"Oh, I can see you thinking," he said with a wistful smile. "When you do my leg. I can hear you say to yourself: there was beauty here once. We both know where that leads to don't we!" He did not want to say it, make it real with words.
"You're still the same person," I told him.
He grimaced. "Pellaz! If all the hara in the world were like you! They're not though, are they? I know it matters. It matters very much. Perhaps less so in a tribe where there is utter equality of status. The Varrs are not like that."
"You'll heal, get better." I did not like any of this. It made the peace of Saltrock seem like a crazed, idealistic dream. This was what was real. It mattered to be beautiful. Spinel had told us the Varrs had whores, and he was right. Where was the proof of the Utopian visions Orien had spoken of? We had seen only the ophidian cruelty of the Kakkahaar, then the sordid apathy of the Irraka, now this. What had really changed since the first Wraeththu had come into the world? One selfish, ignorant race had been exchanged for another, more powerful, selfish, ignorant race. Where was the great tribe of noble and elevated spirits to cleanse the world? Since Saltrock, all I had seen were magicians, villains and killers. Maybe Immanion too was just a hazy fantasy. If it existed at all, it was somewhere far, far away, where none of this sordid mess could touch it. I was overwhelmed by a swelling tide of emotion: anger, indignation and love. Perhaps it would be best to turn back and return to Saltrock. We could take Cobweb with us. Maybe, there, his body and his soul could be healed. The sanity and the care of kindred spirits would make him whole and proud again.
"No!" he said, and I lifted my face from my hands. "Do not think that, Pellaz." He was looking at me now, with a great weariness. "You look surprised. Am I reading your mind? It's there for all to see, isn't it?" I was dumbfounded. Cobweb sighed. "Oh Pell, it wasn't just for my pretty face you see. That's not just what Terzian wanted. I am Brynie and, they tell me, a gifted psychic. Not that it takes much of that kind of talent to work out what you are thinking! You must know you can't go back. You must. It's a wonderful idea, and I'm grateful that you're thinking it, but no. I'm strong enough to take any of the shit Terzian might throw at me, I really am!" He grinned. "You're tiring me out, do you know that? Tell me to shut up; I'm just moaning. Ignore it. I know I'll get better, and if Terzian tells me where to go, that's just too bad. I'll always have Swift; the son I still can't believe actually came out of me. You want to know about that too, don't you ... I might scare him though, like this. How am I going to feel if he doesn't even recognize me? Why don't you tell me to shut up? Swift's not very old. Do you think he'll have forgotten me? I've not been gone that lung, but, well children are strange, aren't they? Their children are strange, what are ours like? I don't know. He won't have to be incepted, will he? I'll have to tell him what men are. Won't it be crazy if he thinks that men and women are a kind of pervy idea? Only Aghama can help me now, if he's really out there; Aghama or God. Is there a difference?"
"Cobweb," I said, "shut up." He laughed, sort of crazily, and I leaned over him to wrap his blanket more firmly around his shoulders. "You shouldn't be in this ..." I told him.
"Oh be quiet, Pell. I know what you think. Why don't you let me go to sleep."
I went back to watching the fire. My people. My race. I felt a hundred years old.
Two more days of traveling and then the spiky outline of a town appeared in the distance.
"This is where we'll find them," Cobweb said. He looked as if he was scraping the barrel of his strength.
Cal trotted Splice up alongside me. "Well," he said. "This is it. A meeting I would have preferred to avoid."
"Yes," I agreed miserably. We had started out from Phesbe regarding Cobweb as protection against a possibility. It had been clear for some days, however, that we had to actually seek out the Varrs. Cobweb was deteriorating. If we did not get him back to his people, the only alternative was to leave him to die. Cal often appeared hard-hearted, but I knew the limits of his coldness. It was a tough, thin shell around an extremely mushy center. Cobweb could no longer guide us; he lived in a solitary nightmare of delirium. So, without even discussing it, we had begun to look for signs that would lead us to the Varrs rather than away from them. After their ransacking expedition in Stoor, it appeared they had headed back to their home. It was not a difficult task to follow their trail of destruction.
