Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (51 page)

Velisarius was, as usual,
surrounded by other hara listening to him talk. He noticed Jarad in
the doorway immediately and came to him, led him back to the porch.
He did not appear agitated but Jarad sensed tension in him. ‘When?’
Velisarius asked.

‘Tonight,’ Jarad answered. ‘I
can tell you no more than that because that’s all I know. But the
plot is big. Wraxilan has planned it carefully I imagine.’ He
paused. ‘You didn’t think it would be this soon, did you? Are you
ready?’

‘I’m always ready,’ Velisarius
answered. ‘I’m not sure you are, however.’ He looked Jarad in the
eye. ‘Find me if you want to. You know the offer is there. I won’t
press you more than that. Just think about it carefully. Is
Wraxilan’s world the one you want to live in?’

Jarad glanced away. ‘I doubt
I’ll be able to get further word to you. Wraxilan has asked me to
stay close. I don’t want to compromise you. As it stands, he might
know I’ve come now. Fortunately, you’ve been treating me. I have
good reason to visit.’

Velisarius twisted his mouth
into a grim smile. ‘If what you say is true, he no doubt knows you
were here earlier too.’

‘Come outside,’ Jarad said.

They went into the street,
where there might be harish eyes watching from the rooftops. ‘There
is always one good reason,’ Jarad said. He took Velisarius’s face
in his hands and kissed him. ‘That should be enough.’

Velisarius appeared dazed. He
hadn’t expected that. ‘Be careful,’ he said, and went back into the
church.

The Animal bar was an area
where Wraxilan’s staff tended to congregate for relaxation, close
to Wraxilan’s residence. There was a yard out back with benches and
tables, dominated and greened with ancient fig trees. Moss grew
over the walls and the tiles underfoot. Tame doves roosted among
the fig leaves, filling the air with their purring song. The tables
were spattered with their droppings. Jarad sat here alone, as he
always did when visiting the place. He smoked cigarettes and drank
the strong beer brewed on the premises, but not too much. His
senses needed to be clear. Around him, conversation and laughter
sounded like the cackle of hyenas. But there was no corpse for them
to bicker over yet. It was as if he were invisible. Nobody paid him
any attention. Perhaps they considered him jinxed.

Jarad watched the sun sink
below the walls of the beer garden. He felt nervous, disorientated.
Surely Manticker’s hara must have suspicions of what was planned?
He had strong adepts among his crew. Wraxilan was insane. This
could not go well.
What the fuck am I doing?
Jarad wondered.
He didn’t feel in control of himself.

A har came out from the bar and
began to light lamps hanging from the trees. Shortly afterwards, a
blond-haired har came into the garden and sauntered to where Jarad
sat. He loomed over Jarad, helped himself to a cigarette from the
packet that lay half empty on the table.

The har sat down. He looked
younger than Jarad, smug with a false certainty he was splendid and
superior. Jarad knew the aura well; he despised it.

‘We’ll leave here in five
minutes,’ the har said. ‘In the meantime, look as if you are
interested in my company.’

Jarad uttered a short, choked
laugh. ‘We are
not
in a movie,’ he said.

‘You sure about that?’ The har
flicked back his hair, took a draw on the cigarette.

‘Not really, no.’

‘Can I have some of that
beer?’

Jarad pushed his glass across
the table. ‘Polite of you to ask,’ he said.

The har took a swing. ‘Five
minutes: we go.’

The har offered no name and
Jarad did not ask. As twilight came sifting through the streets and
the harish quarter came alive, they walked in silence. They were
lightly armed, carrying only knives. Before they left the bar, the
unnamed har mentioned, in response to a query from Jarad, that
heavier arms would not be needed. Jarad voiced no further
questions. His feet would lead him to his destiny, whatever that
would be, one way or another.

Manticker’s hara could be heard
before they were seen. These were not remotely human noises, nor
even animal, but something deeper, wilder, more profane. Jarad’s
skin prickled.
How could they not know what was coming?

His companion signalled for
them to stop walking, then led them into the shadow of a wall.
Ahead, about two hundred yards away, was a hill; any building that
had once covered it had been razed. Here a fire was burning; the
flames leapt high, playfully, like the tail of a phoenix. Even from
this distance, shadowy forms could be discerned moving around the
fire. Were they simply celebrating their latest slaughtering foray
or was it some kind of ritual taking place up there? Jarad could
not tell. He closed his eyes, attempted to extend his senses. As
far as he could feel, there were no sentries or lookouts posted.
Could Manticker really be so lax about security?

