Cal sat down next to me and I took him in my arms. He was weeping silently into my hair. My eyes were dry, but my chest felt as if it was stuffed with sawdust. After some time, Cal sniffed noisily and said, "What happened to you?"
I wiped his face with my hand, for a moment or two, unable to tell him. "I saw Gahrazel. I spoke to him."
"You too?"
"Gahrazel?"
"No ... not him!"
I held him to me tightly, afraid to let go, afraid of the contact. I told him what I'd seen, what I'd heard. Cal said nothing. Perhaps he had known already, but I didn't want to find out. I had once asked questions about my father, now some of them had been answered. Of course it was something I had to know. I wish I didn't. "Gahrazel asked for me," I said, "and I turned my back on him. If I'd known what fate was awaiting him, would it have changed the way I felt? I hope so. Today, I said to him the things he should have heard before he died. His death was lonely, people there, I know, but it was true loneliness. Alone, unloved, unforgiven. Now I have said it. Was it real, Cal?"
"A spirit," he whispered, "or a conjuration of your own mind, or a conjuration of theirs; does it matter? If you have not appeased the shade of Gahrazel, you have appeased yourself."
"Was it just within me? Was it guilt?"
"Pray that it was not guilt!"
If it was, perhaps we were all doomed. I whispered Cal's name and held him and shared his fear. This place was not just a place of the dead, no, never that.
We ate the food that Leef gave us. Leef was a tower of strength; the forest seemed to have the least effect upon him. His mind was ordered; he denied what was not real. "There is no-one here," he said, when I told him about my experience, omitting the details about my father. I did not want to discuss that with Leef. "It was hallucination," he insisted, "that was all."
Cal said, "This place, this clearing... I recognize it. Pell and I were here once. It was the last time we were together."
"That's not possible," Leef replied emphatically.
"It's the same country!"
"No, your mind is playing tricks on you."
"That was our fire; it has always been here."
"No!" Leef stood up, running his hands through his hair. "Are you both cracking up on me?" he demanded. We stared at him silently. "Look, this is Gelaming work. You must regain control! They will break you!" He shook a warning finger at us.
"Every sickly bloom has his face, every whispering leaf speaks with his voice," Cal murmured. I reached for his hand. I understood.
"You will die here!" Leef exclaimed. "Pull yourselves together, for God's sake!"
"There is no God here," I said.
"Oh, there is," Cal answered. "He fights with the Gelaming. He's here, more than anything. They have his light, you see. They are his angels."
"Have some wine, Cal," Leef said drily, thrusting the bottle at him.
Cal drank, deeply. "Was this from the Froia?"
"No," Leef answered. "I don't know where it came from."
Night and day had no proper sequence in that place. We took turns at sleeping and rested well enough; we could not remember our dreams.
Once we had slept, we began our journey again, leaving the clearing behind. Cooling sticks and ashes cracked bleakly in a curl of smoke as our farewell.
We rode into the forest, down a steep slope carpeted with fallen pine needles. It descended into an impenetrable gloom. Stark, black branches, fallen from the trees, littered the path, cracking abruptly as the horses stepped on them. It felt as if others had passed this way not long before us. I could sense life. After an hour, we came upon a ruined house, strangled and beautiful with flowering creepers. Its empty windows watched our approach. It was Forever. I made an exclamation, pointed.
Leef did not even turn his head. "Ride past!" he ordered.
I had to look. Was this Forever's future? Was it doomed to die? The roof was nearly gone. At an upper window, I caught a glimpse of something pule, flitting quickly from sight. Was it Cobweb I saw there, haunted and sad, clinging to a memory blighted by truth? There was only silence and I was afraid of sound. I was afraid I would hear voices and that they would be voices that I knew.
