Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (50 page)

‘I’m not trying to hurt you,’
Jarad said. ‘I just wish you’d wake up to the fact the world is a
crock of shit.’

Velisarius was surrounded by a
troupe of adoring acolytes. He really fancied himself as some kind
of harish messiah, Jarad thought. Yet another posturing idiot. He
was no different from Wraxilan; he just read from a different
script. The hara were preparing to meditate, hanging onto
Velisarius’ soft words as if they were scented apples thrown from
the Tree of Life.

Jarad hoped that he wouldn’t be
asked directly to take part in what they were doing. The whole idea
of it embarrassed him. Perhaps Velisarius and Lianvis picked up on
this. Perhaps they conversed with each via mind touch to discuss
how best to handle Jarad, make him malleable. Jarad stood at the
back of the room, smoking a cigarette. The smoke made beautiful
slow-moving patterns in a fan of sunlight falling through a narrow
window. He forced himself not to look at them, refusing to see
messages there.

When the group started to chant
softly, Jarad went outside. He could still hear them, but once
removed from the sight it didn’t annoy him so much. He looked up at
the sky. How empty it was. Not a chopper in sight. Things had
changed in a short time. City Heart was a metallic glitter he could
see across the river. From here, it was possible to believe life
went on there just the same, as it always had. From here, in the
sunlit afternoon, when most hara were asleep, it was possible to
believe in some kind of future. The light was so mellow; it had
always been this way. Certain sounds were archetypal and eternal. A
dog barked in the distance, but there was no sound of children
playing.

Wraxilan had given Jarad time
to settle. The phylarch was not wrong in his assumptions. Already,
Jarad was thinking that in two days’ time when the moon turned
towards darkness, he would present himself at Wraxilan’s side and
say ‘I am here. What do you want of me now?’ If it was raiding into
the human-controlled zones, or subduing another harish phyle that
Wraxilan considered might be problematical in the future, Jarad
would do it. He made no distinction between human and har; neither
species commanded his respect. In this, he knew, he would be very
useful to Wraxilan, in the place of hara who might baulk at going
against their own kind. Jarad looked down at his hands, which he
held out in front of him palms down. The skin looked tired.

He did not hear Velisarius come
up behind him and started when the har placed a hand on his
shoulder. He didn’t like being taken by surprise and even though he
knew from the first instant who it was, he was tempted to snarl,
wheel round and throw a punch, just to make a point.

Velisarius laughed. ‘You would
have found no target,’ he said.

Jarad shrugged, dropped the end
of his cigarette to the floor, ground out its fire with his foot.
He saw four cigarette butts lying in the dirt and realised he’d
stood there longer than he’d thought. ‘Prayer meeting over?’ he
asked.

Velisarius stood beside him,
gazing at the distant City Heart. ‘You want to know what’s going to
happen to Wraxilan?’ he said.

‘I think we all know,’ Jarad
replied.

‘He will meet his match,’
Velisarius said. ‘He will be broken in two, but not before he
breaks our Archon in two. Wraxilan has his path, washed in blood,
of course. He will be reviled and feared, and Manticker will be
cast down and left for dead. He may well in fact die... in one way
or another. But in the end, when history looks back, Wraxilan and
Manticker will both be enshrined as hara of prominence.’

‘Supposing Wraeththu survive
that long,’ Jarad said drily. ‘Foraging vermin will soon die if
there is nothing left to forage upon.’

Velisarius turned and gazed at
Jarad with an unreadable expression.

‘You must admit,’ Jarad said,
‘their chances are slim.’

‘You still regard yourself as
apart,’ Velisarius said.

‘Because I am.’

‘Yet you’re still here, after a
week. You could have left easily. I don’t see anyone following you,
stopping you. Wraxilan must know you better than you know
yourself.’

‘I’m not interested in your
talk,’ Jarad said, ‘or your prophecies. I’ll do what Wraxilan wants
for a while. When it all goes bad, maybe I’ll travel.’ He grinned
without humour. ‘See new lands, meet new people and kill them.’

‘You’re not a natural killer,
Jarad. Why try to pretend that you are?’

Jarad grimaced. ‘Is there a
point to this conversation? If you have something to say, spit it
out, I’ll ignore it, then we can both get on with our day.’

