The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure Read online

  ‘Hubisag,’ he said in his mind, ‘if I have offended you, I repent me. I am your priest, your child, and I adore you. Show me how I can atone.’

  Thinking those words required the most effort he’d ever put into a conscious action. It was as if existence itself fought against his expression and his own life depended upon it.

  ‘Take yourself to a sacred place…’

  It was the words of a prayer he heard in his mind, a small echoing voice.

  And another voice: ‘Father, you have murdered me…’

  What he heard made no sense. He heard a horse scream. He smelled cordite. He saw blood running across sandy soil, dark blood, from somewhere deep inside. The sight of it touched him, moved him and he felt something he’d never felt before. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t fear. He saw the face of Pellaz, as he’d appeared when Ulaume had first met him, his eyes full of curiosity and desire. Ulaume’s essence was drawn towards those eyes. This time their welcome would not turn to ice. But when Ulaume reached them, they were glazed over and dull. They were dead.

  ‘Ulaume!’ Rough hands shook his body, hauled him to his feet. Someone slapped his face hard. ‘Ulaume! Come out of it! Come back!’

  Ulaume blinked, gulped air, sucked it into his body in a powerful rush. Sound and movement hurtled back, his stilled heart raced frantically. The night was confusion and riot around him. He saw Lianvis’ face before him, pinched with concern, and slumped against his body.

  ‘What happened?’ Lianvis demanded.

  Ulaume raised his head, shook it slowly from side to side. The movement filled him with nausea and he had to pull away from Lianvis to vomit copiously onto the ground.

  ‘Tell me,’ Lianvis said in a low voice. ‘I must know.’

  Ulaume wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

  Not all the Kakkahaar were present at the festival that night. Only three did not attend, and they were occupied by what formerly, in the world of humanity, would have been seen as women’s work.

  For nineteen hours, Herien, a young har who had been incepted to Wraeththu only a year before, had been pacing, pacing around the pavilion he shared with his chesnari, Rarn. He had spent hours weeping: He couldn’t sit down. He couldn’t lie down. When Rarn had tried to touch him in comfort, he’d pushed him off, his skin too sensitive to bear it. If he just kept moving, it was better, he could just about stand it. The moment he’d stopped, he’d felt as if a captive demon in his gut was trying to push his insides out. Sometimes, he had vomited until his stomach hurt. He couldn’t bear the terrible weight of what pressed down inside him. He was exhausted, yet near hysterical. Eventually, he’d fallen to the floor, groaning in agony, but too tired to keep moving.

  Now, the time was near and Herien lay supported on Rarn’s chest, on a low bed in one of the canopied rooms. Rarn, kneeling on the pillows, held Herien beneath the armpits, while a healer of the tribe, a one-eyed har named Chisbet, peered between Herien’s raised knees. The noises that Herien made were like those of a half-slaughtered calf. He was in the process of delivering a pearl, which in human terms had once meant giving birth.

  Wraeththu harlings are born in leathery sacs, in which they continue to develop for several weeks. In those days, procreation was a virtually untrodden territory among Wraeththu. They still had too much to learn about their androgynous condition, before embarking upon such an essentially female aspect of their being, and were ill-equipped to deal with it. There were no women to help them, which would certainly have made the transition easier. They were alone with a frightening truth. They were no longer men and this was the most damning proof of it. And they had to cope without much-needed female support, because that was a price they must pay for taking the world from humanity.

  Only high-ranking hara were supposed to be capable of inseminating a host, and Rarn was indeed a Nahir Nuri of the tribe, but even he had been aghast at what had happened, one night after too much wine and a desire to take aruna beyond its normal boundaries.

  Herien was clearly terrified, perhaps because his memories of being utterly male were too close for comfort. Even in his exhaustion, he writhed and moaned, asking to die, asking for someone to kill him, asking for release. Rarn felt helpless and numb, and willingly surrendered all control of the proceedings to Chisbet, who claimed to have helped deliver a pearl before. Rarn was not convinced of this – the occurrence being so rare among Wraeththukind – but he was prepared to overlook his misgivings. He couldn’t have coped with this on his own. It was dreadful. Hideous. The mess. The stink. Was this truly necessary?

