Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (46 page)

You Will Be, You Will Be

Sphinx

Darkness. Quiet. A strange
place. Not my old room.

I’d been sleeping in a bed. A
new starting point.

I sat up. Do I wait? Do I get
up? Will someone come for me?

Suddenly there was a light, at
first just a narrow line, but then opening up. Three lines of
light; a door opening into the dark room. Quickly, the door closed.
A bright light was thrust into my face.

So you’re the one!
a
voice shouted at me, straight into my head, right then, right into
my head.
So special! I don’t think so. You’re nothing!

I squinted against the light,
covered my ears from the sound that was not a sound. I couldn’t see
the body, but I saw the face, caught by the light, ugly in its
rage.

A strong hand grabbed my wrist,
jerked me onto the floor.
He thinks he can have you, but he
can’t. You’re nothing! Nothing!
Pain and pain and pain as he
kicked me, as the words seared into my brain like no other words
had in a long time.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t
scream. In fact, I was even quieter than before. I shut my eyes.
Why couldn’t I shut my ears? Shut off my body?

You’re going to die, whether
Manifest wants you to or—

The kicks stopped. Somewhere in
the room, just over me, in the darkness, there was a struggle.
Hitting, kicking, cursing, growling. I kept my eyes shut.

The door slammed and it was
quiet, except for a strange sound. Somebody took my wrist again –
gently. The light came on, pointing towards not the golden one, not
the
Nothing!
man, but towards the other one. The boy from
the shower. His face was bleeding.

He took my other hand. “Are you
OK?” he asked me.

I jumped back. His words had
come too close. They were loud and big and I couldn’t run away from
them. I scrambled to the bed.

He scrambled after me and a
moment later, took me in his arms and held me.
Of course you’re
not OK
, he said, this time in the less scary words, the
real
words.
But you will be. You will be.

Be His Protector

Heart

His rescue came almost by
accident. If I’d been passing down that corridor just a moment
later, I might not have noticed the golden figure slipping quickly
into Sphinx’s Forale chamber. I had planned on stopping by but… as
fate would have it, I was in the right place at the right time.

Luster and I fought like
animals, clawing and kicking at one another in the near dark, while
somewhere nearby Sphinx huddled in silence. I knew what Luster had
been doing – I’d felt his malevolence and Sphinx’s terror right
through the door – and I was also aware at what had driven him to
it. He was used to being Manifest’s closest aide, his closest
confidante. Manifest’s obsessive fixation on the boy, and his
decision to bring him to us through inception, threatened his
position. I wonder now whether Luster had a thing for Manifest and
it was lover’s jealousy.

At the time, of course, I
didn’t care about such distinctions. All I wanted was Luster out of
that room away from Sphinx. Although just a few hours earlier, I’d
been resigned to having him rejected and probably killed out of
hand, ever since Manifest had made his decision – and promised him
to me – I had been filled with an overwhelming sense of
protectiveness. Maybe I was fighting with a lover’s jealousy, too,
although I didn’t know it at the time.

Finally I routed Luster out of
the room, into the hall. Several guards and high-ranked hara were
there waiting, including Manifest. I thrust Luster, bleeding from
nose and mouth, into the arms of the nearest guard. “He just tried
to kill that boy,” I said.

Manifest stepped forward, rigid
with anxiety. “What did he do? Is the boy hurt?”

“No, he’s not hurt,” I said.
“Not seriously, anyway. Just a little roughed up. His mind,
however…”

“Say no more,” Manifest said
softly. “I want you to go to him now. You must make him feel
better, as much as you can.” He walked with me the short paces back
to the door. “Afterward, leave guards at the door and go back to
sleep. Then during the day, watch the door yourself.”

I nodded. “Be his
protector.”

“Yes. And one more thing. In
the afternoon, I want you to go in and try to talk with him. Tell
him about Wraeththu, about us. I don’t care if he doesn’t speak
back, doesn’t nod or blink. I think he will understand.”

I reached for the doorknob.
“I’ll try,” I said.

