The Shades of Time and Memory Read online

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  THE SHADES OF TIME AND MEMORY

  (Book Two of the Wraeththu Histories)

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  From Wraeththu: The Dream, by Ferminfex Jael

  The Prophet Athanorax of the Sulh was once asked: are we now all that we shall be? He did not reply, but merely drew a line in the sand with the toenails of one foot. With the other foot, he stamped upon the line, until it could be seen no more, and then he walked away.

  It is a fact that history is but a line in the sand, muddled by many feet, until the line itself can no longer be seen. There are those who remember it, and tell of what they saw. They say the line went this way or that. They say a scorpion ran along it, or perhaps a lizard. Others might say that the line itself was in the shape of a lizard, but who can tell? There are some who profit by this state of affairs, and become the shining stars of our race, and there are some who are doomed to be forgotten. Certain names are purposefully erased from the line, while others are remembered, when perhaps they should have vanished into oblivion. One thing is certain, Wraeththu will never be all that it can be, for the harlings of tomorrow will either look back upon the past with fond remembrance for a lost Golden Age, or believe that the times they now shape are far superior to all that went before. In each view, lies striving and dissatisfaction.

  Did Athanorax know the truth of it all? Was this why he made his faithfully recorded statement about it? Again, who can tell? If he knew, he did not say. He climbed a mountain and stared at the clouds, or went to an inn and got drunk. All that remains is the question, and it is not right one. Answers, in some ways, are easy. It is the question that eludes and slips away. The right spell, the right magic. All in the words.

  From The Aralisians, by Ishtir har Parasiel

  The story of the Aralisian dynasty is the mythology of Wraeththu. Each character blazes from it like a comet. How much is truth? How much is fiction? Are gods made this way? That Thiede brought his Tigron, Pellaz Cevarro – later Pellaz har Aralis – to Immanion, to rule in his name over the united tribes is true. It is also true that in the year ai cara 30, Thiede transformed and left this world. What is not so certain is whether he was actually murdered by the one who came to rule at the Tigron's side: Calanthe.

  Never has a name been so loaded with meaning. When he came to Immanion, the entire world cried out in fear and ecstasy. An idea, more than an individual. He was like a god, in that wherever he laid his feet he created change, and not all of it was good.

  Introduction

  In the early times, two events specifically shook the world of Wraeththu from its innermost core to its outermost etheric body. The first was when Pellaz-har-Aralis, who eventually became Tigron of Immanion, died and was reborn into new flesh. Only the most insensitive of hara remained unaffected by that, and even they were no doubt plagued for several days afterward, by strange dreams and unaccountable bad tempers.

  The second event was, in some ways, more dramatic and devastating than the first and this was when Calanthe, erstwhile chesnari of Pellaz, stalked like a dark angel into Immanion and faced Thiede, progenitor of all Wraeththu, in his inner sanctum.

  Some say they fought for possession of Pellaz, others that they warred for power, and yet more claimed that it was a symbolic preordained ritual, in which Thiede transcended the boundaries of earthly existence and fulfilled his ultimate potential. Around the world, different tribes clung to different versions of the myth and you can be sure their particular preferences flavour greatly the context of their spiritual beliefs.

  What is known for certain is that Calanthe went to Immanion, the city of the Gelaming, and claimed what he believed was his. Pellaz was left without Thiede, his mentor and creator. With Thiede gone, who knew what would happen? At that time, Wraeththu knew so little about themselves and Thiede had left them without sharing any of the knowledge he had. Had Cal liberated them from a harsh dictator, or left them vulnerable and ignorant with no greater power to protect them? Only time would tell.

  For most hara, when the phoenix of Wraeththu was newly-hatched from an egg of flame and still in danger of falling from the nest, the only way to receive information from halfway across the world was through the subtle ethers, and much of what is channelled from this puzzling realm is subject to personal interpretation, error and bias.

  Immanion lies in the heart of Almagabra, a warm country whose landscape seethes with ancient spirits and capricious gods. An implacable ocean lies between this land and Megalithica to the west. News, as it was carried across the waves, was often changed or forgotten completely. Sometimes, when a snippet of information reached some cold, forgotten corner in the north of Megalithica, it was nothing more than a worn out thread, a ghost of a whisper or a lie. When information such as this became intertwined with a har's psychic vision, you could almost guarantee the conclusion he reached about what really happened bore no resemblance whatsoever to the truth. In such ways were new myths made, expanded upon and believed. Pellaz and Calanthe became a legend, to be feared or adored according to your beliefs and where you lived.

  Many hara had good reason to fear the Gelaming, the tribe who believed themselves to be the greatest of all. For, in Gelaming eyes, if you did not ascribe to their beliefs, you were an enemy of all Wraeththukind. Sometimes, the Gelaming were right in this assumption, but sometimes not. If your history was suspect, it was best to hide it and flee to a far location, like the City of Ghosts in Northern Megalithica. Best to forget the name of your previous tribe and pray that nohar came looking for you. Better still: keep your secrets to yourself.