  Chisbet told Herien to push, and Rarn’s gorge rose. He was remembering his childhood and his youth, films and documentaries on TV, whispered conversations of female relatives. He was remembering being human and the life and culture he had chosen to forget. He didn’t need this to remind him. At that moment, he would cheerfully have taken a blade to Herien’s throat, even though he was immensely fond of him. Anything to stop the noise, to stop this dreadful process.

  ‘Do something,’ he said to Chisbet. ‘You do know what to do, don’t you?’ His tone, by this time, was desperate, and not at all haughty as it usually was.

  Chisbet had lost an eye in battle, fighting for the Unneah tribe. The Kakkahaar regarded him as somewhat unsavoury, but he was a good healer, so his eccentric and uncivilised ways were tolerated. ‘It’s more up to him,’ he said. ‘This is nature. He’s resisting it. Talk to him.’

  Rarn uttered a sound of despair, anguish and revulsion. He wanted to say, ‘This is not nature,’ but of course it was. He swallowed sour saliva, trying to keep a hold on the writhing har lying against him. ‘Herien, you must… you must do… you must expel it.’ He couldn’t say ‘push’, he just couldn’t.

  ‘Cut it out! Just cut the thing out of me!’ Herien screamed. ‘It’s killing me!’

  At once, Rarn drew the knife from his belt, but Chisbet’s right hand shot out and clasped his wrist. ‘No. We cannot risk damaging the sac. There are fluids inside it.’

  Herien’s screams had reached a diabolical pitch. His face was unrecognisable, screwed up into a tortured monkey mask.

  ‘Do something!’ Rarn cried. ‘He’s dying!’

  Chisbet appeared calm. ‘Come on now,’ he said. ‘You can do this. Push, Herien.’

  Herien uttered a final roar and his body lunged backwards.

  Rarn was almost knocked over, and was sure he felt the muscles in his thighs rip. Something shining and slippery shot out of Herien’s body and landed in Chisbet’s hands, which were held waiting. It was the size of a har’s head. Unspeakable!

  Chisbet’s shoulders slumped, apparently in relief.

  ‘What now?’ Rarn demanded, a tremor in his voice.

  Herien had gone worryingly quiet and still. His body was as limp as a corpse as Rarn wriggled out from beneath it.

  Chisbet laid the pearl carefully on a cloth and then examined Herien’s body. ‘Looks in order,’ he said, ‘but I’ll need to stitch and pack him to stop the bleeding. Fetch me the hot water. I’ll clean him up.’

  Rarn stood shaking beside the bed and couldn’t bring himself to look at anything but the rugs underfoot.

  ‘Do it, har!’ Chisbet snarled. ‘You made this happen. You help now. You hear me?’

  Rarn somehow made his limbs obey Chisbet’s command. He couldn’t think, couldn’t absorb what he’d just witnessed.

  Chisbet appeared to read his mind. ‘Get used to it, Rarn. This is the way of things. How else do you think our race will continue?’ He laughed rather cruelly. ‘Be glad. You have a son – or soon will do, at any rate.’

  Rarn handed the materials to Chisbet: lengths of linen wadding, suture equipment and the waiting hot water. He glanced at Herien, whose lower parts looked as if a frenzied maniac had attacked them with a dozen weapons. Herien’s eyes were closed and he did not move. Swallowing with difficulty, Rarn looked away. He had touched those
precious parts, tasted them. Now they looked like ruined meat.

  Humming to himself, Chisbet carefully bathed Herien’s soume-lam, his female organs, and stitched up the tearing. His male parts, the ouana-lim, had withdrawn into the body to prevent damage.

  Rarn glanced at the pearl. ‘How long will it take to… to come out?’

  Chisbet shrugged. ‘Couple of weeks, that’s all. It’s not too bad. It’s over. Lianvis will be pleased. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Look at this poor creature here. He’s the one who’s suffered, not you.’