‘When the Lion comes, it is
safe for us to move closer,’ Jarad’s companion murmured.

Jarad opened his eyes, nodded.
He wanted a cigarette badly, but any har with sharp senses might
see the red spark in the darkness. He didn’t want to take the risk
and have that baying pack coming down to investigate.

‘You can smoke,’ said the har,
clearly picking up on Jarad’s desire. ‘They’re out of it, off their
faces. They’re not looking for trouble.’

‘Don’t underestimate your
enemies,’ Jarad replied, but he pulled his cigarettes from his
jacket pocket, simply turning his back to light one.

‘What’s your name?’ the har
asked.

Jarad didn’t want to say. He
shrugged. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Terzian.’ The har suddenly
became very still, his posture tense. ‘Wait...’

Jarad ground out his cigarette
quickly.

‘They’re coming. Wraxilan is
coming.’

Jarad pulled on Terzian’s arm.
‘Down!’ He peered ahead as they crouched beneath the wall, trying
to penetrate the shadows cast by the light of the fire on the hill.
‘What does he want of us? Did he tell you?’

Terzian shook his head. ‘We
wait. We’ll know.’

‘Fucking stupid strategy,’
Jarad muttered. ‘They’re as bad as each other.’

‘Maybe so,’ Terzian replied.
‘But one will win. Who is your money on?’

Jarad could see Wraxilan’s hara
approaching now. He had to admit they were more organised than he’d
thought. They were part of the shadows; ghosts gliding through
patches of darkness, slinking along the tops of broken walls like
cats, looking almost like cats. Unless you knew they were there,
you would not notice them.

‘How many on the hill, you
think?’ Jarad asked.

Terzian drew in his breath.
‘Manticker’s elite comprise about fifty hara, but he loses some of
them regularly. Between thirty-five and fifty, I’d say.’

‘Do you sense any
sentries?’

A pause. ‘No.’

‘It’s too easy,’ Jarad
said.

‘There are others like us,
pairs of hara closing in,’ Terzian said. ‘We don’t know anything,
so Manticker can’t pick up too much from us.’

‘Our intention is enough,’
Jarad said dryly.

The shadows he’d perceived
around them were now close to the hill.

‘Let’s move forward a short
way,’ Jarad said.

Still crouching down, they
edged along the wall, keeping close to it. As they drew nearer to
the hill, Jarad could see a tall shape silhouetted against the
flames, arms outspread. He paused, gestured for Terzian to do
likewise. Sometime in the last few minutes, the power had shifted.
Jarad was leader now.

A tingle went through him. He
knew the tall figure was Manticker. What was going through that
har’s mind? He had survived countless battles, he had earned his
epithet annihilating seventy armed humans in one raging spree, he
had always won against desperate odds. Yet now he had let himself
become vulnerable. Did he really believe he was so safe, in the
heart of this merciless community he had created?

Jarad was overwhelmed with a
feeling of futility. How was Manticker any worse than Wraxilan?
None of it meant anything. He should turn now, leave, perhaps even
seek out Velisarius and wait for the clamorous psychic cry that
would mean either Wraxilan or Manticker was dead. Then he could
make decisions.

But then there was a voice in
his mind.
Oh, but you cannot go. Not you, Jarad.

Jarad sucked in his breath; his
body jerked.

‘What?’ Terzian hissed.

‘Nothing.’

‘That wasn’t nothing. You whole
body just kind of... rippled. What is it?’

Jarad turned, looked the har in
the eye. ‘Well, put it this way.
Someone
knows we’re here. I
got a message.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That we can’t leave.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of doing
that. Tell them.’

Jarad sighed, suppressed a
spasm of irritation.

The hill was surrounded now by
Wraxilan’s hara, and on the summit ahead of them all had become
quiet because Manticker’s hara had become aware of the approach.
Jarad moved forward again, more quickly.

He saw Wraxilan step onto the
path of flattened dirt that led up the hill. It was flanked by
torches. Wraxilan looked confident, commanding, a natural leader.
In comparison, Manticker and his troupe stooped above him like
addled witch doctors, bewitched by flame.