Velisarius paused before
answering. He pursed his lips, sighed through his nose. Jarad
guessed the har was thinking it was probably a waste of breath to
say whatever was coming next. He wouldn’t be wrong.

‘Don’t think I disagree with
you entirely,’ Velisarius said. ‘Most of what you believe is right,
and what disgusts you, disgusts me also. Uigenna can’t continue in
this way; they are sleepwalking. Wraxilan is right too, in certain
respects. But he understands only how to rule through fear and that
is weak. It is an armour with chinks.’

‘So you choose the path of the
prophet instead. It is bloodless, but no less controlling. You will
preach a different brand of fear.’

Velisarius laughed softly. ‘You
are wrong about me, Jarad. I’m not the sanctimonious, pious
creature you believe me to be. I just can’t walk in hot blood all
the time. It makes me weary. Hot blood clouds the senses. You must
know this.’

Jarad shrugged.

‘There are other ways,’
Velisarius continued, ‘and only a fool would think they are without
pain, trial, cruelty and terror. That is our legacy; we cannot
avoid it. Our kind is fated to evolve from horror and we might all
have to do terrible things to plant seeds of growth.’

‘Do you know this off by heart?
Do you have it written down?’ Jarad snarled. ‘It will make a great
holy book some day.’

‘I know it off by heart,’
Velisarius replied drily. ‘But only because it is a universal
truth.’ He paused again. ‘OK, enough talk. I’ll get to the point.
Wraxilan wants your talents because he thinks they will help him. I
want you for the same thing, but I think I can offer you more in
return. Interested?’

Jarad laughed in a forced way.
The question demanded that response. ‘You mean you’re planning to
overthrow Wraxilan?’

‘No, I am planning on taking
the hara in whom he probably isn’t interested anyway to create a
new tribe. This will be a tribe who relearns the lessons we have
lost in the debris of humanity’s fall. We will learn new lessons
also. It is time for us to reach towards our potential. It is not
here, grubbing in filth and squabbling like rabid dogs amongst
ourselves. As part of the way to accomplish this, I realise we will
need hara like you, hara with that cold fire, but also with
intelligence. I don’t want mutton heads.’

‘You mean like a body guard, or
a militia?’ Again Jarad laughed. ‘You won’t get away with it.
Wraxilan might not be interested in the prayer-boys you have, but
he won’t look kindly on anyone hiving off. You know that. He’ll
pursue you, wipe you out. And, by the way, there is nothing you can
offer me he can’t.’

‘Well, there is, but you won’t
see it just yet.’

‘You’re a fool to trust me.
I’ll go back and report all this. Wraxilan will be pleased with me.
I’ll earn points with him. Are you insane?’

‘You won’t tell him,’
Velisarius said quietly. ‘I’m not a fool. Give me a cigarette.’

Jarad did so. He had to admit
that, in spite of himself, he was intrigued. But he didn’t want to
believe that what Velisarius suggested was possible, because it
would spoil his cynical view of Wraeththu.

‘We would have to go far from
here,’ Velisarius said, accepting the light Jarad offered him. ‘We
will have to go at the moment the young wolf goes for the throat of
the old wolf. In that moment, we will be ready and our departure
will not be noticed. The phyles will rise up and the power struggle
for Uigenna will begin.’

‘Manticker,’ Jarad murmured. He
felt a clutch about his heart; he had to admit Velisarius was
right. ‘Will it be soon?’

‘You feel it,’ Velisarius
said.

‘Are you ready?’

‘Mostly.’ Velisarius fixed
Jarad with a stare. ‘I don’t say the things I do to try and impress
you. It’s simply information you might find useful. Be prepared and
alert. While the plans are in motion, the outcome is not yet
decided. There are always hidden variables.’

‘I’m touched that you
care.’

Velisarius laughed without
humour. ‘It’s not care, Jarad. Like I said, you’d be useful to me
too.’

Wraxilan did not live, as Jarad
had expected, in some harsh industrial space where the light was
like metal. He lived in a ruin, yes, a shopping mall that had been
turned to legend by wisteria. It had once grown in the central
plaza; now it grew everywhere, nourished perhaps by corpses beneath
the green. In places there were carpets of a trailing vine with
small leaves.

‘So where do I start?’ Jarad
asked Wraxilan.

