The Wraeththu Chronicles

by Storm Constantine

  Vaysh methodically built a fire in the dusty grate and unpacked food to cook. He had paused only to feed me with milk from a beaker that was nearly frozen. Now I could smell rice simmering in a froth of garlic and my mouth filled with reluctant saliva. Once he was content the food was cooking slowly, Vaysh turned his attention back to me. I was lying on the hard, wooden floor, trussed like a chicken. Vaysh moved his mouth a little. It may have been a smile. "Let's unwrap you then," he said. It was the first time he had spoken to me that day. It took him some time to undo all the straps and pain was waking up in me with greater and greater strength. I was groaning and trying to twist around. When I was naked, I could see my body had become gray and misshapen like half-worked clay. The sight of it silenced my noises. There was a low, wooden bed, barely softened by a thin mattress. Vaysh lifted me as if I weighed nothing and laid me out on it. They had packed cloth around my loins and I had helplessly soiled it. Vaysh heated water on the fire and silently cleaned me. Incontinent cripple. His eyes held no expression other than concentration for his task. He did not have to offer me an explanation. I was reduced to the state of nothingness; something like before I was har. But he did speak. Vaysh the cold; Vaysh the silent. My loyal assistant, always; scarred frigid by distant pain. He lifted his head and looked at me with his hard, gray eyes. I saw him properly for the first time. His face almost makes you jump when you see it. A wistful, childlike beauty, until the flint in his eyes makes you look away. He looked so young, yet I had thought him older.

  "It will not be long," he said. A boyish, soft voice, but so cold. "Three days? Maybe. Maybe four, it's different for everyone."

  I was still adhering to my vow and swallowed the questions filling my mouth. Vaysh stood up and went back to the fire, staring into the pot of rice.

  "You must eat some of this. Don't try to be sick, don't try to be awkward; I don't want any of that."

  I moved my head as far as it would turn to look around me. The room was rustic and coarsely furnished, but a haven from the snow. Heavy dark curtains, grimed and colorless with age, hung against the windows and the back of the door. It was becoming quite warm.

  Vaysh lifted my head and spooned small portions of rice into my mouth

  At first, I refused to chew, like an obstreperous child. Vaysh put his head on one side. "Damn!" he said, without rancor. "Come on, eat it. Hurry up; 1 have to eat as well." He prodded my lips with the spoon. "Come on!" Churlishly, I opened my mouth. It did not make me feel sick, but I could manage only half the bowl. Vaysh covered me with a hairy blanket and sat by the fire to eat his own portion. He consumed it as neatly as a cat only without the relish. After that, he spiked my neck and pumped a soporific into my veins through a tube, his face serious with concentration. As I drifted away, I wondered what he was thinking . . .

  I do not really know how long we journeyed for, but from what Vaysh had said, I think it must have been for about four days. Thiede's horses were tireless; we rarely paused to rest them. At nearly the same time every day, sundown, a wooden lodge would appear through the dusk. Thiede's people must often take this path, I thought. I had hoped that my condition would improve, but each day I felt sicker and sicker. By the fourth day, I did not even have the strength to swallow and Vaysh gave up feeding me. He seemed strangely unconcerned. I kept mumbling inside myself: I am in hell, I am in hell... I suppose I should have been grateful he spared me any pain (Thiede had supplied him generously with drugs), but I was far from comfortable. Every few hours, Vaysh would dash our water leathers against a rock or a tree to smash the ice, and then dab at my congealing mouth with water and wipe my eyes.

  On the fourth day, we rode through a forest of giant firs. In the silence I heard the muted thud of snow dropping off the highest branches. Everywhere seemed devoid of life; an enchanted waste. On this day, we came upon a great abyss cutting deep into the Earth. Black, jagged rocks reared aloft, the haunt of shrunken trees with twisted branches and huge, untidy looking birds with featherless necks, their eyes rimmed with yellow crust. One of them swooped right up to me and screamed in my face. Far below, the thunder and white spume of rushing water careered off the walls of the chasm; it sounded like vast, underground machinery. Rising up from the spray, mid-way across the gap, a single stone tower weathered the torrent. Spindly, wooden bridges swayed from it to either side of the canyon, creaking in a mournful voice. Here we would have to cross. Vaysh shook his head and made a noise of discontent. Icy wind rolled between the rocks, plucking at our hair and furs.