About a mile from the town, a squad of mounted warriors cantered Inward us. The horses were lean, breedy and polished; the riders fit, clean and lithe. Like the Irraka they wore mostly black leather, but it gleamed with the luster of matte silk. We halted our horses and waited for them. Their leader spoke to one of his troupe, who walked his magnificent, mincing mount to within a couple of feet of Red and Splice's straining, quivering noses.
"We would like to speak with the one called Terzian," Cal explained in his clear, careful voice.
"Why?" There was no hint of either hostility or cordiality.
"The one on the pack-horse back there," Cal indicated with his thumb, "he's one of yours. We got him out of a rather distressing situation and he's none too well. I understand Terzian would welcome news of his whereabouts."
The Varr warrior looked round us toward Tenka and the rigor dropped from his face. "Oh my God," he said, almost in a whisper. Cal and I exchanged a comforting glance. "Follow me!" The Varr trotted his horse back to the others and spoke urgently with the leader. They all looked at us with interest and suspicion. When we caught up with them the leader said, "We shall take you to Terzian. I am Ithiel." He held out his hand in a strange, old-fashioned gesture of welcome
Cal took it and said, "Thanks," looking at Ithiel's hand with surprise. "We had thought Cobweb was dead," the Varr remarked as we rode toward the town. "It is indeed fortunate that you . . . came across him." I had the feeling that he was finding all this very embarrassing. I did not know what Terzian was like, but I did not envy Ithiel the task of breaking this piece of news to him.
The town had been renamed Galhea, and was the largest I had ever seen. It was clean and boasted electric power. In fact, little appeared to have changed since Man had lived there. Shops were still trading, only the variety of their merchandise had changed. Music from inns and cafes gave the place an almost festive air. It was nothing like Cal and I had imagined. At home, the Varrs seemed relaxed and unexpectedly cheerful Nowhere could we see the grim and deadly ranks of Wraeththu armies that we had anticipated. We rode through the town toward a residential area, bordered by tall, clipped trees and hedges of late-flowering orangeblossom. The perfumed air made me want to laugh with relief. It was a fragrance, a memory, of Saltrock.
Terzian's house was white and grand, approached by a winding uphill drive flanked by towering bushes of rhodedendron, rooted in turf as smooth as velvet. Order and cleanliness were everywhere. I did not catch sight of one stray leaf. We could see the house growing out of the top of the hill. It had once been a man's house, and he had evidently been rich. Slim, sparkling pillars framed the back of the building, leading to sloping, terraced lawns. The air held the faintest tang of autumn and the house stood out like a white tooth against the darker clouds of the sky. Inside, of course, it might have shared the same fate as Phesbe's civic hall, but I doubted it. Behind me, Cobweb began to cough. Only yesterday, the poison had reached his lungs. He said the Varrs had powerful healers and I prayed it was not too late.
Ithiel led us round the side of the house to an impressively neat stable-yard. As we dismounted, he said, "Your things will be safe here." Hara came to lead our horses away and we followed Ithiel and two of his troupe into the house. One of them carried Cobweb in his arms. He looked barely alive, the damaged leg dangling uselessly. I knew how little he weighed. Cobweb; his name was sadly apt.
Dark, wood-paneled corridors wound through the kitchens and domestic quarters. We could see many hara working there.
"It smells nice," Cal said.
"Better than Phesbe," I agreed and we laughed.
Ith
iel turned at the sound. "Phesbe. Is that where you found Cobweb?"
Cal nodded cautiously. Neither one of us wanted to explain too fully about the Irraka yet. It was not inconceivable that the truth could cause a Varr-ish act of retaliation; depending on how Terzian felt about it. Terzian was an unknown quantity to us; we could not guess how he would react. The Irraka were pathetic and we held no sympathy for them, but we did not want to make more trouble for them. Time would see to their disappearance without any assistance from Varr revenge.