  Chapter One

  In the early mornings, just after dawn, when the sky was salmon pink and mists curled across the water, and birds flew like the last of dark dreams escaping the shattered towers of the old human city, Moon Jaguar would walk to the edge of the world and stare out to the place where the phantoms lived.

  The creatures that lived within the Sea of Ghosts would often come to land and wrap themselves around the broken towers on the shore. The mist beings could make parts of the world disappear and reappear, and they moved quickly. It was best to pay them respect.

  Seven Wraeththu clans lived in the ruins of the city, and at one time they had been Uigenna, though prudence had forced them to change their name and their customs, following the Gelaming invasion of Megalithica. Now, they had no tribal name, and in time, no doubt, the clans themselves would become separate tribes, but for now they existed in tenuous alliance.

  Moon's father, Snake Jaguar, had come from a land far to the south, but he would never speak of it, no matter how much Moon begged or pleaded for old stories that all harlings loved. Snake was the shaman of the Jaguar clan and held in great esteem by their ruler, Great Jaguar Paw. Moon lived with his father, and his father's protector, Raven Jaguar, in the House of Relics, situated very close to the shore of the Sea of Ghosts. Humans had filled the Reliquary with artefacts that recorded moments of their history, but most of the artefacts had been destroyed during the conflict that had brought the city to her knees some thirty or so years before.

  Moon liked the Reliquary: its cavernous dark rooms, its shattered display cases, the bones spilling amid the glass shards. His own room, high in the building, had probably once been an office, although over time he had adorned it with various items he'd filched from the lower galleries. His father lived in the far side of the building, and Raven lived in a store room nearby, his senses forever on high alert in case Snake should need him. Moon presumed Raven had got to know Snake long before the fragmented Uigenna tribe had had to flee to the north, pursued by Gelaming patrols that were intent on rehabilitating any hara whose beliefs did not emulate th
eir own. Raven lived in ascetic simplicity, in what was hardly more than a broom closet. It was obvious something very bad had happened to him in the past and that it had affected his mind. Now, Raven's dedication to Snake was his entire reason for being. They were not chesna, nor did they ever take aruna together, which in Wraeththu terms was most unusual, if not freakish. They shared secrets and pain, and this, more than physical or emotional expressions of affection, bound them close. Snake too was damaged. Even though Moon lived far from his father, sometimes at night he could hear him limping around his room, never weeping, never sighing – just pacing slowly.

  Moon was seven years old, nearly adult, and by then he had realised that other harlings of the clan avoided him, because his father was strange. Even Great Jaguar Paw feared Snake, because his temperament was inclined to prophesy doom rather than joy. The privacy-loving Jaguar clan skulked around the shore of the Sea of Ghosts and interacted with other clans only for trade. Snake, so the other clans said, made sure the rest of the Jaguars were as grim as he was.

  A week or so after his seventh birthday, which he'd celebrated alone, Moon went as usual to the shore. Looking back at the Reliquary, Moon realised for the first time that his father, Raven and himself, although occupying in some regard the same space, lived in isolation from each other. There were not even ghosts for company. Since Snake's chesnari had died, not long after Moon's birth, the idea of family had shattered the same way the relics had. Moon did not feel lonely – he never did – but today he felt different: an echo of some early childhood warning travelled across the great sea.

  The dawn was pink and grey, stealing through brooding cloud and there was a metallic taint to the air. A ship sailed through the mist, towards the docks, some distance to the east. Somehar in the rigging blew a mournful salute upon a windhorn. Birds looped drunkenly around the black mast. Moon squatted on the cracked concrete walkway above the water and stared at the ship, with his hands funnelled around his eyes. He thought about strolling over to the docks to see who or what might have arrived, but then the vague aches that had plagued his belly for some weeks intensified into a cramping pain and he had to lean forward to vomit into the water.

  Moon, like all hara, was rarely ill, so this particular seizure, which could not be ignored, filled him with panic. In some places the land was poisoned, and those poisons were strong enough even to kill a har. Moon rarely left his immediate environment, so couldn't imagine how he could have come into contact with such danger, but now, when he stared out over the water, his whole vision was tinged with red and he had a pain in the back of his neck. He was afraid that, if he moved too quickly, some part of himself might fall out of his body. He was poisoned and he was too far away from the Reliquary to call for help.

  Moon curled up into a ball on the ground and lay that way for a long time. By the time the sun had hauled itself out of the mist, he realised he had slept and now felt better. But when he got to his feet, he had to hold his stomach with both hands, because it felt loose and unsafe. His skin was crawling as if ants were marching all over it. Slowly, and with great care, he made his way to his father's domain, because despite the fact they rarely spent time together, Snake was the one har Moon trusted in the world.

