The light inside was dim, but I could make out a bare room, furnished with as little as was practical. A narrow bed stuck out from the far wall. There was a strong smell of creosote
All I wanted to do was curl up on the floor and shut my eyes tight until everything went away.
"Pellaz." Seel's touch on my shoulder brought me around a little. His eyes told me all I needed to know.
Once, he had been in my place. Once even Seel had stood at the threshhold of acceptance, doubting. For the first time, I noticed the faint lines around his eyes and the shadow within them that told of the fighting, the struggle. What were Wraeththu?
"Pell, this is Mur and Garis. They are here to help you through the next few days. They
will attend to you."
Two figures were standing in the doorway to another room. Neither looked at me with sympathy,
only a kind of resigned boredom. They moved, with slouching ennui, to either side of Seel,
sharp and angular strangers, dressed in dull gray. Seel lifted his head, his face shadowed
yet luminous in the yellow light.
"Pellaz Unhar, now is the time of your Inception. It is decreed that you shall be prepared
in your physical, mental and spiritual states for your approaching Harhune. Do you deliver
yourself into our hands for this time, your Forale?"
"Yes." My voice was faint, but what else could I have said.
"Then we may commence." He relaxed and rubbed his face, casting off the incongruous image of high priest. Normally, I would have laughed at it all; arcane words and special effects. At the time, it was deadly serious.
"Garis and Mur will bathe you now," he said. "I can promise you, by the end of all this you will hate the sight of a bath. See you tomorrow."
Without a further glance at me he went out, letting the door swing shut with a horrible finality behind him.
"This way," the one called Garis drawled at me. Gray shirt, gray trousers, iron-gray hair, like the color of a horse, half plaited and held up on his head with loose combs. His feet were bare, the toe-nails more like claws. Mur was similarly attired, only his hair was dyed black, mostly cut short and spiked everywhere except at the nape of his neck, where it was braided to below his shoulder-blades. I followed them into the other room which was lit more brilliantly. Two lamps. It was a bathroom that looked more like a dissecting chamber. Two scrubbed tables, a deep, narrow bath and a sink that looked like steel. All that was missing were the knives and the rubber gloves. Chatting to each other, not even looking at me, Mur and Garis pulled off my clothes. I stood there, shivering and naked, while they busied themselves about the room. Even if they had actually shouted, Pellaz, you are absolutely worthless!," it would not have been more clear.
Thoughts of my old home echoed through my mind. Mima's smile, a dim endless replay; squeaky sounds I could not understand. Somewhere nearby Cal was sitting or standing, talking, drinking. Laughing? Did he think of me? Tears of a child dewed my lashes but did not fall. I let the strangers put me into the bath. Salt water licked at all my old cuts and scratches. Garis wrenched my arms as he scrubbed at me. It felt like they were rubbing slivers of glass into my skin.
At the end of it, I was lifted out, impersonally, and dried off with a coarse towel, red and smarting from head to toe.
"Here, put that on!" Garis threw me a bundle of cloth. As I struggled wretchedly to dress myself, the other two laughed together. I dared say nothing, but I hated them. The kind of hate you can nearly see, it is so strong.
"You can go to bed now," Mur mentioned, throwing a cold glance over his shoulder as he folded the towels. Garis leaned against the sink, preening his fingernails, looking at me through slitted eyes. He held me in utter contempt, I burned at the humiliation, the unfairness
They had several days during which to torment me. Hitching up the unflattering robe I was wearing, I shuffled back through the door. They started talking as soon as I had gone.
"Human bodies are so disgusting, like animals," Mur said.
"How lucky for you you never had one!" I heard Garis remind him sarcastically. Disgusting? Animal? To me I looked no different from them.
They extinguished the lamps before they left. Not a word of farewell. I huddled on the hard bed trying to warm myself with the thin blanket that covered it. Rough material chafed my skin and scratching myself only made it worse. A window, high up, showed me a perfect sky sequinned with lustrous stars. Moonlight fell across my face. I wanted to weep, but I was numb. Why were they so cruel? I could not understand, innocent as I was.
Nobody had ever been actively hostile to me in my life before. Too beaten to be angry anymore, I sank into a restless sleep and the dreams, when they came, were ranting horrors, perverse possibilities.
I had been awake for what seemed hours when Seel sauntered in. He gave me a flask of water, and did not ask how I was feeling. Already my stomach was protesting furiously at not being fed. I had eaten poorly the day before and regretted it deeply now. Sitting dejectedly on the bed, still scratching, I sipped the water.
" Pellaz thinks he's in hell." Seel regarded me inscrutably. I said nothing. "I can remember," he continued. "One day, perhaps, you will be in my position. Soon, you will see . . ."
"It is necessary," I said dully.
Seel chewed his cheek thoughtfully. "You must be purified. To do that you must suffer humiliation. Only from trial may the spirit flower," he quoted, from something.
"Is this a lesson?" My spirit was far from flowering.