We were taken up huge, curving flights of stairs carpetted in dark red, to an enormous suite of rooms approached by white double doors.
"Terzian says for you to make yourselves at home here," Ithiel said, rather perfunctorily.
"Luxury we enjoy in the gilded chambers of the emperor!" Cal remarked sardonically, touching the heavy, floor-length, velvet curtains that bordered the windows. The predominant color was palest green; the carpet was like moss underfoot. Terzian, Ithiel informed us, would grant us an audience after we had rested and eaten. "Where's the bell for room service?" Cal asked him.
Ithiel sucked his breath in heavily, not smiling. "You will find everything you need in here. Food will be brought up to you presently.
"God, where have we found ourselves this time?!" I exclaimed once Ithiel had left the room.
"Nirvana?" Cal rejoined.
I looked out through the window. Below me, lawns and trees glowed emerald and viridian in the light of the dying sun. Rain-clouds of deep gray and purple massed on the western horizon. A great forest crept in toward the east.
"Things never turn out as you expect, do they Cal," I said.
He sighed and collapsed backwards onto the enormous, grass-colored bed. "No. The Varrs are very civilized killers," he replied. "Have I turned out as you expected?"
I looked away from the window, surprised, but he was not smiling. The pupils of his violet eyes were enormous. "Why?" I asked uneasily.
He shrugged. "I don't know ... sometimes it seems..." He went silent, still fixing me with his lazy, cruel eyes.
I went over and sat on the bed beside him. "At first, I didn't know what to expect with you," I said. "Sometimes you frightened me, sometimes. Perhaps you still do. I get the feeling there are some things you will never tell me. But you are . . . Cal, what are you trying to make me say?"
He reached out with one hand and touched my back. "You're too good, Pell. I hope I don't see that pious, little angel knocked out of you."
"I'm glad it was you that found me," I told him, and.he smiled.
That look, the fading light, the fragrant air of Galhea; they are with me for always. I took his perfect face in my hands. Our tired bodies, unwashed, underfed; hip bones sharp enough to bruise. We recaptured some of the magic of Saltrock then. Here we were; another oasis to shelter us in the savage waste of the world. It must have been on both of our minds: luck had been with us when Cobweb's had deserted him back in Phesbe.
As with the Kakkahaar, the Varrs brought us clothes of their own to wear. Black shirts of soft cloth and close-fitting black trousers. Boots of thin leather buckled to half-way up the leg. We were taken to Terzian well after the evening meal. Veiled lamps suffused the carpeted corridors with dim light. Downstairs, we were conducted to an enormous drawing room. Thick curtains shut out the dark. Terzian was alone. He was leaning against a huge, white fireplace, staring into the flames. It was all very self-conscious. He looked up when we were announced and said, "Please, sit down." It was clear he was a Har who was used to obedience and more. He was slim, tall, well-groomed and had the refined elegance of a torturer. It was hard to imagine him in the act of killing, but it was easy to imagine him ordering someone else to do it.
"I want to convey my gratitude for bringing Cobweb back to us," he said in a voice that betrayed no feeling. He asked us our names and where we had come from. Perhaps he had not visited Cobweb yet, or perhaps Cobweb could not talk to him, or he might have done both of these things, but just wanted to hear it from us. We told him anyway. "Will Cobweb be alright?" I asked him.
"Oh yes. Our people know how to deal with the worst of wounds; they have plenty of practice of course. But for you, though, Cobweb might have died." He did not ask about the Irraka or even how we had found Cobweb. I do not think he cared. He offered us sheh, a spirit they distilled themselves. We accepted and found it pleasant enough. "Where are you traveling to?" Terzian asked us. "North," Cal replied. Terzian pulled a face.
"There is not much there," he said. "What there is, is horribly sordid. Tribes have broken up. Some of the splinter groups are like dogs. Men still have strong-holds in the cities. Time is spent there trying to stay alive by killing. But it's not organized enough. The cities should, in my opinion, be flushed out, evacuated by Wraeththu and destroyed. There is nothing there we really need."