It felt like afternoon, golden sunlight through the leaves. Laughter in the distance. My father stepped out in front of us. "You are welcome, strangers," he said and his smile was a predator's smile and I knew he held a gun behind his back. I looked away. Through the trees, human children scampered and screamed in innocent delight, through the sunlight, until the light was gone and inky blackness smothered their cries to whimperings of terror. Now they ran with white faces and gaping mouths, silent in their honor, bearing scratched limbs and torn clothes. Behind them, with grave expression, my father rode a heavy, black horse. The children ran from him in fear. He and Ponclast suddenly blocked the road before us, dining on human flesh, holding goblets of blood in their bloody fingers, toasting life. They had the faces of wolves and their long muzzles were red. "The beast will come . . ." Wolves' heads. A horde of Varrs with wolves' heads. A screaming town, running with red, people running. Human, hara. The Varrs had torches, setting light to the buildings, the people. Wolves' heads, forever grinning. On a broad road, under the streetlights, my father dismounting from his black horse, lifting the wolf helmet from his shining hair, brushing it back, handing the helmet to a soldier at his side, smiling. Ponclast striding over, embracing Terzian. He says the words, "My star." They kiss. Ponclast hands him a human heart and, staring into Ponclast's eyes, Terzian bites . . . I looked away. My throat burned; I retched.
Then a figure rushed out of the trees, light spiraling in, a euphony of birdcalls. It brought the afternoon back in. Someone grabbed Tulga's reins by the bit-ring. He looked up at me, smiling. "I knew you would come!" His beauty was like gold in my eyes. So beautiful, after what I had just seen, I wanted to weep. He wore a ring that was like a seal. His ears were pierced with gold, three times on each side. Hair that was a luxury of blackness, lifting like wings, braided with pearls. His smile touched my heart. I knew him. It was Pellaz.
"Are you afraid?" He laughed. Tulga sniffed at him and he cupped her velvet nose with his hands.
"No . . ."
He touched me, lightly, upon the leg and my flesh tingled beneath the cloth. "What your friend Leef said was true; it is only illusion," he said, "but illusion of the truth nonetheless. It will soon be over. Look after him."
"Who?" Of course I knew.
The vision shook its head, smiling sadly. "My love, my tormentor, my dearest memory, my Cal. Calanthe; slayer and beloved. It will be some time ..."
"He has seen you."
"Not like this. Only you have truly seen me and it will not happen again. Be strong, Swift. I have faith in you and I will give you such jewels as you cannot imagine . . . when you find my people." He was fading. I reached for him. "Pell, what is real?"
"You are. Remember that." He was gone.
Cal urged his horse to my side. "You spoke his name!" he cried, his eyes all wild as if I had spoken blasphemy.
"He was here," I said. "Cal, he was here. It was different. Cal, oh, Cal, I know it ... he ... Cal, Pellaz is not dead!"
Leef had to pull him off me. He was hysterical; he cut my lip. Tulga neighed in terror. "But it's true!" I wailed. Leef restrained a sobbing, broken Cal in his arms. How could he know what visions Cal had suffered in that place?
"Swift, for God's sake, shut up!" Leef cried angrily.
"What is real, Pell?"
"You; you are real."
A sandy trail the color of sandy hair, winding through a deciduous wood, whose trees are girded with moss. Green light everywhere. Fluting birdsong. "You are real. You are real. You are real." I am riding. Because Cal is in front of me, I realize quite quickly that this is his illusion, not mine.
I am here as a witness; that is all. I can hear water. Cal's horse snorts and shakes its head. I can see Cal's clothes are torn. He is wearing a white shirt and the rips across his back
are fringed with red. It is claw marks, a whip's teeth, the last desperate scrabbling of someone dying. He turns to look at me and his face is greenish, perhaps it is because of the strange light; he smiles and his gums and teeth are red. "You are with me, Swift?" he says, and I nod my head. "I am with you."
I will look after him, Pell; never fear.