Seel raised an eyebrow. "As a matter of fact, yes. Someone else is coming to instruct you fully, though. He's a high ranking Ulani, called Orien. Don't antagonize him, Pell. He may turn you into a frog."
I could see he was struggling to be patient with me. I was supposed to be the abject supplicant awaiting enlightenment, but at the moment, I was slipping the other way.
Orien, however, did much to dispel my petulance. He was blessed with the kind of manner that instantly lightens the atmosphere. His clothes were threadbare and his hair, half tied back with a black ribbon, was escaping confinement over his shoulders. He rarely stopped smiling. Before beginning my lessons, he told me we would meditate together, "Try to empty your mind," he said, as we sat cross-legged on the floor. For me, that was an impossibility. I did not really know what meditation was and my mind was buzzing like a nest of wasps. I could not keep still. After a while, Orien sighed and rummaged in the bag he had brought with him. "Put out your tongue, Pell." He touched me with a bitter paste from a tiny glass pot. I grimaced and he smile at me. "Come on, swallow." My throat burned, but in a short time a pleasant coolness seeped through ray limbs and crawled toward my mind. "Now, we shall try again."
This time it was easy. Gradually, I was eased into a white and soothing blankness and I began to drift, high above my troubles. Intelligence welled within me, as my situation hardened into sharp focus in my brain. I was so earthbound, so wrapped up in myself, I was blind to essential truths. Emotion filled me. It was there; the truth was within my grasp. The door was opening to me ...
Orien's hands snapped together sharply. The wrench of coming back took my breath away. "You are privileged, Pellaz," he said, nodding. (What did he mean?) "But you have a lot to learn. It is all strange to you and you have so much to overcome. Human prejudices, human bonds, human greed . . ."
"Human frailty," I could not help adding. I remembered it from church.
Orien reached out to ruffle my hair. "Pretty child, yes, that too," he laughed. "Now. Tell me what you think Wraeththu is."
I was totally unprepared.
"Well?"
"I ... I don't know." It was feeble.
Orien was exhibiting that unfailing Wraeththu patience. "Oh, come on. I can't believe you haven't thought about it. Tell me what you think."
Next to him, Seel shifted his position on the floor and cleared his throat. He was either bored or embarassed.
"Well," I began, leaning forwar
d to clasp my toes. "I suppose I think it started like a gang of boys ... I don't know . . . something like that, and then it just grew. You don't think of yourselves as human though, do you, but I'm not sure what the difference is. ... You all seem so ... so ... old. It sounds stupid .. . you look young, but you're not.. ." My mind was full of ideas but I did not have the words to voice them. I shook my head. Orien did not press me further. "Old? I'm twenty-one, Seel's nineteen, aren't you?"
Seel did not look amused. "No, twenty now, if it really is that important. "
"How old were you ..." I began, but Orien waved his hand to silence me.
"Questions later," he said. "Now, I am going to tell you exactly what you are getting into."
Years ago, in the north, a child was born. A mutant. Its body was strangely malformed in some respects.
As it grew, this child exhibited many unusual traits that foxed both its parents and the doctors they consulted in thei r concern. Their son conversed earnestly with people they could not see; some of their neighbors' dogs feared him; other children shrank from him in horror. His mother complained she simply did not like the child; he was unlovable, withdrawn. Even as a baby he had snarled at her, refusing the breast. Once, some years later, as she had prepared his dinner, all the saucepans had risen off the stove and flown at her. Turning round, a silent scream frozen on her face, she had seen him standing in the doorway, watching.
On reaching puberty, the boy disappeared from home, and despite massive police investigation (accompanied by an insidious sense of relief experienced by the grieving parents), no clue to his fate was ever found ... for some time.
Months later, officials were baffled by a bizarre murder case in Carmine City. A young man, apparently having been sexually assaulted, had been found dead in a disused building. But it was far from the simple case it appeared; such killings commonplace in the city. The young man's insides had been eroded away as if by a powerful and caustic substance. Post mortem investigation revealed the presence of an unknown material in the body tissues, something that kept on burning even as it dried on the dissecting table. Under the microscope, it teemed with life like sperm, but unlike the sperm of any creature the scientists had seen before.
A mutant runaway had come alive in the city; alone, frightened and dangerous in his fear. He had learned just how different he was. His touch could mean death to those that offered him shelter, the sub-society of the city. He kept away from them, hiding in the terrible gaunt carcases of forgotten tenements; on the run, shivering in the dark.
Freaks roamed the steaming tips, the rubble. One came across him as he slept; lifted aside the foul sacks that covered him; gazed at his translucent glowing beauty. The veins on his neck showed blue through pearl, pumping with life. Some people are so far gone they would do anything to eat. One more day on the planet, one more day for the fleas, the rats, the sores.
Freak lips on a mutant throat, broken teeth to tear. The mutant opened his eyes, relaxed beneath the lapping suction. He did not want to die. He knew he could not die.