  Raven had already been to Snake's room to deliver breakfast, which the shaman was now eating in a slow and dignified manner. Snake Jaguar's name derived mainly from the appearance of his eyes. One was very dark, almost black, while the other, on his damaged side, was bright gold. This was his snake eye, his seeing eye, so he was required to keep it covered, out of politeness, for most of the time. His face was very beautiful, unmarked, and so was the right side of his body, but the left side was maimed. A chemical fire, so strong that not even a harish frame could recover from its cruel breath, had ruined him, created his golden eye, and had consumed entirely the har named Silken whom Snake had loved and who had been Moon's hostling. It had been an accident: no rogue hara or humans had done it. Evil had come out of the ground, evil that had waited so long for release, it had become impatient with anticipating human or harish detonation. It had erupted from the ground on its own, to burn out in a moment of glory, which had unfortunately incinerated seven hara of the clans and injured a further three. Two of those had later died, but Snake had survived. To a normal har, to be less than perfect was anathema. Snake, however, appeared barely to care about such things. He lived, for the most part, inside his own head.

  Now, Moon went to his father and knelt before him. He said, “Tiahaar, am I to die?”

  Snake raised his head. Ropes of black hair hung over his face, down to the floor, and from between these ophidian coils the golden eye glowed, while the black eye contemplated the darkest reaches of the universe. “What is this?” Snaked asked.

  Moon explained, as best he could.

  Snake continued to eat his breakfast, listening intently. Then, when his son finished speaking, he said, “Moon, you are becoming adult, that is all. Go to Raven. He will instruct you in these matters.” His expression was distant. He did not look Moon in the eye.

  Moon had expected something more dramatic than this. “A ship came,” he said. “A black ship.”

  “Unneah from the south,” Snake said. “They bring little of value, but later you might go over to the docks and barter for tobacco for me.”

  “How far south?”

  “Not far enough,” Snake said. He reached for his staff and began to struggle to his feet. Moon jumped up to help him.

  “Will we ever go home?” he asked

  “I doubt it,” Snake said, for a moment allowing himself to lean upon the shoulder of his son. “Why do you ask now?”

  “I don't know. I wonder what it was like.”

  “Go to Raven now,” Snake said, pulling away. “Tell him that I have sent you.”

  Moon rarely communicated with Raven, even though Raven was supposed to have raised him after his hostling's death. Raven was always so taciturn and preoccupied with his dedication to guarding Snake that Moon had raised himself without realising he had done so. Why Snake should send him to Raven now, Moon was unsure. He doubted that Raven could teach him anything, because he was as wrapped up in his private world as Snake was.

  Raven's eyes were discomfortingly entirely black, so you could never be sure what he was thinking, if indeed he thought at all. His skin was very dark, like that of a panther and his face looked like the sculpture of a mythical king. He, more than any other har of the clan, was most like the big cat from which they'd taken their name. He could sit motionless for hours, staring at a single thing. Then he could strike, and take a bird from the air so quickly, nohar could really see it. Moon didn't like him very much, although he wasn't consciously aware of that. He interacted with too few hara to understand the concepts of like and dislike.

  Moon found Raven on the Reliquary grounds, tending their vegetable patch. He moved with precise gracefulness, in what to Moon that day seemed an annoying manner. His thick black braids, which hung to his thighs, were bound at his neck by a single braid, to keep them from dangling over his work.

  “Snake says you are to instruct me,” Moon said.

  Raven fixed his attention upon Moon and said, “In what regard?”

  “He says I am becoming adult and that I should come to you. He said to tell you he'd sent me.”

  Raven stared at him in his usual impenetrable manner for some seconds, then snapped, “He said this?”

  “Yes. What must I learn?”

  Raven turned away. He seemed troubled. “I am not a good teacher,” he said. “There is too much I have forgotten.”

  “Perhaps we should go to the docks instead. A ship has come. Snake wants tobacco.”

  Raven said nothing. He stood with his back to Moon for what seemed like an hour, but was probably less than a minute. Then he began carefully to put away his tools and tidy up his work area. Moon waited impatiently. He was thinking of the docks and the aroma of cooking sugar-dough from the food stalled that lined its p
erimeter. He had not yet eaten.

  Raven had finished his work. “Come,” he said, and beckoned Moon to follow him.

  “I'm hungry,” Moon said, trailing behind.

  They went into the small orchard, near to the run where the hens scampered about. When they saw Raven approaching, they all rushed to the netting, squawking and flattening their wings against the ground in devotion.

  “I felt ill,” Moon said. “This morning I was sick.” They were in a circle of trees and the air felt very different here, still and close.

  “It is feybraiha that you are going through,” Raven said.

  “What's that?”

  “The advent of sexual maturity. You will be able to create harlings of your own now.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Years ago, when Snake had been somewhat more communicative, he had taught his son about his own kind. He had told him about aruna and how it could be used for spiritual growth, for creating harlings or simply for pleasure. Moon hadn't thought about it much since, mainly because it was not something that figured in their routine domestic life. Snake and Raven were not like normal hara in that respect. Now, feeling as if iced water was filling up his veins, Moon began to remember what he'd been told, that one day his body would be ready for aruna and when that time came he must see to its desires. He faced this har he did not even particularly like and asked, “What must I do?”