Student of Kyme Read online

  Student of Kyme

  A Wraeththu Mythos Novel

  Storm Constantine

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  Student of Kyme

  © Storm Constantine 2008

  Smashwords edition 2009

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people, or events, is purely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Cover Artist: Ruby

  An Immanion Press Edition published through Smashwords

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  Immanion Press, 8 Rowley Grove, Stafford ST17 9BJ, UK

  ********

  Introduction

  We must be thankful for all lessons that life bestows upon us. In grief and hardship, in pain and conflict, lies education of the highest order. When we can rise above ourselves and affirm our tragedies, so we grow more into our potential. Weep not in the moment, but face towards the future, when you can look back and see the lesson for what it was.

  Aghama gives to us that which we need; everything we experience is for our highest good, even if it does not seem so at the time of tears. We simply have to be wise enough to realise the truth of it.

  Velisarius har Kakkahaar, from ‘We Who Are Stars’ ai-cara 120

  I began this account a long time ago, and reached a point with it when I could no longer continue. It was simply too painful. The quote above is set there for a reason. It was only later, after I had moved to Immanion and worked there for some time, that I found the heart to finish it. And the Tigron Pellaz himself is partly responsible for that.

  There is great store set upon the fact that Wraeththu are superior to humankind, but the truth of it is that we have the potential to be greater. We derive from humanity, and even those of us who proudly call ourselves ‘pure born’ or ‘second generation’ still carry within us the material of our forebears. There have been great conflicts in our short history, many dramas enacted upon the stage of the world, and it is these that scholars use as illustrations in their discourses on how we can progress as a species. But to me, the smaller conflicts are just as important. While tribes might clash, and the lessons learned from these wars be world-changing, our personal battles are of equal value. These are the dramas we encounter in everyday life, in our small corners of the world; in work, in play, in love.

  After a silence of years concerning these very intimate matters, I spoke with Pellaz har Aralis, simply because I knew he had firsthand experiences of the destructiveness of love. In the summer, I had been lucky enough to attend a gathering at the palace Phaonica with my employers, and near the end of the evening found myself in a group with the Tigron himself. We were sitting on a wide balcony overlooking the city. I remember the smell of the night, the heady perfume of night blooming jasmine, and for some reason it took me back a few years. In my head and my heart, I was in Alba Sulh again, smelling flowers that had died long since. Thoughts weighed heavily upon my mind, and I found myself wondering whether it is possible ever to forget.

  Gradually, for one reason or another, the company drifted away, until it was just Pellaz and I sitting there. I did not feel uncomfortable; he has a way to put you at ease.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ he asked me.

  ‘Oh, nothing important,’ I replied, embarrassed my wistfulness had been so obvious.

  He laughed softly. ‘Why not tell me the truth?’

  I realised then he was probably the best har to speak to about it. His history was common knowledge, because he was one of the most famous hara in the world. Therefore, he was allowed few secrets.

  ‘I was just thinking back,’ I said. ‘I was thinking… I was thinking of a lost love.’ I shook my head. ‘Why do I still dwell on it? It is a long time finished. I’ve worked very hard to rise above it all, create my life as I want it to be, yet still the memory steals upon me sometimes.’ I grimaced. ‘It still feels like a battle I did not win.’

  Again, Pellaz laughed, louder this time. He said to me, ‘Never doubt it is a war, but perhaps the trick is to discern who the combatants really are. Is it you and another, or is it simply parts of yourself: one the wiser self, the other a mean little sneak sabotaging all its better’s plans and intentions? Our goal in life is to understand ourselves, nothing more, nothing less, because all other work and progress springs from that endeavour.’ Then he smiled at me. ‘Just write it down,’ he said. ‘It’s what I did. You’ll find it helps.’

  Pellaz wasn’t the first to give me that advice, but he was the har who gave me the courage to complete the work. The account that follows was begun at the start of my time in Kyme. I finished it last night.

  Gesaril Har Sulh

  Lunilsday, Flowermoon 7

  Kyme is a town that has never been young. Even when humans lived in it, I know that the dust of antiquity swallowed their dreams and muffled up their memories. It’s not that I don’t like it here, I do, but it’s a strange, heavy place. I’ve been here four days and it feels like being in prison, even though I can go out if I want to. Codexia Huriel has given me a room in his house, and it’s very dark and creepy. The furniture is old, the floorboards slope, and there are noises in the walls after dark. Every time I get into the bed it makes a single long groan, then never speaks again all night.

  Huriel has told me I must write about my experiences, and that this is part of the healing process, but I can’t think of anything to say about it all just now. I don’t even want to think about it, but no matter how much I say that to myself, it consumes my every waking moment. I am haunted, and maybe I’ll always be haunted. Nohar else can see the ghost, and it doesn’t stand at my shoulder; it’s some distance away, but always at the edge of my vision. I know: I sound insane. So perhaps writing about it will be an exorcism. I’ll start my story, if story it is, just before the journey here.