  I do not think any horses other than Thiede's, half supernatural as they were, would have dared to set foot on the bridge. But with shaking muscles and tensed haunches, ears and eyes pivoting wildly, they cautiously edged their way forward. Below us, the water roared its anger, flinging up fingers of spray as if to pluck us from our fragile pathway. I cared nothing for our danger. It was all one to me: whether we made it across or plunged to our deaths, but I could see Vaysh's face looking back at me sometimes, his face bleached with fear. Once we had reached the far side, he dismounted and leaned against his horse's trembling flank. I was still slumped as before, strapped upright in my saddle. My horse began to sniff half-heartedly at the stringy plants along the side of the path. Vaysh looked at me for a moment without pleasure. I could see him thinking I was not worth all this trouble. Then, with a sigh, he swung back into his saddle, hastening the pace to a canter.

  The road led once more into a forest, but this was a place of sweeping slopes and steep hills. The firs were dense, standing in neat rows and here, the snow underfoot was marked by the tracks of wheels and hooves.

  At dusk, the forest fell away beneath us, thinning out to a valley floor, where a long, frozen lake glowed with the night-whiteness of thick ice. A small town curled around its edge. Directly beneath us, rising higher than the sentinel trees, a stone trident speared the heavy sky. "Phade's tower," Vaysh told me, pointing, looking round to see if I was interested. "Oh, what's the bloody point?!" he snapped, when he saw my face. I was looking beyond him, at the lake and the yellow lights of the town, reminded yet again of Saltrock. All memories seemed to lead back there. But here the warmth, the hell-soil of soda had been exchanged for the parchment purity of winter; endless white in a sleeping land. I was lulled by staring at the pale, pale fields and thought with longing of the powdery embrace of the deep drifts, and the sleep that has no end. My existence had become merely discomfort; no pleasure, nor even pain. I wanted only for it to finish, but was so weak, I could do nothing except what Vaysh ordained. He moved my limbs, he kept me alive and I did not question why. I had no interest in the answer

  Vaysh's horse skidded down the slope and mine followed dutifully. Phade's tower. I thought the windows looked like sunken eyes.

  It seemed we were expected. Fur-wrapped hara bearing lights waited for us at the gate. They grabbed our horses' bridles and led us into a cobbled courtyard. Grim, high walls hid the sky all around. Windows in the wall appeared heavily shrouded with curtains. Very little light shone down into the yard, but I could see that large, silent snowflakes were beginning to fall. Hands unstrapped me and lifted me down. Voices to either side of me were cheery with welcome. I could hear Vaysh's surly replies. When the warmth hit me, they had stopped trying to talk to him. We must have been inside the tower, but my vision was beginning to blur and I was aware only of the change in temperature. Someone cleared their throat ahead of us and said, "Vaysh?" It sounded cultured, yet mocking; a voice of command.

  "Phade," I heard Vaysh answer softly. He would have inclined his head, just enough for politeness.

  "What's this you have here then?" Someone brushed back the furs from around my face. "Ye gods! A corpse, and, by the devil, it stinks!"

  "Thank you, Phade, if we could be shown to our rooms?" Vaysh's voice; patient, soft, like the snow.

  "What's going on here, Vaysh?"

  Silence.

  "Vaysh?!"

  "Did Thiede tell you we were coming?"

  "
Yes; he didn't say why." (Sneering)

  "That is Thiede."

  "Yes, that is Thiede! Well?"

  "You shall see when it is time."

  I heard Phade laugh. "Oh no, not more of your mumbo-jumbo claptrap!"

  "The mumbo-jumbo clap-trap, as you so elegantly put it, that is responsible for your being here at all Phade, if you'll forgive my reminding you." Phade's laughter stopped.