Wraxilan was like a great cat;
when he wasn’t stalking, he was sprawling. He liked heat. And like
a cat, he had nests in various parts of the community; always soft
cushions, curiously clean. Now he jabbed a finger in Jarad’s
direction. ‘What I like about you is the fact you don’t care, not
about anything. Yet I know you will do as I ask.’

Jarad said nothing.

Wraxilan uncoiled from his
cushions, began to pace. If he’d had a tail, it would be switching
now. ‘I know this because it is written all over you as if in black
ink. It is the story of your life as it is now.’

‘Well, I’m ready to do as you
ask.’

Wraxilan studied him for a
moment. Jarad knew what was on his mind, and didn’t have to have
psychic abilities to be aware of that. Now the phylarch’s gaze
became veiled. Perhaps untruths would follow. ‘You must admit that
everything we’ve been through has affected some more than others,
and I mean in a bad way.’

‘You could say that.’

‘And perhaps you could also say
that extreme measures might be needed to make Uigenna what it
should be. By that I mean cutting away the dead wood.’

‘There’s no reason you can’t
break away,’ Jarad answered. ‘Most would follow you, and they would
be the ones you want.’

‘I’m not thinking of breaking
away. I’m thinking of... remodelling.’

‘I see. What do you want me to
do?’

Wraxilan laughed. ‘I can see
you really would do anything. We’re both thinking the same thing, I
know it. I’m touched you would go that far for me, even though I’m
aware you wouldn’t do it because you care or because you’re
particularly loyal. It’s just a job isn’t it?’

Jarad said nothing.

‘I can fight my own battles,’
Wraxilan said. ‘What I want you for is the aftermath.’

‘There might be more than one
battle,’ Jarad said. ‘Like I said, most would follow you, but not
all.’ He paused. ‘Can we speak plainly?’

‘Of course.’

‘This is about removing
Manticker, isn’t it?’

Wraxilan stared at Jarad for
long, uncomfortable seconds with his tiger eyes. He was weighing up
how much he trusted this har before him. Manticker was still
powerful. ‘He’s not who he was,’ Wraxilan said at last. ‘I’m not
the only one who thinks that for the good of all hara he must stand
down. He doesn’t organise our phyles well; he just wants to go out
crazily destroying everything in his path. He thinks he’s
invincible.’

‘He’s not called Manticker the
Seventy for nothing,’ Jarad said.

Wraxilan snickered. ‘Oh, I know
that, but his vision is not acute. He can’t see that we must
consolidate our forces, train them properly. We must not be like
humes, but we must stop being scattered. Every time I, or others
like me, try to call a meeting of the phylarchs to discuss
strategies, he manages to disrupt or postpone it. He has his
cronies, and they undermine me also. He’s like a firecracker.
Silent till he’s lit. Then the fire comes upon him, and he summons
all around him to go out on some crazy killing spree, often into
territory where they do not have the advantage. Instead of planning
and aiming for targets that are of strategic value, he mindlessly
charges into... just anywhere. Hara die; it’s a waste. Yes, he has
been successful in this way for a couple of years, and that’s why
the more stupid among us follow him, but things are changing. I
hope you agree with me on this.’

Jarad thought for a moment. He
supposed he should try to have an opinion. ‘Manticker won’t go away
quietly, but then we wouldn’t be having this conversation if that
was at all likely.’

Wraxilan nodded his head
briefly. ‘Yes, yes, but I need to know your exact thoughts on him.
Do you agree with me?’

‘I’ve already said I will do as
you ask. Is that answer enough?’

‘Not if you have any
doubts.’

‘I have no doubts.’

‘Good. As you must know, there
are others like you. For the time being, you will not meet them.
But after tonight, you shall.’

‘Tonight? That soon?’ Now a
shiver of discomfort coursed up Jarad’s spine. Did he want to get
involved? No, not really. But he’d said he would.

‘You will be sent word,’
Wraxilan said. ‘Go to the Animal bar about 8.30. I’ll send someone
to you there. You won’t need his name, nor he yours.’

‘As you wish.’

‘That is all for now. It’s best
you don’t know anything further until you’re needed. Stay
close.’

It was a dismissal. Jarad
inclined his head and walked away, scuffing through the tiny
leaves; they released a stinging, green scent as he crushed
them.

Jarad went directly to
Velisarius; he wasn’t sure himself why he did so. He had no
intention of going with the har – or did he? Instinct guided his
feet to the old church. He didn’t question it.