  Huriel interviewed me in Jesith, in the phylarch Sinnar’s office, although Sinnar wasn’t there. I didn’t know what to expect from the Kymian, and I know I was pretty defensive. I could tell he thought I was a brat. Sometimes, these words just come out of my mouth, and there’s a voice in my head yelling at me to stop, but it does no good. So I bratted the poor har for over an hour, and we didn’t get anywhere. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, whether I’d be punished or seen as mad, whether I’d be sent home or on to another teacher. My time in Jesith was over, I knew that. Hara believed I’d fouled everything. Really quite disgusting. My parents had sent me there to get an education, but I’d simply gone faintly insane and acquired a bad reputation instead. Part of me hated myself, another part felt indignant, because it really wasn’t all my fault. But nohar would believe me. It was my word against that of a har who was greatly respected around these parts. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t even feel it any more. All I could do was scratch and spit; it was my shout against the injustice I felt.

  ‘Your future is really up to you,’ Huriel said to me patiently.

  His patience especially infuriated me. ‘What do you mean?’ I snapped.

  He placed his hands on his crossed knees. ‘Well, you can go home if you wish, or continue your education.’

  I laughed. ‘Or you coul
d lock me up.’

  ‘What is your choice?’ Huriel enquired. I noticed with gratification that his teeth were gritted.

  I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  Huriel breathed out through his nose. He wanted to be any place but in that room with me. ‘We know about your problems,’ he said, ‘and, to be frank, in your position I would want to address them and move on. It’s clear you need supervision, and I suggest you come back with me to Kyme.’

  Again, I laughed. ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know what I’m capable of?’

  He fixed me with a look that said so much. I lost about half of my swagger in an instant. ‘You will be quite… safe with me.’

  ‘You don’t want to do this, so why bother?’ I said. ‘Will your charity make you feel good?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Huriel replied dryly, again saying so much more than the simple words implied. He got to his feet. ‘Well?’

  I thought for a moment about going home to the Shadowvales, and my willowy father drooping all over me, asking why I’d come back. I thought of my hostling, who is so far away with the fairies, I swear the concept of reality is less real to him than dreams. Whatever might happen in Kyme, it had to be more tolerable than that. My skin itched all over. I felt fierce and restless. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But I’ve addressed my problems, as you put it. What can I do in Kyme?’

  ‘Continue your training, but in a more academic manner,’ Huriel said, gathering up his notes. ‘I have a lot of old texts I’m working through. You could help me with that. I could do with an assistant.’

  ‘Will you continue with my caste ascensions?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s desirable for hara of our community to advance,’ he said. ‘The library at Kyme is the biggest resource in Alba Sulh. We’re called upon by phylarchs for our knowledge and expertise. We undertake magical commissions, and offer education. Under the circumstances, your phyle will not be charged for your education.’

  And that was that.

  The next day, we began the long journey north. There was no har for me to say goodbye to, and we left Jesith just after dawn. All the previous night, I’d lain awake wondering whether my erstwhile teacher would come to me, at least to say farewell. (I can’t even write his name yet, not without flinching away as if from a blow.) I wondered whether I should leave a note for him; an apology or an embittered rant. I wrote so many of them in my head. There was a sick sticky lump where my heart should have been. He probably wasn’t even thinking of me. So, as my horse followed Huriel’s from the town, I didn’t look back once, didn’t think. I looked ahead.

  Huriel didn’t like me, and it was impossible to use my wiles on him. He was faintly attractive to me – I liked his dark auburn hair – but I might as well have been a rat he’d picked up by the tail from a rubbish dump for all the attention he sent my way. He clearly thought his immense wisdom and experience was way beyond my ability to comprehend. He barely took care to guard his thoughts and on one occasiononce I picked up the impression he considered my head to be full of air. He just hoped I was capable of putting things in alphabetical order. Strangely, none of this offended me. I quickly realised his non-attention was actually a relief. Usually, the looks hara give me make me light up like a flaming torch, and I become this thing that sort of smoulders and claws. Sometimes, I really don’t want to do that, but I just can’t help it. My dreamy parents cursed me with beauty, but Huriel wasn’t impressed by it. I was glad for this change. It meant I could be myself – my real secret self - and be quiet. We hardly conversed at all.

  The dehara who organise the weather must have looked kindly upon us, because the cold spring rain kept away. I enjoyed seeing new places. As we moved further away from Jesith, the pulsating hurt inside me would sometimes fade a little. I found balm in the raw landscape. Occasionally, moments passed when I did not see his face before my inner eyes, when the wound where my heart used to be didn’t hurt quite as much; but these were temporary respites. One time, as I watched a hawk hovering high in the cold blue sky, I realised that I had no idea how long it would take to recover from this grief I felt, or if I ever would recover. I still feel that way. Is grief to be my constant companion now? I just can’t imagine life without this hungry ghost.