Manifest smiled. “I know you
will. There will be a reward for you, Heart, of that I’m sure.”

Dutifully, I sat with Sphinx
for a half an hour at least, cradling his trembling body. I pulled
a blanket of calm and safety around us, trying to soothe away the
terrors Luster had wrought.

I knew Luster had been
screaming at him through the powers of his mind, because I had
sensed it, but I didn’t know exactly what he’d said. The fact that
Sphinx had picked up on them, however, gave me hope that perhaps he
wasn’t beyond my reach. And so I whispered to him words of comfort,
assurances of protection, like a mother talking a young child after
a nightmare.

Finally Sphinx was asleep and I
left him curled up in bed like a sleeping dark-haired angel. I took
the flashlight with me and flicked the switch high on the wall for
the emergency light. I didn’t want him waking up in darkness.

After a few hours sleep in my
room in the barracks, I returned to the Forale chamber to stand
guard and, in a sense, stand vigil. I didn’t go in to see him.
Nohar was to talk to a human during Forale, except during the time
of explaining, if in fact there was one. It used to be that nohar
ever explained, but simply took any boy they wanted. Understanding
and consent were irrelevant. Nobody had asked me if I wanted to be
incepted. I’d simply been locked in a closet, pulled out for the
Harhune, and then thrown back into the closet.

By the time I was sitting
outside Sphinx’s room, however, our practices had changed and boys
were often told in advance what would happen, to some degree at
least. Of course none of them were ever given any real idea of what
inception would entail, for it would make consent even more
impossible. For most it was bad enough to have the vague details –
of a coming time of suffering, of being (as they saw it) unmanned,
of becoming something alien.

With Sphinx I left nothing out.
As he lay staring at the ceiling, stomach growling, I first told
him as much as I knew about the history of Wraeththu: how we began
(or thought we did), the battles we had fought, who our leaders
were. In the second half of my talk, I told him what Wraeththu are:
our powers, our bodies, and inception, the trial we undergo to
attain them.

I knew Sphinx wouldn’t scream
in fear or try to escape when I told him these things. I couldn’t
imagine that at all. He would endure it just as he’d endured
everything else, in stoic silence.

It was close to midnight when a
messenger came to tell me it was time. He waited while I fetched
Sphinx, who followed me out as if he hadn’t a care in the world. I
followed the messenger, not actually knowing where we were going.
Manifest had, I assumed, found an alternate location for this
alternate
inception. The regular changing room was still in
use and as he’d said the night before, this inception was to be
special.

To my surprise, the rooms we
were taken to were only just around the corner from the main
headquarters offices. As far as I knew, these rooms had never been
used for anything, but simply kept vacant. Up until then, I hadn’t
really wondered why. After the messenger opened the main door,
however, I understood. Manifest had been planning to use them all
along.

These rooms had once been the
nurse’s offices. Like the administrative suite, there was a
reception area with several rooms leading off it, in this case,
exam rooms and offices. It would be, I immediately realized, an
ideal environment to carry out a more controlled, medicalised
inception.

Manifest stepped out of one of
the exam rooms. “Good, you’re just in time. Rock and I have
everything ready.”

“Rock?” I asked, moving forward
with Sphinx beside me.

Manifest nodded and headed back
into the room. “Of course. He carries out the inceptions
downstairs, so I wanted him for this new procedure as well.”

“Of course,” I said, feeling
dazed. The exam room certainly didn’t look like the room I’d been
incepted in or, for that matter, the changing room. In the centre
of the room a low bed had been prepared with a set of clean, white
sheets. Beside it was set up a chair and a tray with various
medical implements, one of which was a large syringe. The entire
room was clean and bright. A counter with a sink ran along the wall
and to the left of that, a door led into a restroom with a shower.
(How I wish I’d had one of those for use during my inception!)

“Welcome to the future,”
Manifest said finally, once I’d finished my appraisal. “Now let’s
get to work. First, tell me, you explained things to him?”

I nodded.