For three days the freak writhed, gibbered and screamed on the soiled floor. Passively the mutant watched him, faint interest painted across his bland face. On the third day, the filth peeled away and the mutant was given an angel. An angel like himself, brimming with mysteries that alone he had had no inclination to explore.
The rest of it is now the legends of Wraeththu. Wraeththu, born in hate and bitterness, flexing their young, animal-strong muscles in the cities of the north. Always learning, always increasing their craft and cunning. Increasing. It was inevitable that eventually it touched someone who had the curiosity, the intelligence to probe within the mystery. Wraeththu lost its ungoverned, adolescent wildness; it became an occult society, hungry for knowledge. But what they found within the Temple appalled them; its vastness scared them.
Some broke away from the search for truth and fell back into the old ways of fighting and living for the day. Those that remained faced the unavoidable truth: Mankind was on the wane, Wraeththu waxed to replace it. The first mutant faded into anonymity. Nobody was quite sure what had happened to him, but he had left strong leaders behind him. Now he had become a creature of legend, revered and feared as a god. Wraeththu did not believe he was dead, but that he'd elevated to a superior form of existence, monitoring or manipulating the development of his race. The Wraeththu grouped into tribes, each ascribing to varying beliefs, but all united in the Wraeththu spirit. They had the power to change the sons of men to be like themselves. As with the first, within three days of being infected with Wraeththu blood, the convert's body has completed the necessary changes. Many of them develop extra-sensory faculties. All are a supreme manifestation of the combined feminine and masculine spiritual constituents present in Mankind. Humanity has abused and abandoned its natural strengths: in Wraeththu it begins to bloom. Wraeththu are also known as hara, as Mankind are called men. Hara are ageless. Their allotted lifespan has not yet been assessed, but their bodies are immune to cellular destruction through time. As they are physically perfect, so must they strive toward spiritual perfection. If power is riches, then the treasure-chests of Wraeththu are depthless. Purity of spirit is the key; few ever attain it. But one day, when the ravages of man is just a memory, then the Few that have succeeded shall be the kings of the Earth.
I learned later on that all of this was Wraeththu perfection as Orien saw it. At the time, I believed all that he told me of Wraeththu's potential greatness because he seemed infinitely wiser than me. Only bitter experience taught me that he was misled, if not misleading himself. Nothing can be perfect in this world. I was curious about the different Wraeththu tribes, although Orien's knowledge on this subject was far from comprehensive. Owing to varying degrees of civil strife across the country, it had been possible for determined groups of Wraeththu to seize towns from humans or else take over towns that had been deserted. Some had maintained a serious belief in occultism and were interested in furthering their powers, Whilst others (and these Orien mentioned only briefly) were not so concerned about this aspect of themselves. What they were interested in, he neglected to mention.
The sun had traveled to its zenith; I was approaching mine. When Orien ceased speaking the hush still throbbed with his words. What I have told you is only the essence of it; there was much, much more. There was no question of my disbelieving him. To be there was to believe. My doubts were quenched.
"Tomorrow, Pellaz, a Wraeththu of Nahir-Nuri caste, the highest caste, shall come to Saltrock. He is known as the Hienama and it is his task to initiate new converts. A Hienama comes to Saltrock about twice a year. This time there will only be one conversion: yours. At the Harhune, he shall infect you with his blood. That is all. Admittedly, the whole thing will be dressed up in a lot of ritual, which gives everyone a good spectacle." His voice was dry and I smiled at his irony. "Now, do you have any questions?
"Which hundred do you want first?" I replied. We all laughed, me louder than the others.
"Just start at the beginning," Seel advised.
"Right. Why must I fast today?" This was punctuated by a timely growl from my stomach.
"So that your body will find it easier to cope with the Harhune. For medical reasons."
"And how will I change?" I could tell this was the question Orien liked least of all. He twisted his mouth and looked at the ceiling.
"I must admit, I prefer this question to be answered by experience. I don't want to alarm you.
I looked at him. steadily. "Please. I would prefer to know."
He sighed. "Yes. Very well. Most of the changes are internal. You must have realized that Wraeththu can reproduce amongst themselves (I hadn't), but not in the same way as humankind do. It involves the physical union of two hara, yes, but to to conceive life takes more than mere copulation. Essentially, our young are not formed within ourselves in the accepted sense. Only those of high caste may procreate. Sex is also important for reasons other than reproduction. We do not even
call it that. When hara have a high regard for each other they can take aruna: that is pleasure, the exchange of essences. Grissecon is a communion of bodies for occult purposes, but I doubt whether that will concern you for quite some time. Inside you, new parts will begin to grow and externally, your organs of generation shall be improved, refined."
I felt faint. Images of castration brought a taste of blood to my mouth. Orien smiled grimly at my pallor. "Now you may wish you had not asked. But there is nothing to fear; it is not as bad as you imagine. Nothing will be taken away; nothing. One thing you must realize, Pellaz; what you will become is not Man, it is something different. Male, female as separate entities must lose its meaning for you. You must stop thinking of yourself as human."