Ahead of us a spreading oak grows in the middle of a glade. Sunlight reaches it, but there are no birds here. Leaning with its back to the tree, a figure stares up through the leaves. It is robed in white, long brown hair around its shoulders. I don't think it sees us. I think it can't sense us. Cal's horse stops in front of me and bends its neck to begin eating. Cal slips from its back to the ground, over the neck; it's quicker. Would he dismount any other way? Tulga wants to eat and I let her. I see Cal lifting his ragged, soiled shirt over his head and his back is livid with long, angry weals. He reaches round and tries to rub them, but he cannot reach. I want to go to him, but I can't. I am frozen. I am mute. Observer; nothing else. Cal is walking toward the tree and the figure looks at him. It smiles sadly. It shakes its head; lifts its hands as if to say, "Go back, go back." Cal keeps walking. The figure says, "You do not have to see this, Cal. You can turn around."
Cal says nothing. The figure says, "Face the past."
"Have I ever faced any other way?" Cal asks. The figure smiles and opens its arms. "You seek absolution, Cal."
"Never that. I have always been aware of everything I've done." "I know that. I had hoped . . ."
"You have no substance to hope!" Cal says bitterly. The figure is still smiling sadly. Its hands are upon the neck of its garment. Cal's fists are clenched at his sides. I cannot see, but I know that he is staring straight ahead. I hear material ripping; a lazy, elegant sound. I think, it is expensive cloth, even though I can see what lies beneath. It is no longer red, no longer shining; just ravagement. Cal and the figure are inches apart. Cal raises one hand.
"Touch me within; touch your sin, Cal."
It was once flesh, now it is nothing, a shell, nothing more. It is hard and dry. I can see the dull, brown bones of a shattered ribcage and I can see Cal's hand reach inside. Once he has touched, the spell will be broken; I know that. He reaches for the heart that no longer beats. He leans forward. The face; a dry mouth full of small, moving things that scurry upwards from the empty lungs. Their lips touch; one living, one who is beyond life. I see Cal wince; so slight a reaction. Corruption has him in its arms. It is pouring foulness into him. A head creaks back and there is no peal of godless laughter; just a thought. "It is done."Like a fountain turned on, life comes
back with a torrent of sound, wings in the treetops, whirring, whirring. Cal is alone and he is soaked in blood; blood in his mouth, his eyes, his hair. He shakes himself and red droplets fly through the air like bright, hard insects. He is sick with the taste of blood, but his eyes are dry, his back unbent. He comes back to me, fallen angel, evil incarnate, a spirit of love. He says one word as he remounts his horse. As he pulls up its head, one word. The word is this: "Orien."
In a viridian shift of time and space, we were riding through a forest of pines once more. Leef, leading, urged his horse into a canter. Ahead of us, bars of light were an avenue to the mouth of the trees. Beyond that, all I could see was hazy. Cal was behind me. I could feel him, but I dared not turn around. Faster. The horses galloped to the end of an enchantment. Colors flew past us, voices called, becoming fainter, birds spiraled upwards, their wings like metal. I wanted to cry, "I am free! We are free!" but I could only laugh. My skin still burned where a golden hand had touched it. I could see his face in the haze. "There is something waiting for you, Swift!" Like a bubble bursting upon the face of the earth, we exploded out of the forest, like bullets, like fear running. A sound of water, laughter, blazing light. Heat hit my skin. Perhaps I had been cold. My head swam. I had to believe it: I am real. The ground roared up toward me, like a green wave starred with white and amethyst. I melted into it, a green darkness; the peace of eternal green.
They let me sleep. When I awoke, it was night-time and Leef had built a small fire. The light was fading rapidly. I noticed at once that the air was clean, untainted. We had passed the barrier. Leef came to my side and offered me a drink of water. It was tepid, but I drained the cup. "Nervous wrecks, both of you!" he said. Leef had seen nothing in the forest.
There was a river nearby and Cal had gone down there to bathe. I found him thoughtfully rubbing his skin with a handful of leaves, naked at the water's edge. He turned round when he heard me approach. We smiled at each other.
"Was it true, Swift?"