  ‘You must be dead inside,’ Rarn said. ‘Can’t you imagine how I feel? How can you say those things?’

  ‘Easy. I face reality. This will be common soon – if we’re lucky.’

  ‘You enjoy it. You’re perverse.’

  ‘Of course I enjoy it. It’s a miracle and I’m proud to be part of it. It’s you who’s perverse, my friend. Think about it.’

  Rarn really didn’t want to. It was not something he’d have chosen to be part of.

  ‘Go and get a breath of air,’ Chisbet said. ‘I’m going to pack the wound now.’

  Rarn left the pavilion, grateful to escape the abattoir stink. He breathed slow and deep the cool night air and gazed at the glow in the sky, which was the festival fire. A son. Could it possibly be real? He had never felt so exhausted in his life. Even althaia, the changing from human to Wraeththu, hadn’t been as bad as this, because then he hadn’t been conscious. He’d gone into a coma a boy and woken up har. This was disgustingly different. It could have been him lying there on that bed with blood and shit running out of him. Hellish injury. Such violation. Too human to contemplate for someone who believed he’d transcended humanity. It could have happened to him anytime. He’d taken aruna with other high-ranking hara. Nohar knew what they were risking. Nohar. How could such a rank visceral event result from the blissful aruna that had caused it? He remembered the night they’d made the pearl, the feeling of having transcended the flesh, of touching Heaven. The closeness of it. The bond. Herien, so trusting, so completely surrendered to love, that a part of himself, deep inside, had opened like a flower: a part that had never opened before. And a previously unused part of Rarn’s ouana-lim had woken up, drawn by the alluring song of that secret inner organ and had ventured forth to enter it. In such a way were Wraeththu harlings conceived.

  Rarn pressed the fingers of one hand against his eyes. His body shuddered with dry sobs. So much to learn. So much. He felt full of love and sadness. He was beginning to understand what it meant to be truly har.

  In the pavilion, Chisbet finished off the wound packing and sat back for a moment to admire his work. Herien had still not come round. Chisbet knew he’d done a good job on the stitches; the har would be fine in a few days. He changed the soiled bedding around Herien, made him comfortable, and then turned his attention to the pearl. Gently, he cleaned it. He had seen this happen only once before, among the Unneah, and that event had occasioned more upset than this one. He smiled to himself in recollection. Every har in the tribe had trembled in terror then, as if a plague had come upon them. Chisbet wasn’t distressed by harish birth. He had spoken the truth when he’d called it a miracle. Until you’d seen this, Wraeththu bodies and all their pleasing accessories seemed only like ornaments. This was real and bloody. To Chisbet, it was proof that they were meant to be. New life.

  Chisbet shed a few sentimental tears from his remaining eye and then laid the pearl in the curve of Herien’s right arm. The pearl was dark in colour and strangely veined. There was a sense of life moving within it. Chisbet wiped Herien’s brow with a scented damp cloth and Herien opened his eyes. His mouth trembled. He looked so young.

  Chisbet stroked his face. ‘You’re fine, my lovely. Fine. All went well. You are a pioneer, you know. You’re blessed.’

  ‘Where’s Rarn?’ Herien asked in a slurred mumble. He hadn’t yet noticed the pearl.

  ‘Taking a breath of air,’ Chisbet said. ‘You keep that young one warm now. Cherish it as a mother hen cherishes her clutch.’

  Herien glanced down, saw the pearl and went rigid. For a moment, Chisbet was concerned that he’d throw it away from him.

  ‘That’s yours,’ he said. ‘Part of you. Don’t be afraid.’

  Herien laid his head back on the pillows and began to weep, but his fingers flexed gently against the pearl. Chisbet held onto his left hand, squeezing it hard. He sighed. It was tough, growing up.

  Rarn did not go back into the pavilion for over an hour. He’d needed time alone to recover, then felt guilty about leaving Herien and steeled himself to return. But whatever horror he had expected still to confront, he found that even during that short time, Herien had recovered considerably. He was now propped up by pillows, sipping a hot drink that Chisbet had made for him.