  "Oh, Vaysh, Vaysh! Still humorless, still the ice-maiden!"

  "I'm not female, Phade." I could hear the rustling as he unclasped his fur cloak. "Our rooms,

  Phade?"

  "This way, this way."

  Phade wanted to stay while Vaysh undid my wrappings. He was full of morbid curiosity. "Why is he like this? What happened? Is he dead?"

  "No, he's not dead." Vaysh's hand rested upon my swollen cheek for a moment. It may have been a gesture of reassurance or that he just wanted to note my temperature. I was heating up too quickly; my face burned and deep within the furs, my fingers began to tingle ominously. Vaysh stripped me down and rolled up his sleeves to perform all the distasteful duties of cleaning me. I could smell that the water he used was scented with pine.

  "I don't like things like this going on here. Why did Thiede send you here?" Phade said.

  "This town is on our way," Vaysh answered. They continued to argue mildly; Vaysh, I'm sure, deftly sidetracking Phade's questions, but I no longer listened to them. All my awareness centered on the heavenly softness beneath me. It felt as if I was slipping down, slowly, into a cloud of feathers. Comfort; I had forgotten it existed. Vaysh's voice came close to my ear. "Pellaz . . ." It was just a whisper. "You will sleep now; it is time. We got here in time ..." Obediently, I let myself go into the feather darkness and there were no voices there.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My truth, my destiny . . .

  It was a noise that woke me. I do not know what. It had gone when my eyes opened. I looked at the room for a moment. There were stone walls, hung with tapestries, like a medieval castle from the picture books. A fire spat and fizzled somewhere to my left; perhaps it was that which had woken me. I became aware that my skin was itching and my hand shot to my stomach to scratch. I could move! Startled, I sat up. Just like that. My head swam for a moment, the room tilted, but then energy and strength surged, with alarming confidence, right through me and my vision cleared. Something gray and papery littered the bed around me. It crumbled to dust when I touched it. I felt marvelous; strange, but marvelous. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, it was no effort to stand. My toes buried themselves in thick fur. Of course, I went straight for the shine, the glaze, of the mirror. It hung on the wall beside the bed, framed in rather tasteless gilt gargoyles. Golden light spun into my eyes and I raised my hand. My golden hand. I could not look; it filled my chest to look. This . . . Thiede's essence. This was what he had made me. The gold that was a reflection of the dancing motes in his eyes. He had made me a god!

  There was an adjoining room, which, although nothing as grand as a bathroom, contained a pitcher of cooling water and a large porcelain bowl. Clashing winds moaned outside and made the curtains shiver. It was colder in here. I washed my face and relieved myself in the primitive toilet facilities I found behind a curtain. Three candles peopled the room with eerie shadows. I became aware of someone moving around in the other room, and thought it might be Vaysh, but just peeped around the door in case it wasn't. A har I did not know was inspecting the bed, picking at the gray stuff and sniffing it. His nose wrinkled with aversion. He had thick, black hair and was dressed in brown leather and fur. From the hooked, imperious nose and hooded, sulky eyes, I presumed it to be Phade.

  "Where is Vaysh?" I asked and he jumped, his hand flitting to the knife at his hip. He narrowed his eyes. For modesty's sake, I had wrapped myself in a towel I had found in the other room.

  "What...? Who ...?" Phade had drawn the knife. I walked a little way into the room and his face lit up with gold flecks. He glanced nervously at the bed and then back to me. He pointed at the bed, mutely, and I nodded. "You've changed," he said, a little lamely. Straightening up from his position of defense, with some embarrassment, he tucked the knife back into his belt. "What is going on?" he asked, in a voice that told me he expected the most outlandish explanation.

  "I don't know," I answered, and he shook his head in disbelief.

  "If you don't know...!" he exclaimed and then muttered, "Thiede!" as if that explained everything.

  "Whenever life looks as if it might become ordinary, or even safe, up pops the omnipotent Thiede and everything gets weird again!" He threw up his arms and grimaced at the ceiling.