"Which part?" I sat down beside him.
"About Pell. Nothing else matters."
"You are single-minded in your obsession."
He laughed and rubbed at his arms. "It was real blood, Swift. It's hard to get it off."
"Here, let me help." I ripped grass from the riverbank, moistened his shoulders with a handful of water and began to rub.
"I shall turn the river red."
"Then it will be someone else's curse. The river flows away from us," I said. His skin was cold.
"You have not answered me ..."
"About Pell? How can I? It was just a feeling. Leef was right; I shouldn't have said anything."
"Could you be right, though?"
I shrugged. "Anything is possible. That is one thing I've learned!"
Cal took the matted sheaf of grass from my hands. I took him in my arms. Just us two; it had been so long.
We were naked in the water together, ribbons of red flowing away from us. Beneath the surface, it was brighter, tangles of waving weed and dark, darting shapes. I clasped
him in my limbs like something drowning, or drowned, and pulled him into me. It was all silver bubbles, in our hair, on our skin, rising, rising. No prayer. Were there angels under the water? I opened my mouth, delirious, forgetting where we were, and he had to drag me to the surface before I filled up with water. As my being ignited in an ecstasy of steam, I saw flaming stars scream across the blackest of skies above us. His breath still tasted of blood, but it was behind him now. The Gelaming had taken their price, or so I thought.
"So, where do we go now?" I asked him as we strolled back to the fire. The dark evening was still faintly pinky-red around us, fringed with insects and wings. We walked among banks of waving pampas grass. Cal put his arm around me. "Away from the forest—obviously! Straight on," he said.
"You don't really know, do you! You are afraid."
"They will come to us."
"Can you be so sure? Will it be that easy?"
His hand dropped away from me. He reached for his eyes. Only the stained dusk around us and a feeling of imminence, unfightable and shining with power. Suddenly, I felt very small. I could feel the immensity of the world around me, seen and unseen. I was shooting upwards into the sky and the body of Swift was becoming smaller and smaller, trees like pins, redness seeping into my soul. I had to shake myself to dispel the illusion. It was so close.
The glow of our fire was almost indistinguishable from the light of the sky above the forest behind it. But we could see it, as the tall grass parted before us. We could see it ... and something more. There were voices, muted like echoes. Cal made a hissing sound and pulled me down into the undergrowth. We looked at each other. His breath was sobbing. I tried to struggle. I think I said, "Leef!" I was thinking of him.
Cal shook his head urgently. "No, Swift, no!" His voice was high with panic as I broke away from him. I ran toward the fire and I heard a horse neigh, through the night air, high and shrill. I could see Leef, two figures holding him down, although he thrashed and writhed to escape.
He cried my name when he saw me, his face stricken. "Swift, go back! Go back!" he screamed. Go back? I hesitated. Cal was behind me. I felt his hands land upon my shoulders and curl around them. I could hear
his breath. It was as if we were frozen. We could not go back. Around our fire, maybe a dozen tall figu
res sifted through our belongings. Behind them, horses gleamed like marble and there was a smell, like jasmin, only stronger. One of them was kneeling by the fire, a hand stretched toward the flames, as if he had never seen fire before. He raised his head slowly and it seemed to take an eternity. I saw a curtain of tawny hair and a face that showed only curiosity. For a second, only curiosity, and then something like pain or fury made him turn away. He stood up and turned his back on us, shouting something incoherent to one of the others, who stepped forward. Cal's fingers spiked into my flesh like steel. I wanted to cry out or move, but I could do neither. The one who had stepped toward us spoke. "Son of Terzian?" His accent was soft and fluid and he was very tall; his clothes were like nothing I'd ever seen before. I can only describe his dress as scanty but complicated. His neck was hung with chains and talismans and black beads, his ears with silver. His hair was also silver, and shaved away from the sides of his scalp, but long over his shoulders. He smiled. I must have nodded or spoken—or twitched. "I am Arahal," he said. "We are Gelaming."