“Good, at least that’s done
with. Now let’s just have him lie down…”

It was in the end nothing more
than a medical procedure. Manifest began by having all Sphinx’s
clothes removed; the boy did not resist. Next Manifest gave Sphinx
some water with drug tablets mixed into it. Some sort of strong
sedative, he told us, something to last several hours. I had an
intuition that Sphinx wouldn’t need it – he seemed stoic beyond
belief – but it was merciful all the same.

Finally Manifest asked me to
kneel at the head of the bed and hold Sphinx’s shoulders. “He may
struggle,” he warned me. Again, I didn’t think he would, but of
course I obeyed.

Rock volunteered to operate the
syringe. “You know I used to use these…
before
… for a whole
different sort of procedure, though nearly just as painful.” I’d
never known this about Rock, but it didn’t surprise me.

I watched him find a vein in
Manifest’s arm and easily draw out a full portion of blood. Then
swiftly and smoothly, he shot the blood into Sphinx’s arm. Neither
of them flinched. On Manifest’s orders, Rock carried out the
procedure two more times, just to be sure.

Manifest, holding his arm at
the elbow to stem any bleeding, concluded with a speech. “You are
unhar,” he said. This was some slight ceremony. “Through this act,
I bring you to a new body and a new way of life. I hope that in
this new method, the transition is a smooth one. You deserve only
the best.”

Only Something Happening

Sphinx

Darkness. Eyes closed.
Something was simmering, waiting inside me.

Then light – stars! Stars shot
into my eyes, into my mouth, down my throat. Like fire it was, hot
and filled with pain.

People put their hands on me,
but I didn’t care. I didn’t scream, didn’t struggle. Fire shot
through me, down into my gut. My flesh was churning, changing,
every part of me. I did not fight it. It was only something
happening, something I couldn’t fight.

I remembered, in the middle of
it. Heart – I knew his name, I remembered it, too – had told me
what was happening. It was like with the nurse warning me. I didn’t
know what she said until afterward. Like that… only different. This
was clear. Heart had
told
me and I
remembered
. I was
changing into Wraeththu. No matter what, I should not be
afraid.

I was awake, I was asleep. I
was terrified, I was calm. Sometimes I saw things in the air,
sometimes it was just dark. Other times people were coming to me.
My arms were stuck with needles. People spoke to me softly, and
sometimes I would feel a bit better, go off to sleep.

At some point later, I woke up
and it was Manifest with me. I remembered him and his name now,
too. He would not touch me but he sat near to me and smiled,
offered me comfort. My skin was burning and my gut was being cut by
a hundred knives. It was easy for me to resist the pain,
however.

“Would you like more of the
drugs?” he asked me.

I squinted my eyes, staring at
his mouth, and thought about the question. “No, I’m fine,” I said
slowly. “I don’t need the drugs.”

A jolt like electricity shot
through me at the sensation of speaking to someone.

Manifest was just as shocked as
I was. “You can speak!”

I nodded, weakly, and he said,
“It won’t be much longer.”

I’m not sure, but I think it
was two more days.

During those days, Manifest
left me alone again. Hours went by. I lay still as cells generated,
fluids balanced out. Gradually my skin began to clear. I felt my
guts come together once again, solid and healthy, instead of the
churning torture. There were other changes, too, but I was too
tired to see.

Finally the change was
complete. The people taking care of me smiled. They said kind words
to me and I understood more than
something, something,
something
. “You look incredible!” they said and “Won’t they be
surprised!”

They gave me a shower, standing
close and soaping me up and down, when I was too tired still to do
it myself. I thought about Heart and the other shower. I couldn’t
speak to him then, but now I could. And he had promised me, we
would.

Things Are Different Now

Heart

I had been waiting nervously on
the bed for about an hour when there was a rap on the door. “Come
in,” I said, and arranged the hair around my face.

The door opened a few inches
and one of the two althaia attendants stuck his head in. “He’s just
finishing his shower. We’ll dry him off and put him in a robe, then
send him on to you. Are you ready?”