  Rarn stood at the entrance to the bed chamber, feeling awkward and embarrassed. Chisbet winked at him and left the room. Rarn couldn’t think of anything to say. He had a ridiculous fear that Herien would blame him in some way for what had happened, and be angry about it. But Herien looked radiant, if tired.

  ‘It doesn’t hurt any more,’ Herien said, wonder in his voice. ‘The pain’s just gone, as if it was never there. I can’t believe it. I’m just a bit sore now, that’s all.’

  Rarn went to sit beside him. ‘You were female,’ he said. ‘For a time. It looked that way.’

  ‘We’re all female,’ Herien said, ‘and male. Isn’t that the point?’

  Rarn grimaced. ‘How easy it is to ignore or forget.’

  ‘I’ll never forget it again,’ Herien said. ‘I don’t want to now. You should go through this, Rarn. You really should.’

  Rarn laughed uncomfortably. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think I can ever forget what you went through. I had a view you didn’t, remember.’

  ‘But it was worth it. Look.’ Herien drew the covers back and showed Rarn the pearl, held tight against his body. ‘Isn’t it strange? Isn’t it wonderful?’

  Rarn stared at the pearl.

  ‘You can touch it,’ Herien said. ‘You can feel something moving.’

  Tentatively, Rarn reached out and laid his hand over the warm sac. The harling protected within it seemed to press against his hand. He glanced into Herien’s eyes and felt faint at the sensation of total union that passed between them. Chisbet was right: this was a miracle.

  Herien smiled, and Rarn leaned forward to kiss his brow. ‘You are beautiful,’ Rarn said, ‘beautiful and brave and strong.’

  ‘I am Wraeththu,’ Herien said. ‘Truly so now.’

  Chapter Two

  Not too far away from the Kakkahaar camp, across the desert, lay the town of Saltrock, cradled by gaunt mountains, perfumed by acrid aromas that rose from the soda lakes nearby.

  On the night that Ulaume danced before the festival fire and Herien delivered the first Kakkahaar pearl, Seel Griselming, the leader of the Saltrock community, and Flick, (who had not elected to take a second name for himself following inception), had invited the shaman of their people, Orien Farnell, round for dinner. Seel was an exotic creature, olive-skinned, with a riot of multi-coloured braids into which were woven ribbons and feathers. Orien was less flamboyant in appearance, a har who moved with grace and whose long tawny hair fought constantly to escape whatever ties sought to constrain it. Flick always felt too young and awkward in the presence of these hara. His skin was pale, and not even exposure to the sun could conjure forth a honeyed sheen. His hair was intensely black, long down his back but cut short to the sides of his head. One day, he supposed, he might become tall and commanding as every other har in Saltrock seemed to be. A well-meaning har had once referred to him as a ‘little imp’ and Flick had yet to get over the remark. He was not Seel’s chesnari, but he was rather more than an employee. Flick himself was never sure exactly what place he occupied in Seel’s life, even more so of late.

  But tonight, at least to begin with, all was in harmony. Cutlery and glasses chinked and glinted in candl
e-light and conversation was cheerful. Orien had come to finalise with Seel arrangements for the approaching solstice festival. The hara who lived in Saltrock came from many different tribes and, as yet, nohar had suggested they give themselves a separate tribal name, although they usually referred to themselves as Sarocks, and other tribes had begun to use this term for them as well. Seel was not concerned with such things, considering himself a creature of action and enterprise. His identity derived from his capabilities and his leadership rather than a label, although it was doubtful the rest of his hara felt that way. Seel, however, kept them too busy to think about it. He wanted to build a functioning Wraeththu town. He wanted order, for hara to fulfil their potential and not just live from day to day like savages. He’d seen enough of that in the north, following his own inception. In his opinion, Wraeththu needed to grow up quickly, because otherwise they might destroy themselves before they found out what they really were. He was very selective about who he allowed into Saltrock and although this had been criticised quite recently by an old friend, Seel still considered he was doing the right thing. Now, he thought of that old friend and raised his glass to the others. ‘A toast,’ he said. ‘To Cal and Pell, wherever they roam.’