  "Ah well, it is our luck, I expect, to be born out of weirdness!" Did I say that? It sounded like the Pellaz who was dead, and as I am very fond of him, I was glad to hear he was still around. I smiled, and then a dozen representatives were sent down from my brain, bearing angry questions. "I want to see Vaysh," I said, surprised that I was gritting my teeth

  Phade nodded; his face was also grim with displeasure. We were accomplices in our censure of Vaysh, that was clear. "Yes, so do I!" he said. He went to the door and bellowed an order. I heard footsteps scurrying away outside. Phade turned back to look at me. "He's worked a fine old magic on you, hasn't he!" he remarked. "His mightiness, the great Thiede. If you're one of his creations, he's more powerful than I gave him credit for." I only shrugged. All this seemed rhetorical. "Only a few hours ago you looked a week dead and now ..." he shook his head, awed, and exaggerating this because he never liked to feel less than anyone, "you shine!"

  "Something happened to me," was all I could say, facile as it sounded, coming from so resplendent a body. But it was all that I knew and I did not care to go into any detail.

  Vaysh stalked in without knocking. He was dressed simply and elegantly in dark green. I

  could see now that his red hair was dyed. His expression did not change in the slightest

  when he saw me.

  "Yes?" he inquired, looking at Phade. (He had, of course, been told that Phade had sent

  for him.)

  Phade made an exasperated noise and slapped his thigh with one hand. "Vaysh, I hope we didn't

  disturb your rest ..."

  "No, I wasn't sleeping."

  "Vaysh, will you just step out of your ice-castle for one second and look! Look! Your traveling companion has... hatched! We thought you should be told." Any sarcasm in Phade's voice glanced off Vaysh's composure.

  "It was expected," he said. "It was time. An hour or two early, perhaps, but ..."

  "Vaysh, you have to talk to me," I butted in. His eyes slid over me like needles of ice.

  "Ah Pellaz, you've found your voice." It is very difficult to hate anyone who is as beautiful as Vaysh, but his detached and disdainful manner made it easier. He turned once more to Phade. "Would you leave us please?"

  Phade was not used to being addressed in that way. Clearly, no-one ever told him to leave anywhere. "No, I will not! I don't take orders from you, Vaysh! This is my home and you're in it at my pleasure and don't you forget that! I want to know what's going on!" I suppose it was reasonable enough. Vaysh swiveled his withering glance over our host.

  "It is not necessary," he said politely. "I hate to be blunt, Phade, and I am not totally ignorant of your position, but it really is none of your business."

  "And I hate to be blunt, Vaysh, but what goes on in this place is my business! We all dance dutifully to our lord Thiede's tune, of course we do, but I want to know how all this affects me, and my people."

  "It doesn't."

  "Why here? Why? Thiede has his own strongholds." He wagged a finger under Vaysh's nose. "I am suspicious, oh freezing one, very suspicious. I do not trust Thiede, you or any of your magical charades!"

  Vaysh sighed. "Phade, I know the hour is late, but I am sure you are a busy har. This is your little kingdom, I'm sure you have things to do." Vaysh picked up a crimson robe of heavy velvet from a chair and draped i
t around my shoulders.

  Phade would not be put off. "You can't speak to me like that!" he objected, but he did not sound sure of that.

  "You're only curious, Phade," Vaysh told him. It was impossible to anger him. "Suspicions! Worries!" He made a derisive noise. "Thiede helped you take this little town, and without him you would still be foraging around the country. Now tell me you don't trust him! When I tell you that what has happened here tonight is nothing to do with you, I speak with Thiede's tongue. Do you understand?"

  For a moment or two Phade stood his ground. Then he hissed through his teeth and walked out, leaving the door open. Vaysh calmly shut it. "Pellaz, you have been chosen," he said.

  It was late. I had slept, but Vaysh had not, yet we talked till dawn. He told me everything, nearly everything, without emotion or opinion, just fact. Thiede had waited a long time for this, he told me; since my inception. He had decided then what to do with me. And what was that? I wanted to know.