  Whenever Huriel and I stopped for the night in a town or village, hara would look at me with interest, but their sensual glances merely annoyed me. I was feeling very peculiar. Once, perhaps noticing this, Huriel steeled himself with obvious great effort and asked if I ‘needed anything’. I knew what he meant, but said, ‘Like what?’

  ‘Do you want to take aruna?’ he asked, deadpan.

  I laughed. ‘With you? Do you want to with me?’ I knew the answer to that, of course, but even so I enjoyed his discomfort.

  ‘Gesaril, I would rather eat my own tongue, if you must know. Do you need to or not?’

  ‘You’re too romantic for me,’ I replied. ‘Don’t worry, I can contain myself.’

  ‘Is there still a problem?’ Huriel asked, a triumph for him, since the words made me go cold and awkward.

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘I’m enjoying being alone for a while, that’s all. Surely even you can understand that, given my problem.’

  He nodded once. ‘Good. I’ve taken on the task of being your mentor. Regardless of our opinions of each other, you must approach me if you have any needs, or want advice. I hope you feel you can speak to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very open and welcoming.’

  He didn’t respond to that.

  We came into Kyme from the west, and I loved it at once. It was so full of atmosphere, sort of brooding and mysterious, far darker than the Shadowvales, where I’d grown up. I liked that aspect. Life in the Shadowvales is often like wallowing in sweet marshmallow. I sensed a whiff of threat in Kyme, as if ancient resentful spirits lurked in the hanging eaves of the buildings.

  Huriel lives in what I suppose was once a grand town house owned by rich humans. It has a courtyard in front of it, stables, and a large garden at the back. He’d told me he was part of the inner cabal of the Library Codexiae, close to Malakess, the High Codexia himself. Huriel is very smug about his good connections. Anyway, he let me wander around the house and pick a room for myself from the seven that were available. I didn’t choose the biggest or the airiest, but a middle sized room right at the top of the house, on the third storey, which has a sort of haunted feel to it. I wonder why I like that, seeing as I’ve so recently got rid of a haunting that scared the wits from me (and I’m not talking about the haunting of love). But I’ve seen no real ghosts yet, despite the scratching sounds in the walls, and the room feels like mine. I lie on the bed alone for hours, just dozing. I don’t want to think, because all the wrong thoughts pop out, but how can you stop yourself when your brain is so active? I don’t want faces in my head, but his is there before me constantly. He is so strange-looking. I really don’t know why he affected me the way he did. It’s an aura he has. It’s like a flame, and other hara lie around his feet like insects burned to crisps, drawn to the light only to perish within it. I realise now that part of me really is dead, as surely as if he’d taken a knife to it with his own hand. I am angry because he made me out to be a liar, a delusional fool and a manipulative schemer. Perhaps I am those things in some ways, but I was not alone in what happened between us. It is not fair I was made the scapegoat. Yet even knowing this, I can’t find it in my heart to hate him. If I had friends, they’d say to me that time will heal everything and I’ll get over it and forget about him. Can this be true? How can it be possible to feel this way and then for it all simply to disappear? I hope it is true. I really do.

  Now, I am tired. I have exhausted myself with feeling. I kneel upon the wide windowsill, my cheek pressed against the glass. I look two minutes into the future. My hands in my lap look too thin, too vulnerable. My notebook lies open and I can see that one of my hairs has fallen down and lies curled there on the page half filled with writing. Once he put his h
and upon my hair, and he said to me that he would always be there for me. Now I am alone. Two minutes into the future. I will put down my pen.

  Aloytsday, Flowermoon, 30

  Yesterday, I got such a horrible shock, it’s inspired me to start writing again. I haven’t done any for about three weeks, because to be honest, I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to say. The thought of writing more about pointless longing just tires me out and I can’t be bothered.

  I haven’t seen that much of Kyme yet, because I tend to stay around the house and garden. It’s such an old place, and the atmosphere comforts me. It’s like going into a ‘no place’, where nothing else exists. There’s a walled orchard I like and I go there every morning, just to sit on a mossy old stone bench and listen to the birds. In the distance, I can hear the sounds of hara going about their lives. I want to be like them, do normal things, think normal things or else not think at all.

  Huriel has put me to work, and I actually quite enjoy it. Huriel changes when he’s among old books. Some of his haughtiness goes away. He’s glad I’m interested in his work. Malakess has given him the task of transcribing some very old human works on the occult and ceremonial magic. I love the old fashioned words and like to read them aloud. I think Huriel likes to hear them too. He doesn’t hate me as much now, because I’ve been behaving myself. He has a staff of two hara – Ystayne and Rayzie - who cook and clean the house. They seem all right, although they’re wary of me. I don’t know how much hara in Kyme know about me, or how I nearly ruined one of the most respected hienamas in the country. Because I think they’re thinking bad thoughts about me, I don’t want to speak to them, but I might be wrong.