Jarad found himself halfway up
the hill, Terzian close behind. It was as if they weren’t actually
there in body, but merely spirit witnesses.

Manticker was naked from the
waist up, dressed only in some kind of shamanic garb; a kilt of
rags, fur and feathers. His hair was a wild, matted tangle,
dangling in ropes over his chest and down his back; his face was
daubed with chalky lines of paint. The air smelled of blood around
him.

They are the two selves of
Wraeththu
, Jarad thought. He wondered if some toxic fume from
the fire ahead had affected his mind. Manticker was the wild primal
feminine, the Dark Mother, crouched in shadows, goddess of
entrails. Hers were the secrets of life and death, the essential
secrets in the deepest part of every living thing. Wraxilan was the
male principle of the sun; open, visible, radiant swaggering. There
were no secrets there. If Velisarius were here, he would surely say
that this moment was a nexus point and the only way forward was for
these two forces to combine, to become bigger than the sum of their
parts. But neither Manticker nor Wraxilan would see that. They did
not know they were avatars of greater forces.

Manticker uttered a hiss
through his teeth. ‘What is it, cub?’ he asked.

‘Time for change,’ Wraxilan
said, in a reasonable voice.

‘That is every moment of every
day,’ Manticker said. ‘You took long enough to get to this
moment.’

‘Then you are prepared for it
to be you and me?’ Wraxilan gestured around him. ‘Leave these hara
out of it?’

Manticker nodded, just once.
‘Why create waste?’ He leapt into the air, spun around, and kicked
Wraxilan in the face. Wraxilan fell backwards, but had scrambled
away before Manticker could land another blow.

And so they fought their
archetypal battle. Leaping shadows against the flames, a fatal
dance. There were no weapons involved other than their own sinew
and bone. The hara around them were silent, perhaps not even daring
to breathe. First the advantage went one way, then another. It was
as if time had stopped, placing them in an arena of no-time.

Neither can win, Jarad thought.
Don’t they know that?

No, they don’t....

Jarad shuddered. Was this
Velisarius in his mind, or Lianvis? Were they watching from
somewhere close? The touch did not feel familiar to him, though. It
was distant, cold, a star of thought from some lightless reach.

There was blood upon the
combatants now, claw marks down Wraxilan’s chest, visible where his
shirt had been torn away. A cut above Manticker’s eye rained ichor
down his face, onto his chest: it had filled his mouth. Maybe they
would carry on fighting until they had torn each other utterly to
pieces, and then still the battle would continue, in motes of
harried air, in leaves and dust and ashes.

Jarad realised his hand was
resting upon the hilt of the knife tucked into his belt. This body
wasn’t his. Even this mind wasn’t his. He was riding a vehicle of
flesh, an observer.

Time stopped. Then sped up.
Jarad reeled backwards against Terzian. He hadn’t been aware of
making any other movement, but heard Terzian breathe ‘What the
fuck?’ Terzian’s hands were upon his arms, holding him up, gripping
hard. Above them, the fight had paused. Manticker was staring at
his belly; a blade was sunk there nearly to the hilt. The pause
didn’t last long. Wraxilan roared a lion’s victory cry. And
pounced. Gripped the knife, turned it. Turned it and gouged flesh
for what seemed an eternity. Then he kicked Manticker away from
him.

For a moment, stillness. And
then a cacophony of snarls, shouts, growls. Both troupes of hara
bayed at one another, their bodies rising and falling from crouched
to upright postures. They looked like apes standing off against
each other, rival tribes thrown into confusion because one leader
had fallen. Wraxilan stalked around the fire, his arms held high,
his head thrown back. Manticker lay on the ground, trying to rise,
panting, as his lifeblood pooled about him from the ruin of his
guts.

Wraxilan pointed at Manticker’s
hara. ‘Finish it!’ he roared and his own hara leapt forward with
whoops and cries. So much for keeping other hara out of it.
Manticker’s hara ran and were pursued. Only three remained by their
leader, figures cloaked from head to foot, their faces almost
invisible but for mouths painted black, and white chins.

The cries were dying away as
Manticker’s faithful scattered. Only now did Wraxilan lower his
arm.