attempt to destroy us, ignorant (as indeed I was at first) of Wraeththu's ability to fight back.
Saltrock has a sandy central square. It is often used for various meetings or ceremonies, and also for social gatherings. Everyone clustered there that night. I went with Flick. Seel and Cal had been absent from the house for two days to undergo purification. We all sat in a wide circle around a central fire. Orien, as shaman, conducted the preliminaries and we all chanted along with him. He threw grains into the fire and it flared up blue, When Seel and Cal were brought out to us, magnificent and clothed in gossamer, everyone cried out. We were drunk on excitement and pride. Seel's hair had been unbound from its usual rags and ribbons confinement and it seemed to me as if it had a life of its own; all those different colors catching the light of the fire. Cal was simply the primeval embodiment of Wraeththu, his violet eyes shining like midnight from the first days of Eden. By the light of the sapphire flames and the starcrusted, indigo sky above, Cal and Seel sank down together in the dust. They spoke the language of angels and their draperies blew away, into the fire, crackling up into the air like will-o-the-wisps. The throbbing of drums, hand-beaten, rose up behind the crowd; a deep, passionate growling like thunder. We, the gathered, thumped the ground with our fists, our bodies aroused in tune with the workers of magic. When the moment came for the flower to strike, Seel uttered a cry, strange and echoing and I seemed to see it drift from his mouth like an azure smoke, glowing as if a strong light shone through it. Did I see that? I saw Orien hold aloft a glass ball and the blue vapour seemed to coil into it. Cal stood up. In the flickering shadows, Seel still writhed on the sand, half replete, his hair lashing like angry snakes in the dirt. Orien's acolytes rushed forward to milk his essence into a curling glass tube. Cal and Seel mixed. When they held the tube out for us to inspect, 1 could see it glowing gold and red and purple. Then Orien took it away. He would use this elixir to work on the bodies of the sick and send the soul of the sacred seed speeding out on the ether to do battle. Everything has a life-force; even evil sickness conceived beneath the long eye of the microscope. Back in the square, we thought no more about it for a time. Seel had clawed Cal back to his arms and around us everyone fell to the same activity. I looked at Flick, his little anxious face looking up at me. Only a short time ago, I had felt inadequate beside him. I cupped my hand behind his neck and he closed his eyes.
By morning, it was as if the sickness had never been. I had been shown a little of what we were capable of. In a way, it was hard for me to grasp what 1 had witnessed, hard to believe that it was real. Did I possess this power too? Was it waiting within me? The sickness had gone. One death to remind us; that was all.
As I had pointed out before, I had no particular skills to offer the hara of Saltrock, yet I could not expect to live there without making some contribution toward the town. I turned my hand to many things: working in the strange, lush gardens under the black cliffs, where vegetables and [lowering plants grew with grisly splendor and hugeness; assisting in the const ruction of new buildings (gradually the tents and makeshift cabins were disappearing); grasping the rudiments of vehicle technology (we had several ailing cars to work with, but lacked many of the tools needed to make them run, and what fuel we had was precious). Sometimes, I would climb alone to the lip of the glossy, dark cliffs, the staunch wall of Saltrock, and gaze out over the landscape. In the distance, rough abandoned farmland wrinkled the surface of the Earth; a pale road cut through it. Beyond that I would often see lights winking in the haze or vague movements, One day I would pass that way, and when I thought that, a deep and thrilling wave would shiver me.
In the mornings I worked, but most afternoons were set aside for study. Orien's house was made of stone, small inside and dark. He lived alone. It was rumored that when the first Wraeththu had come to the soda lake, this little stone building had already been there. Lost, abandoned; who had lived there? No bones had been found, but several fine cats were existing comfortably in what was left of the sparse furnishings. Orien said it was improbable that they had built the place. When I laughed at this, I had the uncanny suspicion that he had not been making a joke. Orien often came out with outlandish suggestions that I later regretted having been amused at. Anyway, since the beginnings of Saltrock, the cats had mysteriously multiplied in numbers. By mysteriously I mean that it happened too quickly to have been by natural means. They are now the familiar spirits of Saltrock. When other Hara came bringing with them other types of animal, the cats showed no hostility to the invaders of their territory. How they had lived untended in that cruel, barren countryside, with so little to hunt and eat, is an enigma, as is their philosophical tolerance of other animals.
That was the first thing that Orien and I talked about.
He would give me books to read and then ask me later for my opinions of them. Often I had had difficulty with the language; some of the books were so old. He studied me very carefully as I talked, watching my face more intently than listening to my voice, I thought. Something puzzled him and he told me about it.
"I get a feeling about you, Pell. What is it? What's so different about you? I've instructed dozens of newly-incepted hara, but you. . . . Your beauty is uncanny. It's more inside you than on the surface."
I still could not accept such talk without embarrassment. "No, no, not more than many others," I pointed out quickly. "There is nothing different about me. I was born a peasant . . ."
"You do not talk like a peasant," Orien suggested, awaiting my response.
Something made me say, "It is Thiede," and Orien raised an immaculate eyebrow.
"Perhaps?"