What could we say to that?
"What of the Uigenna? I understand they had the balance of power in the north," Cal said.
"The Uigenna?" Terzian uttered a dismissive snort. "Where have you been? They had internal conflict, to say the least. Their leaders fell to murdering each other; very artistically and no doubt spell-bindingly entertaining for the rest of them. Now, they spend their time bickering amongst thcmselves, experimenting colorfully with new poisons and ways to torture men and unpopular hara to death, and have little interest in maintaining order."
"I didn't realize that they ever did. Chaos was more their style," Cal remarked drily, sipping his drink. Terzian gave him a hard look.
"Although the Uigenna do have a reputation for a certain . . . reckless nature, they at least once had some kind of organization. We never have any trouble with them." I could imagine Cal saying: that does not say much for Varrs, but thankfully he kept quiet, allowing himself only a private smile.
"How about the Unneah?" he asked.
"I don't really know," Terzian answered him, moving away from the lire. "They left the northeast cities. Can't say that I blame them. More sheh?"
"Thanks," Cal held out his glass. Mine was still three-quarters full.
"You are lucky," Terzian remarked, looking at me directly for the first lime. "Cobweb gave you a ticket in here. We don't normally tolerate strangers." All of this seemed very rehearsed to me. "However, the hara of Saltrock do command a certain amount of respect. I have never been there."
I hope you never will, I thought.
"Tell me about it," Terzian demanded. We painted a glossier picture than reality, but Saltrock deserved it. Violence had no hold there. It was not a place for Varrs and their like.
"They don't live in the real world," Terzian commented, after a while.
"Perhaps not," I said, thinking of all we had seen on our travels north, "but their way of life is something all Wraeththu should want for the future." Terzian flared his nostrils and looked away from me. I could tell he thought that would be a boring prospect. I wondered what would have happened to me if I had fallen into the clutches of the Varrs for inception. It made me shudder. Varrs lived like men; their culture seemed just like men's. They were living in stolen towns, acting out the lives that had left them.
As we drank more sheh, conversation became easier. Terzian spoke volubly of conditions in the north; the birth-place of Wraeththu. Men had fallen because all the might of their weapons could not fight what was meant to be. Tribes like the Uigenna were strong. Weapons could burn like matchwood under the concentration of their force. They had the ability to fill the minds of men with confusion and fear so that their leaders lost control. Both the Varrs and the Uigenna had Nahir-Nuri in the north. Dangerous, black creatures of heartless ambition. They had little time for tribes of lesser strength, in fact, often regarded them as being as worthless as men.
"We must cull the weak," Terzian declared. Like Cal, he was Pyralisit, unlike Cal, he had bred many sons. "This is not the time for braying and praying in the temples!" he told us vehemently. "We need new blood. Young, pure Wraeththu blood, growing up untainted by
man." He stared at us hard. "You have lost some condition on your travels, it would appear.
Later, back in our room, Cal said to me, "Do you want to move on tomorrow?" We looked at each other, honest, and yet not entirely so. I shook my head.
"Not yet, not yet." I walked over to the window to look once more over the sweeping, lush countryside. "I think I like it here, don't you?"
"You just like the comforts!"
"Don't you though?"
Cal sat down on the bed, rubbing the back of his neck and looking at himself in the mirror opposite. "Their culture . . ." His hand touched his throat.
"There is much we could learn here. Maybe I do want the comforts; more than I want to winter in the north anyway."
Cal lay back on the pillows and closed his eyes. He sighed. "Something tells me: 'Move on!' but I don't want to. It's easy to see why Cobweb wanted to come back."
"There's nothing for us in the north, Cal," I said.
"Hold on a moment. This is all presupposing Terzian wants us to stay around. He's said his thank yous; that might be the extent of his gratitude." Cal sat up again.